But it should be further noticed that in the relation of text to music there is revealed the most glaring weakness of the Netherlanders. Until the brilliant close of this period was nearly reached, the text was of quite secondary importance. Starting from a basis of theory and science, counterpoint, in all its evolutionary processes, became largely a matter of mathematical calculation in which the sound, not the word, governed. So deeply were composers absorbed in working out the problems of pure sound-combinations and so little importance did they attach to the text that they did not deem it necessary to write down more than the opening word of each movement of the mass, as _Sanctus_ or _Benedictus_, leaving it to the intelligence of the trained singers to fill in the remainder of the familiar texts as they saw fit. This laxness in respect to the text invited many abuses, such as the mixing of secular and sacred words, the interpolation of unauthorized words, the blending of texts from various parts of the liturgy, to the danger of errors in dogma, which eventually placed the whole structure of polyphonic music under the reproach of the church authorities. II Notwithstanding faults due to the immaturity of the art and a certain false perspective, the church composers of this period displayed, up to their light, a rare devotion to the one supreme purpose of enhancing the impressiveness of the religious rites and their liturgic significance, thus making possible a line of unbroken continuity in the development of the art of unaccompanied vocal polyphony, which was destined to become the peculiar glory of the Netherland era. Trained in cloisters and choirs, acknowledging the church as their only patron and master to whose service they dedicated all their powers, these men were far removed from worldly affairs and especially protected from the distracting and corrupting influences of the savage strife and turmoil of the times. Every important ecclesiastical establishment maintained its own staff of composers, for, until the founding of musical publishing houses soon after 1500 made the multiplication and circulation of musical scores easy, the labor and expense of copying the manuscripts prevented any extensive exchange of musical compositions among the thousands of ecclesiastical establishments that dotted western Europe and each establishment was compelled to depend largely on its own resources for its more elaborate ritual-music. For the most part the ecclesiastical musicians passed their lives in the absorbing routine of their official duties, close to the heart of their religion and living constantly in an atmosphere permeated with austere ecclesiastical traditions. Thus the best Catholic music of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, unaffected by the external conditions and influences that brought weakness and decline to some of the other arts, preserved its serene course of development toward its