263

14 Preaching to the Choir?: Obrecht’s Motet

for the Dedication of the Church
M . J e n n i f e r   B l ox a m

Celebrating the Domus Dei in Song and Sermon

Dedicatory rituals for sacred spaces are and always have been highly signifi-
cant social and religious events, customarily involving an entire community
in complex, symbol-laden ceremonies designed to purify, consecrate, and
empower a special place.1 For early Christians, the dedication of a public
place of worship was a particularly festive occasion, because for the first
280 years of the faith’s existence Christ’s followers risked death when they
assembled for worship. The new religion was illegal in the Roman Empire
and its adherents persecuted until the emperors Constantine and Licinius
issued the Edict of Milan in 313 CE, allowing Christians the same freedoms
enjoyed by other members of the empire, including the right to build their
own churches. Immediately a spate of construction began, and ceremonies
soon followed to inaugurate the new Christian temples.
Although the details of these early rites are unknown, both music and
preaching clearly played an integral role. Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea
(ca. 260–ca. 340 CE) offers vivid contemporary witness in his Ecclesiastical
History, in which he describes the dedication festivals in Tyre, held in
314 CE:

Yes, and our leaders performed ceremonies with full pomp, and ordained priests
the sacraments and majestic rites of the Church, here with the singing of psalms
and intoning of the prayers given us from God, there with the carrying out of div-
ine and mystical ministrations . . . Every one of the dignitaries of the Church present

My heartfelt thanks to Professor Markus Rathey, whose invitation to contribute to the

symposium Music and Preaching in the Early Modern Period at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music
in October 2013 launched this study. A 2013–14 Fellowship in Sacred Music, Worship, and
the Arts at the Institute of Sacred Music provided the time, resources, and inspiration for its
completion, for which I am deeply grateful.
1
N. Harris, in Building Lives: Constructing Rites and Passages (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1999), situates the dedication of churches within the broader context of the “life cycle”
rituals marking the construction, dedication, maturation, and demise of important buildings,
both sacred and secular, from medieval through modern times, with an emphasis on American
structures.
263
264

264 M . J e n n i f e r   B l ox a m

delivered a public oration according to his ability, inspiring the great audience.
(From Ecclesiastical History, Ch. 10, Bk.3.)2

Over the ensuing centuries in the Christian West, these early dedication
ceremonies evolved into a stunningly complex and dramatic ritual of bap-
tism for the new church and the altar it housed (see Figure  14.1).3 As it
developed, the elaborate ceremony required both special music to accom-
pany its unique actions and explanations to illuminate their significance.
Thus a panoply of Proper plainsongs was composed for the consecration
ritual, and liturgical expositions, many in the form of sermons, were crafted
to explicate the meaning of the rite in all its glorious detail.4 The earliest
sermons in turn informed the liturgy for the annual commemorative feast
day observed by virtually every church on its consecration anniversary: for
example, the Dedication sermons by St. Augustine (354–430) and the
Venerable Bede (672/73–735) were mined to provide lessons for the office
of Matins for the Feast of the Dedication.5 Similarly, the Proper chants of the
Mass – apparently created ca. 609 to elaborate the significance of the Dedi-
cation rite that transformed the first pagan temple in Rome, the Pantheon,
into a Christian basilica – were carried over into the Mass formulary for
the annual feast of the Dedication of the Church, whose date varied from
church to church depending on the day of its consecration.6
The creators of both plainsongs and sermons harvested many of the
same biblical passages for their elaborations. One favorite was the story
of Jacob’s dream (Genesis 28:12–18), in which God revealed to Jacob the

2
Eusebius: The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, trans. G.A. Williamson, rev. and
ed. with a new introduction by A. Louth (London: Penguin Books, 1989), 305–306.
3
A detailed investigation of the early development of the Dedication rite through the
ninth century is found in B. Repsher, The Rite of Church Dedication in the Early Medieval
Era (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1998). R. Horie, Perceptions of Ecclesia: Church and
Soul in Medieval Dedication Sermons (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), summarises the rite as
codified in the Pontificale Romanum (Rome: Stephan Plank, 1497), providing a schematic
overview and a transcription of the texts (1–12, 171–203). This print, which includes all
the music for the ceremony, can be seen at http://digi.vatlib.it/view/Stamp.Barb.AAA.II.18/
0001?sid=2e7c3efe51cf450387594bd5c729b153.
4
T. D. Kozachek, “The Repertory of Chant for Dedicating Churches in the Middle Ages: Music,
Liturgy, and Ritual,” Ph.D. diss., Harvard University (1999). On the exegesis of the Dedication
rite transmitted in sermons, see Repsher, The Rite of Church Dedication, 25–33, esp. n.57, and
Horie, Perceptions of Ecclesia, esp.13–19.
5
C. Wright, “Dufay’s Nuper rosarum flores, King Solomon’s Temple, and the Veneration of the
Virgin,” Journal of the American Musicological Society, 47 (1994), 411.
6
On the origin of the Mass formulary, see S. Rankin, “Terribilis est locus iste: The Pantheon
in 609,” in Rhetoric Beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages, ed.
M. Carruthers (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 281–310, esp. 286–302. By the late Middle
Ages, the Proper chants of both the Dedication Mass and Office were fairly consistent from
place to place.
265

Preaching to the Choir? 265

Figure 14.1. A bishop wearing the mitre baptizes a church while a choir sings. An
assistant holds his crozier while another kneels beside him with the bucket of asper-
sional water. From an early sixteenth century missal from the Parisian Sainte-Chapelle.
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fonds latin 8890, fol. 12r.
266

266 M . J e n n i f e r   B l ox a m

place whereon he was to build the House of God through the vision of
angels ascending and descending a ladder stretching between heaven and
earth. This dramatic passage yielded texts for the introit and gradual of
the Dedication Mass as well as numerous antiphons and responsories for
Vespers and Matins; it likewise generated the themes for at least seventy of
the more than 460 Dedication sermons written between 1150 and 1350.7
Liturgy, plainsong, and preaching for the celebration of the Dedication of
the Church thus forged an especially rich synergy early on.
It was to the story of Jacob’s dream that composers of polyphony for the
Dedication of the Church first turned for their foundational material: the
earliest known polyphony for the Dedication Mass and Office as well as
the earliest known motet written explicitly for a Dedication celebration
are built on plainsong cantus firmi whose texts proclaim Jacob’s words of
fear and wonder in reaction to his prophetic dream. In the late twelfth cen-
tury, Leonin supplied organa dupla to adorn the responsory of first Vespers
(Terribilis est locus iste V. Cumque evigilasset), and the gradual of the Mass
(Locus iste a Deo factus est V. Deus cui astant) in anticipation of the an-
nual feast at the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris; the opening phrases of
both responds are plucked from Genesis 28:16–17.8 About 250 years later,
Guillaume Du Fay, too, chose a plainsong that set Jacob’s exclamation on
which to construct his splendid polytextual motet Nuper rosarum flores,
composed specifically for the consecration of Santa Maria del Fiore in
Florence on March 25, 1436. Du Fay employed only the first four words
and first fourteen notes of the Dedication introit Terribilis est locus iste as
his cantus firmus, and with these elemental materials built a sonic structure
whose text and music convey the solemnity and symbolism of the occasion
in ways both forthright and hidden.9

