Old Hall Manuscript

The manuscript somehow survived the Reformation, and formerly belonged to St Edmund's College, a Roman Catholic school located at Old Hall Green (hence its name) in Hertfordshire.

This date allows the fitting into the chronology of the most recent piece in the manuscript, the wedding motet by Byttering which was almost certainly written for the marriage of Henry V and Catherine of Valois on 2 June 1420, as well as a group of motets by several composers, the titles of which closely match written accounts of the music played at the celebration of the victory of Agincourt in 1415.

Various musical styles and techniques are represented including English discant, treble-dominated works, isorhythmic compositions, and canons.

Whether this trend generally continued in the 15th century in England is hard to determine because of the poor survival of manuscripts from that time, but it was well established by the middle of the 15th century, for example at the Burgundian court, that there was a style which was identifiably English—"la contenance angloise", according to Martin le Franc in his poem of 1441–1442 Le Champion des Dames.

Manfred Bukofzer, writing in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music (1950) wrote: "The greatest surprise of the Old Hall Repertory is unquestionably the prominent role of isorhythmic technique, which is irrefutable proof of a strong French influence.

A historically significant development was the occasional use of divisi, the earliest certain evidence of polyphony being sung by a choir of two or more voices per part.