laude) or lauda spirituale was the most important form of vernacular sacred song in Italy in the late medieval era and Renaissance.
The lauda was often associated with Christmas, and so is in part equivalent to the English carol, French noel, Spanish villancico,[1][2][3][4] and like these genres occupies a middle ground between folk and learned lyrics.
[5] Originally, the lauda was a monophonic (single-voice) form, but a polyphonic type developed in the early fifteenth century.
Many troubadours had fled their original homelands, such as Provence, during the Albigensian Crusade in the early 13th century, and settled in northern Italy where their music was influential in the development of the Italian secular style.
After 1480 the singing of laude was extremely popular in Florence, since the monk Savonarola (and others) had prohibited the dissemination of any other style of sacred vernacular music.