[citation needed] The cyclic mass was the first multi-movement form in western music to be subject to a single organizing principle.
As a result of the spread of the Missa Caput, composers commonly added this lower voice to their polyphonic textures after about mid-century; this allowed a harmonic and cadential flexibility which was previously lacking.
An early example of a "motto" mass is the Missa verbum incarnatum by Arnold de Lantins, probably from around 1430, in which each movement is linked by use of a head motif.
The cantus firmus, which at first was drawn from Gregorian chant, but later from other sources such as secular chansons, was usually set in longer notes in the tenor voice (the next-to-lowest).
Instead of being based on a fixed cantus firmus, each movement is a mensuration canon, with the interval of imitation expanding from the unison to the octave during the course of the mass (Leeman Perkins called this "the most extraordinary contrapuntal achievement of the 15th century", and compared it in scope and execution with the Goldberg Variations of J.S.
Josquin des Prez' Missa Pange lingua (c. 1520) is a famous example; Palestrina also used the method extensively, second only to parody technique.
Either sacred or secular source material could be used in constructing a parody mass, and some of the songs were secular indeed: a late example was Orlande de Lassus' Missa entre vous filles (1581), based on an obscene popular song by Clemens non Papa, "Entre vous filles de quinze ans" ("You sweet 15-year-old girls").