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explorations in renaissance culture
43 (2017) 109-139
brill.com/erc
Streaming Music into Renaissance Studies:
The Case of L’homme armé
Kevin N. Moll
East Carolina University
mollk@ecu.edu
Abstract
College-level courses devoted to Renaissance culture typically put a premium on
incorporating primary sources and artifacts of a literary, art-historical, and historical
nature. Yet the monuments of contemporaneous music continue to be marginalized
as instructional resources, even though they are fully as worthy both from an aesthet-
ic and from a historical standpoint. This study attempts to address that problem by
invoking the tradition of early polyphonic masses on L’homme armé – a secular tune
used as a unifying melody (cantus firmus) throughout settings of the five-movement
liturgical cycle. Beginning by explaining the origins and significance of the putative
monophonic tune, the paper then details how a series of composers utilized the
song in interestingly varied ways in various mass settings. Subsequently it sketches
out a context for mysticism in the liturgical-musical tradition of L’homme armé, and
points to some compelling parallels with the contemporaneous art of panel painting,
specifically as represented in the works of Rogier van der Weyden.
Keywords
Franco-Flemish polyphony – mass cycle – cantus firmus – pedagogy – L’homme armé –
Rogier van der Weyden – mysticism
* This paper is a substantially altered version of the South-Central Renaissance Conference
William B. Hunter Lecture, delivered in St Louis, mo on March 3, 2011 with the title “Some
Straight-Shooting Observations on the Early L’homme armee Masses.” Because the study is
being published in a journal that traditionally has been devoted primarily to non-musical
studies, effort has been made to refrain here from overindulgence in specialized musical vo-
cabulary and to clarify those terms that are used.
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Our brave new world of academia tends to place a high value on—among
other things—multi-disciplinary approaches to course content. Accordingly,
a typical medieval history text these days will include information on period
literature and art history, and to some extent those fields have been assimilated
into mainstream courses of undergraduate study. On the other hand, the art
of music remains decidedly a stepchild in that process. For example, whereas
explaining the significance of the sculptural programs of Chartres cathedral
lies well within the purview of an introductory course in medieval studies, no
instructor or textbook author would feel it remiss if she or he refrained from
including an equally detailed account of the organa quadrupla of the Parisian
composer Perotinus—a precisely coeval figure.1 Even though the art of the lat-
ter is arguably no less significant historically than that of the former, current
medieval and early modern survey courses are not any more likely to include
music as an integral component than they ever were.
Two factors primarily account for the diminishment in the modern era of
the value of early music: first, the sonic monuments of the time, being subject
to the need for re-creation, suffered a wholly ephemeral existence compared
to buildings and visual artifacts, whose actuality does not depend upon exigen-
cies of notation and performance. Thus, the historical continuity of the mas-
sive cathedrals was more-or-less assured even in the face of centuries’ worth of
changing fashions, whereas the contemporaneous music was not only neglect-
ed in performance over time, it happened that musicians lost the ability even
to decipher the period notation.2 The second major reason why early music
continues to be devalued in comparison to its sister arts is the unfortunate fact
that neither students nor their instructors are expected to possess the neces-
sary competence in the fundamentals of music or its history.
Yet it can hardly be disputed that the glorious achievements of mu-
sic in the era of vocal polyphony emphatically parallel in quality the other
1
2
1 Reference is being made here to two works in particular, namely the Graduals Viderunt
omnes and Sederunt principes. Their composer, known as Perotinus magnus (fl. c. 1200), or
simply Perotin, can in fact be put forward as one of the seminal figures in all of music his-
tory. The specimens of liturgical polyphony alluded to above are among the earliest surviving
compositions in which four independent voice parts are coordinated within an environment
of measured rhythm.
2 The result of this loss of contact with the repertoires of music before c. 1600 was that every
aspect of notation and performance had to be thoroughly reinterpreted after a lapse of cen-
turies. This process of restoration, which began around the mid-nineteenth century, required
over 100 years of musicological study before historically informed performances became a
practicality around the 1960s.
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contemporaneous arts.3 To that end, this paper is devoted to introducing one
of the central phenomena of the latter fifteenth century, the L’homme armé
mass, a topical tradition analogous to representations of, say, the Crusades, in
the visual arts of the time, and to illustrating how non-specialist instructors
might approach the challenge of how to present these compositions as sig-
nificant representatives of artistic expression. Subsequently, I will attempt to
illustrate some intriguing parallels that arise when considering this music in
relation to other manifestations of contemporaneous culture.
1 L’homme Armé and the Liturgical Cantus-Firmus Cycle
Any initiative toward integrating music convincingly into medieval or early
modern studies entails the premise that instructors in diverse fields will need
to possess a general understanding of Europe’s musical topography during the
period concerned—the essaying of which is beyond the scope of this study.4
Here it will have to suffice simply to note that in the history of art music, the fif-
teenth century is notable as the period in which a musical style, steeped in both
English and continental traditions and pioneered especially in France and the
Low Countries (thus accounting for the term “Franco-Flemish” to designate the
style), became a musical lingua franca in western Europe for some 150 years, i.e.,
from approximately 1450 to 1600. Concurrently, this era encompassed the great
age of the cantus-firmus mass cycle, a multi-movement meta-genre of liturgical
polyphony setting chorally the appropriate texts of the Mass Ordinary.5 In such
works, a single melody, taken from a preexisting source and placed within a
texture of several voices, served as a main element of formal continuity.
3
4
5
3 For present purposes, we can delimit this period to the eight centuries from Charlemagne’s
accession in 768 to the Council of Trent’s dissolution in 1563, although polyphony per se may
have arisen among the Franks only in the ninth century.
