Centonization

In music centonization (from Latin cento or patchwork) is musical composition via the combination of pre-existing motivic units, typically in reference to Christian liturgical chant. A piece created using centonization is known as a "centonate".

The concept of centonization was borrowed from literary theory, and first applied to Gregorian chant in 1934 by Dom ; it has since also been applied to Byzantine chant.