The extent to which sacred music was cultivated in the early church cannot be easily determined; we have no reason to think it was very great.
When Europe emerged from that sad state of confusion which came over it with the invasion of the northern barbarians, and music was revived as a science and an art, it was, like the other branches of learning, at first confined mostly to the clergy, and its productions were for a long time almost exclusively of a sacred character.
The church being an indestructible institution, her traditions are handed down by one generation of her children to another. It was thus that in a dark day of confusion and destruction she preserved for us the treasures of ancient learning and the arts; and the world to-day owes to her not only the modern developments of poetry, painting, sculpture, and architecture, but also the beautiful and varied combinations of modern music.
At first, as we have just said, there was no music but that which was dedicated to holy purposes, except such rude melodies as nature in all ages teaches the most uncultivated.
The musical drama did not exist; and music does not seem to have made any essential part of the pageants or spectacles destined for the public entertainment.
It was from the church that music was introduced into the chamber, the hall, and the street, and [pg 655] in the beginning secular music imitated and borrowed the forms of that which was sacred.
The music used in the sacred offices at first and during many centuries was the plain chant. How much of this chant was taken from pagan or Jewish sources cannot be determined, for authorities differ widely; but in any case it was so modified and improved by the fathers of the Eastern Church, and afterwards in the West by SS. Ambrose and Gregory, when they adapted it to the purposes of Christian worship, that it is now frequently called the ecclesiastical chant, though it is oftener called Gregorian, from the pope just mentioned.
In the beginning it was what its name indicates—plain and simple. It was sung in unison, and its melodies did not exceed the compass of the most ordinary voices.
But unison was found monotonous, as also the uniformity of time or measure generally observed in plain chant. The first departure from the old and severe forms was made when, about the middle of the IXth century, they introduced a sort of rude harmony constructed on the chant.
But this did not satisfy the craving for change, and the love of novelty, once indulged, led the way to many excesses.