three thousand cavalry on the eastern bank
of the Elbe River, in what is now north-
eastern Germany. Charles and his com-
mander, the Duke of Alba, had about thir-
teen thousand foot soldiers and five
thousand cavalry. This force of Spanish,
Flemish, and German soldiers took up
their lines on the river’s western bank.
With the advantage in numbers, Charles
decided to take the initiative and attack on
the morning of April 24, 1547.
Early that morning, men of the impe-
rial army armed with muskets and har-
quebuses forded the Elbe and created a
strong bridgehead on the eastern shore.
Maneuvering in a thick fog, and told of an
easy ford of the river by a local peasant, a
large squadron of Spanish cavalry fol-
lowed, throwing the forward scouts of the
Schmalkaldic League into a panic. Several
hundred yards to the east, John of Saxony
then drew up his forces, with infantry
flanked by cavalry, to face the assault. Alba,
forming a squadron of heavy cavalry,
charged the left flanks of the Protestant
position and threw its men into a panic.
In the meantime, the harquebusiers and
lancers were attacking the Saxon horses on
the other wing, causing the horses to break
and run into a nearby forest. The Protes-
tant infantry remained to face flanking at-
tacks on both sides. The battle continued
for two hours before the Saxon foot sol-
diers finally broke and retreated from the
field.
With the defeat at Mühlberg, the
Schmalkaldic League lost two of its most
important leaders, John of Saxony and the
Duke of Brunswick, as prisoners. The
league broke apart and submitted to
Charles V, but the dispute between Protes-
tant rulers and the emperor would con-
tinue for eight years before the Treaty of
Augsburg would temporarily settle their
differences.SEEALSO: Charles Vmusic ...............................................
Composers of the Renaissance built on a
centuries-long tradition of sacred music
that had its roots in the plainsong chants
and Masses of the early Middle Ages. But
whereas a single line of unaccompanied
melody, improvised or committed to
memory, had once sufficed for the chant-
ing of the Catholic Mass, the psalms, and
other sacred music, the late Middle Ages
had seen a flowering of polyphonic (multi-
part) music and written compositions, and
the emergence of professional composers.
Polyphonic music reached new heights of
complexity in the late Middle Ages, as the
range of voices was extended and new
scales and melodic intervals were put to
use.
Mass settings and motets remained the
most popular musical forms, but many Re-
naissance composers began working in
secular song forms such as the Italian
madrigal and the French chanson, which
grew out of the sung poems of the medi-
eval troubadours. An important school of
musical composition emerged in fifteenth-
century Burgundy. Led by Guillaume Du-
fay, it bridged the medieval and Renais-
sance periods. Johannes Ockeghem was a
master of counterpoint, able to set several
complex lines of music in motion from a
simple motif, a precursor to the elaborate
fugues of Johann Sebastian Bach in a later
century. Josquin des Prez, was the most
significant composer of the Flemish school,
whose musicians and composers were in
high demand throughout Europe.
Purely instrumental music also
emerged during the Renaissance in a vari-
ety of forms: The toccata (“touched” rathermusic