The term motet, we saw in Chapter 6, was invented in the late Middle Ages. It has lived on and been applied to very different kinds of music over the centuries since. Thus motets by Palestrina or Byrd have little in common with motets by Machaut or even Dufay. The sixteenth-century motet is a relatively short composition with Latin words, made up of short sections in the homophony and imitative polyphony that were the staples of the High Renaissance style. The words are nearly always religious, taken from a variety of sources — sometimes directly from the Bible. As compared with the Mass of the same time, the motet is basically similar in musical style, but different in scope and, of course, in text.

It was the variety of possible words in the motet, as contrasted to the invariable words of the Mass, that recommended it to sixteenth-century composers. By providing them with new words to express, motets allowed church composers to convey religious messages in their music with more verve and power than ever before.