But there was something more than this in the sudden popularity which Marot’s Psalms acquired among all classes. It was the revival of an old Christian custom; it popularized a new mode of worship. In the earlier and purer days of the Church, singing had been congregational; but it had long since become the business of priest and chorister solely. The old tunes had grown obsolete, and airs wedded to mundane songs had been introduced into the Church service. “The _Miserere_ is chanted to a jig-tune,” said a Catholic writer. Other influences, many of them sacerdotal, were at work to widen the interval between the priest and his flock--to reduce public worship into a sort of theatrical performance in which he and his colleagues were the actors, and the others the spectators and listeners. But if the people did not sing at church, there is ample evidence that they sang at home; and it is probably owing to this circumstance that we possess so many partsongs in our old music-books. It is one of the glories of the Reformation that it gave a religious character to these songs. Luther and Calvin both saw how music might be employed to advance the truth, and neglected no opportunity of recommending the study of singing. Luther had but a poor opinion of a school-master who could not sing, and ranked music next to theology. “It has been commanded unto all men,” he said, “to propagate the word of God by every possible means, not merely by speech, but by writing, painting, sculpture, _psalms_, _songs_, and musical instruments.” He composed many tunes: these and the chorales of Senfel penetrated into France, and German airs form the basis of a large part of the French hymnal. Calvin took no less pains at Geneva, and the tunes composed by his desire were distributed by thousands, each part being printed separately to facilitate their execution. Even Catholics were to be found using these Protestant scores--a practice which Florimond de Remond, the historian of heresy, bitterly condemns: “The wise world--stupidly wise in this--which judges of things by outward appearance only, praised this kind of amusement, not seeing that under this chant, or rather new enchantment, a thousand pernicious novelties crept into their souls.”[65] The time came, however, when even psalm-singing was interdicted. At Bourges, in April, 1559, the Reformed began to hold open-air meetings, similar to those at Paris, to the great annoyance of the orthodox, who caused proclamation to be made forbidding the singing of Psalms under pain of death, and a gibbet was erected, _in terrorem_, in the middle of the promenade (the Pré Fichault); but even that grim monitor failed to terrify the Reformers into submission. In the Velay, the opposition was equally determined. The very day an order was issued forbidding the people to sing the Psalms of that “sacrilegious apostate,” Marot, the heretics, “fearing neither God, pope, king, law, nor justice, sang them all the louder.”[66]