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Introduction Deborah Mcgrady and Jennifer Bain Guillaume De INTRODUCTION Deborah McGrady and Jennifer Bain Guillaume de Machaut, poet and composer, secretary to kings and canon at Reims, lived a life far different from the narrative commonly assigned late-medieval French writers. Born, most likely, at the turn of the four- teenth century to a non-noble family in the Machault region, he appears to have benefited from the rare opportunity to receive an education from a cathedral school, which, in turn, would have prepared him for subse- quent study at the university. Having achieved the status of a clerk, he was optimally trained to enter both ecclesiastic and secular service. Until his death in 1377, Machaut remained closely linked to these two worlds. It would appear that he began his professional career in the service of John of Luxembourg, king of Bohemia, progressively advancing in rank from almoner (1330) to notary (1332) and, ultimately, to secretary (1333).1 Machaut also acquired during this period, with the king’s intervention, numerous Church benefices, most notably a canonry and prebend at the Reims cathedral chapter beginning in 1338.2 As a member of the king’s entourage, Machaut most likely directly participated in several campaigns instigated by the king across Eastern Europe and into the Italian peninsula. In spite of his longstanding affiliation with the king and well before the famous death of the then blind John of Luxembourg on the battlefield of Crécy in August of 1346, Machaut addressed texts to other members of the nobility. His literary network that originated with the king of Bohemia appears to have progressively extended outward to embrace close affili- ations to the king, starting with his daughter Bonne of Luxembourg, the future mother of Charles V of France. Machaut’s affiliations to contem- porary nobility stretched the gamut to include King Charles of Navarre; John, duke of Berry; King Charles V; Amadeus VI, the Green Count of 1 Regarding all aspects of Machaut’s biography, readers are directed to the invaluable work of Lawrence Earp, Guillaume de Machaut: A Guide to Research (New York, 1995), pp. 3–48. 2 Machaut also acquired canonries in anticipation of openings at the cathedrals of Verdun (1330), Arras (1332), and at the church of Saint Quentin (c. 1335). A concise over- view of Machaut’s ecclesiastic professional advancements is provided by Earp, A Guide to Research, pp. 14–21. 2 deborah mcgrady and jennifer bain Savoy; Robert d’Alençon, count of Perche; Robert, duke of Bar; the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV; Pierre de Lusignan, king of Cyprus; and Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy. The exact formal nature of these relation- ships with nobility is sometimes uncertain, but we can surmise that his church benefices most likely freed him from dependence on patron- age or administrative service for financial survival following the king of Bohemia’s death. If the formal status of Machaut’s relationship with this circle of secu- lar power remains sufficiently vague as to disallow precise claims regard- ing artistic patronage or administrative affiliations after his service to the king of Bohemia, our ability to link the author with contemporary lite- rati proves even more uncertain. Little evidence has been uncovered that would allow us to speak with certainty of the intellectual and artistic ties Machaut enjoyed with contemporary writers and thinkers. An important exception is provided in the lyric works of Eustache Deschamps, where the poet’s claims range from declarations that the elder poet nourished him as a child to accounts of representing the master during a reading of the Voir dit at the court of Bruges.3 No such literary attestation or official correspondence allows us to confirm Machaut’s familiarity with the other artistic luminaries of his time, but scholars have long mused over the over- lap of Machaut’s presence at the coronation of Charles IV, the Fair (1322) alongside Philippe de Vitry, as well as the coincidence of his forced partic- ipation in the siege of Reims in 1359–60 when Geoffrey Chaucer was tem- porarily imprisoned in the city or later in 1360 when these two poets as well as Jean Froissart might have all been present in Calais during the hostage exchange between England and France following the Treaty of Brétigny. In a similar vein, we might ponder the coincidence linking Philippe de Méz- ière’s visit to the court of Charles V in 1373 to petition his aid in mount- ing a new crusade and Machaut’s composition of the Prise d’Alexandre around that time. Elizabeth Eva Leach has recently uncovered tantalizing biographical details suggesting Machaut’s engagement in poetic repartee with at least one of his fellow canons at Reims.4 Regardless of actual hard evidence connecting Machaut to the international literary network, abun- dant secondary evidence in the form of borrowings by fellow writers and 3 See Deborah McGrady, Controlling Readers: Guillaume de Machaut and His Late Medi- eval Audience (Toronto, 2006), pp. 147–69. 4 Elizabeth Eva Leach, “Machaut’s Peer, Thomas Paien,” Plainsong and Medieval Music, 18 (2008), 91–112..
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