Topics discussed in treatise Grocheio wrote about several principles of music in thirteenth-century Paris that he had observed. Grocheio's divides music into three categories:
musica vulgaris ("music of the people"),
musica mensurabilis ("measured music"), and
musica ecclesiastica ("church music"). He also discusses
music theory and compositional techniques such as
mensural notation and
musica ficta. Grocheio also consults and criticizes the works of many other music theorists, mathematicians, and philosophers such as
Plato,
Pythagoras,
Johannes de Garlandia,
Franco of Cologne,
Nicomachus, and several others. Grocheio further specifies that there are two kinds of genres
musica vulgaris:
cantus and
cantilena. Both could be performed with the voice or with instruments. It is intended to make people feel sympathetic for the heroic deeds and would urge them to rise above their station and serve the public by doing their jobs.
Cantus coronatus is a song written by kings and nobles that was sung for them in order to give them the ability to become great leaders. The literary themes of the song include friendship and love.
Cantus versiculatus is a song that was intended to be performed from young people who refused to work.
Cantilena ductia is another dance song that Grocheio described as having the ability to draw the hearts of young men and women away from
erotic love. The
cantilena ductia is believed to have been an early version of the
virelai based on the repetition of the first line of the first stanza being repeated in subsequent stanzas.
Musica ecclesiastica Grocheio discusses several aspects of
musica ecclesiastica (church music) in his treatise. He describes the use of all of the chants in the
Mass, the function of the eight
church modes, and the threefold division of
musica ecclesiastica into music for
Matins, the
Divine Office, and the Mass. == Manuscripts ==