Extreme Vocality and the Boundaries of Song in the Medieval Crusades

Abstract

Through an analysis of Old French crusade song this article reflects on the variety of sounds that medieval human voices produced, the way those sounds were understood and disciplined, and the difficulty that music historians face in trying to recover them. Although scant information survives about the performance of Old French song, a key account by Philip of Novare relates the performance of a crusade song in a manner described as “en haut.” This article argues that the phrase “en haut” refers to an extreme mode of vocalization that blurred the already fuzzy boundaries between speech and song. First, instances of the adjective haut in the popular Chanson d’Antioche, an account of the First Crusade, are examined for the light they shed on the vocal meanings of en haut. This textual analysis reveals that such vocalizations were intended to be highly audible, produced in states of heightened emotion, and connected to moments of extreme violence. Second, the article analyzes the corpus of extant Old French crusade songs, both political serventois and love-themed grands chants, comparing trends between the two types. A quantitative analysis demonstrates that political serventois were more syllabic and recitational than grands chants. Some serventois are extremely recitational, suggesting a mode of performance that privileged audibility and was both speech-like and musical: the performance style en haut.