The main courtly dances of the fifteenth century, collectively called basse danse or bassadanza, were typically accompanied by the alta capella, a loud wind ensemble in which stereotyped counterpoint was improvised around a slow-moving cantus firmus played by the tenor shawm or bombard. Since the length of each cantus firmus varied, each basse danse had its own choreography. The new dances that replaced it shortly after 1500 were much simpler. They had standard choreographies matched by simple tunes made up of short repeated sections in patterns such as AABB or AABBCC. The music, now increasingly intended for the new string consorts rather than the old loud wind ensembles, was usually in four, five or six parts using simple block chords, and had to be set down on paper, for the inner parts no longer had readily defined or discrete functions, and could not easily have been improvised without creating glaring consecutives. But dance music continued to be played from memory: pictures show groups performing without music for at least another century.

The pavan

The most important dances in the new repertory were those that make up most of Lachrimae, the pavan and the galliard. The pavana or padoana (the name suggests a connection with Padua or an allusion to the dignified display of the peacock by way of the Spanish pavón) is first found in Italian musical sources in the first decade of the sixteenth century, and spread rapidly to northern Europe.