Laudemus nunc Dominum, Jacob Obrecht’s grand five-voice polytextual

motet for the Dedication of the Church, was composed no more than sixty

7
The array of office plainsongs for the feast of the Dedication of the Church drawn from
Genesis 28:12–18 can be found by searching text phrases drawn from the passage in http://
cantus.uwaterloo.ca. For an index of Dedication sermons, see J. B. Schneyer, Repertorium der
Lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters für die Zeit von 1150–1350, Beiträge zur Geschichte
der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, Band 43, Heft 11 (Münster: Aschendorff,
1990), 372.
8
Dubbing it “the great phantom feast at Paris,” Wright notes that although music for the
Dedication was included in the Magnus liber organi, that cathedral was never consecrated
nor the Dedication feast observed, possibly due to the clergy’s desire to retain possession of
popular relics loaned by a nearby church whose return had been promised upon completion
of the building. C. Wright, Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris, 500–1550 (Cambridge
University Press, 1989), 127–128.
9
Wright, “Dufay’s Nuper rosarum flores.”
267

Preaching to the Choir? 267

years after Nuper rosarum flores; unlike Du Fay’s motet, however, the spe-
cific time and place of its creation is unknown.10 Nor is it clear whether
Obrecht composed his motet for the actual consecration ceremony itself
(as had Du Fay), or if it was intended to celebrate the annual feast of the
Dedication of the Church.11
Nevertheless, Obrecht seems in some ways to pick up where Du Fay left
off.12 For his opening cantus firmus, Obrecht selected an antiphon from the
Matins office of the Feast of the Dedication, Non est hic aliud, whose text
continues and completes the verse from Genesis 28:17 recounting Jacob’s
awestruck response to his vision that began with the first four words of the
introit chosen by Du Fay:
Terribilis est locus iste! How awesome is this place!
Non est hic aliud nisi domus This is none other than the House of
Dei et porta celi. God and the gate of heaven.

Like Du Fay, Obrecht constructs a large musical structure governed

by number. But while the earlier motet displays a clear ground plan con-
trolled by changes in mensuration that symbolically capture the architec-
tural proportions of Solomon’s temple, Laudemus nunc Dominum unfolds
a subtler scheme accomplished through the durational control of cantus
firmus segments and the rests that separate them.13 Although Obrecht’s
symbolic agenda remains opaque, the exclusive use of multiples of three
suggests an inspiration in the details of the Dedication rite itself, during

10
The terminus ante quem non for Laudemus nunc Dominum was ascertained by Rob C.
Wegman, who found reference to a work by Obrecht “in honorem consecrationis templi”
in the 1496 treatise De natura cantus ac miraculis vocis by Matthaeus Herbenus; see The
Crisis of Music in Early Modern Europe, 1470–1530 (New York: Routledge, 2005), 227 n.15.
By 1496 Obrecht had served churches in Bergen op Zoom, Cambrai, Bruges, and Antwerp,
as well as the court of Ferrara; the spotty survival of plainsong sources from these locales
precludes the possibility of firmly connecting this motet to a particular place on the basis of
variants in its plainsong cantus firmi, though a textual variant appears to point away from
Cambrai.
11
The phrase “in honor of the consecration of the church” employed by Herbenus (see
above, n.10) might indicate that Obrecht composed Laudemus nunc Dominum for the
ritual of consecration itself. The choice and order of cantus firmi, however, appear to draw
most directly from the Office for the annual feast of the Dedication (see below), though
this does not preclude the possibility that the motet was first destined for a consecration
ritual.
12
The suggestion is not as improbable as might first appear: Obrecht assumed the post of master
of the choirboys at the cathedral in Cambrai in September 1484, not quite ten years after Du
Fay’s death there, and it is not inconceivable that he had access to a copy of this extraordinary
occasional motet from the older composer’s youth.
13
Wright revealed the correspondence between the dimensions of Solomon’s temple and Du Fay’s
motet in “Dufay’s Nuper rosarum flores,” 405–429; Fabrice Fitch explores the mathematical
268

268 M . J e n n i f e r   B l ox a m

which the symbolically potent ritual actions of the building’s baptism must
be thrice repeated, commencing with the bishop’s three-fold perambulation
around the church while sprinkling the edifice with aspersional water, and
his three-fold knocking and entrance command at the church door, thrice
answered by the lone deacon within.14
Finally and most notably, Du Fay and Obrecht alike adopt the role of
a celebrant addressing a congregation, each in their own distinctive way
crafting a Dedication motet that reveals the pervasive influence of sermons
on the experience of both lay and clerical authors and composers of the
period.15 Du Fay shows himself a reader of sermons in the first verse of
his newly composed text, which owes its distinctive use of the word hiems
(winter) to the Venerable Bede’s sermon In dedicatione templi, available
to the composer in the chapter libraries of both Florence and Cambrai,
and perhaps within one of the two volumes of sermons that he owned.16
Moreover, unlike other texts believed to be from Du Fay’s pen, Nuper
rosarum flores lacks both rhyme and meter (despite its symbolically moti-
vated written presentation in four seven-line strophes of seven syllable
lines each), in form and style thus “speaking” in prose rather than verse,
as would a celebrant and preacher.17 We hear the voice of an authoritative
“I” offering a prayer to the Virgin on behalf of a multiple audience (the
people of Florence); he situates his speech in a liturgical “here and now”

dimension of Obrecht’s motet in “ʻFor the Sake of His Honour’: Obrecht Reconsidered,”
Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 48 (1998),
159–161.
14
See L. Bowen, “The Tropology of Mediaeval Dedication Rites,” Speculum, 16 (1941), 469–479
for a general description of the rite and the symbolism attached to its actions by various
exegetes. The fact that twelve breve rests precede the entrance of the tenor cantus firmus of
Obrecht’s motet may allude to the ritual action of lighting twelve candles around the interior
perimeter of the church prior to beginning the baptismal rite outside.
15
That sermons influenced thirteenth- and fourteenth-century poems and plays in a variety
of ways is vividly demonstrated in the trio of essays grouped in the section entitled “How
Sermons are Reflected in other Literatures” in Speculum Sermonis: Interdisciplinary
Reflections on the Medieval Sermon, ed. G. Donavin, C. J. Nederman, and R. Utz
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 197–258. Of particular interest for its exploration of the role
of music in preacherly Passion plays is P. V. Loewen, “The Conversion of Mary Magdalene
and the Musical Legacy of Franciscan Piety in the Early German Passion Plays,” in ibid.,
235–258.
16
Wright, “Dufay’s Nuper rosarum flores,” 411–412; on the content of Du Fay’s library, see ibid.,
“Dufay at Cambrai: Discoveries and Revisions,” Journal of the American Musicological Society,
28 (1975), 214–218.
17
On the symbolism of the textual arrangement see Wright, “Dufay’s Nuper rosarum flores,” 397–
400; regarding its prose nature, see L. Holford-Strevens, “Du Fay the Poet? Problems in the
Texts of His Motets,” Early Music History, 16 (1997), 113–114.
269

Preaching to the Choir? 269

by declaring that hodie (today) the pope deigns to consecrate their great
church:18
Nuper rosarum flores The harsh winter [of the Hebraic Law]
ex dono pontificis having past, roses,
hieme licet horrida a recent papal gift,
tibi, virgo celica, perpetually adorn
pie et sancte deditum the temple of the grandest structure
grandis templum machinae piously and devoutly dedicated
condecorarunt perpetim. to you, heavenly Virgin.
Hodie vicarius Today the vicar
Jesu Christi et Petri of Jesus Christ and successor
successor Eugenius of Peter, Eugenius,
hoc idem amplissimum this same most enormous Temple
sacris templum manibus with sacred hands
sanctisque liquoribus and holy oils
consecrare dignatus est. has deigned to consecrate.

