In an exploration of medieval music, we encounter the the most distant and longest era of "real" musical history. Saint Gregory (Svaty Rehor in Czech) is credited with arranging a large number of choral works, which arose in the early centuries of Christianity in Europe. He was Pope (Pope Gregory I) from the year 590 AD to 604 AD and from his name we get the term Gregorian chant. The Medieval era lasted until the 14th century, which means it covers a period of history of almost 1,000 years.

One problem, in fact an essential one, which has to be dealt with in the study of medieval music is that the system of musical notation developed only slowly, if it was even in use at all. The first preserved finds of musical notation come from the 9th century. Rhythmic notation wasn't developed until the 12th - 13th century.

Gregorian chant is monophonic, that is, music composed with only one melodic line without accompaniment. The authors of the melodies of the Gregorian chants remain unknown. As with the melodies of folk music, the chants probably changed as they were passed down orally from generation to generation.

Polyphony is music where two or more melodic lines are heard at the same time in a harmony. Polyphony didn't exist (or it wasn't on record) until the 11th century. Although the majority of medieval polyphonic works are anonymous - the names of the authors were either not preserved or simply never known - there are some composers whose work was so significant that their names were recorded along with their work.

The history of music in the Czech, Slovak and Polish regions, whose political and cultural fortunes in the early centuries were closely connected, can only really be traced after the arrival of Christianity, which was brought to these countries around the year 830 by German missionaries. The knights of Rastislav attempted to resist this encroachment from the west by summoning a Slavic mission led by Constantine and Methodius in 863. They introduced to this country the liturgy sung in Old Church Slavonic, which was at that time understandable to laymen, unlike Latin. The fall of the Great Moravian Empire, however, led to the victory and re-introduction of the Latin liturgy. In spite of this, however, the Old Church Slavonic songs survived in popular performance.

The spiritual song is represented in the Czech area by some rare musical survivals, especially the song Hospodine, pomilu ny! (Lord, Have mercy). It is unmistakeably the oldest and most faithfully preserved popular spiritual song to have survived to the present. It is recorded to have been sung as far back as 1055 in the writing of the chronicler Kosma. Another surviving song is Svaty Vaclave (Saint Wenceslas), which is mentioned in the chronicles of Benes Krabice of Veitmil as well-known of old, certainly by the end of the 13th century.

In the writings of the first chroniclers, for example Kosma, there are frequent mentions of secular folk songs and professional musicians. Political and cultural orientation opened Bohemia and Moravia up to the influence of the German aristocratic arts, such as the "minnesang" (hence the Minnesingers - minstrels and musicians of this period.)

A famous period of spiritual songs was the Czech Reformation. In the Bethlehem chapel, Master Jan Hus consistently devoted his attention to popular songs and old traditions, and he's named as the composer of a number of songs in the Jistebnice hymn book, such as Jezu Kriste, scedry kneze , Navstev nas a Kriste zaduci. Among Hus' contemporaries, the book presents the work of the composer Jeronym Prazsky. The main record of Hus' songs is the above-mentioned Jistebnice hymn book, which was compiled sometime in the 1420's. It contains songs for Mass, Vespers, and a furthur collection of martial and spiritual songs. The only author whose name we know from the time is a priest from Tabor named Jan Capek.