ABSTRACT
English sources, both documentary and musical, show that in the two last decades of the sixteenth century the figured almain went from strength to strength. Scholars have in general been hasty and uncritical in seeking to impose Thoinot Arbeau's Alman choreography on the English forms of the dance. As early as c. 1565, the processional nature of the dance was varied and much enlivened by the introduction of figures, and compound-duple-time music was sometimes used, by which time the Almain Doubles had apparently given way to slips and slides. The fact that the vast majority of almains continued to be written in simple duple time does suggest, however, that dancing the almain in compound time began as an offshoot of mainstream practice. Melusine Wood, who believed that the Dancing Picture portrayed an almain, pointed out one striking similarity between the later dance and the early English form depicted in that painting.
