If You Like Music, You Should Thank The Frankish Infantry Of A.D. 732

A guest post by John Marks

When scholars speak of “Western” music, they almost always mean the music of the Latin (or Western) remnant of Christianity after the fall of the Roman Empire (and, the music that developed or descended from that music).

As distinct from the music of the Byzantine (or Eastern) remnant of the Roman Empire.

Scholars who use the term Western Music, unless they explicitly say so, are not talking about a subgenre of Country music, and they are not talking about the soundtracks to “Western” movies or television shows.

Almost all Western music of today—from Ballet to Barbershop; from Grand Opera to Rock Operas; from Church music to Country music; owes a huge debt—and perhaps its very existence—to the courage and the sacrifices of Charles Martel’s Frankish infantry on Friday, October 10, A.D. 732, in the Battle of Tours (also called the Battle of Poitiers).

Here's the short version of how that works.

Charles Martel was one of the most brilliant (and important) military commanders in history. He outsmarted, and his troops outfought, the Muslim invaders who outnumbered them two to one. The Muslims were mounted on huge Arabian war horses, but the Franks were on foot.

The Muslims were after war booty. (Editorial note: John means “treasure”, but historically, the other meaning also applied — jb) Tours, a major city in the Loire Valley since Roman times, was obviously their next target. Martel avoided the roads and marched cross-country in order to position his forces in a phalanx along the road to Tours, thereby putting in place a surprise. Martel’s chosen site for the battle was a hilly wooded area that served to slow down the Umayyad cavalry charges.

On October 10, 732, Martel’s infantry accomplished what was, at that time, believed to be totally impossible: Massed infantry, using large wooden shields for protection, withstood repeated charges by heavy cavalry. The Frankish soldiers stood behind tall oak shields braced against the ground. They did their best not to get bowled over, while inflicting damage on both horses and riders.

To say that the Umayyads had underestimated the Franks is a cosmic understatement. The Muslims had been spoiled by several easy victories, and they were unaware of the number of Franks. The Muslims were also unaware that many of the Franks were professional soldiers who had served Charles Martel for as long as ten years. In one sense or another, Charles Martel (his surname or nickname is Old French for “Hammer”) had been preparing for this battle for ten years or more.

Furthermore, the Muslims were still wearing clothing more appropriate for summer. Worst of all, they were traveling with pack trains of war booty in addition to their families, wives, or concubines. When it became apparent that Frankish auxiliaries or allies were attacking the Muslim encampment, a critical mass of Muslim soldiers quickly departed the main battle to tend to their own affairs (meaning, piles of booty, and/or loved ones back at the encampment). Muslim commander Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd Allah Al-Ghafiqi tried to rally his troops, for which he paid the ultimate price.

The Frankish victory at Tours marked the end of Muslim territorial expansion in mainland Europe, just as surely as the Battle (or, rather, the Massacre) of Teutoburg Forest (AD 9) had put paid to Imperial Roman ambitions to conquer Germania.

By the way, our familiar modern trope of the “Dumb Blonde” is not of recent vintage. It dates back to Imperial Roman times! Roman soldiers were delighted to discover that the girls of Germania bonked like bunnies. But… those blondes! Their Latin is simply atrocious! (That will not be on the exam.)

Had Charles Martel’s battle plan failed, there would have been no organized force left that was capable of protecting Western Europe from being completely overrun by the Muslims.

Period. End of story. Finis.

Charles Martel averted the very real threat of the total destruction of Europe’s monasteries. In time, those monasteries would be the centers of learning that brought Europe out of its Dark Ages. Martel also put into place the foundations of the empire his grandson Charlemagne (768-814) would rule.

Charlemagne took a great interest in music, especially sacred music. For Charlemagne, music was inextricably intertwined with, for lack of a better term, National Policy.

Charlemagne wanted to create a unified Europe that could protect itself against all comers. Given the importance of Christian identity to the empire his grandfather, father, and he had long envisioned, Charlemagne wanted uniformity in worship and in worship music. And he was in a position to demand it.

The Carolingian line of kings used their authority to suppress non-Gregorian Chants, such as Ambrosian and Gallican. (Although those chants did have some influence upon the development of Gregorian Chant.)

Charlemagne established scholae cantorum (singing schools) throughout his domain, going as far as taking members of his own chapel to Rome, so that they could learn at the source. Charlemagne also asked the Pope to lend trained singers to him.

“The sons of nobles of his empire and of his vassals were expected, by imperial commands to be instructed in grammar, music, and arithmetic, while the boys in the public schools were taught music and how to sing, especially the Psalms.” (Charlemagne and Church Music, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913.)

No question, Charlemagne and the Papacy were reading from the same sheets of parchment. But Gregorian Chant never would have been the cultural force it became, without Charlemagne’s enthusiastic (and occasionally ham-fisted) support. Equally important, Charlemagne was able to reform, improve, and standardize Christian church music on his watch, only because the Frankish infantry had stood their ground near Tours, on October 10, 732. We stand in their debt.

The death in battle of their most competent commander caused the Muslim invaders to go back to Iberia. When one ponders the Battle of Tours, one can almost hear the squeaking noises made by the Hinges of History. What if?

As my friend Hyperion Knight put it in his free Hillsdale College online course on Music History, Charlemagne simplified monks’ chants to make them “Plain,” with a single note at a time, to make it easier for everyone to learn the same notes.

While, at first blush, Charlemagne’s simplification might strike we moderns as a harsh limitation that could only hamper creativity, in practice this “setting of boundaries” was a spur to creativity.

Tonal clarity and organic simplicity make Gregorian Chant sound “otherworldly.” Indeed, Plainchant was the first “New Age” music.

1. Plainchant Introitus “Invocabit Me” (OT text, Psalm 91:15)

(music composed circa A.D. 900)

Consortium Vocale Oslo, Alexander Schweitzer, conductor

Of course, human nature being what it is, unison chant was “improved” to antiphonal chant, and then came harmonies; and then, polyphonic part-singing.

When the great founders of the Classical Era in Western concert music (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert) sat down to write the “symphonies” that are heard all over the world today, their formal template was the Medieval sung Mass.

Symphonies are sets of separate but (usually) thematically- related pieces of music called “movements.” In writing “symphonies,” “Beethoven, Schubert & Co.” were only following the pattern that had been set centuries before, when composers would write vocal-only (or accompanied) settings for the Catholic Mass as a series of pieces that were connected by their being based on the same musical theme.

Often, the musical themes of sung Masses were well-known Plainchant melodies. At other times, the musical themes were secular songs such as “L’homme armé,” which I think is actually a rather inane song.

From a cow’s ear to a silk purse, I guess—in that there are more than 40 Mass settings based on that iffy ditty, by various composers. (Perhaps that tune brought out the competitiveness in Medieval and Renaissance composers.)

Well, enough from me. Here are the rest of a total of a dozen choral settings of extraordinary value, most of them unaccompanied (a-cappella), from Medieval times to our era. Not in chronological order, and with some commentary. The Qobuz playlist is here:

https://play.qobuz.com/playlist/25258347

Note, the performances on the Qobuz playlist, in cases, will be different from the embedded YouTubes.

2. Morten Lauridsen: “Sure on this Shining Night” (text by James Agee)
(music composed 2005)

University of Utah Singers, Brady Allred, conductor; Laurel Enke, piano

James Agee had a tragic and comparatively brief life. In this terse (but tremendously powerful) poetic fragment, Agee is wandering far, and he is wandering alone.

But, at least, Agee is weeping from wonder, and not from despair.

The night is so dark that the stars are both making shadows, and being shadowed. But surely, while we are alive, Kindness will keep watch. Amen.

3. Kevin Memley: “There Will Come Soft Rains” (text by Sara Teasdale)

(music composed 2019)

The women of the Atlanta Master Chorale, Eric Nelson, conductor; Pamela Holloway, oboe, Jon Easter, piano

"There Will Come Soft Rains" is a lyric poem by Sara Teasdale, published in Harper's Monthly Magazine in July 1918. Teasdale was writing in the context of a very low ebb in the fortunes of the Allied forces in World War One. She was also writing in the shadow of a shockingly lethal global pandemic.

Whereas one might have been expecting a “Rah-Rah-Rah-Rah Poetic Pep Talk,” Teasdale instead forecasts a future in which Nature will reign supreme, totally indifferent to humanity.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,

If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Howdja like them apples?

