Music, Glenn Korff School of
Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications
Accessibility Remediation
If you are unable to use this item in its current form due to accessibility barriers, you may request remediation through our remediation request form.
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
1998
Citation
Published in Medieval England: An Encyclopedia, ed. Paul Szarmach, M. Teresa Tavormina, Joel T. Rosenthal, Catherine E. Karkov, Peter M. Lefferts, & Elizabeth Parker McLachlan (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), p. 320.
Abstract
Three monophonic religious songs of the mid-12th century ("Sainte marie viergene," "Kirieleison: Crist and sainte marie," and "Sainte Nicholas Godes druth") that are the earliest English-language lyrics to survive with their melodies; found in a number of manuscript sources, including three with music, they are also known as Godric's Hymns. Their composer, St. Godric (ca. 1070/80–1170), wrote them some time after he retired to a hermitage at Finchale, north of Durham, following a career as a merchant trader and ship's captain. Godric's life as a hermit was one of ascetic hardship, punctuated by visions in which the songs were taught to him; he later sang them to his future biographers. In respect to style the settings are reflective of certain contemporaneous Latin hymns in rhyme, meter, and melody.
Comments
Copyright © 1998 Paul Szarmach, M. Teresa Tavormina, & Joel T. Rosenthal.