William Cornysh, Gentleman of the Tudor court, gave entertainments for exalted ears. He wrote secular songs and performed plays for both Henry VII and Henry VIII of England, as well as the royal court of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. But he also taught choirboys and sang the music of the Church in the Royal Chapel. His masses and many motets traveled widely throughout England, and several of them survive in a huge manuscript choirbook compiled between 1490 and 1502 for use in the chapel of Eton College. This volume collected 93 pieces of music, especially ones devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, from all around the country. Among William Cornysh's eight contributions to the Eton Choirbook is a clear and sonorous setting of the text "Ave Maria, mater Dei, regina coeli domina."

Cornysh's Ave Maria mater Dei shares a number of characteristics common to much of the Eton Choirbook repertory, and thus common to much English sacred music at the turn of the century. The text he chose is unabashedly Marian, though without a specific known liturgical assignment. After calling Mary the queen mother of God, lady of the heavens, and empress of the world below, it asks her to guide all Christian people to serve her will. As is the case with many other Eton Choirbook pieces, Ave Maria mater Dei clearly breaks the piece into sections by shifting vocal textures: a declamatory opening invocation in all four voices followed by three-voiced and two-voiced music before returning to the complete texture, for instance. Also common to English music of the time is Cornysh's near-complete avoidance of imitation; less commonly, he eschews any structural cantus firmus. He drives the musical progress instead by twisting and florid melodic lines, and by often complex rhythmic patterns. Harmonically, the composer highlights full triadic sonorities and exploits harmonic changes between the notes B and B flat, C and C sharp. He also carefully chooses his textural breaks, using all four voices only for the first cry Ave Maria, the medial prayer Miserere mei, and the final Amen.

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