Spanish composers working during the second half of the sixteenth century capitalized on the generic parameters of the motet to make it an important and persuasive medium for the expression of orthodox Spanish religiosity. A survey of the motet collections printed between 1555 and 1610 by such peninsular composers as Francisco Guerrero, Sebastian de Vivanco, and Juan Esquivel de Barrahona, together with manuscripts containing motets by Rodrigo de Ceballos and Juan Navarro, reveals several unique characteristics of the Spanish motet repertory. Nearly every composer included a cycle of motets for the Sundays of Lent and Sundays of Septuagesima, and several texts addressing the Virgin Mary were important as well. Spanish motet collections all follow Guerrero's distinction between devotional and liturgical motets, where motets on New Testament texts were composed for four voices, while motets praising the saints, the Virgin Mary, or addressing other devotional topics, used larger textures. Newly consulted archival sources from Spanish cathedrals show that the motet was performed in a wide variety of public ritual contexts, including the Mass, processions, and the Salve Service, so that it became an important voice in the development of Spanish religiosity during the second half of the sixteenth-century. Close readings of motets for Lent and the Virgin Mary reveal that composers used a wide array of musical conventions in order to express the important doctrinal issues embedded in motet texts. Sixteenth century sermons, theological treatises, religious paintings and sacred poetry, when read alongside motets, support the view that the motet took part in an orthodox and uniquely Spanish expression of Catholicism. In the case of motets for Septuagesima and Lent, composers looked to texts which sixteenth century preachers explicated as warnings against vice, and lessons in virtue. Marian motets, on the other hand, used texts that symbolically expressed the Spanish enthusiasm for the controversial doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. With music that highlighted exegetically important portions of the text with clear, affective gestures, Spanish composers joined in a tradition of religious rhetoric and oratory that arose in the orthodox religious climate of Counter Reformation Spain.