Other parts of Europe were also moving along similar lines, though
with more interruption. Northern Italy presents many analogies, especially
in the prominence of large commercial towns, but there was much
less unity of effort. England, too, was coming forward as a home of free
enterprise, though not equal to her neighbor across the North Sea.
The period is here called that of the Netherlanders. It has also been called Flemish or Belgian, neither of which is quite satisfactory. It might also be called Burgundian, since from 1363 for over a century it owed much to the four great dukes, Philip the Bold (d. 1404), John the Fearless (d. 1419), Philip the Good (d. 1467) and Charles the Bold (d. 1477), all of whom were friends of culture, especially music and painting. Their territory varied in extent, often reaching from Antwerp on the north clear to the Mediterranean, including fully half of modern France, favorite seats of the court being Ghent or Bruges. In the struggles between France and England the dukes usually sided with the latter—which throws light on the close connection in music between the Netherlanders and the English.
The Netherland school of sacred composition took its rise
in some way from the later developments of secular song in
northern France. If all the facts could be gathered, it is
likely that from the ablest Trouvères, like Adam de la Hâle
(d. 1287), to the earliest of the contrapuntists, like Dunstable
and Dufay (active by about 1420), a series of works could be
found with a continuous advance in method. While we cannot
adequately fill this gap of almost one hundred and fifty
years, it is clear that the transition from the solo minstrel-song
to the polyphonic mass was made through the form known as the
'chanson' (the same word as the canson of the Troubadours, but a
different thing). This was a secular piece in which a central
melody or air was enriched by one to three other voice-parts so
as to make a rude part-song.
The composer's object was not to produce a true chord-sequence (which
would have involved more harmonic knowledge than the age possessed),
but simply to match together two or three melodies as such. The foundation
melody or cantus firmus, selected from the stock of existing songs,
sacred or secular, was usually given to a middle voice (ultimately called
the 'tenor,' because it 'held' or carried the theme), and the added voices
were the 'bass' below and the 'alto' or 'soprano' ('treble') above, sometimes
both, giving four-part effects.
From the 13th century we have a considerable list of chansonniers,
with many works of varying complexity. It is evident
that the art of composition is converging upon part-writing of a
novel kind. In the 14th century for some reason the number
