Surname
Haucourt (de)
Given Name
Jean
Variant Name
Hancour (de)
Altacuria
Alte Curie (de)
Role
Composer
Employee of a court chapel (musician)
Musician
Active period
circa 1390 - 1416
Workplace
Noyon
Biography
Voir Dictionnaire
Haucourt [Altacuria, de Alte curie], Johannes [Jehan de Hancour] (fl c1390–after 1416). French composer. Three French-texted chansons have survived in two sources, variously attributed to ‘Harcourt’, ‘Arcourt’ or ‘Jo. Alte Curie’. Despite contrasts in the musical styles of these songs, it now seems clear that they are by the same man: certain archival documents use both the Latin and French versions of his name, and it has now emerged that he was still active as late as 1417 which might account for the stylistic diversity of his three extant works. Haucourt was a priest and he originated in the diocese of Noyen. The name appears in a document dated April 1393 listing the chaplains working for the Antipope Clement VII at Avignon; in the following year the composer was awarded a canonicate with a prebend at Seclin and a perpetual chaplaincy at Rouen Cathedral. He also held a rectorate at the parish church of St Vaast and canonicates at Rozoy (Laon, 1397), and Ste Opportune, Paris (from which he resigned in 1400) and a chaplaincy at Cambrai. He seems to have remained in the papal chapel through the 1390s, passing into the service of Benedict XIII. In a list of the singers employed by Benedict in 1403 the composer appears as ‘Jo. Haucourt’.
Some time before 1401 he became a canon of the cathedral of Laon, where he was resident from at least 1407. Here he worked alongside several of his former colleagues from the papal chapel and other musicians connected with the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy, such as Jean Roger de Wattignies and Jean Caritet or Charité. In 1409 ‘Jehan de Haucour’ was involved in a lawsuit against Wattignies over the chaplaincy to the altar of St John the Baptist at the parish church of Nouvion-le-Vineux, a post later occupied by Du Fay (see A. Planchart, 1993). It seems likely that it was Haucourt's contacts with French princely circles, in addition to his own musical and literary talents, that gained him entry to the Cour d'amour; he is listed as a secretary of this society in a manuscript that dates from c1417.
Of Haucourt's three extant songs, the rondeau Se doit il plus (F-CH 564, ed. in PMFC, xviii, 1981) displays several features of the so-called Ars Subtilior style of the 1380s and 90s, including syncopation, cross rhythms and changes of metre.
The rondeau is one of a handful of isorythmic rondeaux in the Chantilly Manuscript and is next to a similar work, Je chante ung chant, by Matheus de Sancto Johanne. Like Haucourt, Matheus originated in Noyon, worked in the papal chapel (in the 1380s) and applied for a canonicate at Laon cathedral (though apparently one was not granted). A direct connection between the two composers seems likely since Matheus's isorhythmic rondeau appears to quote material from Haucourt's virelai Se j'estoye (GB-Ob Can.misc.213 facs. (Chicago, 1995), ed. in CMM, xi/2, 1959), suggesting that the latter may date from as early as 1390. Though less complex in style than Se doit il plus, Se j’estoye contains some cross-rhythms caused by ornamental triplets in cadential passages. Haucourt's rondeau Je demande ma bienvenue (GB-Ob Can.misc.213 facs. (Chicago 1995), ed. in CMM, xi/2, 1959) is in the simpler style associated with rondeau composition in the early 1400s, featuring syllabic text-setting, a more uniform texture and short musical phrases.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
MGG1 (G. Reaney)
G. Reaney: ‘The Manuscript Chantilly, Musée Condé 1047’, MD, viii (1954), 59–113, esp. 64
R.H. Hoppin and S. Clercx-Lejeune: ‘Notes biographiques sur quelques musiciens français’, L’Ars Nova: Wégimont II 1955, 63–92, esp. 77
G. Reaney: ‘The Manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canonici Misc. 213’, MD, ix (1955), 73–104, esp. 80
U. Günther: ‘Zur Biographie einiger Komponisten der Ars subtilior’, AMw, xxi (1964), 172–99, esp. 186–7
H. Millet: Les chanoines du chapitre cathédral de Laon, 1272–1412 (Paris, 1982), esp. 360–1
A. Tomasello: Music and Ritual at Papal Avignon 1309–1403 (Ann Arbor, 1983), 233
C. Bozzolo and H. Loyau, eds.: La Cour d'Amour, iii (Paris, 1992), 260–1
U. Günther: ‘Composers at the Court of the Antipopes in Avignon: Research in the Vatican Archive’, Musicology and Archival Research: Brussels 1993, 328–37
A. Planchart: ‘The Early Career of Guillaume Dufay’, JAMS, xlvi/3 (1993) 341–68, esp. 364–5
D. Fallows, ed.: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. misc. 213 (Chicago, 1995) [facsimile]
G. Di Bacco: ‘Documenti Vaticani per la storia della musica durante il Grande Scisma (1378–1417)’, Quaderni storici, xxxii (1997), 351–77, esp. 361–3
Y. Plumley: ‘Intertextuality in the Fourteenth-Century Chanson: Crossing Borderlines and Borders’, Borderline Areas in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Music: Novacella 1997
Y. Plumley: ‘Citation and Allusion in the late Ars Nova: the Case of Esperance and En attendant Songs’, EMH xviii (1999), 1–77
YOLANDA PLUMLEY
Haucourt [Altacuria, de Alte curie], Johannes [Jehan de Hancour] (fl c1390–after 1416). French composer. Three French-texted chansons have survived in two sources, variously attributed to ‘Harcourt’, ‘Arcourt’ or ‘Jo. Alte Curie’. Despite contrasts in the musical styles of these songs, it now seems clear that they are by the same man: certain archival documents use both the Latin and French versions of his name, and it has now emerged that he was still active as late as 1417 which might account for the stylistic diversity of his three extant works. Haucourt was a priest and he originated in the diocese of Noyen. The name appears in a document dated April 1393 listing the chaplains working for the Antipope Clement VII at Avignon; in the following year the composer was awarded a canonicate with a prebend at Seclin and a perpetual chaplaincy at Rouen Cathedral. He also held a rectorate at the parish church of St Vaast and canonicates at Rozoy (Laon, 1397), and Ste Opportune, Paris (from which he resigned in 1400) and a chaplaincy at Cambrai. He seems to have remained in the papal chapel through the 1390s, passing into the service of Benedict XIII. In a list of the singers employed by Benedict in 1403 the composer appears as ‘Jo. Haucourt’.
