Music was not hampered, like literature, by the division of languages, and might, under different circumstances, have given a more accurate expression to the Belgian national spirit. Its style was, unhappily, still so formal that national characteristics cannot immediately be recognized in the works of Guillaume Dufay, of Chimay (1350-1432) and Giles de Binche, Chapelmasters to Philip the Good, and those of the Fleming Jean Ockeghem (dec. 1494-6) and of Josquin des Pres, of Hainault (_c._ 1450-1521). These musicians, who enjoyed European celebrity and exerted a widespread influence on the musical movement in France and Italy, are well known to musical historians as having largely contributed to the development of polyphonic music as opposed to the monody of the Gregorian chant. They were thus pioneers in the art of musical ornamentation, and their method may be associated with the flowery images of Chastellain's style, the architectural luxury of Burgundian Gothic and the display of colouring of the early Flemish painters. In all branches of intellectual activity, Belgium enters decidedly, from the beginning of the fifteenth century, into the Renaissance period. But, unlike the Italian, the Belgian Renaissance was at first only very slightly affected by the study of the classics. It was more realistic in its aims than the mediaeval period. It revelled in the display of harmony, whether in sound, colour or form, and abundance of tracery, but as far as the subject was concerned it remained essentially and profoundly Christian. [_SOCIAL LIFE_]