578 BEPOBT— 1891. 



through whose efforts sacred music begau to assume a definite 

 tone and character very soon after the fourth century had 

 elapsed. Pope Sylvester, indeed, established a school of music 

 in Eome as early as the year 330. Thus we know something 

 of the state of sacred music several hundred years before we 

 have any idea of the progress of secular music. 



When we consider the attitude of the clergy of those days 

 to the people, the gulf which the education of the former and 

 the ignorance of the latter constituted, the fact that the 

 services of the Church were rendered in Latin, a language the 

 people did not understand, we shall not be surprised to find 

 that the Church music also was far removed from their sym- 

 pathy and comprehension. 



About the year 400, St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, being 

 struck with the want of clearness and definiteness in the 

 rendering of the melodies of the Church, endeavoured with 

 considerable success to collect those melodies in writing, and 

 also to fix in what scales or keys they should be sung — a 

 most difficult task, for, with all his ingenuity and enthusiasm, 

 he could only find or invent four scales, and they were im- 

 perfect and incomplete ; and, as neither stave nor notes were 

 thought of, he had to content himself with writing down his 

 music in mere scratches, or neumcB, as they were called — 

 signs which contained the smallest possible idea of the pitch 

 of notes, and certainly none as to their duration. 



Crude as these examples appear to us, we know that St. 

 Ambrose did much to raise music to the dignity of an art. A 

 form of chant invented by him, and in itself a great stride in 

 advance of those days, has been sung in the Cathedral of 

 Milan from the time of its invention to the present day, and 

 for hundreds of years the singing of the choir as established by 

 St. Ambrose was the most famous in Europe. 



Two hundred years later there arose a greater man than 

 the Bishop of Milan, in the person of Gregory the Great, Pope 

 of Eome. It was this same Gregory who sent St. Augustine 

 to England, who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury ; 

 and probably it was by the advice of Gregory that Augustine 

 introduced the choral service into Canterbury Cathedral thir- 

 teen hundred years ago, the first choral service ever held in 

 England. 



Gregory, like his predecessor Saint Ambrose, was anxious 

 that the music of his Church should not be at the mercy of 

 oral tradition, and he therefore collected in writing the various 

 melodies in use, and also composed others. The result of his 

 labours was that the scales were increased to eight, and a 

 complete mode or system of sacred music was introduced, to 

 eventually become known as Gregorian music, the history and 

 further progress of which would be very interesting to us did 



