Fran-ci, Ro-ma-ni at-que cunc-ti cre-du-li,
Luc-tu pun-gun-tur et mag-na mo-les-ti-a,
in-fan-tes, se-nes, glo-ri-o-si prin-ci-pes,
Nam clangit or-bis de-tri-men-tum Ka-ro-li.
Heu! mi-hi mi-se-ro!]

The earliest suggestion of the staff that we have is that in the work
of Hucbald already mentioned, in which he proposed to print the words
in the spaces of the staff of eleven lines, placing each syllable
according to its pitch (p. 141). The staff, in connection with neumes,
as given above in Fig. 34, probably came into use about the same time
as that when Hucbald's book was written, but it was not until the days
of Guido of Arezzo that the staff was employed in anything like its
modern form, nor is it certain that Guido had anything to do with
introducing it. In one of the manuscripts of his book letters are
written upon the lines and spaces, and in another the neumes are
given. The note head was not invented until some little time after his
death, probably about fifty years.

[Illustration: Fig. 36.

NOTATION OF THE FRENCH TROUVERES.]

By the time of Franco of Cologne, the four-lined staff with square
notes had come into use, the notes having the value already assigned
them in the chapter upon Franco of Cologne. (See p. 145.) The place of
fa was marked by a clef, and with some few exceptions all the musical
notation from this time forward is susceptible of approximate
translation. The term approximate is used above by reason of the fact
that no sharps or flats were written until long after this period, but
it is thought that they were occasionally interpolated by the singers
quite a long time before it became customary to put them into the
notation. In this way, for example, a piece of music beginning and
ending on the degree appropriate to fa might be brought within the
limits of the key of F by the singer changing B natural to B flat
wherever it occurred. Our information in regard to this practice is
extremely limited, and, in fact, rests upon two or three detached
hints. The signature was not employed until some centuries later.

As already mentioned in chapter XI, there was no measure notation for
a long time after Franco's death. The data are uncertain concerning
the exact time when the bar began to be used to mark the measure. Its
earliest use was that of marking the end of the music belonging to a
line of poetry. This is the same use as now made of the double bar in
vocal music. In fa