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A Lecture on the Music of the Middle Ages, 
ESPECIALLY IN RELATION TO ITS RYTHM AND MODE OF 
EXECUTION. 
Delivered at the Meeting at Chippenham, September, 1855. 
By Joun Lampert, Ese. 
Member of the Academy of St. Cecilia, at Rome. 
_Amonest the various objects of antiquarian research there is one 
which has hitherto received but little attention from the Archx- 
ologists of this country, viz: the Music of the Middle Ages, and 
its mode of execution. 
The manners and customs of our ancestors—their costume, 
whether ecclesiastical, civil, or military—the various implements 
used by them in the pursuits of war and of peace—their buildings, 
especially their religious edifices, have all in turn formed the 
subject of minute inquiry and investigation. Their Sculpture and 
Painting too, have not only been carefully studied, but admirably 
illustrated, and it cannot therefore, I think, be considered out of 
place if I venture to lay before you the result of some investigations 
with reference to the sister art of Music, associated as it was with 
the Choral institutions of our Cathedrals, and entering so largely 
as it did into the religious services of the Medieval period. 
On the Continent the Music of the Middle Ages has largely 
attracted the attention of Archwologists, and in France it may be 
said to form a leading branch of antiquarian research. In the able 
and voluminous Annales Archeologiques of M. Didron there are 
several very interesting papers on the subject, and the admirable 
Revue de la Musique of M. Danjou, unhappily discontinued during 
the last Revolution, was devoted almost entirely to an elucidation 
of the various questions connected with it. Still more recently we 
have the elaborate work of M. Coussemaker, “Sur LZ’ Harmonie au 
