A prospect of the sea : the Roman circuit -- The god of the household and his music -- Echoes of Christian music at community meals and elsewhere -- Psaltes and lector : towards a ministry of singing -- Lectors in Rome and elsewhere -- The psalmody of urban house-ascetics -- Deacons as readers and psalmists in the fourth and fifth centuries -- A new political order, and two singers from sixth-century Gaul -- Schooling to silence the layman's voice -- Ministers of music in the sixth-century kingdoms : deacons and cantors -- Schooling singers in the cathedrals : 450-650 -- Schooling singers in Rome -- Steering in distant waters by the Roman lighthouse -- Pippin and his singers I : thrones, dominations, powers -- Pippin and his singers II : music for a Frankish-Roman imperium -- Singers of the ninth century : Metz and the palatine chapel -- Singers, sounds and symbols -- Composing for singers 900-1100 I : scholars in the service of saints -- Composing for singers 900-1100 II : courtliness and other modes -- 'In our time, of all men, singers are the most foolish' : Guido of Arezzo and the invention of the stave -- Bringing singers to book : Rudolf of Sint Truiden and Guido's invention -- Singers and the making of Europe