Secular music
music genre
Secular or saecular (Latin saecularis, "of the ages") is a term usually understood as meaning "worldly" or "non-religious", but when contrasted with cloistered monasteries a cathedral is technically a saecular institution with secular clergy. In vocal music of the classical tradition of western music,
secular music is distinguished from both liturgical and devotional religious music as the two main genres of Western music during the Middle Ages and Renaissance era. In such a context the oldest written examples of secular music are songs of the goliards with Latin lyrics. These were followed by vernacular chansons de geste (songs of deeds) and were popular amongst the traveling jongleurs and minstrels of the time.
The largest collection of secular music from this period comes from poems of celebration and chivalry of the troubadours from the south of France. These poems contain clever rhyme-schemes, varied use of refrain-lines or words, and different metric patterns. The minstrels of this time were not themselves poets or composers. Instead they adapted the compositions of others to sing, play, and dance to in their own unique versions. Other styles included love songs, political satire, dances, chansons, and dramatic works.
Much non-vocal instrumental music also seems intended for non-religious use.
“Secular music” enters the record as music genre. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Secular, music and genre can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Secular music” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Secular, music and genre provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2707298. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Secular music” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.