In this travesty of the Mass a young girl, dressed to represent the Virgin, riding on an ass and carrying a child in her arms, was conducted to the church door.  Upon being admitted and riding up the aisle to the altar, the girl tethered the ass to the railing and sat on the steps until the service was finished.  The Credo, Gloria, etc., all ended with a “hee-haw,” and at the conclusion of the service the officiating priest brayed three times, and was answered by the congregation.  The mixing of the vernacular with Latin in this service is the first instance of the use of any language but Latin in church music.

This quasi-symbolical pantomime gave rise in time to the mediaeval Passion Plays, or Mysteries, as they were called.  That these travesties of the Mass took different forms in various countries is very evident when we remember the description of the “Abbot of Unreason,” in Scott’s “Abbot.”  In England, among other absurdities such as the “Pope of Fools,” the “Ball Dance,” etc., they also had the festival of the “Boy Bishop,” in which, between the sixth and twenty-eighth of December, a boy was made to perform all the functions of a bishop.

It would seem that all this has but little bearing upon the development of music.  As a matter of fact it was a most potent factor in it, for music was essentially and exclusively a church property.  By permitting the people to secularize the church rites at certain seasons, it was inevitable that church music would also become common property for a time, with this difference, however, that the common people could carry the tunes away with them, and the music would be the only thing remaining as a recollection of the carnival.  Indeed, the prevalence of popular songs soon became such that writers of church music began to use them instead of their being derived from church music, as was originally the case.  This continued to such an extent that almost up to 1550 a mass was known by the name of the popular song it was based upon, as, for instance, the mass of the “Man in Armour,” by Josquin des Pres, and those entitled “Je prends conge” and “Je veult cent mille ecus.”

Now we know that the tempus perfectum was par excellence [9/8] and [3/4] time.  It was natural therefore that these first church tunes should have been changed to dances in the hands of the common people.  Even in these dances it is interesting to note that the same symbolic significance appears to be present, for the earliest form of these dances was the “round song,” or roundelay, and it was danced in a circle.