Nevertheless there was an influence in another direction. An art form was invented, which by the end of this period had established itself as the type of a musical form whenever the composer would arrive at something more spontaneous than could conveniently be attained by the way of a motette or conduit. That form was the madrigal. The meaning of the name is unknown. Some have derived it from Mary, and point to the sacred madrigals, many of which were composed by all the contrapuntal writers. Others have assigned a different origin for it, and it is not possible now to decide which is the true one. Enough if we find this form emerging from obscurity by the middle of the fifteenth century. The first writer of compositions under this title whose name is known to us was Busnois, and in the same collection are compositions of the same class by many other composers of the Netherlandish schools. A madrigal was a secular composition, generally devoted to love, but in polyphonic style, and in one of the ecclesiastical modes. They were always vocal down to the seventeenth century, but from that time forward they were generally marked for voices and instruments. One of the best composers of madrigals was Arkadelt, of the Netherlandish school. The success of the great Orlando Lassus in this school has already been mentioned, together with the name of one of the best known of his compositions in this line (p. 167). The strange modulations, like that from F to E flat in one of Arkadelt's madrigals, are current incidents of the ecclesiastical mode in which they are written. Many of the secular works of this class are hardly to be distinguished from those intended for the Church, and some are to be met with, having two sets of words, one secular, occasionally almost profane; the other sacred, some hymn or other from the offices of divine service.