In Renaissance music, the cyclic mass was a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Mass, in which each of the movements – Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei – shared a common musical theme, commonly a cantus firmus, thus making it a unified whole.[citation needed] The cyclic mass was the first multi-movement form in western music to be subject to a single organizing principle.[citation needed]
The period of composition of cyclic masses was from about 1430 until around 1600,[citation needed] although some composers, especially in conservative musical centers, wrote them after that date. Types of cyclic masses include the "motto" mass (or "head-motif" mass), cantus-firmus mass or tenor mass, soggetto cavato mass, paraphrase mass, parody mass, as well as masses based on combinations of these techniques.