The L'Homme Arme Tradition
L'Homme arme is one of the best known songs of the Renaissance. BBC Radio did a documentary about it called "The Smash Hit of 1453," alluding to the date Constantinople was seized by the Ottoman Turks. (1) It is a short, catchy song about how one must fear the man at arms. In the context of 15th century politics, both national and religious, it became the basis of one of the greatest intertextual traditions of music history. Nearly 50 masses based upon L'Homme arme survive, making it the most popular secular cantus firmus in history. (2)
The Song's Background
Hear it sung by the Tallis Scholars:
Constantinople was the second great capital of Christendom, with Rome. It was the seat of the Eastern Empire, until the disastrous and shameful Fourth Crusade, when the Western Christian army dispatched to reclaim Jerusalem from Muslim rule wound up sacking Constantinople instead. The formal end of the Byzantine Empire was in 1453, but 1204 was the true end of Constantinople's power.
Constantinople had been invulnerable for nearly a millennium. After being brought down from within, it was susceptible when the Ottomans began advancing across Southeastern Europe in the 1350s. (3) Western Europe, it seems, was grateful for the scapegoat, and the Turk became a cultural meme. (It seems that humanity has never excelled at introspection and responsibility on a national level.) The formal loss of Constantinople to a foreign (and Muslim) army made an indelible mark on 15th century Europe's psyche.
Musicologists are not exactly sure when the L'Homme arme tune was composed. The general consensus is that it comes from the early 15th century, but some argue it could be as old as late-14th century. The earliest surviving source of the song by itself is what's casually referred to as the Naples manuscript, a choirbook given to Beatrice of Aragon in the 1470s. (4) The timeline of compositions based upon L'Homme arme place the original tune to the earlier part of the century, which is all that we know for sure. The song is written with major prolation (a subdivision of the beat into 3), a stylistic feature common to the late 14th century that became old fashioned in the 15th.
The idea of the "l'homme arme" existed widely in popular thought by the mid-15th century in northern France and the lowlands, as musicologist Rob Wegman has shown. There was a maison l'homme arme in Cambrai, and there was a rue de l'homme arme in Paris. There was a l'homme arme character in jousting games, associated with the dreaded Turk. Some speculate that the song L'Homme arme must have been known throughout northern France and the lowlands. Others are more conservative, such as Richard Strohm, who places it as the work of a composer connected to the Burgundian court. The Naples manuscript calls L'Homme arme a chanson rustique, which may lend credence to it being a composer's work in a popular style. Regardless of how well the tune was known at the outset of the L'Homme Arme mass tradition, it certainly became one of the most well-known and enduring facets of 15th century music.
A Tradition Begins
Who knows exactly what the person who wrote L'Homme arme had in mind, but thanks to its early use as a cantus firmus, it took on crusading connotations. There is no single answer to the question of what the l'homme arme means as a metaphor. Each composer had his own symbol in mind. The armed man could be Christ, St. Michael, or the Christian who has armed him/herself with faith.
There seems to be an agreement that the tradition begins with the Order of the Golden Fleece, a link first made by music historian William Prizer in 1985. The Order was founded by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in 1430. It is a Catholic order that originally had 25 members, the most important noblemen in Philip's duchy. The Order's stated mission resembled that of a crusading order, but in practice it was a way for the Duke to keep his vassals close and to hold self-congratulatory celebrations, conspicuous displays of wealth and importance. The Order had its own chapel, in order to accommodate the mass services prescribed to even informal meetings, which of course had a choir and resident composers.
And this was just for their informal meetings! Formal meetings were infrequent but lavish. These were not secretive, Masonic affairs--they were public celebrations with feasts and jousts, a presentation of splendor to both the court and the townspeople. Lavish public feasts call for ceremonial music of the highest order.
The early decades of the Order, coinciding as they did with the Ottomans' advancement on Constantinople, brought stirrings of another Crusade to reclaim Constantinople. The Vatican also held a referendum to call for a Crusade. Clearly, none happened, but it was a popular thought, for a time. One of the earliest works using the L'Homme arme is actually a song, "Il sera par vous," (5) composed at the Burgundian court as a parting gift for composer Symone le Breton, who was retiring. (The song has been accepted as the work of Robert Moron for years, but Alejandro Planchart makes a compelling argument for it being someone else's work, probably Dufay's.) This song is a friendly jest, posing Symone as the "armed man" who is going off to single-handedly take back Constantinople.
