Singing in a Late Medieval ChurchThis manuscript (St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek Cod. Sang. 544) 

Singing in a Late Medieval ChurchThis manuscript (St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek Cod. Sang. 544) written at St Gallen, Switzerland in 1545 contains different kinds of liturgical chants, or ‘plainchant’, including psalms with antiphons, canticles, and hymns. Manuscripts like this would have been used mostly for public devotion during Mass. This particular folio (1r) is the first folio of the manuscript and starts with a hymn and antiphon with musical notation. The notes are written on a four-line stave – instead of the five-line stave that we use now –  which was used for almost all music at the time this manuscript was produced. This is because chants used in liturgy retained the earlier style of four lines to show the height of notes. Another difference between our modern musical notation and this example of musical notation is the shape of the notes or, as they are technically called, ‘neumes’. The neumes are relatively square, keeping with the Gothic script in which the manuscript is written. It is important to realize that almost all the music that was written down in the Middle Ages was vocal music and in most cases was performed without instruments. Music played a major part in the religious culture of this time, which is attested to by this manuscript and many others filled with religious and liturgical songs.  - Sanne Boomsma -- source link
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