What does Missa Fors Seulement mean?

Answer 1

"Missa" means "Mass", in this case the Requiem Mass, the mass for the dead.
"Fors Seulement" is the name of a Medieval folk song that is used as the basis for the music to which the mass text is set. This is a rather widespread practice during the medieval times.

You can find a setting of the song by Ockeghem at

http://home.planet.nl/~teuli049/petrucciblad.html

The site is in Dutch (left column) and English (right column). Read the explanation of how the site works in whichever language you like.
In the center column is a list of composers. Ockeghem is the second listing after Anonymous.
Click on Ockeghem. This will move you down the column to his works. There are two entries for "Fors Seulement".
Go to the center column next to the explanation and click on the file type you want. .pdf will give you a piano reduction of the harmonized tune. READ THE NOTES to find which voice is the actual tune! Midi will give you a sound file you can listen to.
SAB in the first version or STB in the second version will give you a vocal score so you can see the tune easily.

And here's the text of the song: numbers refer to footnotes. Note that this is medieval French, so the spelling differs from modern French! The notes help sort this out a little bit.

Fors seulement latente que le meure,1
En mon las cueur, nul espoir ne dmeure,
Car mon las cueur si fort me tourmente
Qui n'est douleur que par vous je ne sente,
Pourceque2 suis de vous perdre bien seure3.


1 "Sauf l'attente de fa mort certaine,"
2 "car"
3 "sûre"
Notes by Anne Gras
Input by John Versmoren

N.B. There are other variations of this text and of the tune!
A full version of the text with English translation can be found on page 300 of the dissertation listed below.

Ockeghem was not the only composer to set a mass to this tune. Another setting was made by Pipelare. You can download a .pdf file of a doctoral dissertation about this work, complete with examples and score, at:

http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-0828103-132935/unrestricted/Black_Jr_dis.pdf

Answer 2

Hmmmm!!! Renaissance funeral music. Sounds intriguing.

Answer 3

probably a mass only for loudness.