Another ‘Imitation’ of Busnoys'sMissa L'Homme armé—and Some Observations onImitatioin Renaissance Music

Abstract

Antoine Busnoys'sMissa L'Homme armémust have been one of the most highly esteemed polyphonic Mass cycles of its time. It survives in no fewer than seven sources, an exceptionally large number not equalled by any other cycle from the 1460s or 1470s – even those by Dufay and Ockeghem. In this respect Busnoys's Mass stands alongside a work such as the anonymous EnglishMissa Caput, whose widespread popularity in the fifteenth century is also well established. It is a measure of their extraordinary esteem that both Masses served as models for ‘imitations’ by later composers. The entire cantus firmus layout of theCaputMass was copied in Ockeghem's and Obrecht's cycles on the same tune, and possibly in a fourthCaputcycle of which only the Agnus dei survives. Busnoys'sMissa L'Homme armélikewise served as the model for a later work, Obrecht'sL'Homme arméMass. There exists however a second ‘imitation’ of Busnoys's cycle, an anonymousMissa de Sancto Johanne Baptista, which probably dates from the 1480s or 1490s. This Mass has a less conspicuous relationship with its model than the other ‘imitations’ mentioned here, but it raises as many important questions concerning Renaissance practices of borrowing and structural modelling.

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