Speaking of Sacred (Catholic) Music...

Reading for a class and I come across a section from Chris Page's book, The Christian West:

"Some time before 1123, Peter the abbot of Cava in Campania found that the local seigneur was sporadically emerging from his castrum of San Severino and harassing the workers on the rural estates of the monastery.  He even drove them from one of the fields as they were in the midst of sowing.  The lord's motives are unlikely to have been very complex; the archives of the abbey of Cava are extensive and they leave no doubt that the monastery owned a considerable amount of land.  Lord Roger of San Severino had every reason to enlarge the scope of his tenantry by threatening its rural serfs as a prelude to appropriating its good arable land, and it would not have taken much for his group of armed and mounted men, the garrison of the castellum, to see off the abbey's peasants in the field.  Instead of raising a militia or appealing to a diocesan, however, Abbot Peter decided to defend the furrows with plainsong.  He went out to the field with the serfs and a few monks and 'instantly began to sing chant'.  Lord Roger appeared with his men, but at the sound of the plainsong his mood was softened to the point where he became penitent, even lacrimose, and prostrated himself at the abbot's feet. 'Thus', says Peter's biographer, 'we know that psalmody softens the ferocity of evil spirits and puts them to flight.' (394)

Furthermore, we also get these gems:

"plainsong was a means of healing... it was also, as the miraculous appearance of saints during worship occasionally revealed, a form of conjuration." (394).

Some things to think about when considering how music might play a role in your worlds, especially your sacred music.