Very little is known of how musical instruments were employed in the Middle Ages. Although medieval art and literature offer considerable evidence of the existence of a variety of instruments, medieval theorists and transcribers of music indicated almost nothing about their use. It is known that, with the relatively minor exceptions of the organ and tuned bells, instruments were not used in sacred music. Their broad use in secular music, however, is little understood. In studying an era when little was done to preserve secular music, and existing scores made no mention of instrumental roles, musicologists must make deductions about instrumentation based on non-musical evidence and the interpretation of the rare extant scores, whose notations are imperfectly understood. A review of the use of instruments in medieval music demonstrates the extent of what is known and the methods by which scholars continue to investigate the question.
The Middle Ages (800-1450) serves as a convenient term to describe Europe in the centuries between the end of the large-scale barbarian invasion of the Roman Empire (and the end of the empire in the West) and the widespread renewal of interest in the antique that marked the beginning of the Renaissance. Most importantly, the medieval era was one in which most of Europe was united in a single faith, under the spiritual rule of the Catholic Church. In the long period of invasions the Christian monasteries were "important preservers of the knowledge of the ancients" and music was among the survivals. Yet the highly sensual pleasures of music were sometimes viewed with great suspicion by early Christians. As Augustine makes clear in his Confessions, church music was among the forces that moved him most "in the beginning of [his] recovered faith." And, so long as the words were sung in a clear voice, properly modulated, he believed the practice was valuable. But, as Augustine added, it was possi...