Obrecht, too, begins his Dedication motet with an original prose text estab-
lishing the persona of a commanding speaker addressing a crowd assem-
bled at that moment (nunc) for a celebratory event:
Laudemus nunc Dominum Let us now praise the Lord
In canticis et modulationibus With songs and musical sounds ...
sonorum ...
Unlike Du Fay, however, Obrecht does not appear to have been inspired by
a particular sermon, and his speech continues as a concatenation of prose
texts both original and scriptural (see Examples  14.1a and 14.1b). Such
reliance on quotations from Scripture was, then as now, a tried and true
technique for crafting an effective sermon. Obrecht’s debt is to the general
method and structure of homiletic composition rather than to a specific
sermon’s content and language.
The broad analogy between sacred song and sermon may well have
been familiar to both Du Fay and Obrecht: the comparison was explicitly
drawn within the most widely known medieval exegesis of the Dedication
rite, found at the close of the immensely popular Legenda aurea by the

18
Translation from Wright, “Dufay’s Nuper rosarum flores,” 399. On these markers of sermonic
language, see B. M. Kienzle, “Introduction” to The Sermon, Typologie des Sources du Moyen
Âge Occidental, Fasc. 81–88, Institut d’Études Médiévales, Université Catholique de Louvain
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 150–159.
270

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
S a1 a2 b a1+2 b d1
CT a1 a2 b a1+2 b d1
T1 C1 c2+3
T2 a1 a2 b a1+2 b
B a1 a2 b a1+2 b d1

imitative homophonic imitative non-imitative imitative

45 50 55 60 65 70 75
S d2 d3 e f1 f2 Alleluia
CT d2 d3 e f1 f2 Alleluia
T1 C1+2+3
T2 d2 e f1 f2 Alleluia
B d2 e f1 f2 Alleluia

homophonic non-imitative

Text Translation Source

a) 1. Laudemus nunc Dominum 2. in a) 1. Let us now praise the Lord 2. with Obrecht?
canticis et modulationibus sonorum songs and musical sounds

b) quoniam hodie salus huic domui b) for this day is salvation come to this Luke 19:9
facta est. house.

a) 1. Laudemus nunc Dominum 2. in a) 1. Let us now praise the Lord 2. with Obrecht?
canticis et modulationibus sonorum songs and musical sounds

b) quoniam hodie salus huic domui b) for this day is salvation come to this Luke 19:9
facta est. house.

C) 1. NON EST HIC ALIUD 2. NISI C) 1. THIS IS NONE OTHER 2. THAN Genesis 28:17
DOMUS DEI 3. ET PORTA CELI. THE HOUSE OF GOD 3. AND THE
GATE OF HEAVEN.

d) 1. Numquid non David fecit stare
cantores contra altare et in sono
eorum dulces fecit modos, 2. ut
laudarent nomen Domini sanctum
3. et amplificarent mane Dei
sanctitatem?
d) 1. Did not David set singers before the Eccl. 47:11-12
altar and by their voices make sweet (adapted)
melody, 2. that they might praise the
holy name of the Lord 3. and magnify
the holiness of God in the morning?

e) Psallamus igitur singuli. e) Let us therefore all sing psalms. Obrecht?

f) 1. Sint oculi tui Domine super f) 1. May thine eyes, O Lord, be upon this 1 Kings
domum hanc quam edificavimus house which we have built for thee, and 8:29-30, 9:25
tibi, et exaudias deprecationem mayst thou hearken to the supplication (adapted)
populi tui 2. sacrificia et holocausta of thy people, 2. when they offer
super altare tuum offerentis. sacrifices and burnt offerings on thine
altar.
Alleluia. Alleluia.

C) 1. NON EST HIC ALIUD 2. NISI C) 1. THIS IS NONE OTHER 2. THAN Genesis 28:17
DOMUS DEI 3. ET PORTA CELI. THE HOUSE OF GOD 3. AND THE
GATE OF HEAVEN.

Example 14.1a. Obrecht, Laudemus nunc Dominum, Prima Pars. Summary of texts with textual and
textural graph.
271

80 85 90 95 100 105 110

S g1 g2
A g1 g2
T1 H1 H2 H3
T2 g1 g2
B g2 g2 Alleluia
non-imitative

115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150

S Alleluia i1
A Alleluia i1
T1 Alleluia
T2 Alleluia i1
B i1
enlivened homophony

155 160 165 170 175

S i2
A i2
T1
T2 i2
B i2

homophonic

180 185 190 195 200 205

S a1 b Alleluia
A a1 b Alleluia
T1 J Alleluia
T2 a2 Alleluia
B a1 b Alleluia
non-imitative

Text Translation Source

g) 1.Cantemus Domino canticum novum, g) 1. Let us sing unto the Lord a new song, Ps. 149:1
2. laus eius in ecclesia sanctorum. 2. let his praise be in the congregation
Alleluia. of the saints. Alleluia.

H) 1. VIDIT JACOB SCALAM, SUMMITAS H) 1. JACOB SAW A LADDER, THE Gen. 18:12, 16
EIUS CELOS TANGEBAT, 2. ET TOP THEREOF TOUCHED
DESCENDENTES ANGELOS, HEAVEN, 2. AND ANGELS
ET DIXIT: 3. VERE LOCUS ISTE WERE DESCENDING AND HE
SANCTUS EST. ALLELUIA. SAID: 3. INDEED, THIS PLACE IS
HOLY. ALLELUIA.

i) 1. Numquid non patres nostri Cain, Abel, i) 1. Did not our fathers Cain, Abel, Noah, Eccl. 49:13-14
Noe, Abraham, Jacob, Moyses, Aron, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, David, (adapted)
David, Salomon, Zorobabel et Iesus Solomon, Zerubbabel and Jeshua the son
Iosedec in diebus suis edificaverunt altaria of Jozadak, build in their days altars unto
Domino, 2. et nomen Domini invocantes the Lord, 2. and calling upon the name of
exaltaverunt templum sanctum Domino the Lord exalt the holy temple prepared
paratum in gloria sempiterna? for the Lord for everlasting glory?

a) 1. Laudemus igitur Dominum 2. in canticis a) 1. Let us therefore praise the Lord 2. with Obrecht?
et modulationibus sonorum songs and musical sounds

b) quoniam hodie salus huic domui facta est. b) for this day is salvation come to this Luke 19:9
Alleluia. house. Alleluia.

J) EREXIT JACOB LAPIDEM IN J) JACOB SET UP THE STONE AS Gen. 28:18

TITULUM, FUNDENS OLEUM A MEMORIAL PILLAR, POURING
DESUPER. OIL OVER IT.

Translation by Leofranc Holford Strevens, adapted from Jacob Obrecht: New Edition of the Collected Works, vol.
15: Motets I, ed. Chris Maas (Utrecht: Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1995), 83.