The earliest masses using L'Homme arme as a cantus firmus arise around the same time, all from the Franco-Flemish school. Two of the earliest masses by major composers are by Dufay and Busnoys. Ockeghem soon follows, along with Regis and Fauges. Each of these early composers of L'Homme arme masses took the opportunity to show off a little, in his own way, by employing clever composition tricks in their use of the cantus firmus.
And this is more or less how the so-called L'Homme arme tradition began: oneupmanship.
Josquin Outdoes Everyone
Josquin des Prez came in the following generation of Franco-Flemish composers. He may have studied with Ockeghem, and he came to become the most lauded and famous composer of his generation. Some argue that he is the most famous composer in history. (He was certainly the most counterfeited, in the 16th century. Printers--a brand new industry--often put out his name on music in order to make a buck, whether it was actually his music or not.)
In a culture of friendly competitiveness between composers, how do you distinguish yourself? By doing the same thing that they did, better.
The first collection of a single composer's music that was ever printed (in 1502) was a book of Josquin's masses. The first work in that book? Josquin's first L'homme arme mass. Josquin wrote two L'Homme arme masses: one for 4 voices, subtitled super voces musicales (a title I will explain shortly), and one for 6 voices. The six voice one is entitled simply a sexti toni, which my 12 year old brain always reads without the "t" in "sexti." So, I invariably refer to Missa L'homme arme a sexti toni as "L'Homme Arme Mass for sexy voices," in a Zapp Brannigan voice. Pop culture has ruined me, and I'm not sorry.
It's this first mass that we're going to talk about. In this mass, Josquin pulls out all the compositional stops. It became one of his most famous and most widely circulated works. There are more surviving copies of super voces musicales (SVM) than there are of all previous L'Homme arme masses combined. What makes it so special?
Fire up this beautiful recording by the Tallis Scholars as background, while you read:
One of his tricks is alluded to in the title. Super voces musicales refers to the pitches of the hexachord. (Prior to the Baroque, music was not conceived diatonically--meaning, not by the 12 pitch scale that we use today--but by hexachords, meaning scales of 6 pitches. (6)) SVM is in dorian mode, which does not require any accidentals, so this means that it's built upon a C hexachord (the "natural" hexachord in Guido's system). In each major mass movement, the L'homme arme tune begins on a new pitch, beginning on C and ascending the hexachord to A. As the cantus firmus, L'homme arme was the harmonic foundation of the entire work--according to voice leading rules, each voice would be written in harmony with the cantus firmus. The overall work is in a D tonality, so being able to write consonant music against a constantly changing harmonic foundation was impressive.
For example, in one movement, the tenor is written at the interval of a second against the upper voices. Sit down at the piano and play whatever you know how to play, but transpose the left hand by a second (start on the next white key up or down). It sounds terrible, doesn't it? But this is basically what Josquin did, and he made it sound good. No other composer attempted such a challenging transposition scheme for the cantus firmus.
He also employed numerous canons of different types. You all know what a canon is--think of "row row row your boat." That's a canon. But in Early Modern (Renaissance) terms, the term has broader application. Some of the movements are mensuration canons, where the tenor occurs in a different mensuration from the other three voices, meaning it moves at a different speed. (If you don't know what "mensuration" is, I refer you to my history of notation!) In other words, these are canons of proportion. As I recall, in every movement, the cantus firmus consists of one part of L'homme arme (the song is in three parts, ABA' form) or sung all the way through, once. It doesn't repeat. When the song is over, the movement is over. So mensuration canons are one way that Josquin can adjust the overall length and speed of a movement, in order to accommodate shorter or longer texts. The cantus firmus has to last long enough to get through the entire text of the movement, and it has to line up with the upper voices in a way that makes musical sense. But I don't want to give you the impression that Josquin uses these proportional canons to make his text setting easier. In most cases, it makes his job harder. (Who is he going to impress with shortcuts?)
Some of the mensuration canons reflect lyrical or spiritual concepts. For example, a portion of the Agnus Dei is labeled "trinitas" and reduced to three voices, symbolizing the trinity. Each voices sings the same music, but in three different mensurations. The top voice is in a major prolation (sign cut 3) which was old fashioned and unusual by the 1490s, when this mass when was written. It seems that Josquin is using a triple meter here as another iteration of threes, for the trinity.