4 What has long been needed is an “appreciation” textbook geared solely to early music—a
self-contained primer on fundamental musical elements, followed by a historical overview
of significant issues and repertoires of Western music from the ninth through the sixteenth
centuries. Given the narrowly market-driven policies of publishers these days, it is unlikely
that any such introductory text will be forthcoming in the foreseeable future.
5 Polyphony refers to music with multiple independent melodic lines. Cantus firmus (discussed
below) literally means “fixed song.” The choral items of the choral Mass Ordinary (listed in
Example 1), having texts that do not vary from service to service, are distinct from the texts
of the Mass Proper, but additionally are to be differentiated from those sections of the Or-
dinary itself that are intoned by the priest (e.g., the Canon—part of the preparation for
Communion).
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In an influential article published in 1950, Manfred Bukofzer claimed that
aesthetic considerations were paramount in the creation of this monumental
art form:
The decisive step toward the [cantus-firmus Mass] cycle is … the [con-
necting of] movements on the basis of the same tenor [melody] which
establishes an unequivocal element of unity and … conditions the entire
musical structure.6
Continuing in this vein, Bukofzer emphasized that in such cycles, the borrowed
tenor melody—even when it is a plainchant—typically has no liturgical con-
nection to the Ordinary items within which it is employed. Indeed, elsewhere
in the same article, Bukofzer avers that:
The distinction between liturgical and musical unity is a crucial point ….
Without it the significance and spiritual background of the Mass cycle
cannot possibly be understood. It takes a very bold and independent
mind to conceive the idea that the invariable parts of the Mass should
be composed not as separate liturgical items, but as a set of five musi-
cally coherent compositions … The “absolute” work of art [thus] begins
to encroach on liturgical function. We discover here the typical Renais-
sance attitude—and it is indeed the Renaissance philosophy of art that
furnishes the spiritual background to the cyclic Mass.7
More recent scholarship has questioned whether such aesthetic, “internal” el-
ements were the primary factor motivating the development of such cycles,
or whether various cultural-historical (i.e., “external”) conditions might better
account for their creation, such that one can “comprehend choices of form
and material as expressions not of purely artistic considerations, but rather
of the specific circumstances in which the pieces in question arose.”8 As will
be illustrated below, many studies over the past few decades have delved into
circumstantial evidence as a key to unlocking cultural meaning in the sacred
polyphony of the time.
Leaving aside for the moment these overarching meta-historical questions,
we can proceed with a basic orientation to cantus-firmus mass cycles in general,
6
7
8
6 Bukofzer, “Caput” 222.
7 Bukofzer, “Caput” 218.
8 Kirkman 3. A corollary to this assessment is a downplaying of Bukofzer’s idea that period
composers were self-consciously trying to create organically unified artworks in the manner
brought to prominence by nineteenth-century composers such as Beethoven, Liszt, Bruck-
ner, and Wagner.
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Example 1 Representation of Cyclic Mass Ordinary utilizing a Tenor Cantus Firmus (c.f.)
Kyrie Gloria Credo Sanctus Agnus Dei
Discantus free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint
Altus free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint
Tenor c.f. melody c.f. melody c.f. melody c.f. melody c.f. melody
Bassus free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint free counterpoint
and those on L’homme armé in particular. Example 1 shows schematically
how a pre-existent melody (cantus firmus) is typically placed throughout the
course of a four-voice setting of the Mass Ordinary text, wherein a specified
voice-part (usually the tenor) is provided with a given borrowed melody in ev-
ery successive movement, to which the composer adds three additional voices
according to rules and conventions of counterpoint that prevailed at the time.9
In such a work, the tenor states more or less the same material over and over
again throughout the course of the mass, whereas the other three voice-parts
may never repeat any melodic phrases literally, either within themselves or
among themselves.10 In the Franco-Flemish style of polyphony as it developed
after about 1450, rests tend to be rather liberally inserted in all voice parts, so
that various combinations of voices are continually shifting throughout a given
piece.
Although the melodies used for cantus firmi in the earliest Ordinary cycles
around 1420 were drawn from the repertoire of plainchant (e.g., the Marian
antiphon Alma redemptoris mater), the most enduring cantus-firmus source
9
10
9 The basing of a polyphonic work on a preexistent plainchant had been practiced since the
earliest multi-voice experiments stemming back to the ninth century. By about 1200, any
borrowed melody was normally put into a lower (as opposed to an upper) voice, which
was then designated in the source as tenor. It was, however, possible for an appropriated
melodic line to be placed elsewhere than in the tenor, or indeed for it to “migrate” from
one voice-part to another.
10 During the three decades leading up to 1500, the compositional practice of voices imitat-
ing each other became an integral part of musical style. This then became a defining
characteristic of Franco-Flemish polyphony through about 1600. Prior to that, however,
multi-voice music in Western Europe was pursued mainly as non-imitative polyphony.
Note also that, apart from the tenor, voice-part designations were variable, such that
“discantus” was also called “superius” and by other names, whereas both the “altus” or
“bassus” parts could be referred to as “contratenor.”
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ultimately proved to be the secular tune L’homme armé. Many distinguished
composers of the latter fifteenth and sixteenth centuries wrote a mass on this
theme; some wrote more than one.11 While it has proved impossible to identify
definitively either the composer or the date of the earliest L’homme armé mass
cycle, many researchers have claimed that it probably stems from the 1450s. In-
terestingly, the tradition of writing masses on L’homme armé was maintained
all the way through the late Renaissance, with the esteemed Italian composer
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (†1594) publishing two different specimens.12
It may be useful here to point out some pertinent historical issues sur-
rounding the L’homme armé melody, and to demonstrate how cantus-firmus
procedures informed the structure of polyphonic art music in the mid- to late-
fifteenth century. The thing that all L’homme armé masses have in common is
their use of the eponymous tune (refer to the lyrics of the song in Example 2)
in at least one of their several voice parts. Note that its textual form is tripartite,
specifically A-B-A, where the “A” section approximates a refrain (indicated by
italic typeface).
