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In the 1970s, a debate raged amongst music historians of the Renaissance and Middle Ages about the concept of mannerism, that is, whether as these historical periods drew to a close, their music became more stylized and complex, abandoning a previous emphasis on clear formal principles. While these debates have faded, the assumption that the ends of historical periods are marked by a decline or descent into decadence remains common, and the idea of an individual composer’s “late style” continues to attract substantial scholarly interest. This seminar is a transhistorical investigation of this idea of “lateness” and its attendant concepts like decadence and mannerism. Built around case studies, we will consider how these ideas play out in scholarship on topics from the ars subtilior in the fourteenth-century to composers of the twentieth-century.