Note 6 — Chapter I · MUSIC OF THE EARLY AND MEDIÆVAL CHURCH AND EARLY SECULAR MUSIC

Such an expression of pleasure can be explained only when it is remembered that the monastic mind was thoroughly accustomed to being absolutely submissive to authority. Mediæval ecclesiastical authority dictated what was good or bad in musical theory and procedure, just as it did in the realms of morals, ethics, and religion; and authority decreed that only perfect intervals—fourths, fifths, and octaves—were usable, therefore they were pleasing. It took several centuries of the actual ‘practice’ of music to overcome the ban placed by ‘theory’ on the interval of the third in certain cadences.