Most of the early music that we have today still in print is primarily sacred music. This music, for the most part, is in the form of sections of the Mass, such as the Gloria, Kyrie and Agnus Dei. Most people of the Middle Ages were poor peasants who worked all day for meager wages and had no idle time lounging the way the upper classes did. Therefore, there are few extant secular compositions of music from this era. The rise of a new middle class, however, gave financial freedom for some people to spend time and money on entertainment...
contain composers in what they wrote, because of its dwindling power and influence. The church had no hope of containing a growing love and appreciation for new music. Music is a definition of emotion and certainly these times were full of great deeds, as well as great suffering. The Black Death decimated the population of most of Europe, but if one single item from this time period could be called beneficial, it would be the song we all know and grew up with as children:

Ring around the rosies,

Pocket full of posies,

Ashes, ashes

We all fall down.