Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 – 23 November 1585;[a] also Thomas Tallys or Thomas Talles) was an English Renaissance composer who occupies a primary place in anthologies of English choral music.  He served at court as a composer and performer for Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I.

Tallis avoided the religious controversies that raged around him throughout his service to successive monarchs, though he remained, in the words of the historian Peter Ackroyd, an “unreformed Roman Catholic”.

William Byrd wrote the musical elegy Ye Sacred Muses on Tallis’s death.