A single verse from a Psalm and a mere fragment of another liturgical text gave Alexander Agricola the inspiration for a motet that became one of the most wildly popular compositions of its age. Agricola's simple motet setting of Si dedero (Psalm 131:4, 132:4 in English Bibles) uses only three voices in a single musical section, much more akin to his secular compositions than to the more expansive type of motet generally favored in his time. Yet the little piece took on a prolific traveling life, surviving in nearly 30 contemporary manuscript and printed sources, an astounding number. It appears in a Ferrarese manuscript that is perhaps the earliest surviving source for secular music of Agricola's generation; Ottaviano Petrucci later included it in the first printed collection of music ever. Later composers produced "cover" arrangements of this pop motet for both keyboard and lute; twice it served as the model for complete Mass Ordinary settings by Jacob Obrecht and Antonius Divitis. Obrecht also apparently used the piece as a model for his motet Si sumpsero, and no less a figure than Josquin Desprez appropriated its tenor for the motet-chanson Que vous madame. On the surface, little distinguishes Agricola's motet Si dedero from the rest of his competent and imaginative smaller works. Its text extracts the versus from a liturgical responsory, In pace in idipsum, likely indicating para-liturgical and private use. His setting uses the three voices common to his secular music (a single manuscript adds a fourth voice). The tenor only gestures toward a pre-existent chant, often with the outer pair of voices adopting conventional parallel motion about it. Imitation marks phrase openings in all three voices for the first and two voices for the second and third. The cadences ring clearly and the final phrase features characteristic sequential melismas. Agricola always composed with a high level of polish and creativity, but in Si dedero, something resonated deeply in the ears and imagination of his time.

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