Raoul, Jean (…-…). Musician; Singer

Papal chapel, 1506-1514. Jean Raoul (he is always called Radulphi in Vatican documents) was a cleric of the diocese of Rennes, “de nobile genere procreatus”. He first appears in the papal chapel at Rome in a chapel list of March 1506, and can be documented more or less continuously in the papal choir from then until 1514.
• Collegiate church of Notre-Dame in Nantes, 1515-1525. He then retired to his position as canon of the collegiate church of Notre Dame in Nantes, where he is documented in 1515 and 1517 (La Nicollière-Teijiero 1865). He died in 1525, the year his obit was registered at Notre Dame (La Nicollière-Teijiero 1865).
• Ecclesiastical career. Raoul’s ecclesiastical career owed a great deal to the patronage of Robert Guibé (ca. 1460-1513). Guibé was bishop of Rennes (1502), then of Nantes (1507); he moved permanently to Rome in 1503 as the ambassador of Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne, and was created cardinal priest with the title of Santa Anastasia by Julius II on 1 December 1505 (he was also known as the Cardinal of Nantes). Raoul is first recorded in Guibé’s household in 1511, and he had probably had been a member since his move to Rome (RS 1369, fol. 120r-v). The cardinal was behind the provision of a number of benefices to Raoul. On 22 September 1511, the cardinal presented Raoul for the rural deanery of Chateaugiron in the diocese of Rennes (RS 1369, fol. 128r-v). In 1512, as commendatory abbot of the abbey of St. Mélain in Rennes, Guibé provided Raoul with the church of St. Aubain in the city of Rennes (RS 1381, fol. 249r), but Raoul resigned that church a year later (RS 1423, fols. 275v-276r). As administrator of the See of Vannes, the cardinal provided Raoul with the parish church in Séglien in the diocese of Vannes in 1513 (RS 1407, fols. 265v-266v). On 30 January 1514, Raoul traded that benefice for the parish church of Le Loroux Bottereau (Oratorio Boterelli) in the diocese of Nantes, held by the papal singer Gilles Charpentier, who in turn received the church in Séglien. The income from this benefice was not expected to exceed 100 gold cameral ducats (RS 1440, fols. 69v-70r). Raoul was still in possession of that benefice when he died. On 10 April 1526 it was given to the papal singer Jean Conseil (RV 1327, fols. 159v-161v). The cardinal was behind this as well. In 1511, he had resigned the bishopric of Nantes in favour of his nephew François Hamon. In turn, Hamon resigned a number of benefices in 1512 to members of the chapel of Anne de Bretagne. One of these was the church of Le Loroux Bottereau, given to Charpentier, who was then a member of Anne’s chapel (RS 1397, fols. 219v-220r, see Sherr 1988). Raoul pursued other benefices by activating the Indult of Innocent VIII, which allowed the magister capelle of the papal chapel to present current singers for the benefices of singers who had died (on the indult see Sherr 1998). In 1509, Raoul took advantage of this to claim benefices made vacant by the death of the former papal singer Jean Meruen. These comprised the parish churches of St. Clément-lès-Nantes, St. Médard of Coustays (Saint-Mars-de-Coutais), and Rezay and their perpetual chaplaincies in the diocese of Nantes, as well as the Augustinian priory of Chateauneuf in the diocese of Maguelonne (RS 1318, fols. 124r-124v). Raoul eventually resigned most of these, retaining only the church of St. Clément-lès-Nantes, the income from which was not expected to exceed 50 gold cameral ducats. In 1512, Raoul added to this the canonry in the collegiate church of Notre Dame in Nantes, with an income not expected to exceed 24 ducats. He still possessed this benefice too at the time of his death (RL 1254, fols. 295r-296v). As might be expected, Raoul mainly pursued benefices within Brittany, although he did make one foray outside of France, claiming benefices in the cathedral and diocese of Seville in 1512 and 1513 (RS 1382, fols. 228v-229r; RS 1413, fols. 51r-51v); he had little hope of actually possessing these benefices, however. He retained his benefices in spite of not being a priest; ordination was not required for the canonries, and he received the necessary dispensations waiving the requirement of ordination for the parish churches (RS 1401, fols. 303v-304r). When he died, the yearly income from the three benefices he is known to have possessed (the canonry and the two churches) was approximately 174 ducats, about twice his chapel salary of 96 ducats. Beside this he may have had further sources of income that have not been documented.