Example 14.1b. Obrecht, Laudemus nunc Dominum, Secunda Pars. Summary of texts with textual and
textural graph.
272

272 M . J e n n i f e r   B l ox a m

Italian Dominican preacher and hagiographer Jacobus de Voragine

(ca. 1230–1298).19 In this passage from the final chapter, entitled “De ded-
icatione ecclesie,” Voragine provides the third and final justification for the
consecration of the altar:

Thirdly, the altar is consecrated for the singing of the chant, as is indicated in Eccl.
47:10–11: “He gave him power against his enemies; and he set singers before the
altar, and by their voices he made sweet melody.” According to Hugh of St. Victor,
this melody is of three kinds, for there are three kinds of musical sounds, namely,
those that are produced by striking, by blowing, and by singing. The first pertains to
string instruments, the second to the organ, and the third to the voice. This concord
of sound may be applied not only to the offices of the church, but to the concord of
morals; the work of the hands is compared to the striking of the strings, the devo-
tion of the mind to the blowing of the organ, and the exhortations of the sermon to
the singing of the voice.20

To arrive at this potent comparison, Voragine not only follows the ana-
logical method so dear to scholastic thinkers, but also adopts in miniature
the structural template of the “thematic” sermon that dominated univer-
sity, church, and urban preaching from the thirteenth through the fifteenth
century. As distilled in the preaching manuals (artes predicandi) and model
sermon collections that proliferated in the late Middle Ages to assist cler-
ics preparing to preach, the heart of the thematic sermon was a thema
drawn from Scripture (here the quotation from the Old Testament book of
Ecclesiasticus), whose meaning is systematically amplified through an exe-
getical process of usually tripartite division and subdivision supported with

19
Du Fay owned a copy of the Legenda aurea (Wright, “Dufay at Cambrai,” 215), as no doubt did
many clerical men of his day.
20
“Tertio ad cantandum, Eccl. XLVII: Dedit illi contra inimicos potentiam et stare fecit contra
altare cantores et in sono eorum fecit dulces modulos. Et dicit modulos in plurali, quia
secundum Hugonem de Sancto Victore tres sunt species sonorum, quae faciunt tres modulos.
Fit enim sonus pulsu, flatu et cantu. Ad citharam pertinent pulsus, ad organum flatus, ad
vocem cantus. Assignari potest hec consonantia sonorum concordie morum, si referatur ad
pulsum cithare manuum operatio, ad flatum organi mentis devotio, ad cantum vocis sermonis
exhortatio.” Legenda aurea / Iacopo da Varazze, ed. G. P. Maggioni, 2 vols. (Tavarnuzze:
SISMEL, 1998), vol. 2: 1284–1285, lines 27–32. Translation adapted from Jacobus de Voragine,
The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. W. G. Ryan, 2 vols. (Princeton University
Press, 1993), vol. 2, 386. Ryan renders “sermonis exhortatio” as “vocal prayer,” but in the later
Middle Ages the phrase was clearly understood to refer to preaching, as revealed by William
Caxton’s English translation of 1483, which renders this comparative phrase as “And the songe
of the voys to the prechyng of the Word of God.” See Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea
sanctorum, sive, Lombardica historia, trans. William Caxton [London, 1483], fol. 33r, available
in Early English Books Online.
273

Preaching to the Choir? 273

further authoritative citations (here the reference to the twelfth-century

mystic theologian Hugh of St. Victor).21
No educated cleric could have escaped exposure to the rhetorical
and structural strategies of the thematic sermon, which can be heard
resonating – sometimes faintly, occasionally resoundingly – in the motets of
clerical composers of the time. In general terms, the basic process employed
by composers of isorhythmic motets (such as Du Fay’s Nuper rosarum
flores) – that of choosing a liturgically appropriate plainchant as the cantus
firmus around which surrounding voices provide occasion-specific musical
and textual amplification  – invites comparison to a preacher’s process of
selecting a liturgically appropriate scriptural passage as the thema around
which to develop a sermon for a particular occasion.22 The distinctive tex-
ture of the five-voice tenor motet that developed in the latter half of the fif-
teenth century (such as Obrecht’s Laudemus nunc Dominum) is potentially
even more inviting of comparison to the structural details of the thematic
sermon due to its larger scale and capacity to weave together a broader vari-
ety of texts and cantus firmi.
Indeed, Factor orbis  – Obrecht’s grand celebratory Christmas concoc-
tion of twenty discrete texts of which six retain their original melodies –
exhibits a striking conceptual and structural affinity with the thematic
sermon.23 Now Factor orbis and Laudemus nunc Dominum appear to
be cut from the same cloth:  both are splashy special-occasion motets in
five voices that position text-bearing plainsong cantus firmi in the tenor,
around which an array of additional scriptural and liturgical texts swirl.
Both display great textural variety, juxtaposing panels of dense five-part
polytextual counterpoint with lighter textures of largely syllabic imitative
writing and passages of homophonic declamation, and are generally men-
tioned in the same breath by modern analysts.24 Do the inner workings

21
A copious secondary literature is devoted to the thematic sermon; an especially lucid
introduction is O.C. Edwards Jr., A History of Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2004),
210–238.
22
For a fuller consideration of analogies between glossing, exegesis, and the thematic sermon, see
M. J. Bloxam, “Obrecht as Exegete: Reading Factor orbis as a Christmas Sermon,” in Hearing
the Motet: Essays on the Motet of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. D. Pesce (Oxford
University Press, 1996), 169–192.
23
Ibid., 180–192.
24
W. Edwards, “Word Setting in a Perfect Musical World: The Case of Obrecht’s Motets,” Journal
of the Alamire Foundation, 3 (2011), 52–75; T. Pack, “Obrecht’s Approach to Five-Voice
Composition as an Extension of Regis’ Axial Tenor Model,” Journal of the Alamire Foundation,
3 (2011), 76–108; P. Weller, “Some Ways of the Motet: Obrecht and the Paths of Five-Voice
Composition,” in The Motet Around 1500: On the Relationship of Imitation and Text Treatment?,
ed. T. Schmidt-Beste (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 247–275.
274

274 M . J e n n i f e r   B l ox a m

of Obrecht’s motet for the Dedication of the Church, at first glance so like
those of his Christmastide motet, likewise evoke the preacherly approach
of the thematic sermon? A close comparison of the two motets will reveal
that Obrecht’s approach to text and its musical treatment in Laudemus nunc
Dominum differs substantially from his strategies in Factor orbis, a contrast
that resonates in surprising and remarkable ways with profound changes in
the style and structure of sermons in the decades prior to the Reformation.

Obrecht’s Factor orbis and Laudemus nunc Dominum:

Transformations in Song and Sermon

In the early fourteenth century, the Dominican friar Jacobus de Fusignano

(d. 1333) offered an analogy in his Ars predicandi to help aspiring preachers
visualize the process and structure of the thematic sermon: he compared it
to a tree, explaining:25

For as a tree rises from the root to its trunk, and its trunk divides into the main
branches, and these main branches further multiply into secondary ones, thus the
sermon, after it has proceeded from the thema to the preamble, as if from its root
into the trunk, and then from the preamble into the main division of the thema, as
if to the main branches, it must be further multiplied with the help of secondary
distinctions . . . Continuing our comparison of a sermon to a tree, we must consider
that, just as a tree, after it has sprouted secondary branches, still expands through
twigs, so a sermon must not rest with the division of the thema and subdivision
of its parts alone, but must have it expanded further, so that it is built up in the
proper way.26

Fusignano’s treatise achieved considerable currency; over the next two cen-
turies it was copied and then printed many times over. Other preaching
manuals adopted the comparison, and sometime during the fifteenth cen-
tury an ambitious German calligrapher graphically translated the verbal
analogy into an exuberant hand-drawn image (see Figure 14.2).27 Herein

25
On Fusignano and his treatise, see S. Wenzel, The Art of Preaching: Five Medieval Texts
and Translations (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2013),
3–9. My thanks to Thomas Troeger, J. Edward and Ruth Cox Lantz Professor of Christian
Communication at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, for calling my attention to the fact that
the tree still serves as a didactic model for instructing preachers today.
26
Ibid., 36–39.
27
O. A. Dieter, “Arbor Picta: The Medieval Tree of Preaching,” The Quarterly Journal of Speech, 51
(1965), 123–144. The drawing can be examined in all its glorious colorful detail at http://daten.
digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00084544/image_40 and http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/
bsb00084544/image_40 and http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00084544/image_41.
275

Preaching to the Choir? 275

Figure 14.2. Arbor de arte sive modo predicandi. From a fifteenth-century German

manuscript miscellaney. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 23865, fols.
19v–20r.
276

