Renesansowa pieśń żołnierska Renaissance Soldier Song L'homme armé

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Fragmenty filmu "Kazimierz Wielki" (bitwa pod Płowcami 1331)
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.

Den Mann in Waffen muss man fürchten.
Überall hat man ausrufen lassen,
Dass jeder sich bewaffnen solle
Mit einem eisernen Kettenpanzer.
[Denn] den Mann in Waffen muss man fürchten.

L'homme armé ("Człowiek uzbrojony") – popularna świecka pieśń francuska z pocz. XV w. Była najpopularniejszą melodią (jako cantus firmus) wykorzystywaną do tworzenia opracowań mszy. Pochodzenie pieśni nie jest znane. Do dnia dzisiejszego zachowało się co najmniej 40 odrębnych kompozycji zatytułowanych Missa L'homme armé – Msza L'homme armé. Pierwsze jej opracowanie polifoniczne pojawia się u A. Busnoisa. Występowała także w opracowaniach organowych i lutniowych.

"L'homme armé" is a French secular song from the time of the Renaissance. Set in Dorian mode, 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.

"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. It was probably used for this purpose more than any other secular song: over 40 settings are known. Many composers of the Renaissance set at least one mass on this melody; the two settings by Josquin, the Missa L'homme armé super voces musicales, and the Missa L'homme armé sexti toni are among the best known. Other composers who wrote more than one setting include Matthaeus Pipelare, Pierre de La Rue, Cristóbal Morales, and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. 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.

While the practice of writing masses on the tune lasted into the seventeenth century, including a late setting by Carissimi, the majority of mass settings of "L'homme armé", approximately 30, are from the period between 1450 and 1510.

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 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 1523 Pietro Aron, in his treatise Thoscanello suggested that 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. Taruskin has argued that Busnois wrote the earliest known mass on the melody, but this is disputed, many scholars preferring to see the older Guillaume Dufay as the creator of the first L'homme armé Mass.[citation needed] Other composers whose settings of the tune may date from the 1450s include Guillaume Faugues, Johannes Regis, and Johannes Ockeghem.
(wikipedia)

The tune is singularly well-adapted to 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.