The Missa Caput was a musical setting of the Roman Catholic mass, dating from the 1440s, by an anonymous English composer. It circulated widely on the European continent in the mid-15th century and was one of the best-loved musical works of the early Renaissance in Europe, judging by the number of copies that have survived, and the number of imitations it inspired. It was influential both for its use of a tenor cantus firmus which unified all the movements and for being the first extended composition with a freely composed bass line, a feature with extraordinary ramifications in music history. Among the many composers influenced by it are Guillaume Du Fay and Johannes Ockeghem. Background The cantus firmus on which the mass is based, which was long of mysterious origin, was discovered by Manfred Bukofzer to be from the Sarum Rite: the melisma on the last word, "caput", from the antiphon Venit ad Petrum, which was used at the Mandatum ceremony (the Washing of the Feet) on Maundy Thursday during Holy Week. The melisma on the single word is long and dramatic, containing over 100 notes, and spanning the interval of an octave. Within the melisma the melodic interval of the fourth is prominent and is repeated several times, and several modes, including Phrygian, Dorian and Mixolydian, are implied, giving it an extraordinary melodic diversity. While originally the Caput mass was thought to have been by Guillaume Du Fay – since it is attributed to him in its most complete source, the Trent Codices – recent research has established that it originated in England. The cyclic mass has been shown to be a development of English origin, enthusiastically taken up by composers of the Burgundian School, and eventually becoming the primary vehicle for long-span musical expression in the High Renaissance. Two other masses, one by Johannes Ockeghem and one by Jacob Obrecht, as well as a Marian Antiphon (Salve Regina) by Richard Hygons, are known to be based on the same cantus firmus. A modern use of the caput melisma appears in Brian Ferneyhough's solo violin work, Unsichtbare Farben. The mass It is a setting of the main movements of the ordinary of the mass, the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. Unlike most cyclic English masses of the period, it includes a polyphonic Kyrie with the trope Deus creator omnium: usually the troped Kyrie proper to the day