Ars antiqua in the context of Léonin

Ars nova (Latin for 'new art') refers to a musical style which flourished in the Kingdom of France and its surroundings during the Late Middle Ages. More particularly, it refers to the period between the preparation of the Roman de Fauvel (1310s) and the death of composer Guillaume de Machaut in 1377. The term is sometimes used more generally to refer to all European polyphonic music of the fourteenth century. For instance, the term "Italian ars nova" is sometimes used to denote the music of Francesco Landini and his compatriots, although Trecento music is the more common term for the contemporary 14th-century music in Italy. The "ars" in "ars nova" can be read as "technique", or "style". The term was first used in two musical treatises, titled Ars novae musicae (New Technique of Music) (c. 1320) by Johannes de Muris, and a collection of writings (c. 1322) attributed to Philippe de Vitry often simply called "Ars nova" today. Musicologist Johannes Wolf first applied to the term as description of an entire era (as opposed to merely specific persons) in 1904.

The term ars nova is often used in juxtaposition to two other periodic terms, of which the first, ars antiqua, refers to the music of the immediately preceding age, usually extending back to take in the period of Notre Dame polyphony (from about 1170 to 1320). Roughly, then, ars antiqua refers to music of the thirteenth century, and the ars nova that of the fourteenth; many music histories use the terms in this more general sense.

Pérotin (fl. c. 1200) was a composer associated with the Notre Dame school of polyphony in Paris and the broader ars antiqua musical style of high medieval music. He is credited with developing the polyphonic practices of his predecessor Léonin, with the introduction of three and four-part harmonies.

Other than a brief mention by music theorist Johannes de Garlandia in his De Mensurabili Musica, virtually all information on Pérotin's life comes from Anonymous IV, a pseudonymous English student who probably studied in Paris. Anonymous IV names seven titles from a Magnus Liber—including Viderunt omnes, Sederunt principes and Alleluia Nativitas—that have been identified with surviving works and gives him the title Magister Perotinus (Pérotinus the Master), meaning he was licensed to teach. It is assumed that Perotinus was French and named Pérotin, a diminutive of Peter, but attempts to match him with persons in contemporary documents remain speculative.