The origins of L’homme armé have been a source of considerable s peculation.
Regarding the tune’s provenance, it has been debated whether it originated
as a monophonic “folk” melody, or whether it was the product of a trained
composer, either as an unaccompanied song or as the tenor of a polyphonic
chanson.13 Howard Mayer Brown, for example, classified it as a so-called chan-
son rustique, a type of popular song current in France during the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries.14 More recently, Reinhard Strohm emphasized the
likelihood that it was in fact composed—presumably by a leading composer
of the time—in “artistic imitation” of such a song.15 But no known instance
11
12
13
14
15
11 An extensive list of L’homme armé masses, as well as related secular pieces, is presented
in a monograph of Judith Cohen (vol. 21 in the series Musicological Studies and Docu-
ments) 72–4. The edition of the six masses mentioned in the book’s title is contained
in a separate volume with the same title, which appeared as vol. 85 in the series Corpus
Mensurabilis Musicae.
12 Palestrina is perhaps the most recognizable name among all the late-Renaissance
composers.
13 Monophony refers to music consisting of only a single melody (regardless of number of
performers), of which Gregorian chant is a prominent example. For a background to
these various surmises, see Lockwood, especially 99–100.
14 Brown, Music in the French Secular Theatre 105–13, 121.
15 Strohm 465. In corroborating this opinion, Alejandro Planchart has suggested that the
composer of the tune was in fact none other than Guillaume Du Fay, among the most
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Example 2 Text of L’homme armé Tune in ms Naples E vi 40
Section Text Melodic Phrase* Translation
A L’homme, l’homme, l’homme armé, a1 The man, the man, the armed man,
L’homme armé, a2 The armed man
L’homme armé doibt on doubter. a3 The armed man is to be feared;
Doibt on doubter. a4 Is to be feared.
B On a fait par tout crier. b1 5 Everywhere the cry has gone out.
Que chascun se viegne armer, b2 That everyone is to arm himself
D’ung habregon de fer. b3 With a mailed coat of iron.
A L’homme, l’homme, l’homme armé a1 10 The man, the man, the armed man;
L’homme armé, a2 The armed man
L’homme armé doibt on doubter. a3 The armed man is to be feared.
*see Example 3 below
of the melody apart from a polyphonic scenario has been transmitted, and
since the tune survives only in multi-voice contexts, it cannot at present be
proved that it was ever disseminated in monophonic guise.16 On the other
hand, it was definitely associated at the time with the words shown in Example
2—the text underlaid to the tenor in the last of six anonymous L’homme armé
masses in a manuscript now kept at Naples.17
16
17
distinguished Burgundian musicians of the mid-fifteenth century; see Planchart (espe-
cially 326–7).
16 When used as a cantus firmus, the L’homme armé tune typically is notated (and sounds)
in rhythmic values at least twice as slow as it would presumably have been rendered if
performed unaccompanied. However, it is occasionally set at its normal speed (as, for
example, at the end of the Kyrie of Du Fay’s Missa L’homme armé).
17 Naples, Bilbioteca nazionale, ms vi E 40. A facsimile of the manuscript leaf on which this
tenor is transmitted is presented in the introduction to Cohen’s edition, The Six Anony-
mous L’homme armé Masses (cmm 85, cited above), third plate after p. xvi (picturing fol.
58v); the interesting meta-cyclic aspects of cantus-firmus usage in this series of masses
are discussed in the same study.
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The cultural significance of this modest little song has elicited considerable
commentary in the secondary literature. Several musicologists have conjec-
tured that its martial text was associated with the Order of the Golden Fleece,
a knightly institution founded in 1430 by Philip the Good (Duke of Burgundy
from 1419 to 1467) for the purpose of mounting a renewed crusade to the Holy
Land—which never materialized.18 In support of this hypothesis, William F.
Prizer adduced archival evidence suggesting that the Order “emerges from …
documents as a major consumer of sacred music in Burgundy and the Low
Countries during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.”19
Apart from the tune’s provenance, questions have also arisen as to what spe-
cific personage “the armed man” might have been intended to symbolize. Some
scholars have argued that it was Duke Philip himself, an identification that
upon his death presumably would have been transferred to his son, Charles the
Bold (†1477)—who, incidentally, is well documented as having been an aficio-
nado of polyphony.20 A more widely propounded thesis, however, accounts for
it more generally as a topical reference to the ever-present “Turkish threat.”21
This speculation finds support in one of several secular songs incorporating
the L’homme armé melody, in which the text of the discantus specifically refers
to “the dreaded Turk” (shown below in Example 6, line 2).
Textual evidence within the chanson itself ties it directly to the musical
establishment of the Burgundian court, namely through a farcical reference
to Symon le Breton, a known musician and friend of renowned composer
18
19
20
21
18 A capsule history of the Burgundian duchy is provided in Spitz (77):
When the Burgundian ducal family died out after 330 years, King John ii of France
bestowed Burgundy upon his youngest son, Philip the Bold ([reigned] 1364–1404), as
a feudal appanage, and Philip began the process of territorial aggrandizement that
eventually made of Burgundy a major power. When he married Margaret, heiress of
Flanders and Artois, he combined agricultural Burgundy with industrial Flanders,
a potentially dynamic union. In subsequent decades the dukes of Burgundy added
Picardy, Brabant, Hennegau, Zeeland, Holland, Luxemburg, and Gelders. John the
Fearless (1404–1419) contributed less to the rise of Burgundy, but Philip the Good
(1419–1467) and Charles the Bold (1467–1477) worked toward a centralized adminis-
tration for Burgundy, although the only tie with Flanders and their other territories
remained dynastic and personal rather than constitutional and public.
