The upper texts often became a confusing mixture of sacred and secular—and even anticlerical—poems, indicating its intended performance in courtly as well as ecclesiastical settings.
The plagal cadence, sometimes known as the Amen cadence from ecclesiastical use, is the progression from the chord of the subdominant to the tonic, IV - I.
He was apparently a very high ecclesiastical dignitary, for M. de la Mole smiled pleasantly, instead of getting angry, a circumstance which greatly impressed Julien.
One or two ruined cottages were dotted about the wood; and, according to Northmour, these were ecclesiastical foundations, and in their time had sheltered pious hermits.
Contrast Port-Royal with Versailles, and — whatever one's judgment of their religious and ecclesiastical aims — one must needs say that these men lived with dignity.