Mensural notation is the musical notation system used for European vocal
polyphonic music from the later part of the 13th century until about 1600. The term "mensural" refers to the ability of this system to describe precisely measured rhythmic durations in terms of numerical proportions between note values. Its modern name is inspired by the terminology of medieval theorists, who used terms like
musica mensurata ("measured music") or
cantus mensurabilis ("measurable song") to refer to the rhythmically defined polyphonic music of their age, as opposed to
musica plana or
musica choralis, i.e., Gregorian
plainchant. With mensural notation being employed principally for compositions in the tradition of vocal polyphony, plainchant retained its own, older system of
neume notation throughout the period, while some purely instrumental music could be written in various forms of instrument-specific
tablature notation.