CONDUCTUS. - It is one of the most interesting musical forms of the Middle Ages, in which the composer had freedom of choice in regard to both text and inspiration. A distinction is made between the monodic c. and the polyphonic c.
The former is a Latin chant intended to accompany the progress of a person in a liturgical or extraliturgical function, such as Hartmann of S. Gallo’s versus ante Evangelium cantandi, the c. ad tabulam, ad Iudus, etc., and the office of Pierre de Corbeil. Among those for extraliturgical functions are known, among others, the c. reginae venientis ad regem, the c. referentium vous ante Danielens, and others, preserved in the Beauvais manuscript of 1140, in which the word c. occurs for the first time. The latter was a chant in several voices, set to a single text, in Latin and almost always metrical, in which the voices proceeded in concord. According as the melody was simple or ornamented, there was the syllabic c. and the melismatic c. Medieval theorists also speak of the c. habens caudam, with a long melisma at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end. As with all medieval compositions, the composers of the c. are unknown: it is known only that Perotinus Magnus composed many of them, monodic and polyphonic. The Latin texts have varied content, both religious and secular.