Sumer is icumen in

For gradually life in Europe settled down and leisure became more general.

The first piece of written secular music, composed in parts and of a kind which still sounds beautiful to us, is called Sumer Is Icumen In.

Just at the time when Salisbury Cathedral was being built, when St. Francis was living in Italy, and when Dante was writing his wonderful poetry, there lived in Reading Abbey a monk, John of Fornste, who came from a village in Norfolk.

He wrote this song for six voices, not to sacred words, but about the joy of English country life.