The Christian West and Its Singers: The First Thousand Years, by the great English musicologist Christopher Page, covers the development of Christian liturgical music from its origins as an elaboration of the role of the lector to its flourishing in the monastic and cathedral singing schools of France, as Roman chant was spread across Europe. One of the most important developments was the gradual development of a system of notation in the late first millennium, culminating in Guido d'Arezzo's invention of the musical staff which allowed singers to learn melodies they had never heard before. Guido was motivated by the desire to reform monastic singing and enable monks to fulfil their duties more easily. This went along with a the development of music theory far beyond anything that could be found in the classical sources.

Christopher Page, The Christian West and Its Singers https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300112573/the-christian-west-and-its-singers/

Gothic Voices ensemble https://gothicvoices.co.uk/

Christopher Page playing Renaissance guitar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KW34ucTnhI&ab_channel=GreshamCollege

DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

A new biography of Ven. Fulton Sheen gives special attention to his high-profile converts, but reveals many other interesting facets of his life as well. Author Cheryl Hughes joins to discuss Sheen’s at times shockingly direct evangelization methods, his outstanding television presence, his lifelong struggle with vanity and ambition, and the mistreatment he suffered from his rival, Cardinal Spellman.

Links

Cheryl C.D. Hughes, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen: Convert Maker https://ignatius.com/archbishop-fulton-j-sheen-afsp/

Thomas’s review of Cheryl’s biography of St. Katharine Drexel https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/st-katharine-drexel-shows-how-spiritual-poverty-and-submission-to-providence-go-hand-in-hand/

DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

St. Anicius Manlius Severius Boethius's book The Consolation of Philosophy, which he wrote in prison while awaiting martyrdom around the year 524, is one of the single most influential works for medieval philosophy and theology. But Boethius also owed much to the pagan philosophy that came before him. Thomas Ward has just written a commentary on Boethius's dialogue for Word on Fire, entitled After Stoicism: Last Words of the Last Roman Philosopher.

Topics discussed include:

• Boethius's debt to Stoic ethics and how he critiques the Stoic view of happiness
• The influence of neo-Platonist philosophy on Boethius
• Questions about the account of deification given by Lady Philosophy - is it more Platonist than Christian?
• Boethius's brilliant arguments about how God's way of knowing differs from ours

Links

Thomas Ward, After Stoicism: Last Words of the Last Roman Philosopher https://bookstore.wordonfire.org/products/after-stoicism?srsltid=AfmBOopBRfuMW6DMx_iUEH9u2gjSswySJAZ__JrdTznAIpZ3Ptj9mDMJ

Way of the Fathers episode on Boethius https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/st-boethius-church-father-and-medieval-scholar/

DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters