Ars antiqua

Ars antiqua is the modern name for the polyphonic music of Paris and northern France between about 1160 and 1320, centered on the cathedral of Notre Dame. Its composers, notably *Léonin* and *Pérotin*, built organum by stretching chant melodies into slow tenor lines beneath florid upper voices, and developed the conductus and the early motet, in which different texts sound simultaneously. Rhythmic modes gave this music its measured notation, the first systematic mensural system in the West. The style was displaced after 1320 by the ars nova, and its repertory survives mainly through the Magnus Liber Organi manuscripts and modern recordings by the *Hilliard Ensemble* and others.