New sins for new sounds ? A casuistic point of view on French Renaissance music
Résumé
During the 16th century, a new ecclesiastical science was devoted to numerous problems linked to the "modernity": casuistry. Specialists of this discipline aimed to reduce economical, social or cultural situations to a great number of “cases” before accepting or condemning them. And they considered in this manner musical features of their troubled time, for example the growing of the chanson culture in amateurs’ circles, the emergence of suspect Christian repertories (psalms, spiritual songs) or some recent aspects of ecclesiastical music.
This paper will propose to examine how the main French moral theologians (specially Benedicti, Milhard and some Jesuit scholars) conceived music and musical activities in their printed treatises. Then it will be investigated how music was probably discussed between lay people and clerics in the secret place of the confession.