MEDIEVAL MUSIC, MAGICAL MINDS It has only been since the Age of Reason that human beings consider music to be strictly an aesthetic experience. Up until that time, however, music was both intended and designed to have a specific effect upon the mind and emotions of the listener. Religious chant was designed to raise consciousness. Dance music was meant to celebrate fertility, both human and that of the Earth, and to bring earthly joy and ecstasy to those both dancing and listening. This groundbreaking book fulfills two purposes. The first is to introduce interested musicians to the increasingly-popular field of medieval music. The second is to trace the history of all music, as well as its effect upon the level of awareness of the listeners. Internationally-noted soprano Mary Devlin, a great lover of medieval music expounds upon both her studies and her experience with that genre to try to recreate the thoughts and feelings of the people in the Middle Ages who once composed, performed, and lived that music.

A history of the development of harmony in the Middle Ages, including the music, composers, theorists and music theory, musicians, and relevant historical figures, as well as studies of folk music, medieval chant, and polyphony from the days of Gregorian chant to the florid polyphony of the early Renaissance.

This book explores the notion that the emergent language of contemporary theatre, and more generally of modern culture, has links to much earlier forms of storytelling and an ancient worldview. This volume looks at our diverse and amalgamative theatrical inheritance and discusses various practitioners and companies whose work reflects and recapitulates ideas, approaches, and structures original to theatre’s ritual roots. Drawing together a range of topics and examples from the early Middle Ages to the modern day, Chadwick focuses in on a theatrical language which includes an emphasis on the psychosomatic, the non-linear, the symbolic, the liminal, the collective, and the sacred. This interdisciplinary work draws on approaches from the fields of anthropology, philosophy, historical and cognitive phenomenology, and neuroscience, making the case for the significance of historically responsive modes in theatre practice and more widely in our society and culture. Eleanor

Devon Wakefield only wanted to escape the unwanted attentions of her lustful stepfather. Yet her hiding place proved to be a doorway to a new life. Having inadvertently stumbled onto a convict ship bound for New South Wales in 1787, no one would believe her when she said she didn't belong there. So, like it or not, she was on her way to a new home. On the banks of Sydney Harbor, Devon found strange new animals and people who would become her friends. She learned that she had an extraordinary talent and love for farming. And above all, she discovered the love of her life: Lieutenant Jonathan Lake of His Majesty's Navy. The first few years in Australia brought nothing more pleasant than poverty and starvation. However, as the colony grew more prosperous, so did Devon. Yet as successful as she was as a farmer, Devon's heart was broken. For Jonathan was gone, and she had been forced to marry another man. Sometimes it seemed as though Devon would never find love again-that all life promised her was work, work, and more work. Then, back in London, Jonathan makes a bizarre discovery that sets him and Devon back on the road to reunion and to true love.

Geoffrey Chaucer chases two murderers. Overwhelmed and confused, but dtermined to learn the truth, Chaucer cuts through a web of greed, and misguided love before either murder can be brought to justice.

The only life which sixteen-year-old herbalist Jane Dare has ever known suddenly and traumatically vanishes, when a group of renegade knights destroys the convent in which she has grown up and slays everyone who lives there-except herself, the convent infirmarian, and their two patients. The survivors are rescued by two young and ambitious noblemen in the service of King Edward the Fourth, Sir Alan Sanford, and his close friend, Sir John du Fay. Sir Alan is determined to marry a wealthy noblewoman-but his heart decrees otherwise. Captivated by the beautiful herbalist, he fights his attraction to her and loses. She is at his side throughout King Edward's fight for the throne. Yet Alan's ambition gets in the way. Knowing this, Jane, in spite of her love for him, lets him go, and pursues her chosen profession: healing. Alan takes control of vast lands in the north, and they part for several years. Until King Edward dies and leaves his son, a mere boy of thirteen, to inherit the throne-surrounded by enemies. Their mutual concern for the lad and his younger brother brings Jane and Alan together again. But will they be able to save the boys-and still find love once more?

The Routledge History of Medieval Magic brings together the work of scholars from across Europe and North America to provide extensive insights into recent developments in the study of medieval magic between c.1100 and c.1500. This book covers a wide range of topics, including the magical texts which circulated in medieval Europe, the attitudes of intellectuals and churchmen to magic, the ways in which magic intersected with other aspects of medieval culture, and the early witch trials of the fifteenth century. In doing so, it offers the reader a detailed look at the impact that magic had within medieval society, such as its relationship to gender roles, natural philosophy, and courtly culture. This is furthered by the book’s interdisciplinary approach, containing chapters dedicated to archaeology, literature, music, and visual culture, as well as texts and manuscripts. The Routledge History of Medieval Magic also outlines how research on this subject could develop in the future, highlighting under-explored subjects, unpublished sources, and new approaches to the topic. It is the ideal book for both established scholars and students of medieval magic.

Both from the Ears and Mind offers a bold new understanding of the intellectual and cultural position of music in Tudor and Stuart England. Linda Phyllis Austern brings to life the kinds of educated writings and debates that surrounded musical performance, and the remarkable ways in which English people understood music to inform other endeavors, from astrology and self-care to divinity and poetics. Music was considered both art and science, and discussions of music and musical terminology provided points of contact between otherwise discrete fields of human learning. This book demonstrates how knowledge of music permitted individuals to both reveal and conceal membership in specific social, intellectual, and ideological communities. Attending to materials that go beyond music’s conventional limits, these chapters probe the role of music in commonplace books, health-maintenance and marriage manuals, rhetorical and theological treatises, and mathematical dictionaries. Ultimately, Austern illustrates how music was an indispensable frame of reference that became central to the fabric of life during a time of tremendous intellectual, social, and technological change.

Magic enjoyed a vigorous revival in sixteenth-century Europe, attaining a prestige lost for over a millennium and becoming, for some, a kind of universal philosophy. Renaissance music also suggested a form of universal knowledge through renewed interest in two ancient themes: the Pythagorean and Platonic "harmony of the celestial spheres" and the legendary effects of the music of bards like Orpheus, Arion, and David. In this climate, Renaissance philosophers drew many new and provocative connections between music and the occult sciences. In Music in Renaissance Magic, Gary Tomlinson describes some of these connections and offers a fresh view of the development of early modern thought in Italy. Raising issues essential to postmodern historiography—issues of cultural distance and our relationship to the others who inhabit our constructions of the past —Tomlinson provides a rich store of ideas for students of early modern culture, for musicologists, and for historians of philosophy, science, and religion. "A scholarly step toward a goal that many composers have aimed for: to rescue the idea of New Age Music—that music can promote spiritual well-being—from the New Ageists who have reduced it to a level of sonic wallpaper."—Kyle Gann, Village Voice "An exemplary piece of musical and intellectual history, of interest to all students of the Renaissance as well as musicologists. . . . The author deserves congratulations for introducing this new approach to the study of Renaissance music."—Peter Burke, NOTES "Gary Tomlinson's Music in Renaissance Magic: Toward a Historiography of Others examines the 'otherness' of magical cosmology. . . . [A] passionate, eloquently melancholy, and important book."—Anne Lake Prescott, Studies in English Literature