19 Prizer 135. This hypothesis seems to have become generally accepted.
20 See, for example, Bukofzer, “An Unknown Chansonnier” (particularly 27–8).
21 For a provocative discussion of this point, see Hannas 155–86. Among more recent articles
devoted to the topic, see Haggh.
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Guillaume Du Fay (†1474).22 Furthermore, it has been established that a cer-
tain “house of L’homme armé” existed in the immediate vicinity of Cambrai
cathedral in the early sixteenth century, the significance of which Craig Wright
assesses as follows:
We may postulate a causal relationship between the Maison l’homme
armé and the melody of that name: the famous song may have given its
name to the building; but just as likely, the L’homme armé tune was cre-
ated in, or emanated from, a canonical house in a section of Cambrai
once frequented by Dufay, le Breton, Regis, Caron, and Ockeghem.23
Extending the signification of L’homme armé beyond the secular realm, one ap-
prehends its stature as foundation-stone for many cantus-firmus mass cycles
that count among the most imposing artistic achievements of the time—
veritable edifices of polyphonic sacred music. The topic of cultural mean-
ing with respect to these masses has occupied the attention of any number
of commentators, who, looking past their immediate liturgical context, have
identified a variety of “quasi-political” purposes behind them, designed to ag-
grandize the power of both popes and secular leaders.24
Most specifically, the L’homme armé masses have been associated with the
Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece (introduced above). While no one has
yet found hard evidence that the Order actually commissioned such masses,
William Prizer notes that the foundation “was clearly a major corporate pa-
tron of music” during the time under consideration.25 In an article on a related
theme, Barbara Haggh summarizes that performance of “L’homme armé mass-
es may have found several contexts at the court, including the sword ceremo-
nies in which at least one sovereign of the Order participated.”26
Indeed, such rituals form the very basis of yet another study, published in
1999 by Flynn Warmington, in which a most intriguing liturgical context for
22
23
24
25
26
22 Not a major musical figure of the time, this individual is mentioned several times in Craig
Wright’s magisterial archival study, “Dufay at Cambrai”; see especially 202, where it is
stated that le Breton in 1446 was “residing at the court of Burgundy.”
23 Wright 211. With the exception of Symon le Breton, each of the musicians mentioned at
the end of the quoted passage wrote a mass on L’homme armé, and all of them are consid-
ered below in various degrees of depth.
24 See especially Chew.
25 Prizer 135.
26 Haggh 37.
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L’homme armé is expounded. Here the author details a series of rites referred to
variously as the “Mass of the Sword” or “Mass of the Armed Man.” Flynn cites a
fifteenth-century chronicler as describing one variant of this ceremonial tradi-
tion as follows:
And moreover he [Charlemagne] desired that every time the said abbot
sang Mass, whenever he wished to he could have at the right side of the
altar the said count of the palace … armed with all arms with the drawn
sword in his hand in defense of the faith of Christ against whomever
would contradict it. This ceremony and authority was given and conced-
ed to him [i.e., the abbot] by the aforesaid emperor because he is obliged
to defend the faith of Christ with the sword in hand …. And because the
emperor himself, when he hears Mass, observes the aforesaid ceremony
of the armed man with all arms with the sword in hand, so he desired
that when the abbot wished, he could do it.27
Not wishing to overplay the evidence, however, Warmington prudently con-
cludes that
[t]he connection between these various armed Masses and the L’homme
armé masses remains in the realm of possibility alone. Both clearly stand
at the conjunction of the spheres of church and state, where the ideal
governing the relationship of the two great powers is given ritual expres-
sion in the Mass.28
Lastly, as will be clarified below, music historians have brought the L’homme
armé cantus firmus into connection symbolically with various spiritual figures,
most notably Christ and St. Michael.
2 Musical and Structural Qualities of the L’homme armé Tune
The popularity of the L’homme armé tune as a structural voice in polyphonic
settings probably correlates directly with its melodic characteristics, specifical-
ly its clearly profiled melodic leaps and its series of stepwise descents, which
27
28
27 Warmington 95 (quotation from Giovanni Rucellai, Zibaldone Quaresimale [1457], orthog-
raphy altered; the original Italian version is presented in Warmington 119).
28 Warmington 118.
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are peculiarly suited to fulfilling the role of a tenor cantus firmus.29 Example 3
illustrates this song in both traditional musical notation and also in a simpler
schematic representation, with additional indications of formal sections and
constituent phrasing.
Example 3 Schematic Representation of L’homme armé Melody
The version of the melody shown below is used in the tenor of the sixth
anonymous Naples L’homme armé mass. In the schematic representation, dashes
indicate one beat of duration. Also provided is a version in standard notation (the
“treble-8” clef specifies that the notes be read an octave lower than normal). The
accidental signature of B-flat is present in some versions of the tune, but is absent
in others. Please note that the schematic diagram is not necessarily aligned per-
fectly with the musical notation below it.
29
29 Regarding these characteristics, see Lockwood 103–05.
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In truth, however, examination of the series of L’homme armé masses indicates
that they do not adhere to a single version of the tune. One significant dif-
ference to be observed is tonality, or the hierarchical arrangement of pitches
around which the final of a given composition is centered (analogous to “key-
note” or “tonic” in later music). For example, the mass of Johannes Regis uses
a version of the melody built on a D final,30 whereas most of the other early
L’homme armé cycles have a G final. To the extent that many G-final masses
provide a B flat in the lower voices, this variance would appear to be merely
a transposition (displacement) of the same scale from one final to another.
