Society & Culture / Culture & Ideas / Arts & Aesthetics

700 Years Before Copyright: How Medieval Composers Invented the Ego

In an age where anonymity was a virtue and signing your name was a sin, medieval composers like Adam de la Halle and Petrus de Cruce were fighting a secret war for recognition. Professor Katherine A. Bradley's forensic analysis of the Montpellier Codex reveals the birth of the individual ego in music. From the first 'producer tag' hidden in polyphonic motets to the overclocking of sacred time itself, this deep dive uncovers how a silver coin sparked a revolution, how street tunes replaced Gregorian chant, and how the quest for authorship killed the ultimate open-source culture. Discover the 700-year-old drama that mirrors our own AI-era anxieties about identity and credit.