ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provide how the almande came to Britain, and examines the evidence for what is probably the earliest British example of the dance on record — the Alman Hay — and a representative selection of almain music. The earliest probable reference to the almain as an indigenous dance-type in the British Isles is dated 1549, when the 'alman hay' is mentioned in a Scottish chronicle. During the period between 1549, when the Alman Hay is mentioned for the first and last time in British sources, and c.1565, when the earliest extant choreographies were copied, a small but significant repertory of music for the dance was accumulated in England. The coexistence of almain and branle in the Dublin Virginal Manuscript and the Susanne van Soldt Manuscript, and their many musical similarities, is no accident and must be considered in more detail.
