Wheel of Fortune page from the manuscript Carmina Burana. Photo from Wikimedia commons.
I’ve been working on a dance routine to “Carmina Burana” and wanted to do some research on the history of the piece. I was planning to write more about gargoyles this week, but I decided to write about this instead when I saw a picture of the original medieval manuscript.*
A scene from the manuscript Carmina Burana. By Meister der Carmina Burana [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Before it was a well-known piece of music, the Carmina Burana was a Gothic manuscript containing eight illustrations and two hundred and fifty-four poems, primarily in medieval Latin with some in old German, from the eleventh through thirteenth centuries. (1) It was created around 1230 and discovered in the library of the Benediktbeuern Abbey in Bavaria in 1803. While likely originating from somewhere in that area, the Carmina Burana was not necessarily created at the Benediktbeuern Abbey, though…
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First Night History 
I first became aware of this music on the soundtrack of the 1981 film, ‘Excalibur.’ I sought it out, and bought the album on vinyl, the following week. I have since got it again, on CD, and play it a couple of times a year. There is nothing else quite like it.
Best wishes, Pete.
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