A HISTORY OF VOCAL MUSIC. 583 



them we owe the only authentic history we possess of the 

 music of those times. 



The world of art — of music, painting, architecture, sculp- 

 ture, (fcc. — is under great obligations to the Church of those 

 early days, which contained men of such high culture and 

 artistic tastes as Gregory and Guido ; but, on the other hand, 

 we cannot but regret that they did not give us a broader view 

 of musical matters, and furnish us with some knowledge of 

 the music of the people, instead of contenting themselves with 

 merely mentioning that songs of the people existed. What 

 do we really know about the secular music of that time ? 



In the eleventh century — i.e., in Franco's time — troubadours 

 or wandering minstrels (later on called minnesingers) first 

 appeared at Toulouse, in France, where was established a 

 famous academy for the study of secular music and poetry. 

 These men carried the love of their art into every country 

 in western Europe. Their songs — ballads, as they were sub- 

 sequently called — were of so exalted and noble a tone that 

 they w^ere destined to have an enormous influence on humanity 

 in that age of chivalry and knight-errantry ; and probably no 

 more enthusiastic and j)opular race of musicians and poets 

 ever trod this earth. Kings, princes, and nobles became 

 troubadours, many of them famous in history, and their 

 names were legion. I need only remind you of Eichard I. and 

 Blondel. 



The result of this enthusiasm was that men became nobler 

 and purer, and woman was no longer regarded as the slave of 

 man, but was respected and esteemed. From a musical point 

 of view, the love of melody and song made great progress 

 amongst the people, though their progress in the vocal art 

 itself was hindered from the fact that these songs were sung 

 from memory, or, perhaps, composed for the occasion at their 

 festive gatherings. 



The troubadours themselves must have felt this, for in later 

 years they had a plan of writing down their songs by means of 

 notes or points, which, to use the words of the dictionary, were 

 counter to or over against each other, from which system is 

 probably derived our word " counterpoint." They then came 

 under the influence of the works of such men as Franco, and 

 finally, from causes which I cannot now discuss, the troubadours 

 ceased to exist by the fifteenth century, their chief musical 

 legacy to posterity being probably the "national song," the 

 "folk-song," as the Germans have it, or the "chanson" 

 of the French. This, in its turn, was the precursor of the 

 ballad, a form of song exceedingly popular from the days of 

 Queen Elizabeth. 



When once secular music became influenced by the rules 

 of harmony, as written by such men as Franco, minstrelism, 



