THE V I O LIN AND ITS MUSIC, GEORGE HART, "HE VIOLIN: ITS ...

THE VIOL IN THE NETHERLANDS. 3 I
from his patronymic, the state of music with us in
the days of Edward the Black Prince was certainly
not sufficiently advanced to admit of the reception of
contrapuntal laws. The road opened up by De
Muris was soon trodden by William Dufay (the
earliest composer of masses written in counterpoint),
by Binchois, and others, comprised under the
designation of the Old Netherlands School of
Music.
The people of the Low Countries were at a very
early date attached to pursuits of an elevating and
humanizing character. They had in the fourteenth
century their various trade associations and guilds
of rhetoric ; the members of the latter belonging for
the most part to the working section of the community;
but sometimes they had enrolled among them
men at the top of the social scale, as instanced by
Philip the Fair having been a member of their body.
They were essentially associations instituted for the
very laudable purpose of occupying the leisure time
of their members with useful and rational amusement,
the drama and music receiving much attention.
The passion for rhetorical display among the
Netherlanders was fed mainly by these associations,
and during two centuries their friends and foes were
deluged with its showers, whenever an opportunity
seemed to present itself.
Tritely does Mr. Motley tell us "no unfavourable
opinion can be formed as to the culture of a nation
whose weavers, smiths, gardeners, and traders found