• Period: Medieval (1-1449)
• Country: England

Biography

W. Aleyn is accredited as the composer of a Gloria (OH No. 8) and an Agnus Dei (OH No. 128) in the Old Hall Manuscript. The name is also attached to a contrafacta setting in the lost Strasbourg manuscript copied by Coussemaker in 1866, C. 222. As several of the pieces in C. 222 are credited to Johannes Alanus, also known as "John Aleyn," scholars once assumed that "Aleyn" and Alanus were one and the same. But an X-ray examination of the Old Hall Manuscript reveals that the name "Aleyn" is prefixed by an initial that appears to be a letter W, indicating an entirely different composer is represented. If so, W. Aleyn was an English composer likely active in a time contemporaneous to the Old Hall Manuscript, perhaps in the 1420s, rather than from the time of Alanus, who died in 1373. ~ Uncle Dave Lewis, All Music Guide