incorporate the melody. Conflicting modern theories make the early history of L’homme
armé hard to see clearly. The time is in a simple ABA form, and its text warns of the
approach of the armed man with his iron breastplate. Many of the Masses appear to be
associated with the Burgundian court’s Order of the Golden Fleece, though that can
hardly be the origin of them all. Plainly, there was an element of friendly emulation
among the composers: elements from the cycle by Guillaume Dufay appear to have
influenced those of Antoine Busnoys and Johannes Ockeghem. Ideas from the work by
Busnoys are taken over by Jacob Obrecht and Josquin des Prez, and so on. The decisive
importance of the tune is as a generating factor in the early history of the polyphonic
Mass cycle.
David Fallows
[See also: BUSNOYS, ANTOINE; CYCLIC MASS; DUFAY, GUILLAUME;
OCKEGHEM, JOHANNES]
HOMME DE CORPS
. Common in the north and east of France, the phrase homme (or femme) de corps (Lat.
homo de corpore; femina de corpore) is one of many words and phrases virtually
synonymous with “serf.” Like the other synonyms, it emphasizes certain aspects of
serfdom. However, unlike some of the synonyms, such as villein, which in the earlier
Middle Ages could refer to either a free or unfree resident of a manor (villa) and came to
be interchangeable with “serf” only in the 12th and 13th centuries, homme de corps
always seems to have been restricted to the unfree population and to a particularly low
stratum of the unfree, those who de jure had no right of inheritance or freedom of
marriage. Most important, in Marc Bloch’s words, “the feeling of...almost physical
compulsion is expressed to perfection in the phrase homme de corps.” An homme de
corps was an homme de corps et de chef, a person whose body (labor and offspring) and
head (his punishment for crime) were in the power and gift of another man. Or he was an
homme propre, a person who was the property of a lord. A medieval abbot of Vézelay,
quoted by Bloch, described his power over his serf in a slightly elaborated version of the
formula: “He is mine from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.” Yet, despite the
impression of absolute power and physical coercibility that the phrase gives, an homme
de corps was not a slave. He had recognized personal rights and, despite the principles of
the learned law, enjoyed strong customary protections of the real property he worked and
the chattels he possessed, just as other serfs had.
William Chester Jordan
[See also: SERFDOM/SERVITUDE/SLAVERY]
Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society, trans. L.A.Manyon. 2 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1964.
Patault, Anne-Marie. Hommes et femmes de corps en Champagne méridionale à la fin du moyen-
âge. Nancy: Université de Nancy II, 1978.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 872