Lastly, he uses verbal canons, which are text instructions for how to alter the music. (These verbal canons do not appear in every manuscript source. Some, such as Petrucci's print edition, simply print the music as it would be sung.) The instructions are not plain. They are puzzles that enrich the textual depth of the mass. In the final Agnus Dei, the cantus firmus appears in the uppermost voice with the instruction, "clama ne cesses" (cry without ceasing), which is quote from Isaiah, 58:1. The L'homme arme tune has several rests to punctuate phrases, and this inscription instructs the superius to sing the tune without those rests. It also mirrors the final text of the Agnus Dei, in which the lamb of god "cries for mercy." Other movements instruct the tenor to sing in retrograde (sing the last note first and work backwards) with the cryptic instruction "verte cito" (turn quickly), which is normally an indication to turn the page.
It is important to note that these canons, especially the verbals ones, are invisible to the average listener. An astute listener may note that the superius sings the cantus firmus without rests in the final Agus Dei, but who would know the words that Josquin used for this instruction and its significance in relationship to the text? You must read them. The cue "verte cito" itself references one's material interaction with books. In other words, the nature of such devices suggests that they were composed specifically to impress an educated, literary audience, more than the average listener. It was for the appreciation of connoisseurs. Anyone can hear the work and appreciate that it is better or more beautiful than another work, but only composers and scholars who had seen the manuscript, or heard about it from someone who had, would know the technical truth behind that beauty.
Hundreds of pages have been written on this work, and there is probably more that remains to be said. I am barely scratching the surface here. There are many dimensions of SVM that pay homage to Ockeghem and earlier hits of the L'homme arme tradition, in addition to all that there is to say about the technical brilliance of the composition. But this is where we must end.
Go back to the recording that I embedded above and give it a proper listen, without multi-tasking. If you're an especially enterprising music student, you might be happy to find out that there are numerous digital manuscripts for SVM available. Free! Online! I can attest, singing along with the recording from a manuscript is a great way to learn the notation and learn more about the work. Leave me a comment if you want help finding the manuscripts!
The Song's Background
Hear it sung by the Tallis Scholars:
Lyrics:
| L’homme armé doibt on doubter. On a fait partout crier Que chascun se viegne armer D’un haubregon de fer. L’homme armé doibt on doubter. | The armed man should be feared. Everywhere it has been proclaimed That each man shall arm himself With a coat of iron mail. The armed man should be feared. |
Constantinople was the second great capital of Christendom, with Rome. It was the seat of the Eastern Empire, until the disastrous and shameful Fourth Crusade, when the Western Christian army dispatched to reclaim Jerusalem from Muslim rule wound up sacking Constantinople instead. The formal end of the Byzantine Empire was in 1453, but 1204 was the true end of Constantinople's power.
Constantinople had been invulnerable for nearly a millennium. After being brought down from within, it was susceptible when the Ottomans began advancing across Southeastern Europe in the 1350s. (3) Western Europe, it seems, was grateful for the scapegoat, and the Turk became a cultural meme. (It seems that humanity has never excelled at introspection and responsibility on a national level.) The formal loss of Constantinople to a foreign (and Muslim) army made an indelible mark on 15th century Europe's psyche.
Musicologists are not exactly sure when the L'Homme arme tune was composed. The general consensus is that it comes from the early 15th century, but some argue it could be as old as late-14th century. The earliest surviving source of the song by itself is what's casually referred to as the Naples manuscript, a choirbook given to Beatrice of Aragon in the 1470s. (4) The timeline of compositions based upon L'Homme arme place the original tune to the earlier part of the century, which is all that we know for sure. The song is written with major prolation (a subdivision of the beat into 3), a stylistic feature common to the late 14th century that became old fashioned in the 15th.
The idea of the "l'homme arme" existed widely in popular thought by the mid-15th century in northern France and the lowlands, as musicologist Rob Wegman has shown. There was a maison l'homme arme in Cambrai, and there was a rue de l'homme arme in Paris. There was a l'homme arme character in jousting games, associated with the dreaded Turk. Some speculate that the song L'Homme arme must have been known throughout northern France and the lowlands. Others are more conservative, such as Richard Strohm, who places it as the work of a composer connected to the Burgundian court. The Naples manuscript calls L'Homme arme a chanson rustique, which may lend credence to it being a composer's work in a popular style. Regardless of how well the tune was known at the outset of the L'Homme Arme mass tradition, it certainly became one of the most well-known and enduring facets of 15th century music.
A Tradition Begins
Who knows exactly what the person who wrote L'Homme arme had in mind, but thanks to its early use as a cantus firmus, it took on crusading connotations. There is no single answer to the question of what the l'homme arme means as a metaphor. Each composer had his own symbol in mind. The armed man could be Christ, St. Michael, or the Christian who has armed him/herself with faith.
