| antiphon | [AN-te-fon] In music, a short prose text, changed by unaccompanied voices during the Christian liturgy.
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| bay | A four-cornered unit of architectural space, often used to identify a section of the nave in a Romanesque or Gothic church.
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| blind arcade | A decorative architectural design that gives the appearance of an open arcade or window but is filled in with some type of building material such as stone or brick.
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| canzone | [kan-ZOH-nee] Latin, "chant"; a type of love poem popular in southern France during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
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| cathedral | The church of a bishop that houses a cathedra, or throne symbolizing the seat of power in his administrative district, known as a diocese.
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| chanson de geste | [shahn-SAWN duh zhest] A poem of brave deeds in the epic form developed in France during the eleventh century, usually to be sung.
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| chivalric code | The rules of conduct, probably idealized, that governed the social roles and duties of aristocrats in the Middle Ages.
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| choir | In architecture, that part of a Gothic church in which the service was sung by singers or clergy, located in the east end beyond the transept; also, the group of trained singers who sat in the choir area.
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| First Romanesque | The first stage of Romanesque architecture, about 1000-1080. First Romanesque churches had high walls, few windows, and flat wooden roofs, and were built of stone rubble and adorned with Lombard bands and Lombard arcades. Begun along the Mediterranean, in the area ranging from Dalmatia, across Northern Italy and Provence, to Catalonia.
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| flying buttress | An external masonry support, found primarily in Gothic churches, that carries the thrust of the ceiling or vault away from the upper walls of the building to an external vertical column.
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| friars | Members of a thirteenth-century mendicant (begging) monastic order.
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| gallery | In architecture, a long, narrow passageway or corridor, usually found in churches and located above the aisles, and often with openings that permit viewing from above into the nave.
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| gargoyle | [GAHR-goil] In architecture, a water spout in the form of a grotesque animal or human, carved from stone, placed on the edge of a roof.
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| goliard | [GOAL-yuhrd] Medieval roaming poets or scholars who traveled about reciting poems on topics ranging from moral lessons to the pains of love.
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| Gothic style | A style of architecture, usually associated with churches, that originated in northern France and whose three phases-Early, High, and Late-lasted from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. Emerging from the Romanesque style, Gothic is identified by pointed arches, ribbed vaults, stained-glass windows, flying buttresses, and carvings on the exterior.
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| lay | A short lyric or narrative poem meant to be sung to the accompaniment of an instrument such as a harp; based on Celtic legends but usually set in feudal times and focused on courtly love themes, especially adulterous passion. The oldest surviving lays are those of the twelfth-century poet Marie de France.
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| liturgical drama | Religious dramas, popular between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, based on biblical stories with musical accompaniment that were staged in the area in front of the church, performed at first in Latin but later in the vernacular languages; the mystery plays (mystery is derived from the Latin for "action") are the most famous type of liturgical drama.
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| Lombard arcades | In architecture, a sequence of arcades beneath the eaves of a building. First used in churches in Lombardy (North Central Italy). A defining feature of the First Romanesque.
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| Lombard bands | In architecture, a web of vertical bands or buttresses along the sides of a building. First used in churches in Lombardy (North Central Italy). A defining feature of the First Romanesque.
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| lute | In music, a wooden instrument, plucked or bowed, consisting of a sound box with an elaborately carved sound hole and a neck across which the (often twelve) strings pass. Introduced during the High Middle Ages, the lute enjoyed a height of popularity in Europe from the seventeenth to eighteenth century.
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| melisma | In music, in plainsong, a style of singing in which a group of notes is sung to the same syllable; the opposite of syllabic singing.
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| minstrel | A professional entertainer of the twelfth to the seventeenth century; especially a secular musician; also called "jongleur."
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| motet | A multivoiced song with words of a sacred or secular text, usually sung without accompanying instruments; developed in the thirteenth century.
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| narthex | The porch or vestibule of a church, usually enclosed, through which worshipers walk before entering the nave.
