Medieval poetry Medieval poetry Poetry took numerous forms in medieval Europe, for example, lyric and epic poetry. The troubadours and the minnesänger are known for their lyric poetry about courtly love. Among the most famous of secular poetry is "Carmina Burana", a manuscript collection of 254 poems. Twenty-four poems of "Carmina Burana" were later set to music by German composer Carl Orff in 1936. Old English religious poetry includes the poem "Christ" by Cynewulf and the poem "The Dream of the Rood", preserved in both manuscript form and on the Ruthwell Cross. We do have some secular poetry; in fact a great
Carmina Burana musical notation that by the time of the manuscript had largely been superseded by staffed neumes. Unheighted neumes only indicate whether a given note is pitched higher or lower than the preceding note, without giving any indication of how much change in pitch there is between two notes, so they are useful only as mnemonic devices for singers who are already familiar with the melody. However, it is possible to identify many of those melodies by comparing them with melodies notated in staffed neumes in other contemporary manuscripts from the schools of Notre Dame and Saint Martial. Between 1935 and