This five-part work (SATTB) is the earlier of two masses bearing the same title (the later work was a four-part setting). It is a cantus firmus mass; in this type of mass a pre-existing melody (called the cantus firmus), usually a phrase of plainchant or, as in this case, a secular song, becomes the melodic framework of the composition. Typically, the pre-existing melody is presented intact, usually in the tenor voice, though it may be rhythmically transformed so extensively that it is all but unrecognizable. Sometimes, each note of the cantus firmus is drawn out to a great length, like a pedal tone. This compositional technique had roots dating back to the Middle Ages, but had been supplanted in the sixteenth century by the more modern technique of paraphrase, or parody, wherein the model is often a polyphonic piece that provides thematic fragments to be freely developed. In this mass, written in the strict cantus firmus fashion, Palestrina is therefore self-consciously updating an archaic style. He deliberately chooses an ancient song (the tune of "L'Homme Armé" [The Armed Man] dates back to thirteenth-century France), perhaps as a musical tribute to his Franco-Flemish predecessors, who made extensive use of this particular melody.

Published in 1570, the work was probably written before the reforms of the Council of Trent (1545-63), which promoted a style of composition appropriate to the sacred nature of liturgical texts. Palestrina perfected that style in his later works, but this mass, based on a popular ditty, clearly belongs to an earlier period. Reformers had been particularly opposed to rhythmic distortions of the cantus firmus, in which extremely long notes rendered the sacred words unintelligible, and to the insertion of profane musical materials into sacred compositions.

The basic cantus firmus technique of the mass is straightforward: each movement begins with a point of imitation (all the voices repeat the same material in close succession) based on the cantus firmus, followed by the entry of the melody itself. For most of the mass, the cantus firmus functions as a long-note foundation above which the other voices develop independent material.

In this work, Palestrina shows great versatility within the cantus firmus genre. In the Gloria, long cantus firmus notes create an internal pedal, while in the second Kyrie, the cantus firmus outpaces all other parts, in unusual triplet cross-rhythms against the duple meter. It is absent from the Crucifixus, perhaps out of respect for this most holy verse in the holiest text; it soars to the upper voice in the later Benedictus. Most striking, perhaps, is its appearance in the Hosanna. It has been argued that composers felt justified in using profane material in their sacred compositions because the long cantus firmus notes made the melodies unrecognizable to the average listener. Yet in the Hosanna, Palestrina unabashedly presents the melody in its original, light-hearted triple meter, as the tenor II and bass gleefully take turns with it.

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