276 M . J e n n i f e r   B l ox a m

the constituent parts of a thematic sermon are projected within the outline
of a tree’s trunk, branches, and twigs. Two terminal lower limbs represent
the optional opening gambits of prothema (a mini-sermon preparatory to
the main address) and prayer; the trunk, representing the thema, divides
into three main branches which each generate three additional limbs that
further elaborate each branch. Thus, with the help of Fusignano’s analogy
to the robust natural world, we see at a glance the complex and systematic
dynamism of this well-established and much-cultivated sermon type.
Factor orbis grows over time like the sonic equivalent of a tree, as a
summary description of the prima pars reveals (see Example 14.2).28 First,
Obrecht devises an opening to the motet akin to the prayer and prothema
of the thematic sermon, commencing with an original text Factor orbis
(a), which is an appeal to the Lord to listen, presented as an imitative duet
between the two upper voices. He then offers a prothema in the form of
an antiphon melody and its text sung by contratenor 1, Veni, Domine, et
noli tardare (b) (“Come, Lord, and do not delay, loosen the bonds of your
people’s sins”); the texture here is non-imitative polyphony, with cries of
“noe” enveloping the antiphon’s text and tune. The trunk – the thema – of
this musical tree is the Christmas chant Canite tuba, an antiphon whose
melody and text next unfurl in long tones at the structural center of the
piece, the tenor. Like a sermon’s thema, the text of this cantus firmus is
drawn from Scripture, and is divided into three segments – C1, C2, and C3,
shown by the heavy black lines – which each receive further subdivision
through commentary based on the citation of additional authorities, just
as each branch of a sermon’s theme sprouts new branches. In a musical
context, this commentary takes the form of additional biblical and liturgical
texts delivered by the surrounding voices, resulting in as many as four texts
sounding simultaneously. For example, Canite tuba in Sion (C1) (“Blow the
trumpet in Sion”) is sounded by the tenor while the bass comforts with Ecce
Dominus veniet (e) (“Behold the Lord shall come, do not fear”); at the same
time contratenor 1 declares Ad te, Domine, levavi (d) (“To you, Lord, I lift
up my soul, in you I confide without shame”) while contratenor 2 joyfully
exclaims “noe!”.
These cries of “noe!” peppered throughout the motet evoke the voices
of a congregation, and the composer seems at times to have these listen-
ers in mind, taking great care to ensure that certain somber text segments
28
This paragraph provides a partial digest of the more extensive analysis undertaken in
Bloxam “Obrecht as Exegete.” An edition of the motet is found in Jacob Obrecht Collected
Works, vol. 15: Motets I, ed. C. Maas (Utrecht: Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse
Muziekgeschiedenis, 1995), 34–50.
277

Preaching to the Choir? 277

Prima Pars
1 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
S a noe noe c
CT 2 a noe g
From M. Jennifer Bloxam, “Obrecht as Exegete: Reading Factor orbis as a Christmas Sermon,” in Hearing the Motet: Essays on the Motet of the

CT 1 b d
C1 C2
T noe e noe f1 g
B
imitative non-imitative
50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85
S
h c3
CT 2 g h i
CT 1 h c
T C3
B g h alleluia

homophonic non-imitative

Liturgical Biblical
Text Translation Function Source

a) Factor orbis, Deus, nos a) Maker of the earth, — —

Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Dolores Pesce (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 176-77.

famulos exaudi clamantes Lord, listen to us your ser-

ad te tuos, et nostra crim- vants crying to you, and
ina laxa die ista lucifera. relieve our sins this bright
day.
b) Veni, Domine, et noli b) Come, Lord, and do Advent Week I or Hab. 2:3
tardare, relaxa facinora not delay, loosen the III, feria vi,
plebis tuae Israel. bonds of your people’s Lauds, ant. 3
sins.
C) 1. Canite tuba in Sion, C) 1. Blow the trumpet in Advent Dom. IV, Joel 2:1
2. quia prope est dies Do- Sion, 2. for the day of the Lauds, ant. 1
mini, 3. ecce veniet ad sal- Lord is near, 3. behold he
vandum nos. is coming to save us.
d) Ad te, Domine, levavi d) To you, Lord, I lift up Advent Dom. I, Ps. 25:1–2
animam meam, Deus my soul, my God, in you Introit
meus, in te confido, non I confide without shame.
erubescam.
e) Ecce Dominus veniet, e) Behold the Lord shall ? —
noli timere. Alleluia. come, do not fear. Al-
leluia.
f) 1. Crastina die erit vo- f) 1. Tomorrow salvation Christmas vigil, 2 Chron.
bis salus, 2. dicit Domi- shall be yours, 2. says the Lauds, ant. 5 20:17
nus exercituum. Lord of Hosts.
g) Deus, qui sedes super g) God, you who sit upon Dom. II after Ps. 9:5, 10
thronos et iudicas aequita- thrones and judge fairly of Epiphany, Mat-
tem, esto refugium pau- the poor, because you ins, resp. 2
perum in tribulatione, alone consider their work
quia tu solus laborem et and sorrow.
dolorem consideras.

h) Media vita in morte su-
mus, quem quaerimus ad-
jutorem, nisi te, Domine.
i) O clavis David et scep-
trum domus Israel, qui ap-
eris, et nemo claudit,
claudis, et nemo aperit;
veni, et educ vinctum de
domo carceris, sedentem
in tenebris et umbra
mortis.
h) In the middle of life we Lent Dom. I, III, —
are in death, to whom do or IV, Compline,
we turn but you, Lord. ant.
i) O key of David and “O” ant., Advent Rev. 3:7
scepter of the house of Is- Week IV, feria, Isa. 42:7
rael, you open and no Mag. ant.
man closes, you close and
no man opens; come and
deliver him from the
chains of prison who sits
in darkness and the shadow
of death.

Example 14.2. Obrecht, Factor orbis, Prima Pars. Summary of texts with textual and
textural graph.
278

278 M . J e n n i f e r   B l ox a m

beseeching the Lord’s mercy are easily intelligible to those auditors able to
understand Latin. This is most obvious in the homophonic delivery of the
last clause of the Psalm text (g) and the penitential antiphon (h) (mm.54–74),
but obtains as well in the opening imitative duet, with its transparent, syl-
labic evocation of the sinners’ cries to God. For the greater part of Factor
orbis, however, the welter of competing texts coupled with melismatic text
setting results in complete textual unintelligibility – the ear simply cannot
apprehend the words during performance, although a general sense of joy-
ful tumult is effectively conveyed. Appreciation of the artistic subtleties of
the textual and musical content is thus reserved for an elite group com-
prising the singers themselves, and possibly other clerics able to peruse the
music outside of performance time; ultimately the composer seems to be
preaching primarily to the choir. The same can be said of the thematic ser-
mon – in its oral delivery (analogous to musical performance) the basic
message would have been clear to listeners, but recognizing and savor-
ing the intellectual quality of the divisions and subdivisions as well as the
learnedness exhibited in the range of citations was the province of educated
connoisseurs.
A much different preacherly persona stands before the people in Laudemus
nunc Dominum, boldly declared in its startling initial exhortation. Whereas
the Christmas motet addresses the Lord from the prayerful posture of a
penitent (“Maker of the earth, Lord, listen to us your servants crying to
you, and relieve our sins this bright day”), this Dedication motet forcefully
addresses the assembled congregation directly (“Let us now praise the Lord
with songs and musical sounds”). The composer and his singers enjoin each
other and the congregation to sing; their clarion declamatory call to praise,
dramatically punctuated by a fermata, is followed immediately by the syl-
labic, completely homophonic call to make music. A more striking contrast
to the thin strands of imitative counterpoint and barely articulated pauses
that commence the Christmas motet is difficult to imagine (see Example
14.3a and 14.3b).
Following the opening address, both motets introduce a scriptural text.
In the Christmas motet Obrecht simply offers up another prayer for mercy
(“Come, Lord, and do not delay . . .”) and embeds it in cries of “noe”. In the
Dedication motet, however, the first scriptural citation, quoniam hodie salus
huic domui factum est (b) (“for this day is salvation come to this house”)
proceeds as a continuation of the opening exhortation, identifying the spe-
cial event that has brought the people together, and doing so in a lightly
imitative syllabic texture that maintains textual clarity. This brief quotation
is drawn from the Gospel of Luke (19:9), relating the story of Zacchaeus, a
279

