Donald Medina
Dr. Stroud
MMUSG 101
8 February 2014

Guillaume de Machaut

During the medieval era life was tempestuous for the average person; the Black Death ravaged Europe, the Roman Catholic Church was in power, and climate change caused many crops to fail often leading to famine for many towns and countries. Even though times were tough, music and song provided a welcome distraction to the many problems people were dealing with at the time. Guillaume de Machaut was not only a clergyman during this time but a poet and composer as well. Guillaume de Machaut is regarded now as he was then as a brilliant composer who’s practice of composing verses and writing poetry translated into the mastery of his craft. Guillaume de Machaut was born in 1300, Machaut, France which is located by the city of Reims, well-known for its cathedral and served as a crowning site for French kings. It’s very likely that Guillaume de Machaut received his education and training at a cathedral school since the Roman Catholic Church was still in power at the time and had great influence across the land. At the age of twenty three or twenty four, he became a “secretary to the king of Bohemia who was also known as King John of Luxembourg.” (Classical net web)
Guillaume de Machaut was extremely faithful to the King John while he was in service to him and received what’s known as a benefice “a church appointment that brought the recipient a steady income from church revenue” (Encyclopedia Britannica Web). As a secretary to the king, Guillaume de Machaut travelled all over Europe with King John on his war campaigns often documenting what he’d seen and heard during his travels in poems and stories which often translated into song. Around 1337, Machaut, was made canon in his home diocese of Reims, and probably kept that post until the end of his life. Machaut stayed in John's service until 1346, when the King died at the battle of Crecy. After King John’s death, Machaut stayed connected with the French royal family through “King John’s daughter Bonne of Luxemburg who eventually became the wife of King John the second.” (Encyclopedia Britannica Web) Regarded as the greatest poet of his time, Machaut spent his later years editing and organizing his manuscripts. During his time as a canon, Guillaume de Machaut was able to focus more on writing poetry and music. Although as churchmen, there were certain rules that they had to abide by when it came to behavior and dress. “They were required to dine together at the refectory on certain days of the week as well as certain holy days; they had to reside within the city walls of Reims; and they had to sing a minimum of thirty-two masses during the year.” (Encyclopedia Britannica Web) This new life that Guillaume de Machaut had to live after the death of King John was considerably different from the travels he had shared earlier as a secretary to the king, he was still able to adapt and create numerous poems and songs well into his later years. During his lifetime Guillaume de Machaut was able to produce “hundreds of poems and some 145 musical works.” (Classical Archives web) His poems and stories are particularly interesting because they detail much about Machaut's own life and times as well as the people around him. Such events as the Black Death and the Siege of Rheims in the early part of the Hundred Years' War were captured to a great degree. His poems and songs weren’t limited to the misery that he himself and his countrymen were facing at the time but he also took time to recognize and write of the beauty of the French country side and love in particular. However as great as his poems and songs were it was his composing and his ability when writing secular songs that brought his true genius to front. Machaut’s most famous work, the Messe de Nostre Dame (Notre Dame Mass) is widely recognized as one of the greatest masterpieces of medieval and religious music of all time; “it is a polyphonic mass that contains 5 movements, the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, followed by the dismissal Ite, missa est.” (Classical music web) Many of Machaut’s songs were secular works that make up most of his music. As an example “his three- and four-part motets (polyphonic songs in which each voice has a different text) number 23. Of these, 17 are in French, 2 are Latin mixed with French, and 4, like the religious motets of the early 13th century, are in Latin” (All music Web). The polyphonic songs he wrote, in addition to his motets, consist of 21 rondeaux and 41 of his 42 ballades.
The wide dissemination of his music reveals that Machaut was respected as a composer of rare versatility and it shows in music being used in France, Spain, Italy and most of Europe but as far as Asia during his time. Guillaume de Machaut mastery of writing poetry and composing is what not only made him the greatest composers of the fourteenth century but one of the greatest composer’s and poets of all time.