The text "Intemerata Dei mater" appears in no liturgical source known to twentieth-century scholarship. Instead, its rather humanistic Latin strophes seem freely composed, closely contemporaneous to Johannes Ockeghem's motet of the same name. Ockeghem himself, and the Paris University theologian Thomas Gerson have been suggested as possible authors of the text. It prays desperately to the Virgin for an exiled people, yearning for the restoration of their native land by her intercession with the Son. Possibly it refers to fifteenth-century political events, possibly to the transient human being's yearning for the heavenly home. Especially in the latter reading, it is attractive to imagine Ockeghem's composition on this text as a motet of valediction, written perhaps in the shadow of death.

The five voices of this tripartite motet include a low Alto, Tenor, two Basses, and Contrabass (who reaches low-C), producing a uniquely dense and low texture to the motet. This in itself could be appropriate to an affect of mourning. It is also unique in the fifteenth century to find any motet in five voices without recourse to canon or cantus firmus for at least one voice. The texture is sometimes relieved by contrasts with homophony (such as at dulci quos nectare potas, "giving sweet nectar") and by alternating trio textures (most prominently in the second main section). But often Ockeghem gives over to melismatic passages involving all five voices. The harmonic character of the piece, furthermore, unrelentingly wanders across different modal areas; the opening and closing, however, are in the plangent phrygian mode.

The personally retrospective aspect of the piece shows itself in Ockeghem's self-quotation throughout the motet. The very opening measures of the first part quote his Missa Mi-Mi, which in turn quotes Ockeghem's Bergerette Presque trainsi: "Almost overcome, barely less than dead." One voice in the opening of the second part strongly alludes to the famous melody of Fors seulement l'attente, whose protagonist similarly views the onset of death; the characteristic motive of a filled-in falling fourth dominates the second section. Deeper (but more speculative) musicological analysis shows the possibility of further quotation from Presque trainsi at the very end of the motet, and has also identified a chanson which could be quoted in the third main section. It is certainly clear that the composer was attempting to personalize the music of Intemerata. Guillaume Dufay composed a motet upon Ave regina coelorum, in which an inserted section contains musical prayers for the composer personally, by name. It has been suggested that Ockeghem learned of this motet when visiting Dufay, and felt the need to pen such a desperate and personal prayer himself.

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