ABSTRACT
The story of fifteenth-century English music occupies a curious position within broader music history as a period and region which is curiously both marginal and central. This chapter explores some of the historiographical reasons for this. It seeks to break down the polarisation between continental and English provenance by demonstrating how interconnected the two regions were in the fifteenth century, outlining key moments of cultural exchange and the actors that were seemingly responsible for them. Ultimately, it seeks to provide a context for the main thesis of this book: that a great many of the Mass cycles which have resisted easy categorisation as either English or continental were instead created through a process of intensive cultural exchange between the two regions.
