When is the oldest melody from that you can sing from memory, without looking up the lyrics or sheet music? (except an actual music historian created this poll and is not going to let you answer with misconceptions)

*For instance, if you're going to answer "Renaissance" because you know Greensleeves, you should be singing it with the actual lyrics that were used by the broadside ballad at the time. If you sing the lyrics of "What Child Is This," then you answer "1850-1899" because that setting comes about in 1865.

No modern Christmas carols predate the late 1500s, and most are from the 19th or 20th centuries. Yes, including the ones you've been told are "actually medieval." They are not. O Come O Come Emmanuel is from the 19th century. Nursery rhymes and English/Scottish/Irish folk songs are also far more recent than you think, at least in terms of the definitive evidence for them.

If you don't know when your song is from, and you can't find definitive information on it to make it fit within one of these categories, pick the oldest one where there is evidence.

Do not tell me that this poll is "Western-biased" unless you have detailed knowledge of a non-Western musical tradition that has secular melodies that are still commonly-sung - and that you personally know by heart - that musicologists/ethnomusicologists know for certain predate 1000 CE. I am phrasing it this way because I am not actually unfamiliar with global musical traditions, lol.

I realize the uses of "look up" in the beginning might seem to contradict each other so to be clear: this should be a song that you can sing WITHOUT looking up the lyrics or melody. You should know those by heart. However, I DO want you to look up the TITLE of the work on Wikipedia so that you can see what time period it is from, rather than relying on what you think you know about it in that regard. Hope that clears things up :)

Also the Dies Irae I'm talking about specifically is this one, as in the melody and words by Thomas of Celano from the 13th century. Not that I necessarily doubt at this point that the people voting know it, as it's commonly used in popular culture, but if you're thinking of other melodies that use the "Dies Irae" text, those are from later. For instance, the Verdi Requiem one is from 1874. (And generally, anything that uses an orchestra that big wouldn't predate the 19th century, lol. Orchestras in general date to late 17th at the earliest)

If people could circulate this more among non-musicians, that would be great, since based on the current results, either this is a heavily musical group or people aren't following directions :)