With the initial striking section of the very first work of their Cantiones, Tallis’s Salvator mundi (I), Tallis and Byrd figuratively bring their queen into their book's narrative in a way that makes her the main target of their argument or, in rhetorical terms, the one to persuade (see ex. 3.1). As Desiderius Erasmus explains, panegyrists liken their subjects to an excessively flattering, often outright deific, example as the standard means to speak to or even argue with their ruler to counsel as well as praise. To follow Erasmus's model, Tallis and Byrd choose as their example for Elizabeth a specific image of Christ, the Salvator Mundi, which depicts Jesus as a judging king and figure of justice. The composers thereby set a personalized, ruler-oriented, “pattern of goodness” as a model for their queen.

Much of the evidence discussed in this chapter is visual, as it was in the visual arts where the association of Christ with the Salvator Mundi label (iconic title or term) and type was at its strongest. But this investigation as a whole was triggered by aspects of the music in the Cantiones.

In his Politics, Aristotle describes music as a poetic form capable of producing “imitations of anger and gentleness, and also of courage and temperance, and all of the qualities contrary to these, and of all the qualities of character.” When we experience music, “our souls undergo a change” he suggests, as “even mere melodies” imitate character and the same mimetic “principles apply to rhythms: some have a character of rest, others of motion, and of these again, some have a more vulgar, others a nobler movement.” We do not know, of course, which musical sounds prompted Aristotle to sense these distinctions, nor do we know which sounds he would label as expressing nobility as a general quality. But one imagines that had he heard the first twenty breves of Tallis's Salvator mundi, it would exemplify for him the way certain melodies and rhythmic movements conjure up mental images of a stately, even regal, character.