But the situation is not quite so simple, since several of the G-final masses
are notated without signatures, thus apparently stipulating use of B natural
in every voice part. This circumstance seems to point to the existence of the
tune in two different scale systems, or in plainchant parlance, modes. In period
terminology, one could thus say that both Dorian and Mixolydian versions of
the tune are represented.31
Notwithstanding the question of whether the tune circulated popularly as
an independent melody, its transmission is stable enough to posit an arche-
typal form, with the understanding that individual treatments of it may vary
in tonality, or in rhythmic or melodic details. This prototype is presented sche-
matically in Example 3 (main sections are denoted by capital letters: A1–B–A2;
phrases and motives by lower case: a1–a2–a3–a4; b1–b2–b3; a1–a2–a3).32
The tune is in triple meter (i.e., with an accent recurring every three beats).
As already stated, it is laid out in a basic ternary pattern (A–B–A), a significant
aspect of which is that the pitch register (compass of tonal space) of the B
section lies almost entirely above that of the A section (see Example 4). This
registral differentiation heightens the contrast between the A and B sections
of the tune—a quality that often is exploited by composers in polyphonic set-
tings using L’homme armé as a cantus firmus.
30
31
32
30 In plainchant the final, not surprisingly, is the ending note of a given chant. In polyphonic
music of the period under consideration, it is usually the note on which the tenor ends
(discussed below in section 3).
31 The possibility should not be entirely discounted that B-flat signature is to be assumed
in the versions of the tune that are transmitted without signatures, although no con-
vincing reason for such an omission has yet been adduced. It should also be noted that
by no later than 1500, composers were transposing the theme to pitches other than G
and D.
32 Any number of other analyses of the tune have been offered, notably in Lockwood 103,
and Cohen (Musicological Studies and Documents, Vol. 21) 10.
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Example 4 Aggregate Compass of L’homme armé Melody
The A and B sections are also unified respectively through their melodic mo-
tives: in section A, the ends of phrases a1 and a3 are related melodically, while
a2, a3, and a4 are all related in their initial rhythm (the extremely close rela-
tionship between a2 and a4 is obvious). Conversely, section B displays con-
gruencies of its own: phrases b1 and b2 are identical in some versions of the
tune;33 other versions display slight differences. Phrase b3 is rhythmically and
melodically similar to a1 and a3; this affinity lends an element of motivic unity
to the A and B sections.
In attempting to trace a chronology of the L’homme armé cantus firmus,
we are seriously hampered by the lack of hard dates for the composition of
individual works. The earliest year yet ascertained for any surviving L’homme
armé mass is 1463, at which time such a cycle was copied into a (now lost)
codex that served as a putative exemplar for the copying of ms San Pietro B80,
where the work is attributed to “F. Caron.”34 While specific evidence cannot
be adduced here, stylistic criteria strongly suggest that the mass that survives
under the name of that composer is unlikely to have been one of the earli-
est L’homme armé cycles. In any case, it has seemed almost inevitable to most
33
34
33 Including the version shown above as Example 3.
34 Reynolds 286. Another early datable reference to a L’homme armé mass stems from
1462–3, when a work under that title by Johannes Regis is recorded as having been copied
into a Cambrai choirbook. Although such a mass by this composer does exist (see below),
it is unlikely that the one that survives is identifiable as the one documented; for particu-
lars, see Strohm (466, 469). Regarding Caron, it should be noted that scholars have not
been able to ascertain even his first name with certainty: several period references are
made to a “Philippe” Caron, but the music theorist Johannes Tinctoris, whose authority in
such matters is usually regarded by musicologists as reliable, refers to him as “Firminus.”
See Reese 110. Strohm (451–2) decides that the most likely Christian name for the com-
poser is either Firminus or Jean.
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previous scholars that the first examples within the tradition would have been
composed sometime in the 1450s—a presumable point of origination that cor-
relates with the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, and hence to the
enthusiasm for crusading that arose in Burgundian circles at that time. The
death dates of the respective composers naturally serve as the latest possible
years for the compositions attributed to them, but unfortunately not all of
these are known.
The upshot of all this is that the surviving archival and biographical evi-
dence does not suffice to permit reconstruction of a clear-cut chronology. This
all-too-typical circumstance serves to demonstrate how relatively little has
been established regarding even the leading musicians of this period com-
pared to those of later centuries.
In addition to the extensive series of L’homme armé masses, there exists a
set of roughly contemporaneous secular pieces based on the tune (listed in Ex-
ample 5). As noted by previous commentators, it seems significant that none
of these polyphonic works sets the tune as a profiled melody (i.e., in the top
voice). Rather, it is exclusively realized as a lower voice, which, it has been sur-
mised, indicates that “its traditional function was long understood as that of
tenor.”35
Example 5 Fifteenth-Century Secular Songs Incorporating the L’homme armé Tune
Title Voices Attribution ms or print Date established
source for source
Il sera pour vous/ 3 Anon. Mellon c. 1475
L’omme armé chansonnier
L’omme armé (incipits 4 “Borton” Casanatense c. 1480
only) chansonnier
D’ung autre amer/ 4 Philippe Bologna ms Q17 c. 1495
L’homme armé Basiron (Cod. 148)
Est de bonne heure né/ 4 Johannes Petrucci, Canti C, 1504
L’omme armé Japart no. 58
35
35 Lockwood 102. Actually the matter is not quite so simple: because male voices are typi-
cally of the tenor/baritone type, it is eminently possible that the melody was merely
accepted as lying naturally within a low range, especially if it did indeed originate as a
monophonic tune nominally sung by men.
