L'homme armé was a secular song from the time of the Renaissance.

Tune, text, and translation

L'homme, l'homme l'homme armé

l'homme armé doibt on doubter, doibt on doubter

On a fait partout crier

Que chascun se viengne armer

D'un haubregon de fer...

The man, the man, the armed man,

The armed man should be feared, should be feared.

Everywhere it has been proclaimed

That each man shall arm himself

With a coat of iron mail.

Use in the Latin Mass

L'homme armé is especially well remembered today because it was so widely used by Renaissance composers as a In music, cantus firmus is the basic material to be set using polyphony. The cantus firmus was originally always taken from Gregorian Chant and was the fixed melodic material, moving in whole notes, around which other more florid lines, instrumental and/or vocal, were composed around. (This line was usually... cantus firmus for the Latin This article discusses the Mass as a standard form of classical music composition. For the Mass and its meaning as a part of the Eucharistic liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church, see Mass (liturgy). For mass as a concept in physics, see mass. The Mass as a form of musical... Mass. It was probably used for this purpose more than any other secular song: thirty-one settings are known. Most early renaissance masters each set at least one mass on this melody; and the practice lasted into the seventeenth century, with a late setting by Giacomo Carissimi (baptized April 18, 1605 – January 12, 1674, Rome), was an Italian composer, one of the most celebrated masters of the early Baroque, or, more accurately, the Roman School of music. His exact birthdate is not known, but it was probably in 1604 or 1605 in Marini, near... Carissimi. The majority of mass settings of "L'homme armé" are from the period between Events March - French troops under Guy de Richemont besiege the English commander in France, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, in Caen April 15 - Battle of Formigny. French troops under the Comte de Clermont defeat an English army under Sir Thomas Kyriel and Sir Matthew Gough which was attempting to relieve... 1450 and Events Europes population was ~60 million. (Spielvogel) January 5 - Duke Ludovico Sforza recaptures Milan, but is soon driven out again by the French. April 22 - Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral officially discovers Brazil and claims the land for Portugal. November 11 - Treaty of Granada - Louis XII of France and... 1500.

It was believed that the earliest extant use of the melody was in combinative Chanson is a French word for song, and in English-language contexts is often applied to any song with French words, particularly a cabaret song. In a more specialised usage, it refers to a polyphonic French song of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Early chansons tended to be in... chanson Il sera pour vous conbatu/L'homme armé ascribed to Robert Morton (c.1430 – 1476?) was an English composer. He worked at the Burgundian court from 1457 to 1476. He is credited with the earliest known setting, as a chanson, of the tune lhomme arme, which was used by many early Renaissance composers as a cantus firmus for... Robert Morton, which now is believed to probably date from around 1463, due to historical references in the text. Another possibly earlier version of the tune is an anonymous three-voice setting from the Mellon Chansonnier, which also cannot be precisely dated. In Events April - Battle of Villalors - Forces loyal to Emperor Charles V defeat the Comuneros, a league of urban bourgeois rebelling against Charles in Spain. June 6 - Gustav Vasa becomes King of Sweden, establishing finally its full independence from Denmark. Births April 5 - Blaise de Vigenère Deaths May 23 - Ashikaga... 1523 Pietro Aron (also Pietro Aaron), c. 1480 – c. 1550, was an Italian music theorist and composer. He was born in Florence and probably died in Bergamo. He was cantor at the cathedral of Imola between 1515 and 1522, but little is known of his life before that except that... Pietro Aron, in his treatise Thoscanello suggested that Antoine Busnois (also Busnoys) (c.1430 – November 6, 1492) was a French composer and poet of the early Renaissance Burgundian School. Biography While nothing is known about his early life, he was probably from the vicinity of Béthune in the Pas de Calais. By 1467 he was in... Antoine Busnois was the composer of the tune; while tantalizing, since the tune is stylistically consistent with Busnois, there is no other source to corroborate Aron, and he was writing approximately 70 years after the first appearance of the melody. Richard Taruskin has argued that Busnois wrote the earliest known mass on the melody, but this is disputed, many scholars preferring to see the older Dufay (left), with Gilles Binchois Guillaume Dufay (c. 1400–November 27, 1474) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the early Renaissance. As the central figure in the Burgundian School, he was the most famous and influential composer of the mid-15th century, and can be considered as the founding... Guillaume Dufay as the creator of the first L'homme armé Mass.

