The tendency of ecclesiasticism has always been to curb and discourage individual effort toward progress in all matters pertaining to the development of ritual-music. This was not altogether strange, for until modern times music existed in the church solely for liturgical purposes. It was not desired that its effectiveness should be considered apart from the religious idea with which it was so intimately associated in the liturgy. So completely were text and music merged into one artistic unity that the church authorities consistently and persistently resented any effort to glorify music for its own sake or at the expense of the liturgic idea. The state of immobility in which ritual music existed was the natural sequence to the church doctrine of immutability. Notwithstanding constant temptation to experiment and introduce innovations, the efforts of the Roman singers were rigidly restricted to the problems of perfecting the performance of the ritual music as prescribed by church law and tradition. From the standpoint of the liturgy (from which standpoint alone this music should be judged) the Roman singers must have attained a standard of ideal perfection in beauty and expressiveness of tonal utterance, and in preserving the original liturgical significance of the music in the service. So conservative was Rome and so fettered was Italy by the venerated traditions of the Papal Chapel that no change in musical methods was possible in this field. Outside of Italy, however, conditions were more favorable to progress. In the triumphant march of Christianity over Western Europe under the leadership of Rome many concessions were made to local customs and usages. The independent northerners steadily refused to accept with unquestioning allegiance the traditions of Rome in all matters pertaining to ritual-music, and thus stagnation was prevented and the hope of further progress for music in time became a reality. Out of the experiments and occasional innovations of the venturesome singers of the northern countries there were slowly and laboriously laid the foundations on which it became possible to construct the succeeding system of ecclesiastical polyphonic music. But when, in the fullness of time and with infinite patience and toil, this stately edifice was reared, how appropriate and fitting it was that the Roman Palestrina, himself associated for many years with the Sistine Chapel, should have been the one to lay on its altar the richest treasures of religious music that the Roman Church possesses, the purest, most complete and perfect expression of the spirit of the Roman liturgy!