The cauda is a characteristic feature of songs in the conductus style of a cappella music which flourished between the mid-12th and the mid-13th century.
It takes the form of a lengthy section of counterpoint - where several simultaneous melodies are combined into one - slurred over the one syllable.
Conceptually, it is easy to see in the cauda, the root of the modern term, coda, which arrived when Latin was replaced by Italian as the musical lingua franca.
Two notable examples occur in Vetus Abit Littera, a four-voice Christmas conductus from the Florence manuscript, and Dic Christi, Veritas, a tirade against clerical hypocrisy written by Philip the Chancellor.
The latter is found in the Carmina Burana manuscript in a monophonic version and in the Paris sources in an elaborate three-voice setting, laden with caudae.