The Franco-Flemish composer Nicolas Gombert (ca. 1500-ca. 1556) introduced fully imitative treatment in the motet, and his method of composing the parody Mass remained the most important one throughout the Renaissance.

Almost nothing is known of the origin and early training of Nicolas Gombert. One edition of his four-voice motets with the ascription Nicolai Gomberti Flandri Brugensis ... identifies his birthplace as Bruges, but other indirect evidence suggests the town of La Gorgue in Flanders. If the German music theorist Hermann Finck (Practica musica, 1556) is correct when he names Gombert a student of Josquin des Prez, such training probably occurred at Condé, where Josquin ended his illustrious career.

Gombert spent a large part of his creative life in the imperial chapel of Charles V. Gombert's name first appears on a rolle des benefices of Oct. 2, 1526, written in Granada, Spain, where Charles was temporarily sojourning. By 1529 Gombert was charged with...