Thomas Tallis and William Byrd's monumental set of Cantiones, quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur (songs, which by their argument are called sacred) virtually overflows with musical achievements that have long been celebrated. But there has always been considerable puzzlement and debate surrounding the question of why the composers chose so many Latin texts drawn from the Catholic liturgy to place in a work they dedicated to their Protestant queen. One theory posits that they had special designs for their set of a Catholic, anti-establishment nature. Another suggests that they chose texts in Latin simply and uncontroversially because, as an international language, it was useful for the diplomatic purpose of putting English musicianship on display. Since these views would seem nearly contradictory, it is not surprising that Joseph Kerman's longstanding, neutralizing, position remains basically unchallenged to this day. Kerman argues that Byrd and Tallis treat their project as an opportunity to pull together a grand compendium of musical accomplishment that drew on the past, but looked to the future, and that they therefore regarded as secondary any political or religious argument they might have made with texts that were nearly obsolete.

There is another, more wholistic, way to approach Tallis and Byrd's achievement. In this view, rather than allow their texts to function as mere vehicles for musical exhibition, the composers carefully selected them in order to tell a consistent and coherent story, one that they directed toward their queen in order to make a “sacred argument” for her to judge.

At the time the English church upheld a staunchly Protestant view of justification, which set faith as the sole means of salvation. Tallis and Byrd argued instead that a person's works – both good and bad (sin) – would be considered along with faith at the time of judgment. As all these ideas were controversial, Tallis and Byrd probably knew they could make their case to a potentially receptive royal audience. But they also realized they ran the risk of seeming defiant or even traitorous if they made the case in the wrong way.