Lamb of God Lamb of God sung or recited during the fraction of the Host. It is said to have been introduced into the Mass by Pope Sergius I (687–701). "Agnus Dei" has been set to music by many composers, usually as part of a Mass setting. In Christian iconography, an Agnus Dei is a visual representation of Jesus as a lamb, since the Middle Ages, usually holding a standard or banner with a cross. This normally rests on the lamb's shoulder and is held in its right foreleg. Often the cross will have a white banner suspended from it charged with a
Mass for Four Voices the B flat strikingly changes to a B natural, producing an unexpected major chord at a key point in the music. A special feature of the mass (as also of the Five-Part Mass) is the final clause of the Agnus Dei. Although text-expression is not generally a feature of sixteenth-century Mass cycles, Byrd clearly regarded the ending of the Agnus Dei text ‘Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem’ as an opportunity for an expressive treatment of the words. He almost certainly identified ‘nobis’ as the persecuted Tudor Catholic community, as he had done with many of the