The tune is singularly well-adapted to Counterpoint is a very general feature of music (especially prominent in much Western music) whereby two or more melodic strands occur simultaneously - in separate voices, either literally or metaphorically (if the music is instrumental). The term comes from the Latin punctus contra punctum (note against note). The adjective shows this... contrapuntal treatment. The phrases are clearly delineated, and there are several obvious ways to construct canons. It is also unusually easy to recognize within a contrapuntal texture.

Origin

The origins of the popularity of the song and the importance of the armed man are the subject of various theories. Some have suggested that the 'armed man' represents St Michael the Archangel (1), whilst others have suggested it merely represents the name of a popular tavern (Maison L'Homme Arme) near Dufay (left), with Gilles Binchois Guillaume Dufay (c. 1400–November 27, 1474) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the early Renaissance. As the central figure in the Burgundian School, he was the most famous and influential composer of the mid-15th century, and can be considered as the founding... Dufay's rooms in Cambrai (2). It may also represent the arming for a new crusade against the Turks (3). It is useful to note that the first appearance of the song was exactly contemporaneous with the fall of Map of Constantinople. Constantinople (Roman name: Constantinopolis; Modern Greek: Konstantinoupoli or Κωνσταντινούπολη) is the former name of the city of Istanbul in todays Turkey. Today, Constantinople is the area between the Golden Horn and... Constantinople to the The Ottoman Turks were the ethnic subdivision of the Turkic people who dominated the ruling class of the Ottoman Empire. Brief History The Ottomans were first known to the west in 1227, when they fled the Mongol Empire into the Seljuk Empire in what is now called Anatolia. However, they... Ottoman Turks ( Events May 29 - Fall of Constantinople to Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror, marking the end of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire). July 17 - Battle of Castillon. The French under Jean Bureau utterly defeat the English under the Earl of Shrewsbury, who is killed October 19 - The French recapture... 1453), an event which had a huge psychological effect in Europe; composers such as Dufay (left), with Gilles Binchois Guillaume Dufay (c. 1400–November 27, 1474) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the early Renaissance. As the central figure in the Burgundian School, he was the most famous and influential composer of the mid-15th century, and can be considered as the founding... Guillaume Dufay composed laments for the occasion. Yet another possibility is that all three theories are true, given the feeling of urgency in organizing a military opposition to the recently victorious Ottomans which permeated central and northern Europe at the time.

References

1 Penguin History Of Music, Vol 2 ed. Robertson & Stevens (1963)

2 Pryer's article on Dufay in New Oxford Companion to Music, ed Arnold (1983)

3 Lockwood in the The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is a dictionary of music and musicians, generally considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It was first published in 1878 as A Dictionary of Music and Musicians in four volumes edited by Sir George Grove with... New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980) (quoted by Peter Phillips, in notes to 1989 recording of the two Josquin Des Prez Josquin Des Prez (diminutive of Joseph; latinized Josquinus Pratensis) (c. 1450 – August 27, 1521) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He was the most famous European composer between Guillaume Dufay and Palestrina, and is usually considered to be the central figure of the Netherlands... Josquin masses)

David Fallows, 'L'homme armé', Grove Music Online

External link

• The translation above is adapted slightly from program notes (http://www.unh.edu/music/alamire/ca1-L'homme.htm) for the Early music is a term used to describe pre-Classical Western music, from the earliest written music to 1500 at the earliest (Judd, 1998, p.4) and the end of the Baroque era in about 1750 at the latest. Music in Antiquity Very little remains of music from Ancient Greece... early music group Capella Alamire (http://www.unh.edu/music/alamire/).