Welcome back to Between the Barlines! I’m your host, Dr. Maeve Berry, and today, we’re diving into the world of 14th-century music—a time of innovation, transformation, and, believe it or not, some controversy. The 14th century was a period of great upheaval and loss. The Black Death devastated Europe, political tensions ran high, and the Church’s influence over society began to shift. Amidst all this turmoil, music flourished, giving rise to a new artistic movement: the Ars Nova. Ars Nova in Latin means “New Art.” The name, Ars Nova, quantified the new French musical style in the early 1300s. This new style of music drastically changed music from the older Ars Antiqua style of the 13th century. It allowed for greater rhythmic complexity, more varied note values, and innovations in musical notation. 

There were several important composers during this time who were responsible for this major change. One of the most important figures of this era was Philippe de Vitry, a French composer and theorist who literally wrote the book on Ars Nova. His treatise introduced new ways to notate rhythm, making music more expressive and intricate than ever before. We’ve mentioned rhythmic notation quite frequently in our past few episodes, but we haven’t explored it on such a minute level until now. From Ars Nova, there were 2 innovations regarding rhythmic notation: 1) the division of notes into imperfect, or duple, and perfect, or triple, and 2) the division of the semibreve, which was the smallest note value, into what we call minims. Another innovation was mensuration signs, or what we now know as modern time signatures. 

As with any new discovery or massive change, the reaction to Ars Nova didn’t come without its trials and tribulations. Burkholder states that Flemish theorist Jacobus de Ispania was set in his ways regarding the ars antiqua, arguing that with new music, imperfection is brought to a higher, more elevated standard than perfection. WHOA THERE PARTNER! That’s a crazy statement in today’s day and age! But thinking back to what was happening in the 13th century, these musicians and theorists didn’t know much beyond what they qualified as “perfection.” If only they were alive for our friend John Cage…!

If Phillipe de Vitry was the theorist who created these new ways of looking at music, then Guillaume de Machaut was the main composer of these styles in the 14th century. A poet, musician, and innovator, Machaut took Ars Nova principles and used them to create some of the most unique music of the time. One of his most well-known achievements was the Messe de Nostre Dame—the first complete setting of the Mass Ordinary by a single composer. Machaut also pioneered secular music, composing love songs, ballades, and rondeaux that set the standard for courtly music. His works explored themes of love, nature, and chivalry, making them the medieval equivalent of today’s singer-songwriter ballads.


The innovations of the 14th century paved the way for the Renaissance and beyond. Ars Nova’s advancements in rhythm and notation allowed composers to experiment more freely, leading to the rich harmonies and expressive melodies we associate with later periods of music. In our next Music Theory Friday episode, we will be chatting about an extremely important 14th century innovation called isorhythm, of which both Machaut and de Vitry contributed greatly. Both of the aforementioned artists also were involved in larger collections of French motets like the 13th century collection Montpellier Codex and the early 14th century Roman de Fauvel. Join me next time on Between the Barlines!