Essays on the Origins of Western Music
by
David Whitwell
Essay Nr. 120: On Music of the Courts of France
The records of the French kings of the early Renaissance document rather
small numbers of musicians, often organized into the “loud – soft” tradition of the
late Middle Ages.1 On the basis of references in 14th century poems, however, there
seems to have been a large number of minstrels available for special occasions. An
interesting document under the reign of John II (1350 – 1364) includes an unusually
broad list of minstrels, including those who play,
Naquaires ou timbales, canon ou demi-flute, du cornet, de la guiterne ou
guitare Latine, de la flute Behaigne ou bohemienne, de la trompette, de la
guiterne Moresche ou guitare mauresque, et de la vielle.2
Charles V (1364 – 1380) was one of the finest of French kings and is the first
for whom we have evidence of sophistication in music. Christine de Pisan, one of
the first women to make a career in literature, writes of King Charles V,
The King understood so well every aspect of music, which is the
science of harmonizing sounds by slow and fast notes....that no discord could
pass unperceived by him.3
1
Our knowledge of this subject is sparse due to the destruction of the archives of the Chambre
des Comptes in Paris in 1737.
2 Bernhard, “Recherches sur l’histoire de la Corporation des Menetriers ou Jouers d’Instruments
de la Ville de Paris,” in Bibliotheque de l’ecole chantes (1842), 5.
1
She also describes a contemporary tournament in her The Book of the Duke of True
Lovers and describes the activities of minstrels in the entertainments surrounding a
great court tournament.4 Six minstrels, with trumpets and drums, greet the arrival
of the nobles and “blew so loudly that the hills and valleys resounded.”
Menestrelz, trompes, naquaires
y avoit plus de troys paires,
qui si haultement cournoyent,
que mons et vaulx resonnoyent.5
They performed for the banquet, “lending luster to the festival.” After the
meal was finished they performed again “in gracious harmony.” During the course
of the tournament itself, a piper played “spreading cheer about” and “minstrels
trumpeted gaily.” The winners were greeted with music so loud “that God
thundering might not have been heard.”
Lors menestrelz liement
cournoient, hairaux crioent,
Lances brisent, cops resonnent,
et ces menestrelz haut sonnent
si qu’on n’oist Dieu tonnant.
On the other hand, the next, and last, king of the 14th century, Charles VI
(1380 – 1422) reflects the “gamble of hereditary monarchy,” as he was an idiot and
was insane by 1392 even though he remained king another 30 years. Nevertheless,
some extant records suggest that in the last half of the 14th century the court
musicians had developed to be similar to other European courts. For a royal
banquet given at the Hotel St. Pol in 1393, for example, we find,
For the company’s pleasure they sounded hand instruments, such as
flutes, tambours, shawms, harp and vielle and they had a great melodie of
trumpets and clarions…. At the head of the table there were singers of the
royal chapel and the wind instrument minstrels.6
3
Christine de Pisan, Le Livre des Fais et Bonnes Meurs du Sage Roy Charles V, ed., S. Solente
(Paris, 1936) II, 34.
4 Christine de Pizan, The Book of the Duke of True Lovers, Op. cit., 60ff.
5 Christine de Pizan, Le livre du duc des vrais amants, in Oeuvres poetiques (Paris, 1896), 79ff
and 89ff.
6 Andre Pirro, La Musique a Paris sous le regne de Charles VI (Strassbourg, 1930), 29.
2
It was during this reign that Henry V of England married Catherine of France and
came to the continent to collect her. Henry magnanimously offered to give a gold
coin to any musicians who arrived to join in the parade as he and Catherine
departed from Troyes. The offer was too good to resist, an eye-witness reports as he
observed the new queen’s carriage drawn by,
eight English horses, white as snow, the carriages draped in gilt like the rays
of the sun, and in front of the chariot led a great melody of trumpets,
clarions, minstrels, and many other instruments by the hundreds and
thousands, and one knows that many players appeared this day because it
was ordered that each one of them would receive this day a salut d’or which
the king had recently begun to forge.7
Charles VII (1422 – 1461) was the king who lacked the strength to save Joan
of Arc. She was standing beside him when he was crowned by the archbishop. It is
reported that at this moment the trumpets were so loud that it was feared the vaults
of the church would crack.8
When King Ladislaus of Hungary sent envoys to Charles’ court in 1457 to
seek his daughter’s hand in marriage, an eye-witness recorded the first occasion
when the modern timpani was heard in France.
