Given the unlikely circumstances which gave rise to the Cantiones, what might be the context – or contexts – in which to consider Schöffer's anthology? Apart from taking a close look at the publication, including its extant sources, this chapter assesses the position of the Cantiones within Schöffer's other musical output from Strasbourg, as well as viewing the publication within the broader background of the German motet anthology genre.

As detailed in the previous chapter, Peter Schöffer the Younger's printing press was operational for most of the first half of the sixteenth century. Musical works comprise roughly 12% of his total output, the rest being made up largely of religious texts and translations. His first musical publication – a book of lute and organ tablature from 1512 – was followed soon after by several collections of songs. Most of his musical output was of a secular nature, although even prior to the Reformation some sacred and liturgical works did emerge from his press. After moving to Worms, Schöffer produced a new edition of Johann Walter's collection of German spiritual songs.

It was during his decade in Strasbourg, however, that Schöffer shone most brightly as a music publisher, though the historical picture of this period of his output is still both distorted and incomplete. His first confirmed musical publication in Strasbourg was Viginti Cantiunculae gallicae quatuor vocum in 1530, a collection of French four-voice songs of which there are no known extant copies; the existence of the collection is known from a reference in Conrad Gesner's 1548 Pandectarum. In 1532 Schöffer may have printed a first edition of the Rerum musicarum, a music theory treatise by Johann Frosch containing several examples of polyphonic writing, possibly encouraged or commissioned by the city leaders to be used in the many schools which were emerging in Strasbourg at the time. Once Schöffer had begun his partnership with the younger printer Mathias Biener (more commonly known as Mathias Apiarius) in 1533/4, his musical output increased notably. In 1534 the pair printed at least two polyphonic publications. One, the Epicedion Thomae Sporeri, is a homage (in the form of a dramatic dialogue) to the composer Thomas Sporer, who had died that same year; its text was written by the humanist and pedagogue Johannes Sapidus (Johann Witz) and set to music by the Protestant composer Sixt Dietrich.