Some time before 1401 he became a canon of the cathedral of Laon, where he was resident from at least 1407. Here he worked alongside several of his former colleagues from the papal chapel and other musicians connected with the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy, such as Jean Roger de Wattignies and Jean Caritet or Charité. In 1409 ‘Jehan de Haucour’ was involved in a lawsuit against Wattignies over the chaplaincy to the altar of St John the Baptist at the parish church of Nouvion-le-Vineux, a post later occupied by Du Fay (see A. Planchart, 1993). It seems likely that it was Haucourt's contacts with French princely circles, in addition to his own musical and literary talents, that gained him entry to the Cour d'amour; he is listed as a secretary of this society in a manuscript that dates from c1417.
Of Haucourt's three extant songs, the rondeau Se doit il plus (F-CH 564, ed. in PMFC, xviii, 1981) displays several features of the so-called Ars Subtilior style of the 1380s and 90s, including syncopation, cross rhythms and changes of metre.
The rondeau is one of a handful of isorythmic rondeaux in the Chantilly Manuscript and is next to a similar work, Je chante ung chant, by Matheus de Sancto Johanne. Like Haucourt, Matheus originated in Noyon, worked in the papal chapel (in the 1380s) and applied for a canonicate at Laon cathedral (though apparently one was not granted). A direct connection between the two composers seems likely since Matheus's isorhythmic rondeau appears to quote material from Haucourt's virelai Se j'estoye (GB-Ob Can.misc.213 facs. (Chicago, 1995), ed. in CMM, xi/2, 1959), suggesting that the latter may date from as early as 1390. Though less complex in style than Se doit il plus, Se j’estoye contains some cross-rhythms caused by ornamental triplets in cadential passages. Haucourt's rondeau Je demande ma bienvenue (GB-Ob Can.misc.213 facs. (Chicago 1995), ed. in CMM, xi/2, 1959) is in the simpler style associated with rondeau composition in the early 1400s, featuring syllabic text-setting, a more uniform texture and short musical phrases.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
MGG1 (G. Reaney)
G. Reaney: ‘The Manuscript Chantilly, Musée Condé 1047’, MD, viii (1954), 59–113, esp. 64
R.H. Hoppin and S. Clercx-Lejeune: ‘Notes biographiques sur quelques musiciens français’, L’Ars Nova: Wégimont II 1955, 63–92, esp. 77
G. Reaney: ‘The Manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canonici Misc. 213’, MD, ix (1955), 73–104, esp. 80
U. Günther: ‘Zur Biographie einiger Komponisten der Ars subtilior’, AMw, xxi (1964), 172–99, esp. 186–7
H. Millet: Les chanoines du chapitre cathédral de Laon, 1272–1412 (Paris, 1982), esp. 360–1
A. Tomasello: Music and Ritual at Papal Avignon 1309–1403 (Ann Arbor, 1983), 233
C. Bozzolo and H. Loyau, eds.: La Cour d'Amour, iii (Paris, 1992), 260–1
U. Günther: ‘Composers at the Court of the Antipopes in Avignon: Research in the Vatican Archive’, Musicology and Archival Research: Brussels 1993, 328–37
A. Planchart: ‘The Early Career of Guillaume Dufay’, JAMS, xlvi/3 (1993) 341–68, esp. 364–5
D. Fallows, ed.: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. misc. 213 (Chicago, 1995) [facsimile]
G. Di Bacco: ‘Documenti Vaticani per la storia della musica durante il Grande Scisma (1378–1417)’, Quaderni storici, xxxii (1997), 351–77, esp. 361–3
Y. Plumley: ‘Intertextuality in the Fourteenth-Century Chanson: Crossing Borderlines and Borders’, Borderline Areas in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Music: Novacella 1997
Y. Plumley: ‘Citation and Allusion in the late Ars Nova: the Case of Esperance and En attendant Songs’, EMH xviii (1999), 1–77
YOLANDA PLUMLEY