Son of a town trumpeter, Jacob Obrecht became one of the most prominent composers in Europe in the late fifteenth century. In <em>Born for the Muses</em>, Rob Wegman enlarges our picture of the social and cultural conditions that framed his world, drawing on a wealth of new archival sources and a newly discovered dated portrait that sheds light on his development as a composer. Obrecht's greatest contribution lay in the field of mass composition. In a penetrating stylistic analysis, Wegman treats each of the thirty-odd surviving masses as a historical record, tracing influences and establishing a rich context for the development of Obrecht's musical language. This new assessment of his creative achievement and historical significance entirely changes the face of Obrecht studies and of late fifteenth-century music in general.