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Medieval poetry was often preserved by mere happenstance. Because most of what we have was written down by clerics, much of extant medieval poetry is religious. Old English religious poetry includes the poem Christ by Cynewulf, and the poem The Dream of the Rood, preserved in both manuscript and on the Ruthwell Cross . We do have some secular poetry, in fact a great deal of medieval literature was written in poetry, including the Old English epic Beowulf. Scholars are fairly sure, based on a few fragments and on references in historic texts, that much lost secular poetry was set to music, and was spread by traveling minstrels, or bards, across Europe. Thus, the few poems written eventually became ballads or lays, and never made it to being recited without song or other music.

1 Medieval Latin literature

In medieval LatinAlternative meanings: See Latin (disambiguation Latin was the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages are descended from Latin, and ma, while verse in the old quantitative metersIn literature, meter or metre (sometimes known as prosody) is a term used in the scansion of poetry, usually indicated by the kind of feet and the number of them. For instance, " iambic pentameter", "dactylic tetrameter", etc. Technical terms in poetic me continued to be written, a new more popular form called the sequenceThis is a page about mathematics. For other usages of "sequence", see: sequence (non-mathematical). In mathematics, a sequence is a list of objects (or events) which have been ordered in a sequential fashion; such that each member either comes before, or arose, which was based on accentAccent in poetry refers to the stressed portion of a word. For example: :"Let Us make man in Our image, :according to Our likeness; :let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, :over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, :over all the earth andual metres in which metrical feet were based on stressed syllableThis article discusses the unit of speech. For the computer operating system, see Syllable (operating system). A syllable is a unit of speech that is made up of one or more phones (single sounds or "phonetic segments") and in turn makes up words. It influs rather than vowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by an open configuration of the vocal tract, in contrast to consonants, which are characterized by a constriction or closure at one or more points along the vocal tract. The word vo length. These metres were associated with ChristianChristian cross and its many variations are widely recognized as an ancient Christian symbol. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as described in the New Testament. Although Christians generally chara hymnSee also the hymn-project a program to decrypt iTunes music files. A hymn is a song specifically written as a song of praise, adoration or prayer, typically addressed to God. A writer of hymns is known as a hymnist or hymnodist and the process of singingody.

However, much secular poetry was also written in Latin. Some poems and songs, like the Gambler's Mass (officio lusorum) from the Carmina Burana, were parodies of Christian hymns, while others were student melodies: folksongs, love songs and drinking ballads. The famous commercium song Gaudeamus igitur is one example. There are also a few narrative poems of the period, such as the unfinished epic Ruodlieb , which tells the story of a knight's adventures.