The most infamous bonfire took place in 1497 when thousands of objects like cosmetics, art, books, mirrors, clothing, playing cards, musical instruments and even (heaven forbid) manuscripts of secular songs were collected and publicly burned in Florence, Italy

500 – 1500AD  

*Boethius (480 – 525), the Italian poet, philosopher and politician, governed musical thinking for 1000 years following Plato wrote that sensuous and emotional experience musical experience should be transcended by thinking and mental activity. Composer and performers were lower on the musical food chain than philosophers of music. As he put it, “Practical music had no independent significance or existence of its own.” Music was basic mathematics. As Jeremy Begbie has noted, “Being able to spin a melody or sing in tune was nothing to boast about for Boethius. The highest type of musician is thus not the performer, the composer, but the philosopher.”    

Under the Boethian influence musical theorists were far more interested in music’s ability to tame and calm the mind than in its power to excite the emotions (The Fundamentals of Music). That is until William Congreve in the 17th century when he wrote, “Muick hath charms to soothe the savage Beast.”  

*Cassiodorus (490 – 583), Roman Monk and politician affirmed that music guides the soul to higher things: “Music is the most pleasant and extremely useful cognition, which both guides our mind to higher things and soothes our ears with its melody” (Fundamentals of Music). Music was not for the mundane experience.  

*Guido of Arezzo (991 -1050), the Italian Benedictine monk and musical theorist, wrote, “Great is the difference between musicians and singers. The latter say, the former know what music comprises, and he who does what he does not know is defined as a beast.”    To quote Jeremy Begbie, there was a increasing “gap” in medieval thinking between “the music theory of antiquity and those who wanted to focus on the more down-to-earth business of playing and singing.”   

13th century  

St. Bonaventure (1221-1274)  

Bonaventure, the Franciscan mystical priest and scholar, wrote in 1243 that the ascent of the soul moved through stages from lower reason or light to higher reason or light. As the soul ascended to God it sensed beauty at the lower level but really contemplated true beauty as it approached the spiritual presence of God. Greatly influenced by neo-Platonism and Augustine, Bonaventure helped created the duality in earthly beauty which was inferior the heavenly beauty of God which was our destiny. (Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and Retracing the Arts to Theology). So there is good beauty and best beauty, or common beauty and serious beauty.  

14th century  

John Wycliffe (1329-1384)  

If Wycliffe is to be saddled with writings from the Lollard movement in the 14th century then there is the extant robust sermon entitled “A treatise on Miraculous Plays” which excoriates make-believe on the stage because it mocks and scorns reality. Plays, particularly religious plays, mock the life and work of Jesus and are thus blasphemous. No quarter is given to the theatrical community by this Lollard preacher. I couldn’t find any writings by Wycliffe himself on the stage and public performances but his followers apparently had strong anti-theater opinions.  
15th century  

Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498)  

Savonarola was a Dominican friar and reformer. He used his “Bonfire of the Vanities” to the burn objects that were deemed to be occasions of sin. The most infamous bonfire took place in 1497 when thousands of objects like cosmetics, art, books, mirrors, clothing, playing cards, musical instruments and even (heaven forbid) manuscripts of secular songs were collected and publicly burned in Florence, Italy. He eventually was hanged.  

Bob Case is a 1974 graduate of Covenant Theological Seminary, where he was editor of the student newspaper, SALT.  He worked for many years as published of a local newspaper in Washington state, and is currently the Director of the World Journalism Institute.  He blogs at Case In Point where this article first appeared; it is used with his permission.