The lives of most medieval composers are generally little known, and some are so obscure that the only information available is what can be inferred from the contents and circumstances of their surviving music.
[2][n 1] Composers of the Early Middle Ages (500–1000) almost exclusively concerned themselves with sacred music, writing in forms such as antiphons, hymns, masses, offices, sequences and tropes.
Simultaneous with the spur of secular activity, Léonin and Pérotin of the religious Notre-Dame school (part of the broader Ars antiqua) developed polyphony in forms such as the clausula, conductus and organum.
The music of the Trecento in Italy led by Francesco Landini is sometimes considered part of the ars nova style, but by the mid-14th century the movements had become too independent to warrant such a grouping.
The major figures of ars subtilior included both composers from France and Italy; particularly Johannes Ciconia and Solage.