Whether Musica as an intellectual discipline formed part of university education in the Middle Ages and the extent to which it might have been the subject of study are problems that have yet to receive a definitive answer.
Predictably, traces of scholastic language are to be found in the music treatises, and there occur (generally rudimentary) attempts to couch instruction/teaching in one conventional/fashionable modes of determination: the syllogism or the quaestio This is only to be expected, since enrollment in an arts faculty would not have been an unusual part of a clerical career. ("Graduation" did not have the same significance that it has today: there were very many "drop-outs.")
I believe that many arguments can be presented to show that musica played only the most minimal role in university education. The reason for this can be determined by studying 1) the content and classification of knowledge as defined in the 12th and 13th centuries, 2) the institution responsible for the transmission of knowledge–the university, and 3) the dialectical modes used for establishing truth.
My presentation will center on nine quaestiones relating to music found in a collection of summaries and questions [with suggested answers!] designed to prepare students for oral examinations on all subjects of the curriculum. This "guide de l'etudiant' is well known to students of the medieval university, and some of the music questions have been studied by Max Haas ("Studien zur mittelalterlichen Musiklehre," 1982) and Eva Hirtler (Die Musik als scientia mathematica This document will be the starting point for a consideration of why musica found no significant place in the canon of works prescribed for university study in the Middle Ages.
The history of medieval music in libraries mirrors the history of medieval libraries. Music books were found in any complete medieval library, be it monastic, cathedral, or university. Music was part of the quadrivium with arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. Important medieval scholars like Cassiodorus, Boethius, and Isidore of Seville wrote about music. As it is in this century, music was a special case in the medieval era. A library supporting study in music is required to collect not only books on the philosophy of music, but instructional guides and music scores for performance.
Monastic libraries existed primarily for monks, but others were permitted to use their collections. Monks made copies of important books and music in the monasteries' scriptoria but did not include secular music. The monastery at St. Gallen was important in the development of Gregorian Chant. Some original medieval music manuscripts are still there. Monasteries were mainly found in rural areas, but cathedral libraries were located closer to centers of population. As cathedrals were the seats of bishops and archbishops, professional musicians were employed. Libraries contained more extensive music collections including secular items for the use of these higher caliber musicians. These same musicians often bequeathed their personal collections to the cathedral library.
Universities began springing up in urban centers in the twelfth century. Whole rooms were devoted to university libraries, and their collections were more extensive, secular, and better organized. By this time, music had evolved from chant into polyphony.
The structures of choral establishments and the practice of sacred music in the medieval academic colleges at the University of Oxford have long been subjects of academic inquiry. Scholars from the eighteenth century to the present day have given us much information about the numbers and types of musicians employed by the colleges, about their religious practices, and about the repertory that may have been performed at these foundations.
In their comments, modern writers generally have emphasized a split between the academic and religious sides of the colleges, arguing that the fellows and scholars for a variety of reasons appear to have had little or no interest in chapel services or music making, while the chaplains, clerks, and choristers took full responsibility for the performance of sacred rite and music.
However, a fresh examination of closely related statutes from three of the Wykehamist colleges at the University of Oxford (New College, All Souls, and Magdalen), and of other documents such as accounts rolls and episcopal records, clearly demonstrates that this division between academic and religious life seems not to have existed in many of the Oxford colleges prior to the Reformation. Documentary evidence shows that the fellows and scholars in fact had a much larger investment in chapel music making than previously assumed. Members of the colleges themselves regularly were expected to sing, read, and preside over various religious observances throughout the year, including many that presumably would have been celebrated with polyphonic music in addition to the usual plainchant.
Admitting the fellows and scholars as active participants in chapel ceremony and music-making requires a new assessment of the relationship between the college membership and their hired chapel musicians, and alternative definitions of the constitution of the choir at these foundations. In addition, this revised view of religious and musical life in the Oxford colleges suggests other avenues of exploration into performance practice with respect to some contemporary repertory, and also into relationships between celebrants and congregations and between performers and listeners in the medieval period.