To eliminate conflicting traditions and to bring about uniformity in all branches of the service, singing schools were established by order and under the direction of ecclesiastical authorities (the first one in 314 at Rome by Pope Sylvester), in which the clerical singers received thorough instruction and training not only in the exact forms of all the chants to be used, but also in all matters of intonation, qualities of tone suited to different chants, enunciation, etc. These schools (_scholæ cantorum_) brought about as much uniformity and permanency as were possible in the absence of more exact notational means. But even with these great handicaps, a wealth of musical material was accumulated even before the twelfth century, whose plenitude and affluent beauty it would seem have never been rightly appreciated or exploited by the Catholic Church itself. The difficulties in deciphering the vague neumes in the mediæval manuscripts have undoubtedly operated to keep these treasures hidden away in their original depositories; yet the results of the labors of occasional enthusiasts in translating some of them into modern notation would indicate that here are unexplored channels for the permanent enrichment of the literature of Catholic music. In his _motu propria_ of November 22, 1903, Pope Pius X turned the attention of the Catholic world back to the glories of the mediæval Gregorian music and, indirectly, to the old manuscripts, treasure-stores of long forgotten melodies of the old church singers that are still hidden away in the monasteries and abbeys of Europe and northern Africa, as well as in the more accessible museums and libraries of Europe. The earliest known manuscripts date from the eighth, possibly the sixth, century. But aside from the traditional music of the liturgy, handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth and preserved intact, in Rome at least, by the severe discipline of the singing schools, we possess very few examples of music whose origin can with certainty be placed before the eleventh century, when our present staff notation came into being. Yet even with so little actual music of the period at hand we know with great definiteness the character of ecclesiastical music from contemporary writings, edicts, and decrees. II