ABSTRACT
Most of the carol repertory survives anonymously, but it needs to be clear that this is all refined music almost certainly by composers whose names we know and that the anonymity is almost certainly just a chance of the sources. The only clear ascription anywhere is to a certain ‘Childe’, who has almost certainly been wrongly identified in the received literature. The name of Dunstable has been introduced into the story for entirely the wrong reasons (though he will turn up later for different reasons). The troublesome case of Smert and Trouluffe is explored, without satisfactory conclusions.
