"L'homme armé" was a French secular song from the time of the Renaissance. It was the most popular tune used for musical settings of the Ordinary of the Mass: over 40 separate compositions entitled Missa L'homme armé survive from the period. More recently the Welsh composer Karl Jenkins continues a 600-year tradition with The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace, written in 1999 to a commission from the Royal Armouries to mark the millennium.