M

MACHAUT, GUILLAUME DE

(ca. 1300–1377)
The greatest French poet and composer of the 14th cen-
tury. Machaut’s narrative dits set a style in poetry that
would predominate in France and England through the
15th century; his lyrics, many set to music, established
and popularized the formes fi xes; his Messe de Nostre
Dame is the earliest surviving polyphonic setting of all
movements of the Mass Ordinary by one composer;
his strong interest in manuscript production made him
a prime force in creating an awareness of the artist as a
professional fi gure.
Born near Reims, Machaut probably received a uni-
versity education in Paris. After his studies, he served
from ca. 1323 to the late 1330s as personal secretary
and clerk to Jean l’Aveugle of Luxembourg, king of
Bohemia. In 1333, Jean procured a canonry at Reims for
Machaut, whose name appears regularly in the records
of Reims after 1340. With Jean’s death in 1346 at the
Battle of Crécy, Machaut did not lack for patrons. He
composed his Remede de Fortune for Jean’s daughter,
Bonne of Luxembourg, who was also the mother of two
of his most important patrons, Charles, duke of Norman-
dy (later Charles V), and John, duke of Berry. Machaut
praises Charles in his Voir dit (1363–65) and probably
composed his last major poem, the verse chronicle Prise
d’Alexandrie (ca. 1369–71), at his instigation. Machaut
dedicated his Fonteinne amoureuse to the duke of Berry,
and one of the most elaborate manuscripts of Machaut’s
collected works bears the duke’s signature. In the early
1350s, Machaut established an important association
with Charles the Bad, king of Navarre, whose family
had hereditary connections with Champagne and who
had married a daughter of Bonne and King John II.
Although he apparently continued to cultivate royal
patrons, no major works by Machaut are known after

the Prise, and public records do not speak of him again

until his death in April 1377.

Most of Machaut’s poetic and musical production

can be dated to the period after he settled at Reims in

the late 1330s until ca. 1370. He composed some 420

lyric poems, most in the formes fi xes of chant royal

(eight extant), ballade (239), rondeau (seventy-seven),

virelai (forty), and lai (twenty-three). He also wrote

twenty-three motets, nine complaintes, eight long and

four shorter dits amoureux, a poem of comfort and

counsel (Confort d’ami), the Prise d’Alexandrie, as well

as a Prologue that introduced his late complete-works

manuscripts. In total, Machaut produced some 60,000

lines of verse. He set about 140 of his lyrics to music,

providing polyphonic settings of forty ballades, twenty-

one rondeaux, four lais, one virelai, and twenty-three

motets and monophonic settings for one ballade, sixteen

lais, thirty virelais, one complainte, one chant royal, and

two miscellaneous lyrics. The manuscripts also include

music for his famous Messe de Nostre Dame and a text-

less three-voice hocket.

Machaut’s earliest narrative poem, the Dit du vergier

(late 1330s; 1,293 lines), is an allegorical dream vision

in the tradition of the Roman de la Rose. It is a fi rst-

person account of an encounter with the God of Love,

who together with six youths and six maidens appears

to the narrator in a grove. In three lengthy speeches, the

god discourses on love and promises to help the narrator

in his own amours, if he proves worthy.

The Jugement du roy de Behaigne (late 1330s; 2,079

lines) narrates a love debate and its resolution by Jean

l’Aveugle. The allusions to this poem and the large num-

ber of extant manuscripts (twenty) are evidence that this

was the most popular of Machaut’s works. The question

debated is who suffers more, the knight whose lady has

taken a new lover or the lady whose beloved has died.