ABSTRACT
Having expounded the hypothesis that many of the apparently hard-to-categorise Mass cycles of the fifteenth century were actually produced through intensive cultural exchange between England and continental Europe, this book seeks to place long-term cultural exchange rather than insularity at the heart of understanding English music in this period. Whilst this perhaps solves issues with previous historical models that have privileged one-off moments of contact between the two regions relating primarily to the Hundred Years’ War, it creates another one larger still: if English groups continued to be active after c. 1475, why does English music lose influence in Europe after this date. A number of hypotheses are explored before concluding that it is a combination of factors which leads to the explosion of influence of English Mass cycles on the continent earlier in the century, and a combination that leads this eventually to wane.
