Steve Shwartz: >I don't know when the term came into use or why. However, let me quote the >opening sentence of a favorite book, Donald Clarke's The Rise and Fall of >Popular Music: "In the beginning, there were two kinds of music: sacred >and secular." > >Up until roughly the 19th century, nobody divided music into popular and >classical. If Josquin wrote masses, he also wrote frottolas. As a historical aside I'd like to inject into the discussion the reminder that the Church was very fearful of allowing popular influences into the music. But composers continued to blend genres and the congregation seemed to appreciate it. Thus there were "parody" Masses which were not parodies but, rather, Masses that used a popular song as their melodic basis. There were also examples of the same music being used for both liturgical and popular purposes, though I can't come up with any examples right now. Ed