This was composed for the coronation of the Venetian Gabriele Condulmar as Pope Eugenius IV on March 11, 1431. The same pope in fact commissioned three other isorhythmic motets by Dufay, and his name is mentioned in one of the texts. The piece begins with an unusually long, florid imitative duo, in which the voices sing different texts praising Eugenius. When the other voices enter, one has yet another text describing the troubled state of the Christian world and expressing hope that the new pope, who actually had a very troubled career, will find peace.

The isorhythmic components of the music are in the two tenors, while the top voices are through-composed according to an isomelic design. After the introduction, the five-part texture remains almost unchanged. The writing of the higher parts is somewhat declamatory, even madrigalistic at points. Instead of the typical proliferation, or overabundance, of melismas, the melismas come at long intervals after significant portions of the text have been stated. It makes the music less heavenly, but also less remote.

On the first hearing we can listen for the beautiful, short tranquil passages (separated by about a minute in performance) that are the beginnings of the new taleae. In mood, the piece is dominated from the start by an ominous sense of trouble, frequently reiterated by strong statements in the low-written tenors. All of the voices become increasingly complex in rhythmic design as the piece progresses, leading smoothly into the brilliantly climactic final bars.

An aspect of Dufay's glory is in his transitional position; he seems to be a fully medieval musician with an imagination expanding exponentially. The whole of Ecclesie militantis, and works like it, are nothing if not burning musical epiphanies; small, sudden, vivid and poetically complete. This is among the most powerful and accessible of Dufay's isorhythmic motets.

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