This chapter presents the main themes that emerge from a survey of the scholarly work that has been undertaken on the history of papal involvement with music. Seven centuries of papal pronouncements on music in the liturgy show a remarkable consistency of concerns, which could be summed up in the word “decorum.” Liturgical music must serve the Word, it must be solemn, it must be serious, it must not be there simply to be enjoyed, and it must not remind the congregation of secular matters. Yet it is striking how limited and how ineffective most papal decrees were. While popes consistently claimed global authority over all sorts of religious matters, only two issued decrees on music addressed to the entire Church. Even the papacy’s greatest contribution to the history of music, the creation of the plainchant repertory, was for the popes a local matter.

Chapter 1 introduces three esthetic paradigms – kaleidoscopic, alternatim, and oppositional – that can help ground discussions of musical flow. Using examples spanning Gregorian chant through mid sixteenth-century polyphony, the chapter makes a case for a shift to and from an esthetics of opposition in the years surrounding the period at the heart of the book.