Preaching to the Choir? 279

Example 14.3a. Obrecht, Factor orbis, mm.1–8.

wealthy and much-despised tax-collector. Diminutive Zaccheaus, eager but

unable to see the Lord as he walked in Jericho due to the crowds, climbed
a tree in order to see Him pass. Upon seeing the little man up in the tree,
Jesus told him to come down, and announced that He would be a guest in
his house. Observers murmured disapproval that the Lord would visit the
home of such a sinner, but Zaccheus, overcome with joy, declared that he
would give half his goods to the poor and make four-fold restitution to
anyone he’d wronged. Jesus then said to Zaccheus: Hodie salus huic domui
facta est.
This story from the Gospel of Luke was an immensely popular source
of thematic material for Dedication sermons, which generally interpret
the passage in terms of an individual soul seeking God, receiving Christ,
280

280 M . J e n n i f e r   B l ox a m

Example 14.3b. Obrecht, Laudemus nunc Dominum, mm.1–8.

showing penitence, and offering restitution.29 It was also the most widely
prescribed Gospel reading on the Feast of the Dedication. With this first
scriptural citation, therefore, Obrecht not only makes the words of the
Lord present for his listeners directly after he commands their attention,
but also establishes a link to the Gospel message most often heard on the
Dedication feast.
As is the case in Factor orbis, it is Obrecht’s choice of cantus firmi that
most firmly tethers Laudemus nunc Dominum to the festal liturgy. The

29
Horie, Perceptions of Ecclesia, 41; she notes that one-third of the more than sixty Dedication
sermons printed before 1500 draw their thema from this passage.
281

Preaching to the Choir? 281

compositional backbone of the piece, the tenor part, is fashioned from three
antiphon melodies whose texts are all drawn from the account of Jacob’s
dream in Genesis (C, H, and J in Examples 14.1a and 14.1b). Just as the
themes chosen for Dedication sermons often mine scriptural passages used
within the elaborate consecration ritual itself, enabling the preacher to elab-
orate the symbolism of that ceremony, so is the ultimate origin of Obrecht’s
cantus firmi also found in that inaugural rite.30 Thus Non est hic aliud and
Vidit Jacob scalam were sung in succession during the aspersion of the floor,
and Erexit Iacob was heard later in the ceremony, during the unction and
incensation following the deposition of the relics in the altar of the new
church.31 Obrecht’s most immediate and familiar source for these plainsongs,
however, would have been an antiphoner containing the Office for the Feast
of the Dedication. Indeed, these three antiphons are almost always clus-
tered in the second nocturn of the Matins liturgy for this feast, in precisely
the order in which Obrecht arrayed them in his motet.32 One can imagine
Obrecht browsing the antiphoner – the musical equivalent of Scripture for
a composer of sacred music – in search of a musical/scriptural passage on
which to base his sermon in music. Thus the foundation of Obrecht’s chosen
materials in the liturgy of the feast day could not be stronger, connecting as
they do to the Gospel reading and to the Divine Office.
Obrecht’s choice of three antiphons as plainsong cantus firmi might on
the face of it suggest an affinity with the thematic sermon, along the lines
of his approach in Factor orbis. But this is not the case. In the Christmas
motet, the thema of the prima pars, Canite tuba, is divided into three sepa-
rate phrases, each of which is then subjected to elaboration with additional
commentary in surrounding voices, a process of dividing and subdivid-
ing captured in the image of the arbor de arte sive modo predicandi. In the
Dedication motet, the cantus firmus of the prima pars certainly could be
treated in this manner, and each of its three phrases (Non est hic aliud – nisi
domus Dei  – et porta celi) treated separately and individually elaborated
with additional lines of musical commentary.
Obrecht, however, takes a different approach. He states the entire opening
cantus firmus twice, the first time in long tones (mm.13–33) and the sec-
ond time at a much faster clip (mm.64–74); most significantly, he is careful
30
On the connection between Dedication sermons and liturgy, see Horie, Perceptions of
Ecclesia, 18–19.
31
Ibid.,172–173.
32
See the synoptic table analysis tool in the Cantus database (cantusindex.org/analyse), where
a comparative search of the antiphons in the second nocturn of Matins on the feast of the
Dedication of the Church reveals the overwhelming prevalence of this grouping among all the
sources indexed there.
282

282 M . J e n n i f e r   B l ox a m

to allow the text to sound out for each statement.33 In the first statement
he achieves this by surrounding the long notes of the tenor with extremely
lively, melismatic lines that simply repeat the opening texts (a and b in
Example 14.1a) already so clearly delivered at the beginning of the motet;
in their second, highly ornamented presentation these texts are reduced
to sonic background filigree against which the emphatic declaration of the
tenor’s text can sound forth. In the second, swifter statement of the can-
tus firmus, the words of the tenor sound against the backdrop of joyful
“Alleluias” in the surrounding parts. Overall, the composer makes an effort
to allow plainsong cantus firmi bearing the texts from Genesis to be heard
despite the textural density and contrapuntal complexity of these sections.
Even in the secunda pars, in which the second and third cantus firmi
(H and J) are presented only once and heard within an active, polytextual tex-
ture, Obrecht never allows more than two texts to sound simultaneously, and
foregrounds the texts from Jacob’s dream by means of a highly declarative pres-
entation favoring syllabic delivery, the melody proceeding as an inexorable
succession of breves in ¢ (mm.75–122 and mm.177–209). The texture thins
frequently in these polytextual sections of the secunda pars (Example 14.1b),
which likewise contributes to textual clarity, as does the judicious placement of
melismas and occasional repetition of short word-bearing motives in the non-
cantus firmus voices. These strategies can serve not only to enhance the intel-
ligibility of the text but to dramatize it. In the opening section of the secunda
pars, for example, the image of Jacob’s ladder touching heaven is vividly con-
veyed by allowing the scalar ascent of the tenor’s plainsong melody on the text
summitas eius celos tangebat (“the top thereof touched heaven”) to carry over
the contratenor while the superius is either silent or occupied with a short,
formulaic motive that reinforces the sense of upward lift (mm.81–92). Angels
then descend in the contratenor’s burst of a rapid falling figure enclosing the
tenor’s delivery of descendentes (“were descending”) (mm.94–97); their declar-
ation that Vere locus iste sanctus est (“Indeed this place is holy”) is then grad-
ually wrapped in cries of “Alleluia” (mm.106–117).
Close perusal of the motet’s text reveals a composer not only carefully
selecting and arranging his textual materials (a process also abundantly evi-
dent in Factor orbis) but also actively manipulating textual details, sculpting
them to suit his rhetorical purposes as would a preacher.34 Note the parallel
active first person plural verbs – the first two of his own choosing – exhorting