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In each of these chanson settings, the phrases of the tune are indeed predomi-
nantly placed in the tenor (although they do occur elsewhere as well). Apart
from the four-voice version attributed in the Casanatense chansonnier to “Bor-
ton,” which has no text at all but only the incipit L’omme armé (sic) at the be-
ginning of all voice parts, each of the chansons represented in Example 5 sets
an entirely different text in the top part.
As can be inferred from the above discussion, varied types of evidence have
been invoked by musicologists in an attempt to ascertain a relative sequence of
works among the complex of L’homme armé masses. Despite much effort on the
part of scholars determined to assign chronological priority to one composer or
another, the results so far have been equivocal and no consensus has emerged.
3 Teaching L’homme armé as a Topic in Renaissance Studies
Now that several of the basic issues surrounding the earlier L’homme armé
masses have been sketched out, it remains to suggest how this phenomenon
might be introduced into a course syllabus in which the history or culture of
fifteenth-century Europe takes on a significant role. Assuming that some 45 to
60 minutes of class time is allotted to this task, it can be approached from five
different directions:
(1) by emphasizing the context of L’homme armé as a reflection of the spirit
of the age, especially its cultural connections with the aristocratic quasi-
knightly foundations exemplified by the Burgundian Order of the Golden
Fleece and with liturgical practices such as the Ceremony of the Sword;
(2) by considering the text and tune of the eponymous chanson, as well as
other texts that are used in conjunction with it, especially the secular set-
ting “Il sera pour vous”;
(3) by focusing on the cantus-firmus layouts of selected Kyries from L’homme
armé mass cycles, in order to illustrate their architectonic concep-
tion of form within a multi-movement musical genre of monumental
proportions;
(4) in relation to the previous item, by specifying the emulative and competi-
tive aspect of the series of mass settings on L’homme armé, especially as
this relates to broader issues of rhetorical imitatio that were endemic to
Renaissance humanism; and—
(5) by pointing out some intriguing affinities between music and the visual
arts of the time, especially as these connections involve artistic represen-
tations of mysticism.
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Now to elaborate on the above list in order. First, if one chooses to treat this
topic in a survey course of some sort, it is probably not advisable to focus ini-
tially or solely on the musical aspects of L’homme armé. Instead, one can begin
by profiling the most general concerns as outlined in Section i above.
Subsequent to introducing the cultural context, the instructor can proceed
to examine textual aspects of the tune, exploring its martial character as ex-
emplified in one of the secular settings, namely Il sera pour vous/L’ome armé
in the Mellon Chansonnier (text presented in Example 6).36 In this three-voice
Example 6 Text of Il sera pour vous/L’ome armé in Mellon Chansonnier (No. 34, fols. 44v–45r)
DISCANTUS (top voice)
Il sera pour vous conbatu He will be fought for you,
Le doubté Turcq, Maistre Symon The dreaded Turk, master Symon
—Certainement ce sera mon— —there’s no doubt about it—
Et de crocq de ache abatu And struck down with an axe-spur [with
pun on “wild celery”].
Son orgueil tenons a batu 5 We hold his pride to have been beaten.
S’il chiét en voz mains, le felon, If he falls into your hands, the felon,
Il sera pour vois conbatu He will be fought for you,
Le doubté Turcq, Maistre Symon The dreaded Turk, master Symon.
En peu d’heure l’arés batu In a short time you will have beaten him
Au plasir Dieu. Puis dira-on, 10 To God’s pleasure; then they will say
“Vive Symonet le Breton “long live old Simon the Breton,”
Que sur le Turcq s’est enbatu!” Because he has fallen on the Turk!”
Il sera pour vois conbatu He will be fought for you,
Le doubté Turcq, Maistre Symon The dreaded Turk, master Symon
—Certainement ce sera mon— 15 —there’s no doubt about it—
Et de crocq de ache abatu And struck down with an axe-spur.
TENOR AND CONTRATENOR (lower voices)
Apart from orthographical variants, the text in the lower voices of this chanson is essentially
that of Example 3 above. The main divergences from that text are the replacement of line 3
with “et l’ome armé,” and the insertion of an additional line: a l’assaut, a l’assaut (“on to the at-
tack”) which replaces line 5 in the tenor and lines 4 and 6 in the contratenor.
36
36 This is the song that Planchart claims was the initial foray in the entire series of composi-
tions on L’homme armé (see the article cited above in note 15). It has traditionally been
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chanson, the L’homme armé tune is presented almost exclusively in the tenor.
The uppermost voice, which is freely composed, carries the main text, while
the two lower parts (tenor and contratenor) sing essentially the words of
L’homme armé as shown above in Examples 2 and 3.
Here, of course, is a direct reference to the crusading spirit, which was still
very much alive in western Europe as late as the fifteenth century.37 In fact, it
was more than merely topical in the wake of the Turkish conquest of Constan-
tinople in 1453, signaling the final demise of the Byzantine empire. In 1454,
Burgundian duke Philip the Good staged a huge festivity called the Feast of the
Pheasant, hosted by his quasi-Arthurian Order of the Golden Fleece, with the
express intention of organizing a crusade against the Ottoman Turks.38 The
text of this chanson, however, is essentially light-hearted, poking fun at the
musician Symon le Breton and thus constituting an exercise in light satire, not
serious political propaganda.
