Little is known about Hungarian music prior to the 11th century, when the first Kings of Hungary were Christianized and Gregorian chant was introduced. During this period a bishop from Venice wrote the first surviving remark about Hungarian folk song when he commented on the peculiar singing style of a maid . Church schools in Hungary taught Western Christian chanting, especially in places like Esztergom, Nyitra, Nagyvárad, Pannonhalma, Veszprém, Vác and Csanád ; and later schools began focusing on singing, spreading Latin hymns across the country.
The first known example of exchange between Hungarian and Western European music is from the 13th century, the "first encounter with the more secular melodic world of the Western world" .