33
See the edition of the motet in Jacob Obrecht Collected Works, vol. 15: Motets I, ed.
Maas, 69–83.
34
This textual analysis builds on the trailblazing work of Chris Maas, who was the first to identify
Obrecht’s scriptural sources and observe that processes of paraphrase and adaptation were
evident. See Jacob Obrecht Collected Works, vol. 15: Motets I, ed. Maas, XXXVI.
283

Preaching to the Choir? 283

the congregation to “praise,” “sing psalms” and “sing” (Laudemus, Psallamus,

Cantemus) (texts a1, e, and g1, shown in boldface in Examples 14.1a and
14.1b). He adapts the two passages from Ecclesiasticus in the prima and
secunda pars (texts d and i), recasting them as parallel rhetorical questions,
both revised to commence Numquid non? (Did not?); this preacherly ploy
appears several verses earlier in this book (in Ecclesiasticus 47:4), and is here
brought forward by the composer in order to maintain the sense of a speaker
addressing an assembly. Moreover, in the secunda pars Obrecht revises and
expands the lines from Ecclesiasticus 49, whose original aim was to direct
praise to Zorobabel and Iesus Iosedech for their role in rebuilding the temple
in Jerusalem; he changes the scriptural domum (house) to altaria (altars),
and inserts a parade of Old Testament figures associated with the erection of
altars.35 One single prayerful entreaty concludes the prima pars, condensed
and adapted from I Kings (text f); here the scriptural text is modified in
ways that intensify and personalize the appeal. The interjection Domine (“O
Lord”) gives greater focus to the prayer, and the added phrase quam edificav-
imus tibi (“which we have built for thee”) claims it for the people in the here
and now.36 Finally, the motet closes with the return of the opening Laudemus
text (text a1, tweaked from Laudemus nunc Dominum to Laudemus igitur
Dominum to reflect the passage of time and signal the summation of the
argument) in tandem with the repetition of the segment from Luke, quo-
niam hodie salus (text b), thus creating a unified structure with a single,
focused message that is reiterated at the close of the musical sermon.
Many of Obrecht’s compositional decisions are direct responses to these
initial textual compositional manipulations. Texture is controlled to establish
audible connections across the span of the motet: for example, the declam-
atory opening command to praise (Example 14.3b, mm. 1–4) is echoed in
the expansion to four-voice recitational homophony for the command
to sing psalms (Example 14.4, mm. 48–49), and the rhetorical questions
beginning “Did not?” in the prima and secunda pars both emerge from full
textures as delicate, primarily syllabic duets between the two upper voices
(Example 14.5a, mm. 32–36 and Example 14.5b, mm. 120–26). The com-
poser makes liberal use of dramatic silence and sudden shifts of texture to
intensify key segments of the text: for example, an imitative treble duet de-
scribing the sweet melodies of the singers before the altar changes abruptly

35
The motet’s two sources differ in the list of Old Testament figures cited: VatS 42 names Cain,
Abel, Jacob, Moses, Solomon, and Zorobabel, while RISM 1505/2 mentions Abraham, Aaron,
David, and Iesus Iosedech. What Obrecht intended is impossible to know, but his general
intention appears clear.
36
The substitution of sacrificia for the Biblical pacificas victimas used in I Kings 9:25 may signal
the intended performance of the motet in connection with the celebration of Mass.
284

Example 14.4. Obrecht, Laudemus nunc Dominum, mm.48–58.

285

Preaching to the Choir? 285

Example 14.5a. Obrecht, Laudemus nunc Dominum, mm.32–45.

to four-voice recitational homophony at the mention of praising the Lord’s

holy name (Example 14.5a, mm. 36–45), and unexpected silence prepares
and articulates segments of homophonic recitation whose text is focused spe-
cifically on the church structure itself (Example 14.4, mm. 50–58 setting text
f, and Example 14.6, mm. 164–73 setting that part of text i beginning “exalt
the holy temple”). Harmony too serves to intensify textual content: the only
use of the affective B-flat sonority in this strongly Ut-mode piece is reserved
for the single supplication, that phrase within text f imploring the Lord to
“hearken to the supplication of thy people” (Example 14.4, mm. 55–58).
286

286 M . J e n n i f e r   B l ox a m

Example 14.5a. (cont.)

In sum, Obrecht’s approach in Laudemus nunc Domium is more direct

in tone, streamlined in structure, unified in content, and concerned with
clear and even rhetorically dramatic delivery of the texts than his approach
in Factor orbis.37

The differences that emerge from a close comparison of the structure

and style of Laudemus nunc Dominum and Factor orbis resonate with

37
W. Edwards, “Word Setting in a Perfect Musical World,” attempts to evaluate Obrecht’s motets
“on the basis of their musical ideas alone,” suggesting that “words are arguably peripheral in the
287

Preaching to the Choir? 287

Example 14.5b. Obrecht, Laudemus nunc Dominum, mm.120–27.

transformations in the aims and methods of preaching on the cusp of the late
medieval and early modern world in the decades prior to the Reformation,
transformations attributable in part to reform-minded preachers’ in-
creasing interest in harnessing the power of classical oratory espoused by
the Italian humanists in order to more effectively communicate the Word
of God. This seismic shift in the culture of sermons and preaching orig-
inated at the very heart of the church, developing within the papal court

creative process.” (74) I would argue precisely the opposite: as my analyses of both Factor orbis
and Laudemus nunc Dominum have revealed, Obrecht’s choice and treatment of his texts are
foundational to his creative process.
288

288 M . J e n n i f e r   B l ox a m

Example 14.6. Obrecht, Laudemus nunc Dominum, mm.162–173.

over the course of the last half of the fifteenth century.38 Sermons preached
before the pope during papal Masses during these years increasingly turned
away from thematic sermons in favor of epideictic oratory, one of the three
genera of public speaking recognized by the ancients, the kind employed
for praise and blame. Like thematic preaching, epideictic preaching cited
Scripture, but it did not proceed by division and subdivision. The model

38
J. W. O’Malley, Praise and Blame in Renaissance Rome: Rhetoric, Doctrine, and Reform in the
Sacred Orators of the Papal Court, c.1450–1521 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1979),
esp. 36–76.
289

Preaching to the Choir? 289

of a sermon that grew in complexity like a spreading tree was replaced by

the dispositio of the classical orator’s speech, opening with an exordium
directed to the people and concluding with a summarizing peroratio cal-
culated to rouse the congregation to an emotional climax. Replacing the
fragmentation of content typical of the thematic sermon was an overriding
concern for unity – all elements contributed to a single unified effect, the
preacher calling upon his audience to join him in being grateful for (or
alarmed about) the topic the sermon addressed. Teaching and explaining
was of far less importance than evoking a visceral emotional response from
the congregation.39
Of course the impact of humanism on preaching culture was by no
means confined to Italy:  it was felt north of the Alps well before the
Reformation, and reflected in the last generation of artes predicandi
manuals. Characteristic of several northern reformist tracts that pro-
pose simpler sermon structures indebted to the classical oration is the
1503 Manuale curatorum predicandi by Johann Ulrich Surgant (1450–
1503), first a student and then a professor of canon law and rector at the
University of Basel from 1479.40 Not only does he describe a streamlined
sermon structure indebted to classical oratory, he also offers his own
“reformed” version of the thematic sermon’s arbor de arte sive modo predi-
candi (Figure 14.3).41
The compact, pared-down shape of Surgant’s tree is immediately appar-
ent, and bears a striking affinity to the structural features of Obrecht’s motet
for the Dedication of the Church. Gone are the limbs indicating the intro-
ductory prothema and prayer. The sermon begins to grow immediately from
a salutatio populi that prepares a much pruned-down, unified presentation
of the thema, into which a prayer (imploratio) can be incorporated; there is
much less emphasis on multiple subdivisions and copious amplifications,
and there is a distinct conclusio at the top.