One had never before seen drums like big kettles, carried on
horseback.9
With the close of the 15th century we come to two very interesting kings.
Louis XI (1461 – 1483) lived very simply, dressed like an impoverished pilgrim in
rough gray gown and shabby belt hat, and devoted his entire energy to the task of
creating a unified nation. A contemporary said of him,
If all the days of his life were computed in which joys and pleasures
outweighed his pains and trouble, they would be found so few that there
would be twenty mournful ones to one pleasant.10
7
Jeanne Marix, Histoire de la Musique et des Musiciens de la Cour de Bourgogne sous le regne
de Philippe le Bon (Strasbourg, 1939), 24.
8 J. Quicherat, ed., Proces de condemnation et de rehabilitation de Jeanne d’Arc (Paris, 18411849), V, 128.
9 Curt Sachs, the History of Musical Instruments (New York, 1940), 329, who also gives the
original French.
10 Philippe de Comines, Memoirs (London, 1900), VI, 12.
3
His coronation was attended by the great Burgundian historian, Georges
Chastellain, who reported that the moment Louis was crowned there was such a
noise of trumpets and bells that the whole world seemed to quiver and rock and all
ears were deafened.11 While other French nobles at this time, in particular Rene I,12
Duke of Anjou (died 1480), enjoyed large ensembles of instruments, Louis XI tended
toward the more simple, rural kinds of music, although there are some hints that his
court employed a number of fine players.
The Ballet Comique, like the English masque of the following century, one of
the many roots of opera, was beginning to appear. We find a description of one
given for the engagement of the Duc de Joyeuse to Marguerite de Vaudemont, in
1581, which mentions that it included “the most harmonious [music] that had ever
been heard.”13 Another Ballet comique, given a month later for the actual wedding
celebrations included numerous musical numbers as part of a great allegorical
pageant. One saw 8 of the king’s musicians, appearing as tritons, singing and
playing instruments, ten violins performing for a ballet of the 12 naiads and
eventually 40 musicians and singers performing “the most learned and excellent
music that had up to then been heard or sung” for the descent of Jupiter from the
heavens.14
As Louis XI lay dying, in 1483, he requested music outside his window and
sent out an order for performers of every kind. Some 120 appeared, mostly
shepherds playing on pipe and flute.15
Charles VIII (1483 – 1498) was one of the most colorful of all French rulers.
He was a macrocephalic hunchback, eyes big, colorless and myopic, his under lip
thick and drooping, speech hesitant, and hands which twitched spasmodically.
Nevertheless, he was good natured and was given to reading chivalric romances.
One of these inspired him to make a crusade to Jerusalem, via Italy. He set out in
Georges Chastellian, Oeuvres (Brussels, 1863 – 1866).
J. Lavron, La vie et les moeurs du bon roi Rene (Paris, 1953), 187 and G. Arnaud d’Agnel, Les
comptes du Roi Rene (Paris, 1910), III, 75ff. He sang and played instruments himself and
maintained a five-member wind band in addition to minstrels who played “clarion, trompette,
sarquebbute, tabourin, chalemie, fluete, herpe, leutz doulcine, musette et orgue.”
13 Quoted in Frances Yates, The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century (London: University
of London, 1947; Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1968), 237.
14 Ibid., 242ff.
15 D. B. Wyndham Lewis, King Spider (New York, 1929), 295.
11
12
4
1494, but he and his troops found Milano so enjoyable that they never went further.
For a year the troops enjoyed the local ladies (Charles left a trail of natural
children) and when they returned to Paris they took with them the “morbus
gallicus” and the Renaissance.
