Cornelius Canis

He may have been part of a large musical family, since other musicians named d'Hondt, de Hondt, and Canis were active in Ghent, Kortrijk, and other places with connections to the imperial chapel during the 16th century.

During this period the musicians of the chapel rarely stayed in one place for long: they often traveled with the emperor, going to Italy, the Low Countries, or Austria as the occasion demanded.

[1][2] Honors accumulated for Canis: he received royal prebends, pensions, an apostolic favor, and he was made abbot of two separate places: Notre Dame in Middelburg and Floresse in Liège.

Canis's motets are written in the manner of the post-Josquin generation of Franco-Flemish composers, using a wide variety of contrapuntal procedures carried out with considerable skill.

Contrasting with the elaborate polyphonic procedures he used in his sacred music, Canis's chansons show a mix of both Netherlandish polyphony and French, particularly Parisian, simplicity.

Canis used some features of the Parisian chanson, including homophony, short rhythmic units, and cadential formulae, grafting them onto an otherwise polyphonic fabric.

The exact meaning of the phrase musica reservata has been debated by musicologists for decades, since the contemporary mentions of the term are ambiguous and contradictory.