“What makes these schools start?” we can hear you ask. Many things. Sometimes people are oppressed by their rulers and in trying to forget their troubles, they naturally want to express themselves in the art they know, and in this way groups get together and a school grows. Sometimes the Church is the cause of schools of music, literature, and art, and we shall see in this chapter how the Church influenced the schools of music of this time and made it one of the most important periods in this story. Sometimes, too, the climate has caused the development of different styles as we told you in the chapter on folk music. It often happens too, that a great man or a great school in one country affects other countries. FRANCO-FLEMISH SCHOOL The first real group of composers to be called a “School” lived in the part of Europe that today covers the north of France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The composers who were born from 1400 to about 1530, in the so-called Low Countries belonged to this school. Some writers claim that there were three schools, and that the Franco-Flemish (Gallo-Belgic) is a bridge between the Paris school of the 14th century and the Netherlands school of the 16th. But it would be impossible to say when one school began and another ended, as they all wrote the same kind of music. As the older composers were the teachers of the younger, the interesting thing to know is that many of these masters of the north of Europe went to Italy, Spain, France, and to Germany, and spread the knowledge of the “new art” of counterpoint and vocal poly-melody (many melodies) and filled positions of importance in the churches. They were considered such splendid teachers, that many of the young students of other nationalities went to Holland and Belgium to be taught. Zeelandia, a Hollander, an important master in this new school, tried to get rid of the awkward intervals, fourths and fifths, which were used in organum (see Chapter VII), and was the first composer to give the subject or _cantus firmus_ to the soprano voice instead of the tenor. Doesn’t it seem strange that it took so long to let the soprano have the main tune? But the most important composer of his period (1400–1474) was Guillaume Dufay, from Flanders, who was a chorister in the Papal choir (choir of the Pope) in Rome. He made the rules and imitation for the canon (a grown up round) and he was the first composer to use the folk song _L’homme armé_ (The Man in Armor) in a mass.