ABSTRACT
One field in which the Carolingians made an advance had long since been taught theoretically as within the circle of the liberal arts, namely, music. But a theory of music, even a scientific one, is not the same thing as the practice of music, and it was in sung music the Carolingians made so notable a contribution. Much light has been thrown in by the Byzantinists on the origin of church music; like Byzantine music in general, it was entirely vocal and homophonic. While the Greek philosophers from the time of Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C. had discussed musical intervals and the octave and the whole scientific connexion of music with mathematics, and while by the time of Constantine the rhetors were teaching a classical arrangement of Greco-Roman music in fifteen modes or scales, cult music was, in fact, mainly local.
