of names and works extant is not so large, but they are enough to show that the style is being cultivated with growing assurance. At the opening of the 15th century we are suddenly confronted by an imposing array of composers, represented by many works in several varieties, especially masses, motets and chansons, all showing plain connections with previous styles, but with an artistic quality that is new. Apparently, then, the 14th century saw the gradual transmutation of the secular part-song, often hardly more than a fugitive improvisation, into the extended mass, wrought out with careful study and fully written down so as to secure the intended effect. From the original stage, when the aim was the mere amusement of some courtly circle, to the final one, when the enrichment of the cathedral service was attempted, was a striking transition, though not unparalleled in later musical history.
Into this transition were gathered up all the discoveries of the ecclesiastical theorists who for two or three centuries had been at work upon the rudiments of polyphony as a science. But it appears that only when these monkish speculations had been touched by the spirit and spontaneity of popular song could a genuine type of fine art emerge.
As a hint of the richness of the 13th-century chanson period it may be
noted that in the dictionaries are the names of more than a score of writers
from whom at least 300 pieces exist—all, of course, mere songs or ballads, not
developed part-songs. The origin of these was in northern France. In the
14th century we have fewer names, like Jehannot Lescurel, the earliest to prefigure
the Netherland style, and Guillaume de Machau (d. c. 1372), from whom
many works are extant, including two-and three-part chansons, rondeaux and
motets, with one mass. All these worked in the neighborhood of Paris.
In the early 15th century we still hear of important Parisian déchanteurs—Cesaris, Tapissier, Carmen—thought worthy to rank with the leading Netherland
pioneers, besides the able Henricus de Zeelandia, whose writings are cited
as fully introducing the developed style of Dufay. His name shows that he
was himself a Netherlander.
44. Secular Melodies and the Mass.—Among the signs of the dependence of the Netherland school upon the traditions of secular music were the tendency of leading composers to write purely secular pieces and their constant use of secular melodies as 'subjects' for their masses and other church works. The absolute invention of 'subjects' being almost unknown, some favorite theme was selected as the thread about which