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| Nominalism | [NAHM-uh-nuhl-iz-uhm] In medieval thought, the school that held that objects were separate unto themselves but could, for convenience, be treated in a collective sense because they shared certain characteristics; opposed to Realism.
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| organum | [OR-guh-nuhm] In the ninth through the thirteenth centuries, a simple and early form of polyphonic music consisting of a main melody sung along with a Gregorian chant; by the thirteenth century it had developed into a complex multivoiced song.
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| pier | In architecture, a vertical masonry structure that may support a vault, an arch, or a roof; in Gothic churches, piers were often clustered together to form massive supports.
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| plainsong | Also called plainchant. In music, the monophonic chant sung in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church.
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| polyphony | [puh-LIF-uh-nee] A style of musical composition in which two or more voices or melodic lines are woven together.
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| Rayonnant | [ray-yo-NAHNN] A decorative style in French architecture associated with the High Gothic period, in which walls were replaced by sheets of stained glass framed by elegant stone traceries.
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| Realism | In medieval philosophy, the school that asserted that objects contained common or universal qualities that were not always apparent to the human senses but that were more real or true than the objects' physical attributes; opposed to Nominalism. In art and literature, a mid- to late-nineteenth-century style that focused on the everyday lives of the middle and lower classes, portraying their world in a serious, accurate, and unsentimental way; opposed to Romanticism.
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| ribbed vault | A masonry roof with a framework of arches or ribs that reinforce and decorate the vault ceiling.
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| romance | A story derived from legends associated with Troy or Celtic culture but often set in feudal times and centered on themes of licit and illicit love between noble lords and ladies.
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| Romanesque style | [roh-muhn-ESK] A style of architecture, usually associated with churches built in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, that was inspired by Roman architectural features, such as the basilica, and was thus Roman-like. Romanesque buildings were massive, with round arches and barrel or groined vaulted ceilings, and had less exterior decoration than Gothic churches.
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| rose window | A large circular window, made of stained glass and held together with lead and carved stones set in patterns, or tracery, and located over an entrance in a Gothic cathedral.
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| scholasticism | In medieval times, the body or collection of knowledge that tried to harmonize Aristotle's writings with Christian doctrine; also, a way of thinking and establishing sets of arguments.
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| Second Romanesque | The second and mature stage of Romanesque architecture, about 1080-1200. Second Romanesque churches were richly decorated and built on a vast scale, including such features as double transepts, double aisles, crossing towers, and towers at the ends of the transepts; associated with Cluniac monasticism.
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| stained glass | An art form characterized by many small pieces of tinted glass bound together by strips of lead, usually to produce a pictorial scene of a religious theme; developed by Romanesque artists and a central feature of Gothic churches.
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| syllabic | In music, in plainsong, a style of musical setting in which one note is set to each syllable.
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| terza rima | [TER-tsuh REE-muh] A three-line stanza with an interlocking rhyme scheme (aba bcb cdc ded, and so on), used by Dante in his Divine Comedy.
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| tracery | Ornamental architectural work with lines that branch out to form designs, often found as stone carvings in rose windows.
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| trope | [TROHP] In Gregorian chants, a new phrase or melody inserted into an existing chant to make it more musically appealing; also called a turn; in literature, a figure of speech.
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| troubador | [TROO-buh-door] A composer and/or singer, usually an aristocrat, who performed secular love songs at the feudal courts in southern France.
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| tympanum | [TIM-puh-num] In medieval architecture, the arch over a doorway set above the lintel, usually decorated with carvings depicting biblical themes; in Classical-style architecture, the recessed face of a pediment.
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| vernacular language | [vuhr-NAK-yuh-luhr] The language or dialect of a region, usually spoken by the general population as opposed to the wealthy or educated elite.
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| vernacular literature | [vuhr-NAK-yuh-luhr] The language or dialect of a region, usually spoken by the general population as opposed to the wealthy or educated elite.
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| via media | [VEE-uh MAY-dee-ah] The "middle way" that St. Thomas Aquinas sought in reconciling Aristotle's works to Christian beliefs.
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