39
For a pithy comparison of the thematic and epideictic sermon, see Edwards Jr., A History of
Preaching, 272–273. By happy coincidence, Factor orbis and Laudemus nunc Dominum are the
only two motets by Obrecht included in VatS 42, a paper choirbook of motets compiled for the
Sistine Chapel during the pontificate of Julius II (1503–13); their presence therein thus seems
to stand as musical witness to the transformations in the approach to preaching that evolved at
the papal court in the closing decades of the fifteenth century.
40
D. Roth, “Die mittelalterliche Predigttheorie und das Manuale Curatorum des Johann Ulrich
Surgant,” Ph.D. diss., Universität Basel (1956), 118–147.
41
A copy of the 1514 edition of Surgant’s manual is found online at http://daten.digitale-
sammlungen.de/~db/bsb00003902/images/; for the tree image see http://daten.digitale-
sammlungen.de/bsb00003902/image_64.
290

290 M . J e n n i f e r   B l ox a m

Figure 14.3. Johann Ulrich Surgant, Manuale curatorum predicandi (Basel: Furter,
1514). Munich, Bayeriscshe Staatsbibliothek, 4 Hom.1329, fol. 22v.

Surgant also embraced the application of classical rhetorical devices to

sacred rhetoric in order to more powerfully communicate the Word of God.
To the traditional list of techniques for amplifying the thematic sermon
found in Fusignano’s treatise (such as citing authorities, discussing words,
using synonyms and antonyms, comparisons and similitudes, etc.), Surgant
291

Preaching to the Choir? 291

adds a new possibility: colores rhetoricales.42 This term was a medieval com-

monplace for classical rhetorical figures used to embellish ordinary speech,
appearing frequently in treatises on rhetoric beginning in the eleventh cen-
tury.43 That Surgant introduces colores rhetoricales as one of the main tools
for Catholic preachers to employ on the eve of the Reformation speaks to a
growing desire to preach compellingly to an increasingly restless faithful, as
does the shift to epideictic oratory at the papal chapel. Obrecht’s audacious
musical-rhetorical strategies in his motet for the Dedication of the Church
signal a comparable interest in the use of “rhetorical color” in music, the
more effectively to deliver to his listeners the sacred words he so carefully
concocted and set to music.44

It is Obrecht’s penchant for musical sermonizing that best explains the attrac-
tion his music held for two northern Catholic humanists: the great Dutch
theologian, reformer, and priest Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536), and the
Dutch scholar, historian, musician, and later deacon and priest Matthaeus
Herbenus (1451–1538).45 Both men cared deeply about clearly and power-
fully communicating the Word of God to Catholic congregations at a time
when the tide of criticism against the Church was rising, and to this end
both embraced the humanistic enthusiasm for classical oratory. Erasmus’s
lifelong efforts to reform the Catholic Church culminated in his watershed
treatise Ecclesiastes, sive de Ratione Concionandi (“Ecclesiastes, or the Way of
Preaching”), whose publication in 1535 effectively ended the long tradition
of artes predicandi manuals based on the medieval model of the thematic
sermon, giving pride of place to classical oratorical structures and devices.46
Although he later came to loathe polyphonic sacred music, his student, the

42
For the full list and explanation of Fusignano’s twelve means of amplifying a thematic sermon,
see Wenzel, The Art of Preaching, 40–95.
43
The term gained currency after ca. 1050, when the German rhetorician Onulf de Speyer gave
the title Colores rhetorici to his treatise devoted to elaborating figures first described in the
ancient Rhetorica ad Herennium. On the emergence and use of the term colores rhetorici, see J.
J. Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to
the Renaissance (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1974), 189–190 et passim.
44
The term colores rhetorici appears in music-theoretical discourse as early as 1417, in a
plainsong treatise by the German historian and monastic reformer Gobelinus Person, and in
the Proportionales musices of Tinctoris as well; see R. Strohm, “Neue Aspecte von Musik und
Humanismus im 15. Jahrhundert,” Acta musicologica, 76 (2004), 144.
45
See R. C. Wegman, “Obrecht and Erasmus,” Journal of the Alamire Foundation, 3 (2011), 109–
123, and Wegman, The Crisis of Music, 108–121 and 175–177.
46
See Edwards Jr., A History of Preaching, 274–279, and J. W. O’Malley, “Erasmus and the History
of Sacred Rhetoric: The Ecclesiastes of 1535,” Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook, 5 (1985),
1–29, esp.12–17.
292

292 M . J e n n i f e r   B l ox a m

music theorist Heinrich Glarean, reported that Erasmus not only claimed
Obrecht as his teacher (praeceptor) but admired his music for its “wonderful
dignity” (mira maiestas), an attribute he valued in preaching as well.47
Although a much lesser light than Erasmus, Matthaeus Herbenus is even
more illuminating regarding Obrecht’s particular strengths as a preacher in
music.48 In his 1496 treatise De natura cantus ac miraculis vocis (“On the
Nature of Singing and the Miracles of the Voice”), Herbenus advocated for
the intelligible, rhetorical delivery of texts set to music so as to more power-
fully communicate God’s Word and shape the emotional response of listen-
ers.49 He singles out for special mention two polytextual motets by Obrecht,
Laudemus nunc Dominum and Salve crux arbor vite, praising their use of
syllabic text setting in the context of a broader plea for allowing listeners
“proper space for taking in the meanings.”50 He is not, however, interested
simply in textual comprehension; for him, music bearing intelligible words
has the power to transport the auditor, allowing the mind to be “carried off
to a higher contemplation,” much like a sermon compellingly delivered has
the power to spiritually move the listener.
The correspondence of “the exhortations of the sermon to the singing of
the voice” proposed by Jacobus de Voragine in the mid-thirteenth century
is emphatically confirmed in the early sixteenth century by none other than
Martin Luther, who declared that mankind “was given the gift of words
combined with song, so that he should know that he ought to praise God,
that is with loud preaching and words combined with sweet melody.”51
It is surely more than mere coincidence that these two men whose ideas
exerted such a profound influence on Luther – Erasmus on his reformist
agenda, and Herbenus on his philosophy of music – should both respond
so strongly to Obrecht’s music. Perhaps they recognized in Obrecht a com-
poser searching, as were they, for communicative styles and structures
better suited to a world in which congregations beyond the choir of the
church needed to be moved and persuaded.

47
See Wegman, “Obrecht and Erasmus,” 111–112.
48
Herbenus spent the 1470s in Italy in the service of the humanist rhetorician Niccolò Perotti,
author of one of the earliest and most popular Renaissance Latin grammars; he thus visited
Rome during the time when epideictic oratory was coming into its own in the Papal Court.
He then returned north to serve the collegiate church of St. Servatius and its choir school in
Maastricht. See C. van Leeuwen, “Matthaeus Herbenus (1451–1538), Humanist van het Sint-
Servaaskapittel,” in Maastricht Kennisstad. 850 Jaar Onderwijs en Wetenschap, ed. E. van Royen
(Maastricht, 2011). http://www.charlesvanleeuwen.nl/docs/Charles_van_Leeuwen,_Herbenus_
humanist_van_het_Sint_Servaasklooster_%282011%29.pdf
49
A fine overview of Herbenus’s philosophy of music and its impact on Luther’s attitudes is found
in J. A. Loewe, “ʻMusica est Optimumʼ: Luther’s Theory of Music,” Music & Letters, 94 (2013),
580–593.
50
See the text and translation in Wegman, The Crisis of Music, 175–177.
51
Quoted in Loewe, “ʻMusica est Optimumʼ,” 591.