Books in the Cambridge Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music series

How did the organ become a church instrument? In this fascinating investigation Peter Williams speculates on this question and suggests some likely answers. Central to the story he uncovers is the liveliness of European monasticism around 1000 and the ability and imagination of the Benedictine reformers.

This is the first full length study of the vernacular motet in thirteenth-century France. The motet was the most prestigious type of music of that period, filling the gap between the music of the so-called Notre-Dame School and the Ars Nova of the early fourteenth century.