Medieval music Plainsong Plainsong, also known as plainchant, and more specifically Gregorian, Ambrosian, and Gallican chant, refer generally to a style of monophonic, unaccompanied, early Christian singing performed by monks and developed in the Roman Catholic Church mainly during the period 800-1000 . The differences may be marginal—or even great, in some cases. These differences reflect the great ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity that existed after the fall of the Roman Empire on the Italian peninsula. Different monastic traditions arose within the Roman Catholic Church throughout Italy, but at different places and at different times. Even a musical non-specialist can hear the difference, for example, between the straightforward tone production in the Ambosian chants from Milan and the chants from Benevento, which display a distinct "eastern" ornamental quiver in the voice, reflecting the vocal traditions of the Greek Orthodox Church. Yet, in spite of the differences, the similarities are great. In any event, the formal Gregorian chant was imposed throughout Italy by 1100, although the music of Greeks rites continued to be heard at various places on the peninsula, especially in those places which Byzantium had once held, such as Ravenna or in the southern peninsula, which had been a refuge for those Greeks fleeing the great Byzantine iconoclast controversies before the year 1000. Obviously, where Greek rites were practiced, the chants were sung in the Greek language and not in Latin, as they were in the Roman Catholic liturgy. Music of the Trecento The Trecento, from about 1300 to 1420, was a period of vigorous activity in Italy in the arts, including painting, architecture, literature, and music. The music of the Trecento pioneered new forms of expression, especially in secular song and in the use of vernacular language, Italian. In these regards, the music of the Trecento may seem more to be a Renaissance phenomenon; however, the predominant musical language was more closely related to that of the late Middle Ages, and musicologists generally classify the Trecento as the end of the medieval era. Secular music Secular music before the year 1500 was largely the work of jongleurs, troubadours and mimes. This was the age of the great vernacularization of language in Italy—indeed, throughout Europe; that is, people started to write and sing songs in their native language, which was not Latin, but whatever brand of vernacular medieval neo-Latin was spoken in their area. Thus, Dante showed with the