There seems to be an agreement that the tradition begins with the Order of the Golden Fleece, a link first made by music historian William Prizer in 1985. The Order was founded by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in 1430. It is a Catholic order that originally had 25 members, the most important noblemen in Philip's duchy. The Order's stated mission resembled that of a crusading order, but in practice it was a way for the Duke to keep his vassals close and to hold self-congratulatory celebrations, conspicuous displays of wealth and importance. The Order had its own chapel, in order to accommodate the mass services prescribed to even informal meetings, which of course had a choir and resident composers.
And this was just for their informal meetings! Formal meetings were infrequent but lavish. These were not secretive, Masonic affairs--they were public celebrations with feasts and jousts, a presentation of splendor to both the court and the townspeople. Lavish public feasts call for ceremonial music of the highest order.
The early decades of the Order, coinciding as they did with the Ottomans' advancement on Constantinople, brought stirrings of another Crusade to reclaim Constantinople. The Vatican also held a referendum to call for a Crusade. Clearly, none happened, but it was a popular thought, for a time. One of the earliest works using the L'Homme arme is actually a song, "Il sera par vous," (5) composed at the Burgundian court as a parting gift for composer Symone le Breton, who was retiring. (The song has been accepted as the work of Robert Moron for years, but Alejandro Planchart makes a compelling argument for it being someone else's work, probably Dufay's.) This song is a friendly jest, posing Symone as the "armed man" who is going off to single-handedly take back Constantinople.
The earliest masses using L'Homme arme as a cantus firmus arise around the same time, all from the Franco-Flemish school. Two of the earliest masses by major composers are by Dufay and Busnoys. Ockeghem soon follows, along with Regis and Fauges. Each of these early composers of L'Homme arme masses took the opportunity to show off a little, in his own way, by employing clever composition tricks in their use of the cantus firmus.
And this is more or less how the so-called L'Homme arme tradition began: oneupmanship.
Josquin Outdoes Everyone
Josquin des Prez came in the following generation of Franco-Flemish composers. He may have studied with Ockeghem, and he came to become the most lauded and famous composer of his generation. Some argue that he is the most famous composer in history. (He was certainly the most counterfeited, in the 16th century. Printers--a brand new industry--often put out his name on music in order to make a buck, whether it was actually his music or not.)
In a culture of friendly competitiveness between composers, how do you distinguish yourself? By doing the same thing that they did, better.
The first collection of a single composer's music that was ever printed (in 1502) was a book of Josquin's masses. The first work in that book? Josquin's first L'homme arme mass. Josquin wrote two L'Homme arme masses: one for 4 voices, subtitled super voces musicales (a title I will explain shortly), and one for 6 voices. The six voice one is entitled simply a sexti toni, which my 12 year old brain always reads without the "t" in "sexti." So, I invariably refer to Missa L'homme arme a sexti toni as "L'Homme Arme Mass for sexy voices," in a Zapp Brannigan voice. Pop culture has ruined me, and I'm not sorry.
It's this first mass that we're going to talk about. In this mass, Josquin pulls out all the compositional stops. It became one of his most famous and most widely circulated works. There are more surviving copies of super voces musicales (SVM) than there are of all previous L'Homme arme masses combined. What makes it so special?
Fire up this beautiful recording by the Tallis Scholars as background, while you read:
One of his tricks is alluded to in the title. Super voces musicales refers to the pitches of the hexachord. (Prior to the Baroque, music was not conceived diatonically--meaning, not by the 12 pitch scale that we use today--but by hexachords, meaning scales of 6 pitches. (6)) SVM is in dorian mode, which does not require any accidentals, so this means that it's built upon a C hexachord (the "natural" hexachord in Guido's system). In each major mass movement, the L'homme arme tune begins on a new pitch, beginning on C and ascending the hexachord to A. As the cantus firmus, L'homme arme was the harmonic foundation of the entire work--according to voice leading rules, each voice would be written in harmony with the cantus firmus. The overall work is in a D tonality, so being able to write consonant music against a constantly changing harmonic foundation was impressive.
For example, in one movement, the tenor is written at the interval of a second against the upper voices. Sit down at the piano and play whatever you know how to play, but transpose the left hand by a second (start on the next white key up or down). It sounds terrible, doesn't it? But this is basically what Josquin did, and he made it sound good. No other composer attempted such a challenging transposition scheme for the cantus firmus.