Keeping in mind that the goal of this paper is to initiate non-specialists into
the musical artistry of the period, L’homme armé is advantageous because it
can be isolated and heard as a single unaccompanied melody. Another com-
pelling aspect of L’homme armé is that its musical form is obvious enough to
be clearly audible to persons not trained in music. Thus, in proceeding from
the general cultural context of L’homme armé to its intrinsic musical qualities,
the instructor can play the monophonic version of the song a couple of times,
emphasizing its basic ternary structure and accounting for its distinct melodic
characteristics.
Thereupon, the agenda can be turned toward introducing the artistic de-
vice of employing the tune as a structural scaffolding (i.e., cantus firmus) in
polyphonic settings of the mass, for which analogy can be made to the ground-
plan of a cathedral. An instructor can make this demonstration particularly
effective if she or he is able to sing the cantus firmus along with each of the
recordings, which of course may require some little confidence and practice.39
But doing so makes absolutely clear to the class how the cantus firmus fits into
37
38
39
ascribed to the English composer Robert Morton (accounting for the attribution “Borton”
as a scribal misreading of that name), but in Planchart’s study the hitherto generally ac-
cepted authorship is subjected to close reexamination. The text and translation of the
discantus part are from Perkins and Garey (Vol. 2, 330–35).
37 In this connection it should be noted that no significant crusading initiatives were
mounted from Western Europe toward the Holy Land subsequent to the disastrous
Franco-Burgundian expedition which came to grief at Nicopolis (Bulgaria) in 1396.
38 Regarding the Order in general, as well as the Feast in particular, see Cockshaw.
39 In the cases considered above, the register of the L’homme armé cantus firmus, with its
lowest note lying on G below middle C and the highest note on A above middle C, should
fall within the vocal range of most people—both men and women.
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the overall sound of any given piece. In this respect it is also most helpful to
provide a schematic representation of the tune (Example 3) as a handout or
projected image for the students to follow while the music is being played.40
As an illustration of artistic variation among the L’homme armé mass set-
tings, the instructor can proceed to a consideration of how the underlying
tune is used as a structural basis in three Kyries (see Example 7) belonging to
masses attributed respectively in manuscript sources to Johannes Ockeghem
(†1497), Guillaume Du Fay (†1474), and Antoine Busnoys (†1492)—all cycles
that presumably fall among the oldest compositions to have been written
Example 7 Cantus-Firmus Layout: Ockeghem, Du Fay, and Busnoys Compared
OCKEGHEM’s SETTING
(G final, no signature)
text segment: Kyrie i Christe Kyrie ii
c.f. section: A1 B A2
c.f. phrases: a1, a2, a3 b1, b2, b3 a1, a2, a3 (+ free
extension)
du FAY’s SETTING
(G final, B-flat signature)
text segment: Kyrie i Christe Kyrie ii
c.f. section: A1 B A2
c.f. phrases: − a1, a2, a3 (+ free – a4, b1, b2, b3 – a1, a2, a3 (+ a1, a2, a3
extension) in diminished rhythms)
BUSNOYS’s SETTING
(G final, B-flat signature)
text segment: Kyrie i Christe Kyrie ii
c.f. section: A1, B (1st phrase) free imitative compo- B (2nd, 3rd phrases), A2
c.f. phrases: − a1, a2, a3, (a4), b1 sition (tenor rests) b2, b3, a1, a2, a3
(“false” entrance of c.f. in bassus at beginning)
40
40 Since the 1980s, most of the works under consideration have been routinely available as
commercial recordings (for example, the L’homme armé masses of Ockeghem, Du Fay,
and Busnoys have all been recorded more than once), although now it may be increas-
ingly difficult to find some of the older cds of vocal groups such as Pro Cantione Antiqua
and The Hilliard Ensemble. More recently, many options for audio streaming have come
into existence, including Naxos Music Library and Music Online, as well as the ubiquitous
iTunes, and even YouTube. Currently, the author is working to develop
a scholarly website designed to provide fair-use access to the materials discussed herein.
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on the L’homme armé cantus firmus.41 (Ockeghem’s setting is placed first
because it differs in tonality from the other two, and also because it has the
most straightforward cantus-firmus layout). The purpose of such a compari-
son is to demonstrate how the borrowed melody affects the overall structure
of a given movement and to confirm that the resulting aural plan is in fact
audible.
Before considering the cantus-firmus design of individual movements, it
is necessary to point out three general ways in which this kind of preexis-
tent melody, typically set in the tenor, assumes a leading role in a polyphonic
setting:
First, the fact that it is preexistent means that its layout—at least in
general terms—had to have been more-or-less determined before the
other voices were composed.
Second, the tenor usually inhabits the second-lowest place among
the four voices and, thus, is not necessarily decisive in determining the
music’s harmonic organization. No one voice, in fact, is crucial to the
composition in this regard, although the bassus is typically preeminent
acoustically by virtue of taking the lowest pitch of chords. Yet at the ca-
dences (points of musical closure), the tenor indeed often does find itself
as lowest voice, since the bassus has moved either to a unison with it
(same pitch) or to a place five notes above. Therefore, the tenor proves to
play a crucial role in determining a given work’s tonal direction, since its
final is normally the final of the entire piece.
Third, at the ends of text phrases, when a point of resolution is called
for, it is the cantus-firmus tenor that almost invariably makes the cru-
cial stepwise descent (e.g., E—>D)—a vestige of plainchant practice.
