L'homme armé

"[1] It was the most popular tune used for musical settings of the Ordinary of the Mass: over 40 separate compositions entitled Missa L'homme armé survive from the period.

[2] The composer Johannes Regis (c. 1425 – c. 1496) seems to have intended that allusion in his Dum sacrum mysterium/Missa l'homme armé based upon the melody, which incorporates various additional trope texts and cantus firmus plainchants in honour of St Michael the Archangel.

Yet another possibility is that all three theories are true, given the feeling of urgency, pervasive in central and northern Europe at the time, in organizing a military opposition to the recently victorious Ottomans.

[6] Richard Taruskin noted that the tune was a special favourite of Charles the Bold and suggested that it may have been composed for him (or, at very least, that he had identified himself with the titular man at arms).

[citation needed] "L'homme armé" is especially well remembered today because it was so widely used by Renaissance composers as a cantus firmus for the Latin Mass.

A cycle of six settings, all anonymous but probably by the same composer, survives in a Neapolitan manuscript which was supposedly a gift to Beatrice of Aragon of some of the favorite music of Charles the Bold.

[5] One of the earliest datable uses of the melody itself was in the combinative chanson Il sera pour vous conbatu/L'homme armé ascribed to Robert Morton, which now is believed probably to date from around 1463, owing to historical references in the text[citation needed].