ree or four times as great as at the
present. Busnois appears to have been on cordial terms with the duke,
accompanying him in his travels.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SCHOOLS OF THE NETHERLANDS.

The wealth and commercial activity of the Low Countries, known as
Flanders, Brabant and Hainault, had now become greater than that of
any other part of Europe, Italy perhaps excepted. The organization of
the Communes, which began, indeed, in France as early as the tenth
century, naturally reached a greater extent during the crusades, when
so many of the higher and more energetic nobility were absent in the
Holy Land, since the defense and order of the people at home had to be
maintained by those who were left behind. Under these circumstances,
the power naturally drifted into the strongest hands available, which
quite as naturally were those of the capable merchants and
manufacturers of the burgher class. Hence the condition of society,
while much hampered by the restrictions of the guilds requiring
children to be brought up to the occupation of the parents, was
nevertheless more favorable to the freedom of the individual than at
any previous period. These social elements combining with the wealth
aforesaid, and the public spirit which has always distinguished the
mercantile classes engaged in foreign commerce upon a large scale,
united to form an environment favorable to the development of art;
and, as music was the form of art which happened to be most in demand
at the time, the effects of the stimulating environment were
immediately seen. It was perhaps partly in consequence of the burgher
character of the classes most engaged in music in Flanders that the
form music there developed should have been so exclusively vocal. All
the work of this school, extending over two centuries, was either
exclusively vocal, or written with main consideration for the voice,
the instrumental additions, if any, having never taken on a
descriptive or colorative character.

The schools of the Netherlands came into prominence about 1425, and
endured, with little loss of prestige, for two centuries, or until
1625. During this period there was a succession of eminent names in
music in these countries, and a great progress was made in polyphony,
and a transition begun out of that into harmony (which was in part
accidental, owing to their outdoing themselves, as we shall see).
Moreover, in the later times, quite a number of eminent men emigrate