When Charles entered Rouen in April, 1485, he was welcomed with a great
theatrical creation which incuded,
24 Old Men of the Apocalypse, sumptuously dressed, with elaborate
headdresses and crowns. They held organs, harps, lutes, rebecs, shawms,
crumhorns and other instruments.16
Three years after his return to Paris, poor Charles was on his way to observe
a tennis match and walking with eyes to the ground failed to see the top of a Dutch
door which remained closed. He hit his head against it and died at age 28.
With the court of Louis XII (1498 - 1515) the 16th century began with only
the most necessary ceremonial music, the king observing “I had rather make
courtiers laugh by my stinginess, than make my people weep by my extravagance.”17
Louis himself, however, was a singer and appears discerning for he hired the great
Josquin. In fact there is extant a vocal composition by Josquin which has one part
labeled, “vox regis.” One wonders, since this part written for the king has only one
repeated pitch, if this were to appeal to the king’s good sense of humor or his actual
ability as a singer.
With Francois I (1515 - 1547), however, it was a different story, for this was
one of the major reigns in French history, a reign that corresponded in time with
Henry VIII of England. Henry VIII himself left this description of Francois I in
1520 after they met at “The Field of Cloth of Gold,”
He was stately of countenance, mery of chere, rounde coloured, great
iyes, high nosed, bigge lipped, faire brested and shoulders, small legges, and
long fete.18
Bowles, “Hat and Bas: The Grouping of Musical Instruments in the Middle Ages,” in Musica
Disciplina (1954), 130ff.
17 Fr. Guizot, History of France (London: 1872), II, 627. Josquin, who wrote the well-known “Vive
Le Roy.”
18 Edward Hall, The Triumphant Reigne of Kyng Henry VIII (London, 1542), I, 200.
16
5
This king, who devoted so much attention to poetry, language, art and music,
established an administrative basis for music of the court which would influence all
aristocratic music until the end of the 18th century.
One group of ensembles was organized under an administrative wing called
the Chambre. Here one found a category called Les officiers domestiques, which
included singers, organists, and lute players. Here also was Les cornets, virtuosi
who seemed to have always come from Italy, and Verona in particular. Also under
this administrative wing were two ensembles of musicians for ceremonial purposes,
Les flutes hautbois et trompettes and the Les fifres et les tabourins, which seems to
have been filled with players from Italy, Germany and Switzerland.
An entirely separate administrative unit which included musicians was called
the Ecurie, which arranged all important musical entertainments. Here one finds
the first record of the historic ensemble under Louis XIV known as the Les Grand
Hautbois. In 1529 this ensemble is called Joeurs d’instrumens de haulxbois et
sacqueboutes and consisted of 8 Italian musicians.19 This ensemble would become
the model for Louis XIV’s famous ensemble, which, in turn, was the model for the
Hautboisten movement in Germany. The Hautboisten ensemble in Germany, a
concert, not a military, organization evolved in the Harmoniemusik of the Classic
Period, hence the music of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. Moreover, it was the
concerto da camera form of the Hautboisten which evolved into the symphony form
as we know it. This ensemble may, in fact, have been established by Louis XII, for it
appears at the coronation of Francois I wearing a white uniform. By 1580, under
Henry III, the ensemble grows to 12 players, the number it retains throughout the
17th century.
Several sources report this as a 9 member ensemble traveling with Francois I
to the Conference of Cambrai in 1529.20 In addition, he also took on this trip a
consort of 4 “grosses fleutes,” a consort of 4 viols and his personal trumpets.
Henri Prunieres, “La musique de la Chambre et de L’Ecurie sous le regne de Francois Ier,” in
L’Annee Musicale (Paris, 1911), 241.
20 Edmond Vander Straeten, La Musique aux Pays-Bas avant le XIXe Siecle, (New York, 1969),
IV, 189; and Grove Dictionary, XVII, 242.