Well, Ray Bradbury sure liked them apples. Bradbury loved them, in fact. Bradbury made “There Will Come Soft Rains” the title and the prime plot device of his celebrated short story about the nuclear annihilation inevitably to come.

By the way, when Bradbury’s short story was first published in Collier’s Weekly magazine in 1950, the title was “There Will Come Soft Rains.”

However, when it was republished in Bradbury’s 1950 pastiche book The Martian Chronicles, the chapter title was, “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains.”

That’s a little too close for my comfort! (Later editions of Martian Chronicles pushed that date a bit farther out into the future.)

Kevin Memley’s choral setting is… I really hate to use a word that is so often misused… transcendent.

Bravo and Bravi.

4. Pablo Casals: “O Vos Omnes” (OT text)

(music composed 1932)

Tenebrae Choir, Nigel Short, conductor

“Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen” certainly sounds like the lyric from a Delta Blues. Perhaps a Delta Blues by “Strabismus Mango Bush.”

(That’s on the theory that a “Blues Name” has to include a physical disability, a fruit, and the family name of a deceased US President.)

However, that self-pitying sentiment goes way back. Way way back.

The Old Testament book of Lamentations is a collection of poetic laments lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. One of its most famous laments is best known today by its Latin Vulgate translation:

O vos ómnes qui transítis per víam, atténdite et vidéte:

Si est dólor símilis sícut dólor méus.

Atténdite, univérsi pópuli, et vidéte dolórem méum.

Si est dólor símilis sícut dólor méus.

O all you who walk by on the road, pay attention and see:

if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.

Pay attention, all people, and look at my sorrow:

if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.

Catalan cellist Pablo Casals wrote his own chamber-choral setting, which is of rare beauty. The British ensemble Tenebrae just plain knocks it out of the park.

5. Tomás Luis de Victoria: “O Vos Omnes” (OT text)

(music composed 1585)

Tenebrae Choir, Nigel Short, conductor

357 years before Pablo Casals put pen to music-manuscript paper, de Victoria took his crack at the text. More great singing from Tenebrae.

6. Grigorio Allegri: “Miserere Meus” (OT text)

(music composed in the 1630s)

Tenebrae Choir, Nigel Short, conductor

Allegri’s “Miserere,” a Psalm 51 (or 50) setting, just might be the peak of Late Renaissance vocal music. Josquin and Thomas Tallis wrote their own settings before Allegri. But after Allegri had set the bar so high, the following composers also wrote their own settings: Charpentier; de Lalande; Clérambault; Gervais; Campra; Michel; Bach; Pergolesi; Zelenka; Mozart; E.T.A. Hoffman; Verdi; Górecki; Pärt; MacMillan.

Allegri wrote his Miserere for Pope Urban VII. Supposedly, the piece was a “secret piece” for the exclusive use of the Sistine Chapel singers during Holy Week.

The famous story is that in 1770, the teenaged Mozart heard Allegri’s Miserere performed twice in Rome, and he went back to his hotel and copied out the musical score from memory. Which is rather amazing, in that the work is for a five-part main choir and a four-voice antiphonal choir (and a solo part); and the ending is in nine-part harmony.

The brief prologue to the Psalm text states that King David wrote the Psalm after Nathan the Prophet rebuked David for arranging the death of Bathsheba’s husband and then having sexual relations with her.

“For I know my transgressions; and my sin is ever before me” is one of the most famous single-line verses from the Psalms. Supposedly, both Sir (later Saint) Thomas More, and Lady Jane Grey recited Psalm 51 as they were led off to be executed. At the time of her execution, Jane was either 16 or 17 years old.

Even more remarkable singing from Tenebrae.

That’s it for now, Kiddos! Any outrageous statements are entirely my own, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Avoidable Contact’s management.

Part 2 will appear in about a week.

Pax, Lux, et Veritas,

john

John Marks is a multidisciplinary generalist and a lifelong audio hobbyist. He was educated at Brown University and Vanderbilt Law School. He has worked as a music educator, recording engineer, classical-music record producer and label executive, and as a music and audio-equipment journalist. He was a columnist for The Absolute Sound, and also for Stereophile magazine. His consulting clients have included Grace Design, the University of the South (Sewanee, TN), Steinway & Sons, and the Estate of Jascha Heifetz.