Colinet de Lannoy was a French

Franco-Flemish School

In music, the Franco-Flemish School or more precisely the Netherlandish School refers, somewhat imprecisely, to the style of polyphonic vocal music composition in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, and to the composers who wrote it...

 composer of the Renaissance

Renaissance music

Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...

. He was one of the composers/singers working at the Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 chapel at the time of the assassination of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza

Galeazzo Maria Sforza

Galeazzo Maria Sforza was Duke of Milan from 1466 until his death. He was famous for being lustful, cruel and tyrannical....

 in 1476, and he possibly also worked in France.

Life

Little is known for certain about his life, and some details have been occasionally confused with other musicians named "Lannoy" or "Lanoy". Two other singers named Lannoy, Jehan and David, were active at the French court in the middle of the 15th century, and may have been his relatives; in addition, a "Karolus de Launoy", active at Bourges

Bourges

Bourges is a city in central France on the Yèvre river. It is the capital of the department of Cher and also was the capital of the former province of Berry.-History:...

 and later in France, was previously confused with him.

In 1477, Lannoy, along with Jean Japart

Jean Japart

Jean Japart was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active in Italy. He was a popular composer of chansons, and may have been a friend of Josquin des Prez.-Life and work:...

, Johannes Martini

Johannes Martini

Johannes Martini was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance.-Life:He was born in Brabant around 1440, but information about his early life is scanty. He probably received his early training in Flanders, as did most of the composers of his generation...

, and Loyset Compère

Loyset Compère

Loyset Compère was a French composer of the Renaissance. Of the same generation as Josquin des Prez, he was one of the most significant composers of motets and chansons of that era, and one of the first musicians to bring the light Italianate Renaissance style to France.-Life:His exact place of...

, was given a pass to leave Milan following the murder of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza

Galeazzo Maria Sforza

Galeazzo Maria Sforza was Duke of Milan from 1466 until his death. He was famous for being lustful, cruel and tyrannical....

. The singing group at the chapel had been one of the most distinguished in Europe, and the compositional style which developed there in the 1470s was widely influential: for example the motet-chanson

Motet-chanson

The motet-chanson was a specialized musical form of the Renaissance, developed in Milan during the 1470s and 1480s, which combined aspects of the contemporary motet and chanson....

 was probably a Milanese invention. It is not known to what degree Lannoy was involved in the development of this style, nor is it known where Lannoy went after his dismissal. Most of the singers scattered, with Japart going to Ferrara

Ferrara

Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...

, and Compère probably going back to France. Since one of Lannoy's known songs is in Dutch, he may have spent some time, either before or after Milan, in the Low Countries

Low Countries

The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....

.

A line in Guillaume Crétin

Guillaume Crétin

-Life:He was treasurer of the Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes, then cantor of the Sainte-Chapelle de Paris and ordinary almoner to Francis I of France....

's elegy on the death of Johannes Ockeghem

Johannes Ockeghem

Johannes Ockeghem was the most famous composer of the Franco-Flemish School in the last half of the 15th century, and is often considered the most...

 (6 February 1497) indicates that Lannoy had died by then.

Music and influence

Only two compositions are definitely attributed to Lannoy, both secular songs: Cela sans plus and Adieu natuerlic leven mijn. The former of these was used as a basis for mass settings by other composers, including Johannes Martini and Jacob Obrecht

Jacob Obrecht

Jacob Obrecht was a Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He was the most famous composer of masses in Europe in the late 15th century, being eclipsed by only Josquin des Prez after his death.-Life:...

.

One other piece has been considered as a possible composition by Lannoy, a partial cyclic mass

Cyclic mass

In Renaissance music, the cyclic mass was a setting of the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Mass, in which each of the movements – Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei – shared a common musical theme, commonly a cantus firmus, thus making it a unified whole...

for three voices. It is given to "lanoy" in the source, and the style is consistent both with Lannoy's songs and with that of other composers working at Milan.