ARS SUBTILIOR
The subtilitas with which Machaut expressed his implicitly aristocratic outlook on art and culture took an
explicit and even somewhat technocratic turn in the work of the generations of poets and musicians who
followed him, and who looked upon him as a creative father. One of the leading French poets at the end of
the fourteenth century, Eustache Deschamps (ca. 1346–ca. 1407), the author of over a thousand ballades,
actually labeled himself Machaut’s apprentice, successor, and heir.^3 (According to at least one authority
he was even more than that: he was reputed to be Machaut’s nephew.) In his treatise Art de Dictier et de
Fere Chançons (“The art of poetry and making songs”) of 1392, Deschamps purported to transmit his
master’s teachings.