Machabée et de ses nobles frères. Two anonymous prose translations of Maccabees
appeared in this period, as well as prose versions of Judges, Kings, Genesis, and
Proverbs. The popularity of the Apocalypse was unrivaled, and the 12th-century prose
translation was followed by seven others, as well as two verse versions. A second rhymed
Psalter was made in the second half of the 13th century, and translations of the penitential
psalms were frequently copied in books of hours.
In the Midi, the work of translation was closely associated with the activities of the
Cathars and the Waldensians. Interest centered on the New Testament, particularly the
Gospels. The earliest surviving text is a fragment of a literal rendering of the Gospel of
John from the second half of the 12th century. The Languedocian New Testament dates
from the early 13th century, while the Vaudois New Testament exists in a mid-15th
century manuscript. The Provençal Gospels, with their pronounced popular character,
appeared late in the 13th century. The Old Testament is represented only by the 14th-
century Livre de Genesi, which completed sacred history with apocryphal legends.
Maureen B.M.Boulton
[See also: APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE; BIBLE, LATIN VERSION OF; BIBLE
MORALISÉE; DIDACTIC LITERATURE (OCCITAN); TRANSLATION]
Gautier de Belleperche et Piéros du Riés. Roman de Judas Machabée, ed. Jean-Robert Smeets. 2
vols. Assen: van Gorcum, 1991.
Herman de Valenciennes. Li romanz de Dieu et de sa mère, ed. Ina Spiele. Leiden: Universitaire
Pers, 1975.
Macé de la Charité. La Bible, ed. H.C.M.van der Krabben and Jean-Robert Smeets. 7 vols. Leiden:
Universitaire Pers Leiden, 1964-.
Berger, Samuel. La Bible française au moyen âge; étude sur les plus anciennes versions de la Bible
écrites en langue d’oïl Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1884.
Bonnard, Jean. Les traductions de la Bible en vers français au moyen âge. Paris: Imprimerie
Nationale, 1884.
BINCHOIS, GILLES
(Gilles de Bins dit Binchois; ca. 1400–1460). Together with his contemporary Guillaume
Dufay, Binchois had a profound effect on continental musical style in the early 15th
century. As a member of the Burgundian court for nearly thirty years, Binchois was the
strongest single influence on the development of the centrally important repertory of
Burgundian chansons.
Binchois was probably born in Mons, into a bourgeois family. The earliest documents
regarding his musical career are at the the church of Sainte-Waudru in Mons, where he
was organist ca. 1419–23. He served briefly as a musician, and possibly as a soldier, to
William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, during the middle 1420s, when Suffolk was resident
in Paris. Documents pertaining to an assassination attempt on Philip the Good, duke of
Burgundy, show that Binchois composed at least one song, now lost, for Suffolk. By ca.
1425, Binchois was a member of the choir of the Burgundian court, an association that
continued for the rest of his career. Unlike the majority of early 15th-century composers,
Binchois was never ordained as a priest, nor did he have a university degree. This did not,
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