LATE-SIXTEENTH-CENTURY France—the era of Ronsard and Montaigne—has long been a focus for literary scholarship ; but for musicologists, this has been one of the least investigated areas of Renaissance music history. While some repertories from the period (the polyphonic chanson and musique mesuree, for example) received a certain amount of attention in the middle years of the twentieth century, others (liturgical music, chanson spirituelle, psalm translations) went virtually unstudied. Biographical details for many important composers and performers of the time have been scant, as well as information about those who purchased and listened to their music ; the absence of basic information has been a significant obstacle to understanding musical life in France during this period. In recent years, however, there has been a renewal of interest in the French Renaissance, and several major studies have begun to address these gaps.

Among the most striking features of the period was the near-complete domination of the music printing industry by the Parisian firm of Le Roy & Ballard. Unlike the more competitive environment that characterized Italian printing centers such as Venice, the increasingly centralized economy of France and its system of royal privileges created a condition of virtual monopoly. Le Roy & Ballard's printed repertory is the largest single body of evidence we have about musical practice, so that the market strategies of the firm and the needs, abilities, and tastes of its public inevitably color our understanding of the period. Another significant aspect of these years was the domestic unrest of the Wars of Religion ; violence and disruption affected the lives and careers of musicians, and the fostering of new views on the role of music in religious life and of new kinds of music for different religious factions had a significant impact on musical production. Finally, the particular directions taken by French humanist thinking had clear consequences for music. I have organized the discussion that follows around these three areas—music printing, religious controversy, and musical humanism—to illustrate some of the most distinctive aspects of French musical life in the second half of the century.