ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the introduction of Aristotle's Politics to the sphere of musical opinion in the Latin West through examination of explicit references to the Politics in discussions about music. It describes that masters of arts and theology, rather than music theorists, first considered the relevance of the Politics to music, and it is through these masters that the Politics initially entered the sphere of Latin music theory. In order to trace the introduction of Aristotle's Politics to the sphere of musical opinion in medieval Europe, it is useful to trace the introduction of the Politics itself. Nearly a decade after Aquinas referred to the Politics in his Super psalmos, Henri Bate of Malines incorporated a direct reference to Book 8 of the Politics in his Nativitas magistri henrici machlinensis cum quibusdam revolutionibus. Guy of Saint-Denis is the earliest known music theorist to refer to the Politics in a treatise devoted exclusively to the subject of music.
