The peculiar character of the English Reformation in its early stages was reflected in the ritual-music of the newly-founded national church. The leaders of the Protestant movement on the continent were mostly men who sprang from the ranks of the common people. It was in large measure a democratic and popular movement. It was only natural that the music of the people should find an echoing response in the music of the church which sprang from such a foundation, and thus the chorale, adapted from or closely related to folk-music, forced its way into the Lutheran ritual-music and exercised a profound influence on all aspects of the worship-music of German Protestantism. The English Reformation had no such popular basis. The various stages of its progress were in the main determined by royal edicts or by acts of parliaments subservient to the royal will. No channel was open through which the music of the people could exert any appreciable influence on the figured music of the Anglican Church. The fragrance of the English folk-song may be detected in many an example of English hymnology, but no such aroma ever penetrated into the atmosphere of the anthem or the ‘service.’ When the break with Rome came and the reorganized Church became an established fact, an astonishingly small number of changes were made, considering the momentous nature of the revolt, either in the general body of ecclesiastical officers of the Church or among the church musicians. For the first century of its existence the figured music of the Anglican service was almost identical in character with the corresponding portions of the Roman Catholic service. The style and structure of the anthem with English words differed in no respect from the Latin motet. The traditions of English church-music, traditions whose effects are still to be felt in the choral portions, were firmly laid by men deeply skilled in polyphonic writing, men whose learning and musicianship made them worthy compeers of the great continental contrapuntists, Lassus and Palestrina.