=Secular Art Song=.—The secular life of the 15th and 16th centuries, as well as the Church, had an art music, which, like the other music of the period was _vocal_, not solos with accompaniments, but _choral_, consisting of three or more parts; this we may call a species of vocal chamber music. We can trace the development of this form of musical composition to an application of the principle of Discant to secular or Folk-melodies. The minstrels, as mentioned in a previous lesson, were accustomed to improvise accompanying parts to a familiar song—a favorite custom was that of adding two parts—for the entertainment of their hearers. This process was not a haphazard one, but followed fixed rules. The absence of a simple system of notation, however, prevented the accumulation of musical records. And when minstrelsy ceased to exist as a calling, only the memory of the crude attempts of the minstrels remained. But the principle was not lost. Fortunately for the good of the art, the trained musicians of the Church took it up, and, calling to their aid the resources of their art as used in the music of the Church, applied them all to secular melodies, the songs of the people. =The Predecessors of the Madrigal=.—Several of the forms of secular music found in Italy, the Frottole (song of the mass or crowd), and the Vilanelle (village or peasant songs), were used in a crude way by the musicians of the people as airs to which to add accompanying parts. Both Germans and English made similar use of their folk melodies. But since the text was usually of a humorous, or a witty character, the accompanying melodies or “_counterpoints_” were simple in style. The work of the trained composers along this line resulted in the Madrigal, which shows a union of the musical spirit of the people with the finest poetic art; the melodies had the style of the popular music, but they were used with technical skill.