19
6
Under this administrative wing as well was an additional ensemble for
ceremonial music, Les fifres et les trompettes, which appears to have consisted of 5
players of the fife and 6 trumpeters. These trumpeters performed a “De Profundis”
at the funeral of Francois I,21 and they are immortalized in a relief, “Renown,” by
Jean Goujon on the side of the Louvre to this day. Of this relief, the great French
poet, Pierre Ronsard, wrote,
For the King’s glory you have carved aloft
A goddess on the palace of the Louvre
Who through her trumpet of Renown, with cheeks
Full rounded, blows forever….22
Sometime later, in 1543, Francois I founded his schola cantorum, consisting
of 2 undermasters, 6 children, 2 cornett players, 26 singers, twelve clerics and 2
grammar teachers for the children.23
We might also note that Francois I was always generous in rewarding visiting
musicians. In 1538 alone, he rewarded a visiting band of cornetts belonging to the
queen of Hungary, an oboe band of the duke of Mantoue and no less than four
ensembles (two of trumpets and two of oboes) of Pope Paul III.24
As in the rest of Europe, exciting new intellectual and musical ideas were
transforming the course of music in France. But these ideas were not coming from
the Church or from the universities. The University of Paris, for all its importance,
was still locked into the medieval misconception of music being but a branch of
mathematics. It was somewhat of an anomaly when Anthoine de Bertrand (b. 1545),
publishing some of his music in 1587, felt the necessity to add the observation that
“music should appeal to the senses and not be bound by mathematical subtleties.”25
Above all, it was the humanists and the “practical” musicians who were
carrying the art of music forward. It was the latter who created the demand leading
to important developments in the publishing of music, and for whom Attaingnant
alone published in Paris more than 2,000 chansons and 900 instrumental dances
21
Grace H. Seely, Diane the Huntress (New York, 1936), 139.
Henry D. Sedgwick, The House of Gise (New York, 1938), 90.
23 Recueil des Choses Notables qui ont este faites a Boyonne.... (Paris, 1566), 7.
24 Prunieres, Ibid., 238.
25 Quoted in Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance (New York: Norton, 1959), 389.
22
7
between 1528 -- 1555. And, as Freedman points out, the fact that the publications of
Attaingnant were widely exported and reprinted by other French publishers invites
the conclusion that they had a strong influence on taste.26
It is also important to add that the published “Danseries” of Pierre
Attaingnant of 1530 almost surely came from the repertoire of the court musicians
of Francois I. In the published form, including those attributed to Gervaise,
however, these appear to have been simplified, or reduced to their most basic
harmonic form for the use of civic wind bands.
In spite of all of this activity, the average working musician had to search in
every possible direction to make a living. Cunningham’s description of Jean
d’Estree no doubt represents many. She points out that he was not only,
a member of the king’s musicque de l’Ecurie as joueur de hautbois du roi, but
he could further augment his salary as a royal musician by playing in small
dance-bands for non-court functions, and by making perhaps even more
money in editing and arranging the Danseries for Nicolas du Chemin.
Sixteenth century Paris was a small place, and the boundaries between the
activities of musician, courtier, printer and composer were evidently not as
great as we might think.27
Even the outstanding Janequin, the first to hold the title “composer in ordinary” to
the king (1559), speaks in one publication of his poverty.28
The reign of Henry II (1547 - 1559) was filled with religious and political
strife and perhaps this accounts on the emphasis on entertainment music which the
scribes have left. When he visited Lyons in 1548 he heard Intermedii composed by
Piero Manucci with voices and winds. On another day he sailed up the Saone where
he saw allegories which included Greek temples and centaurs, obelisks, fountains of
wine and a great artificial forest with Diana, her nymphs and trumpets.29 His
personal trumpets accompanied him on this trip and they also accompanied him
Richard Freedman, “Paris and the French Court under Francois I,” in The Renaissance
(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1989), 187. Daniel Heartz, in his study, Pierre Attaingnant Royal
Printer of Music (Berkeley, 1969), 91, establishes that the dance music had its origin in the court.
27 Caroline Cunningham, Estienne du Tertre, “Scavant Musicien,” Jean d’Estree, “Joueur de
Hautbois du Roy,” and the Mid-Sixteenth Century Franco-Flemish Chanson and Ensemble Dance
(Dissertation, Bryn Mawr, 1969), 191.
