Introduction

Summary

In the context of musical ideologies based on either Biblical or Classical/Neoplatonic models, the introduction sets out how a study of the music produced as a response to the figure of Louis XIII might contribute to the wider discourse on ceremonial, power, and absolutism in early modern France. Although the issue of music and power is well-trodden territory for the reign of Louis XIV, there is almost no (music) scholarship exploring how the mechanism of ‘the arts’ and power might function during this earlier period. But taking Beetham’s reformulation of Weber’s famous definition of power as a starting point, it is clear that the liturgy of the Catholic Church acted as a legitimating framework, allowing the people of France to signal their approval of a conceptual system that taught that the anointed king ruled with God’s express consent. While musical sources that participate in this framework (indeed all musical sources) are relatively rare, by exploring previously overlooked fragments and incomplete works, it is possible to show how music, as ‘sounding’ liturgy, was used to highlight facets of a liturgical text that were considered significant, and how in turn it contributed to the broader framework of power.