MACHAUT, GUILLAUME DE

(ca. 1300–1377)

Machaut was the most prolific and most influential 14th-century French poet and composer, setting an example with his narrativedits(narratives with interspersed lyric poems) that was followed by poets both in France and England for the next 200 years.With hisMesse de Nostre Dame, he created the earliest polyphonic Mass Ordinary in the Middle Ages. He also composed 20 motets. Representative of his age, but also at the forefront of a new trend, Machaut had his collected works copied down several times in carefully edited manuscripts, organized according to the genres, and with all his poems in each genre arranged chronologically. The illustration programs in his manuscripts are highly elaborate, and Machaut himself seems to have determined the specific themes of individual images that served to better explain his narratives. In his compositions Machaut created difficultLAISwith music, many of them of considerable length, often requiring more than 30 minutes in performance. In his more mature works Machaut incorporated melismas (successions of notes on a single syllable) for textless tenor and contratenor, a practice that was subsequently copied far into the 15th century.

Machaut was born in the village of Machault near Reims and was educated in Paris,where he received his master’s degree (magister). Because of his low social status, we can only outline his life on the basis of self-references in his works. He served from ca. 1323 to the late 1330s as personal secretary and clerk to Jean l’Aveugle (John the Blind) of Luxembourg, king of Bohemia and father of the German emperor Charles IV. Probably as a form of payment for his services, Machaut received a canonry at Reims in 1333, which secured him a solid income. In his role as secretary,Machaut accompanied the king on military expeditions through Poland, Russia, and Lithuania in 1329, and to northern Italy in 1330–31.After Jean’s death in 1346 in the Battle of Crécy, Machaut found other patrons, such as Jean’s daughter, Bonne of Luxembourg, and her two sons Charles, duke of Normandy, and John, duke of Berry.His last major patron was King Charles the Bad of Navarre, for whom he composed the verse chroniclePrise d’Alexandrie(ca.1369–71). Many other princes paid him respect and asked him to compose works for them.Machaut died in April of 1377 in Reims. Machaut’s earliest narrative poem, theDit du vergier(late 1330s), closely follows the allegorical dream poem theROMAN DE LA ROSEby GUILLAUME DE LORRIS. Here the God of Love appears with six young men and six young women and promises to help the lover achieve his goal if he proves worthy. TheJugement du roy de Behaigne(late 1330s) is a love debate. Judging from the many subsequent allusions to this text and from the large number of manuscripts (20 manuscripts from the 14th and 15th centuries),we can be certain that this was one of Machaut’s most popular allegorical poems. In hisRemede de Fortune(ca. 1340), the lover tells of his long but silent service to his lady.He composes many poems and passes them to his friends, until one day his lady comes across one of his poems. Although she asks him about the poet, the lover cannot tell her the truth and withdraws into a park, lamenting his self-induced misfortune. But Lady Hope appears and encourages him to return to his lady who then indeed accepts him as her lover and exchanges rings with him. But because of the need for discretion and secrecy in love within the context of the court, she soon forgets him again.

TheDit du lyon(1342) tells the allegorical story of a lion who leads the narrator into a grove where he observes the lion’s love experiences.Whenever his lady removes her gazes from him, other hostile beasts attack the lion. The narrator intervenes on behalf of the lion and then returns to his manor. TheJugement du roy de Navarre(1349) is another love debate, dedicated to Charles the Bad.Here the judgment is in favor of the lady, but the most important aspect proves to be the poet’s examination of his own role as a writer. Here Machaut also includes a reference to the BLACK DEATH, which he himself survived while hidden behind a convent’s wall during the years 1348–49. In his narrative comments he also describes the chaotic circumstances of that time, including the persecution of the Jews, the appearance of the flagellants, the mass burials of the dead, and the depopulation of the entire country. TheDit de l’alerion(early 1350s) is a bird allegory that creates direct analogies between women and birds of prey, or between hawking andfin’amors(or COURTLY LOVE). TheFointeinne amoureuse(1360–62) is another dream vision in which the Narrator overhears a lover bemoaning that he has to go into exile—which is a direct reflection of John, duke of Berry’s trip to England in 1360 as a hostage during the Treaty of Brétigny. But in the dream Venus arrives and assures the lover of his lady’s fidelity during his longterm absence. TheVoir dit(1363–65), a kind of epistolary novel in verse, might well be an autobiographical account of a love affair. In 1356–57 Machaut composedConfort d’amito offer consolation to Charles the Bad in his imprisonment since 1356, and in 1369–71 he wrote hisPris d’Alexandrieas a literary document of the career of Pierre de Lusignan, king of Cyprus. Machaut also achieved great mastery in musical composition, focusing on motets, fixed-form lyrics, and on the Mass. Both his disciples and the general posterity expressed great respect for him. His literary and musicaloeuvreexerted great influence on the subsequent generations of poets and musical composers, such as Eustache DESCHAMPS, Jean FROISSART, CHRISTINE DE PIZAN, and Geoffrey CHAUCER. Machaut’s greatest literary contribution consisted of his love poetry in which he idealized the three elements of “Dous Penser” (Sweet Thought), “Souvenir” (Memory), and “Espoir de joïr” (Hope for Joy).

■ Brownlee, Kevin.Identity in Guillaume de Machaut. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.

■ Butterfield,Ardis.Poetry and Music in Medieval France: From Jean Renart to Guillaume de Machaut. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

■ De Looze, Laurence.Pseudo-Autobiography in the Fourteenth Century: Juan Ruiz, Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Froissart, and Geoffrey Chaucer. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.

■ Earp, Lawrence M.Guillaume de Machaut: A Guide to Research. New York: Garland, 1995.

■ Kelly, Douglas.Medieval Imagination: Rhetoric and the Poetry of Courtly Love. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978.

■ Machaut, Guillaume de.Comfort for a Friend. Edited and translated by R. Barton Palmer. New York: Garland, 1992.

■ ———.The Fountain of Love. Edited and translated by R. Barton Palmer. New York: Garland, 1993.

■ ———.The Judgment of the King of Bohemia. Edited and translated by R. Barton Palmer. New York: Garland, 1984.

■ ———.The Judgment of the King of Navarre. Edited and translated by R. Barton Palmer. New York: Garland, 1980.

■ ———.OEuvre de Guillaume de Machaut. Edited by Ernest Hoepffner. 3 vols. Paris: Didot, 1908–1921.

■ ———.The Taking of Alexandria. Edited and translated by R. Barton Palmer. New York: Routledge, 2002.

■ ———.The Tale of the Alerion. Edited and translated by Minnette Gaudet and Constance B. Hieatt. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 1994.