Cantus and Cantus Firmi: Solving Puzzles in Three Fifteenth-Century Masses for the Annunciation

Abstract

The Missae Ecce ancilla Domini by Du Fay, Regis, and Ockeghem together incorporate no fewer than eight different chants from the Annunciation liturgy into their complex polyphonic web, the antiphon Ecce ancilla Domini being common to all three. On what basis did these composers select these particular chants, and what can their choices tell us about the connections between these three mass settings, their origin in particular local liturgical traditions, and their intended function? Using these three masses as exemplars, this essay demonstrates how the Cantus database can assist scholars working on chant-based sacred polyphony in their quest to solve mysteries about not only the sources and functions of plainsong cantus firmi, but also about the polyphonic works themselves.