This descending motion is then coordinated with the other voice parts to
41
41 On the basis of what he called its “retrospective” musical style, Manfred Bukofzer some
75 years ago adjudged Du Fay’s Missa L’homme armé to be “certainly the first complete
mass cycle on the tune” (“An Unknown Chansonnier” 19). In a study published in 2003,
Planchart essentially reaffirmed this hypothesis, claiming that “the earliest masses on
L’homme armé … are those of Du Fay and Ockeghem” (327), which he argues were be-
ing written simultaneously around 1461 (348). Other researchers have postulated Antoine
Busnoys as the composer of the earliest cycle. Oliver Strunk, in “Origins of the L’homme
armé Mass” (summary of a paper given at a regional meeting of the ams), was probably
the first scholar to argue for “the ‘authority’ of Busnoys’s mass” (25). A much more exten-
sive argument for the primacy of the Busnoys cycle, however, was put forth by Richard
Taruskin in “Antoine Busnoys and the L’homme armé Tradition.”
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produce one or another variation of a stereotyped harmonic progression,
fully analogous to the “dominant–tonic” (v–i) cadence of later eras.42
In the present connection, Kyrie movements are propitious to examine for
two reasons: first, the A–B–A form of its text precisely mirrors the melodic
structure of the L’homme armé tune—a correspondence that in many cases
is literally reflected in a cantus-firmus layout (see Example 7); secondly, the
Kyrie—i.e., initial—movements of mass cycles tend to serve as an archetypal
exposition of cantus-firmus material.43
The three movements at hand all set the L’homme armé tune once only, in
the tenor, with no more than slight embellishments of the melody.44 However,
only in the Ockeghem Kyrie does the tenor cantus firmus actually begin at the
start of the movement. In both the Du Fay and Busnoys settings, the tenor’s
entrance is delayed. This may have been done in order to weaken the audibil-
ity of the cantus firmus, in an attempt to conceal the composer’s art. Busnoys’s
Kyrie carries such dissimulation even further, in that the bassus sings the first
(a1) phrase of the L’homme armé melody at the very beginning, thus throwing
the ear off to the entrance of the “real” cantus firmus in the tenor several beats
later.
Busnoys, moreover, breaks the correspondence between the overall A-B-A
form of the structural tune and the Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie sectionalization of the
text, which both of the other composers respect (refer to Example 7). Busnoys,
on the other hand, rather than setting the “B” section of the L’homme armé
melody to the “Christe” text, omits the cantus firmus entirely from that section.
Instead, he presents the first phrase of the “B” section in the Kyrie i, and its lat-
ter two phrases in the Kyrie ii, while the tenor simply rests during the Christe.
This type of idiosyncratic, non-intuitive treatment of the cantus firmus, which
seems to have been adopted in reaction to the more straightforward layouts
42
43
44
42 This topic cannot be treated adequately here. For a comprehensive orientation to the
functional basis of medieval harmony, which differs in certain crucial respects from the
so-called triadic tonality of later eras, see the present author’s article entitled “Voice Lead-
ing, Sonority, and Contrapuntal Procedure in Late Medieval Polyphony.”
43 Sparks 165.
44 Du Fay does in fact depart slightly from this precept at the end of the movement by restat-
ing the a1-a2-a3 section in quicker rhythm as a kind of “drive to the cadence” (see Sparks
123, 235).
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referred to above, possibly constitutes evidence that Busnoys’s is not the earli-
est of the L’homme armé masses to have been composed.
In order to illustrate these variations in cantus-firmus layout, the instructor,
utilizing the diagram shown as Example 7, can juxtapose aurally the Busnoys
Kyrie with either the Ockeghem or the Du Fay setting, or both, thus pointing
up the irregular phrase structure of its cantus firmus, as well as the “deceptive”
statement of the cantus firmus’s first phrase, sung by the bassus at the opening
before the tenor enters with the actual cantus firmus.
Having illustrated the use of the L’homme armé tune as a thread of struc-
tural continuity in the above-mentioned settings, the instructor would then
be in a position to introduce the Kyrie of Faugues’s L’homme armé mass, which
appears to inaugurate a new phase of increasing sophistication in the concep-
tion of cantus-firmus layout. In apparent emulation of Busnoys’s Kyrie, this
movement states the opening phrases of the cantus firmus in the bassus at its
beginning,45 but it breaks new ground in that when the full cantus firmus does
enter, it is presented in two voices simultaneously (i.e., with the contratenor
beginning in measure 11, followed by the tenor in measure 12) in what might be
called “shadow” fashion (see Example 8).
Here, in the Kyrie i of Faugues’s mass, both of the two middle voices are
silent at the opening, thus heightening the audibility of the anticipatory
cantus-firmus statement in the bassus (measures 1–9). Then, in bar 11, the ac-
tual cantus firmus enters in the contratenor, but this, too, proves to be illusive,
for in the next bar the tenor opens with exactly the same phrase, except trans-
posed down five notes, beginning on G as opposed to the contratenor’s D. The
contratenor thus pre-imitates the tenor’s entry by three beats. (The reason why
the tenor must be assessed as the “real” cantus firmus is that its statement is
the one that begins—and ends—on the true final of the piece, namely G.)
While one must remain chary about ascribing causality in the interpreta-
tion of stylistic clues, certain evidence does exist that composers of masses
on L’homme armé were continually responding to musical challenges posed
by predecessors and, as is intimated above, a more-or-less linear succession of
musical rejoinders can in some cases be deduced. Although any ironclad ap-
praisal of events is currently beyond our grasp due to the paucity of hard dates,
45
45 In Example 8, the bassus’s quoting the initial phrases of the cantus firmus (measures 1–9)
are labelled as “false,” by which I mean to indicate that, unlike the use of the L’homme
armé tune in the contratenor and tenor voices, this quotation does not constitute a struc-
tural melody. Rather, it comprises an emphasized anticipatory statement, but one that is
not carried through to completion.
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Example 8 “Anticipatory” and “Shadow” Cantus Firmus in Kyrie i of Faugues
Missa L’homme armé
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