28 Reese, Op. cit., 296.
29 Edith Sichel, Women and Men of the French Renaissance (Port Washington: Kennikat Press),
358.
26
8
when he participated in tournaments. In one of these, curiously just after the
trumpets forgot to play, a competitor made the unfortunate mistake of accidentally
killing King Henry II.
Charles IX (1560 - 1574) became king at age of 10, after the death and one
year reign of his brother Francois II (husband of Mary Queen of Scots). Because of
his age his mother, Catherine de Medici, became regent and this powerful woman
presided over the religious strife which climax in the St. Bartholomew’s Day
Massacre.
To show off the young king (and herself) she organized a grand tour of
France in 1654 – 1566. The tour was to conclude in Bayonne with a peace
conference with Philip II of Spain, but he failed to appear and sent his wife,
Elizabeth, who was a daughter to Catherine. The tour began with a visit to another
of the king’s brothers at Fontainebleau. Upon the young king’s arrival one heard
the usual Latin poems of welcome in addition to a consort of cornets,
As the king entered, he heard a concert of very excellent cornett
players. And meanwhile from the end of the main canal came three Sirens,
who were three young children having excellent voices and looked so natural
that they appeared to be nude, their navels lower than their long gilded
braids, in silver and azure, decorated like Dolphins, in the way in which
Sirens are ordinarily painted, and swam in the middle of the water upright,
with admirable guile. As they came in from of the king, the cornets
stopped.30
Following this Neptune appeared in a floating chariot, drawn by 4 marine horses, to
the music of another wind ensemble of cornets and a sackbut. At the banquet that
evening this same wind ensemble performed as the first service was presented.
The entrance of Catherine and her son into Bayonne on June 15, 1564,
included the usual processions. One eye-witness reports hearing “trompettes,
doulcines et chairons” sounding their “high and gracious fanfares.”31 The first
musical festivities were great outdoor allegorical pageants, the first called
30
Le recueil des Trimphes et Magnificences qui ont estez faictes au Logis de Monseigneur le Duc
D’orleans, frere du Roy…. (Troyes, Trumeau), 1.
31 Ample Discours de l’Arrivee de la Royne catholique soeur du Roy a sainct Jehan de Lus: de
son entrée a Bayonne….(Paris: Jean Dallier Labraire, 1565), 4.
9
“Tournament of Diverse Nations” and the second a story about the king’s castle
being captured by a giant.
On June 23 the nobles made a boat trip to picnic on an “enchanted island.”
On the way they were entertained by various aquatic spectacles, including a
[mechanical] whale killed by local whale hunters. Neptune, with his mechanical
horses made another appearance, whereupon he read a poem which was followed by
6 “Tritons” who,
Made a consort of their six cornets, and they were very pleasant to the ear.32
This was followed by performances by two additional consorts of 6 cornets each as
well as several consorts of violins.
At the enchanted island itself there was another concert of considerable
musical interest. It was performed by a consort of “excellent musette” players. This
is an early appearance of the small bagpipe which became so popular during the
17th century under Louis IV. The canter of a bagpipe is basically an oboe and can
be, and often is in practice, played as an oboe without the bag and drone pipes. This
appears to be what occurred on the island, for an eye-witness, Marguerite de Valois,
describes hearing “le petit hautbois,” the little oboe.33 No one has ever known what
prompted the conversion of the conical medieval shawm into the cylindrical modern
oboe in France in the 17th century. Our belief is that it was hearing the cylindrical
“little oboe,” which gave birth to the idea for the modern instrument.
There are many extant eye-witness accounts of various processions during
the reign of Charles IX and this mother. The festivities in Paris following his
coronation include some interesting details. There were fifes and tambors
“marching seven by seven, holding their ranks so well that it could not be possible to
do it better.”34 There was a 15 member wind band of “sacquebutes, hautbois et
cornets” and apparently an 8 part trumpet fanfare.
32
Ibid., 9.
Victor Graham and W. McAllister Johnson, The Royal Tour of France by Charles IX… (Toronto,
1979), 44.
