page_title: Music in Medieval Scotland
section_title: Song schools
hierarchical_section_title: Music in Medieval Scotland / Song schools
caption_attribution_description: English: Interior of the Chapel Royal in Stirling Castle, Stirling, Scotland.
context_page_description: Music in Medieval Scotland includes all forms of musical production in what is now Scotland between the fifth century and the adoption of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. The sources for Scottish Medieval music are extremely limited. There are no major musical manuscripts for Scotland from before the twelfth century. There are occasional indications that there was a flourishing musical culture. Instruments included the cithara, tympanum, and chorus. Visual representations and written sources demonstrate the existence of harps in the Early Middle Ages and bagpipes and pipe organs in the Late Middle Ages. As in Ireland, there were probably filidh in Scotland, who acted as poets, musicians and historians. After this "de-gallicisation" of the Scottish court in the twelfth century, a less highly regarded order of bards took over the functions of the filidh and they would continue to act in a similar role in the Scottish Highlands and Islands into the eighteenth century.
  In the Early Middle Ages there was a distinct form of liturgical Celtic chant. It is thought to have been superseded from the eleventh century, as elsewhere in Europe, by the more complex Gregorian chant.
context_section_description: In the High Middle Ages, the need for large numbers of singing priests to fulfil the obligations of church services led to the foundation of a system of song schools, to train boys as choristers and priests, often attached to Cathedrals, wealthy monasteries and collegiate churches. The proliferation of collegiate churches and requiem masses in the later Middle Ages would have necessitated the training of large numbers of choristers, marking a considerable expansion of the song school system. The only indications of what these choristers were expected to be able to perform are in the chance survival of some sheet music in a book binding, probably from the Inverness song school. These confirm that a later work produced as part of James VI's attempt to revive the burgh song schools after the Reformation: The Art of Music, Collectit Out of all Ancient Doctours of Music (1580), was based on earlier works. A stress was placed on the technique of Faburden, associated with the Burgundian School, by which plainsong melodies, usually in the tenor voice, were harmonised according to strict rules that meant that rehearsal was unnecessary.
caption: The Chapel Royal, Stirling Castle, a major focus for liturgical music
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