He also employed numerous canons of different types. You all know what a canon is--think of "row row row your boat." That's a canon. But in Early Modern (Renaissance) terms, the term has broader application. Some of the movements are mensuration canons, where the tenor occurs in a different mensuration from the other three voices, meaning it moves at a different speed. (If you don't know what "mensuration" is, I refer you to my history of notation!) In other words, these are canons of proportion. As I recall, in every movement, the cantus firmus consists of one part of L'homme arme (the song is in three parts, ABA' form) or sung all the way through, once. It doesn't repeat. When the song is over, the movement is over. So mensuration canons are one way that Josquin can adjust the overall length and speed of a movement, in order to accommodate shorter or longer texts. The cantus firmus has to last long enough to get through the entire text of the movement, and it has to line up with the upper voices in a way that makes musical sense. But I don't want to give you the impression that Josquin uses these proportional canons to make his text setting easier. In most cases, it makes his job harder. (Who is he going to impress with shortcuts?)
Some of the mensuration canons reflect lyrical or spiritual concepts. For example, a portion of the Agnus Dei is labeled "trinitas" and reduced to three voices, symbolizing the trinity. Each voices sings the same music, but in three different mensurations. The top voice is in a major prolation (sign cut 3) which was old fashioned and unusual by the 1490s, when this mass when was written. It seems that Josquin is using a triple meter here as another iteration of threes, for the trinity.
Lastly, he uses verbal canons, which are text instructions for how to alter the music. (These verbal canons do not appear in every manuscript source. Some, such as Petrucci's print edition, simply print the music as it would be sung.) The instructions are not plain. They are puzzles that enrich the textual depth of the mass. In the final Agnus Dei, the cantus firmus appears in the uppermost voice with the instruction, "clama ne cesses" (cry without ceasing), which is quote from Isaiah, 58:1. The L'homme arme tune has several rests to punctuate phrases, and this inscription instructs the superius to sing the tune without those rests. It also mirrors the final text of the Agnus Dei, in which the lamb of god "cries for mercy." Other movements instruct the tenor to sing in retrograde (sing the last note first and work backwards) with the cryptic instruction "verte cito" (turn quickly), which is normally an indication to turn the page.
It is important to note that these canons, especially the verbals ones, are invisible to the average listener. An astute listener may note that the superius sings the cantus firmus without rests in the final Agus Dei, but who would know the words that Josquin used for this instruction and its significance in relationship to the text? You must read them. The cue "verte cito" itself references one's material interaction with books. In other words, the nature of such devices suggests that they were composed specifically to impress an educated, literary audience, more than the average listener. It was for the appreciation of connoisseurs. Anyone can hear the work and appreciate that it is better or more beautiful than another work, but only composers and scholars who had seen the manuscript, or heard about it from someone who had, would know the technical truth behind that beauty.
Hundreds of pages have been written on this work, and there is probably more that remains to be said. I am barely scratching the surface here. There are many dimensions of SVM that pay homage to Ockeghem and earlier hits of the L'homme arme tradition, in addition to all that there is to say about the technical brilliance of the composition. But this is where we must end.
Go back to the recording that I embedded above and give it a proper listen, without multi-tasking. If you're an especially enterprising music student, you might be happy to find out that there are numerous digital manuscripts for SVM available. Free! Online! I can attest, singing along with the recording from a manuscript is a great way to learn the notation and learn more about the work. Leave me a comment if you want help finding the manuscripts!
- Thereafter, it was Istanbul (not Constantinople).
- A cantus firmus is an existing melody that is used as the harmonic foundation of a sacred work, masses being one common example. Initially, cantus firmi were always plainchants, but as sacred polyphony evolved, composers began to draw from other sources. Cantus firmi were often chosen for their topical relation to the theme or occasion of the work--for example, a mass composed for the Assumption might use a Marian hymn as its cantus firmus. Thus they were a tool for creating thematic unity in a work at all levels.
- And now you know why Constantinople got the works.
- Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS VI E 40. The book holds a monophonic version of L'Homme arme and six anonymous mass settings.
- The title is usually given as "Il sera pour vous," but Planchart believes this to be a misreading of the manuscript.
- Guido d'Arezzo codified these hexachords into a system called the Gamut, in his 11th century treatise Micrologus. The gamut contained all available pitches, as allowed by the composition rules of the time. When you say something "runs the gamut," you're making an allusion to medieval music theory without even knowing it!
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