In the north of France and in England the trouvères (both ‘trouvère’ and ‘troubadour’ mean ‘an inventor or finder’) followed close upon the troubadours, whom they freely imitated both in style and poetic themes. In their artistic activities, however, they were more closely associated with ecclesiastical poets and musicians than were the troubadours, there was less divergence from the church style in their melodies, and hence their efforts entered more directly as a shaping force in the succeeding epoch of musical development in Flanders and England. They were also more frequently of humble origin than were the troubadours. Adam de la Hále (about 1230 to 1287), probably the most conspicuously gifted in the long line of worthy trouvères, was of humble birth, the son of a well-to-do burgher of Arras, in Picardy. He was a master of the _chanson_, sixteen of which are preserved written in three parts and in rondeau form. These are among the oldest known examples of secular compositions in more than two parts. In the same manuscript with these _chansons_ are preserved six Latin motets in florid counterpoint. His name looms large in musical history, however, from the fact that his dramatic pastoral play called _Le jeu de Robin et Marion_ (written for the French court at Naples, where the first performance was given in 1285) is the earliest example of what we now call comic opera. It is written in dialogue and grouped into scenes; airs, couplets, and pieces for two voices singing in alternation but never together are scattered through the play, during the performance of which eleven personages appear. This quaint song-play, which is a development or expansion of the earlier _pastourelle_, was given in Arras in 1896 during the festival in commemoration of the composer. Adam’s task seems, however, to have been little more than that of a compiler, since the most of the songs were not of his own composition. Nevertheless he is altogether one of the most interesting personalities in the pre-Netherland period.