34 Bref et sommaire recueil de ce qui a este faict, et de l’ordre tenue a la joyeuse et triumphante
Entrée de Prince Charles IX de ce nom Roy de France, en sa bonne ville et cite de Paris…
(Paris, 1572), 40. In the National Library in Paris (ms.fr.11691, 69-70) there is an extensive list of
the names of the musicians and their payments.
33
10
The following king, Henry III (1574 – 1589), had a number of special
interests,
The Court of Henry III was a mass of corruption. The King had his
pimps and minions, and did not much discriminate between male and female
bedfellows, frequently following his orgies of lust with public exhibitions of
repentance,35 when he dressed in sackcloth and scourged himself with
whipcord.... When some of his male lovers were murdered by the followers
of his brother, he gave them state funerals and raised marble monuments
over their graves.... Rings, bracelets and earrings adorned his person; his
body was anointed with perfumes, his face painted and powdered; and
occasionally he dressed as a woman, with a pearl necklace on his open
bosom, being waited on by court ladies attired as men.36
It is somewhat of a surprise to find Henry III, whose character is so criticized by
some contemporaries, described by one early writer as,
always in the company of the Muses and amongst the sweet accords of the
children of music, for he loved music and had a marvelous understanding of
it. This liberal and magnificent prince gave a handsome remuneration and
accorded him from time to time newly created offices and certain
confiscations which procured for Baif the means of maintaining in their
studies several men of letters, of entertaining in his house all the learned men
of the age, and of dispensing much hospitality.37
It was during this reign that the well known Arbeau, Orchesography was published.
It contains interesting references to court music and in particular a view of the
period in which occurred the reintroduction of coordinated military marching. It
was the need of the soldiers to practice marching in step which led to the birth of the
modern military band.
Henry IV (1589 – 1610), the last of the Renaissance French kings, loved all
the new military music. Once in 1590 his military musicians were playing “reveil”
early one morning in Paris with “drums, trumpets, clarions and hautbois” and the
city was alarmed.
This caused a terrible panic; the people rose from their beds in great
haste, fancying that the Hugenots had taken the city by surprise.38
35
In one of these episodes of repentance, in 1583, he dismissed his musicians. See Jean
Mariejol, A Daughter of the Medicis (New York, 1929), 146.
36 Hesketh Pearson, Henry of Navarre (New York: Harper & Row), 20.
37 Guillaume Colletet, quoted in Frances Yates, The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century
(London: University of London, 1947; Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1968),, 29.
38 Catherine Charlotte, The Court of France (Boston: The Grolier Society), II, 336.
11
Henry’s marriage in 1572 to Marguerite of Valois in Notre Dame Cathedral
was accompanied by the usual ceremonial music, as well as the 12 member royal
wind band.39 When his turn, Henry IV responded with a loud “yes,” but when it
was Marguerite’s turn she lost her courage and stood in tense silence. Charles IX,
standing behind her, in a fit of fury struck her a blow with his clenched fist on the
back of her neck, which she lowered with a moan. The crowd began to murmur
with resentment so the officiating cardinal hurriedly pronounced them man and
wife!
Henry, a Protestant, is also remembered for his instant conversion to
Catholicism in order to become king, uttering a famous observation, “Paris is worth
a mass.” In any case, at his coronation the crowd cried, “vive le Roy,” and one
heard “hautboys, clarions, trumpets, fifes and drums.”40
From the perspective of writers of history, Paris has always been the almost
sole definition of “France.” However at this time the courts at Lorraine and
Montpellier also had large shawm-type bands.41
39
Marcelle Vioux, Henry of Navarre, trans., J. Ldwis May (Nw York: Dutton), 10, 13 and Irene
Mahoney, Royal Cousin (Garden City, 1970), 39.
40 P. Matthieu, Histoire de France sous les regnes de Francois I, Henry II, Francois II, Henry IIII,
Henry IV, Louis XIII (Paris, 1631), II, 170ff.
41 Henri Prunieres, “La musique de la Chambre et de L’Ecurie sous le Regne de Francois Ier,” in
L’Annee Musicale (Paris, 1911), 240.
12