Jack, Anne and Tootler - you've hit upon something important in the question of performance length. How long a song is depends to a large extent on the genre - there are plenty of medieval songs as short as a modern pop song but, yes, there are also epics - and Tootler, the evidence suggests the musical performer, often solo, was the actor, as there are numerous comments about their enchanting performance weaving a spell on the audience. There is some evidence on performance practice in terms of length, which I address in this article under the heading, "Preludes, the length of songs, and postludes". It's as well to remember that this music dates from the days before widespread writing culture and TV, so the drama of story was largely a face to face performance. So how long does a dramatic narrative take to tell? It takes from the beginning to the end. In the example I give, Horn was performing a lai, with a prelude and a postlude. That is likely to have taken 20-30 minutes.

Anne, I'd be a willing volunteer to hear your story from start to finish.

The Sandman, I play in unequal temperaments a lot, and I never notice that I or an audience have to make any auditory adjustments.

Donuel, I outline the medieval modes in this article, under the heading "Medieval modes ". Jack, the medieval modal system certainly was relevant for secular music. A great deal of secular music follows the modes exactly, though not all of it does, and the music that doesn't was what Jerome of Moravia called "irregular".

Some bloke - if you have any evidence at all about medieval tempo I'd really like to see it. I don't know of any. The baroque is different - we have evidence for that.