Surname
Saint-Jean (de)
Given Name
Mathieu
Variant Name
Sancto Johanne (de)
Date of death
before 1391-6-10
Role
Composer
Employee of a court chapel (musician)
Musician
Active period
1366 - 1391
Workplace
Noyon
Biography
Matheus de Sancto Johanne [Mahuetus, Mayshuet (de Joan)]
(d by 10 June 1391). French composer. He came from the diocese of Noyon (not Thérouanne as once thought), and is one of the best-documented examples of a musician whose career straddled the English and French courts in the mid-14th century. A native of France, by 1366 he was in England as a clerk in the service of Edward III's son-in-law, Enguerran de Coucy, Earl of Bedford and Count of Soissons. He also appears to have worked in the chapel of Philippa of Hainault, Queen of England, whose employ he left in May 1368 to return to France. In November 1378 he was described as a clerk in the chapel of Louis I, Duke of Anjou; by then he had also already served Robert of Geneva, who was crowned Pope Clement VII in 1378, and for whom (as pope) Matheus had written the Latin ballade Inclite flos orti Gebenensis. Matheus is recorded as a chaplain in the papal chapel at Avignon from 1382 to 1387. He held preferments at the collegiate churches of St Jean, Laon, and St Piat, Seclin, and in parish churches at Beaurevoir, Routier and Saint Quentin. Other individuals formerly, but implausibly, identified with Matheus include ‘Mathieu de Monastère Saint-Jean’, an Italian Cistercian, and a Mathieu once thought to be a singer in the service of Louis I, Duke of Orléans, but in fact employed by his son Charles in 1455.
Three ballades, two rondeaux and a motet by Matheus survive, and he may also be the composer of an unattributed ballade on Louis I of Anjou, Los prijs honeur. He is one of a group of composers in the generation after Machaut, close to or within the circles of the Avignon papacy, who have been credited with the ‘Ars Subtilior’. Matheus's three-voice songs (in F-CH 564 and I-MOe α.M.5.24) display much of the notational and rhythmic complexity found in the work of his contemporary Solage; his four-voice songs are simpler in style though not necessarily much earlier. The rondeau Je chante is isorhythmic, as is the five-voice motet Are post libamina/Nunc surgunt, whose text relates how ‘the active, distinguished Frenchman composed the song on French melodies but after he had revised it with the Latin language it more often became sweet to the English, replacing Deo gratias’. Closely related to the motet Post missarum solennia/Post misse modulamina, this work was still being copied in England in the 1430s and may be the most telling legacy of Matheus's early career at the English court.
WORKS
Edition: French Secular Music: Manuscript Chantilly, Musée Condé 564, ed. G.K. Greene, PMFC, xviii–xix (1981–2) [G]
motet
Are post libamina/Nunc surgunt, 5vv; ed. in CMM, xlvi (1969), no.146
ballades
Inclite flos orti Gebenensis, 3vv; G
Sans vous ne puis, 3vv; G
Science n’a nul annemi, 4vv; G
rondeaux
Fortune, faulce, parverse, 4vv; G
Je chante ung chant, 3vv; G
doubtful works
Los prijs honeur, 3vv; ed. in CMM, liii/3 (1972), no.162
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Tomasello: Music and Ritual at Papal Avignon 1309–1403 (Ann Arbor, 1983), 252–3
M. Bent: ‘The Progeny of Old Hall: More Leaves from a Royal English Choirbook’, Gordon Athol Anderson, 1929–81, in memoriam, ed. L. Dittmer (Henryille, 1984), 1–54, esp. 7–10
A. Wathey: ‘The Peace of 1360–1369 and Anglo-French Musical Relations’, EMH, ix (1989), 129–74
G. Di Bacco and J. Nadás: ‘The Papal Chapels and Italian Sources of Polyphony during the Great Schism’, Papal Music and Musicians in Late Medieval and Renaissance Rome: Washington DC 1993, 44–92
ANDREW WATHEY
(d by 10 June 1391). French composer. He came from the diocese of Noyon (not Thérouanne as once thought), and is one of the best-documented examples of a musician whose career straddled the English and French courts in the mid-14th century. A native of France, by 1366 he was in England as a clerk in the service of Edward III's son-in-law, Enguerran de Coucy, Earl of Bedford and Count of Soissons. He also appears to have worked in the chapel of Philippa of Hainault, Queen of England, whose employ he left in May 1368 to return to France. In November 1378 he was described as a clerk in the chapel of Louis I, Duke of Anjou; by then he had also already served Robert of Geneva, who was crowned Pope Clement VII in 1378, and for whom (as pope) Matheus had written the Latin ballade Inclite flos orti Gebenensis. Matheus is recorded as a chaplain in the papal chapel at Avignon from 1382 to 1387. He held preferments at the collegiate churches of St Jean, Laon, and St Piat, Seclin, and in parish churches at Beaurevoir, Routier and Saint Quentin. Other individuals formerly, but implausibly, identified with Matheus include ‘Mathieu de Monastère Saint-Jean’, an Italian Cistercian, and a Mathieu once thought to be a singer in the service of Louis I, Duke of Orléans, but in fact employed by his son Charles in 1455.
Three ballades, two rondeaux and a motet by Matheus survive, and he may also be the composer of an unattributed ballade on Louis I of Anjou, Los prijs honeur. He is one of a group of composers in the generation after Machaut, close to or within the circles of the Avignon papacy, who have been credited with the ‘Ars Subtilior’. Matheus's three-voice songs (in F-CH 564 and I-MOe α.M.5.24) display much of the notational and rhythmic complexity found in the work of his contemporary Solage; his four-voice songs are simpler in style though not necessarily much earlier. The rondeau Je chante is isorhythmic, as is the five-voice motet Are post libamina/Nunc surgunt, whose text relates how ‘the active, distinguished Frenchman composed the song on French melodies but after he had revised it with the Latin language it more often became sweet to the English, replacing Deo gratias’. Closely related to the motet Post missarum solennia/Post misse modulamina, this work was still being copied in England in the 1430s and may be the most telling legacy of Matheus's early career at the English court.
WORKS
Edition: French Secular Music: Manuscript Chantilly, Musée Condé 564, ed. G.K. Greene, PMFC, xviii–xix (1981–2) [G]
motet
Are post libamina/Nunc surgunt, 5vv; ed. in CMM, xlvi (1969), no.146
ballades
Inclite flos orti Gebenensis, 3vv; G
Sans vous ne puis, 3vv; G
Science n’a nul annemi, 4vv; G
rondeaux
Fortune, faulce, parverse, 4vv; G
Je chante ung chant, 3vv; G
doubtful works
Los prijs honeur, 3vv; ed. in CMM, liii/3 (1972), no.162
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Tomasello: Music and Ritual at Papal Avignon 1309–1403 (Ann Arbor, 1983), 252–3
M. Bent: ‘The Progeny of Old Hall: More Leaves from a Royal English Choirbook’, