nuscripts, because a Dominican friar writes of her activities:She busied herself with…writing, which she had truly mastered as we may see in the large, beautiful, useful choir books which she wrote and annotated for the convent (Edwards, p. 10)Judging by handwriting, notational styles and repertory, a number of unsigned chant manuscripts also stem from the convents in which they were used. Indeed, though relatively few women music scribes are known, many of their sisters may have legacies that hide amongst the unsigned manuscripts of the era.Women as ComposersPerhaps the most famous of the medieval women composers is Hildegard of Bingen. Her repertory of sequences and antiphons (sacred songs) stand somewhat outside of the musical tradition, as she writes in a loosely formulaic melodic language that works more by motivic allusion than by strict adherence to modal range and standard melodic gestures. She collected her 77 musical works in a volume called the Symphonia harmoniae caelestium revelationum (Symphony of Harmony of Heavenly Revelations). Her morality play, the Ordo virtutum, is appended to one manuscript copy of the Symphonia. Hildegard's training is not particularly exceptional; education at convents was focused on the performance of the liturgy, and included literacy, Latin, and music. Thus, other nuns may have composed plainchant -- or even polyphony -- for new feasts and special celebrations. Since most medieval music is anonymous, however, their contributions are impossible to trace.Secular composers fared better, probably because secular music is more often copied with composer attributions. Twenty-one trobairitz (or women troubadours) are known by name. Though only one composition survives with both text and music copied together (the canso "A chantar" written by the Countess of Dia), other works can be reconstructed by supplying a tune to match the poetic structure. Further examples of women's compositions...
