The Contenance angloise, or English manner, a distinctive style of musical polyphony, developed in fifteenth-century England.
It became highly influential in the fashionable Burgundian court of Philip the Good (r. 1419–1467), and on European music of the era.
The phrase Contenance Angloise was coined by Martin le Franc in 1441–42, in a poem dedicated to Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy (1396–1467) to describe the era's distinctive musical style.
[2] Musicologists have noted the style as a distinctive form of melodic polyphony using full, rich harmonies based on the third and sixth, which may have made lyrics easier to articulate.
[3] This tradition was continued by figures such as: The influence of English composers on the continent seems to have declined towards the end of the fifteenth century when, having lost their major possessions in France, and entering the Wars of the Roses, they may have been preoccupied with domestic matters.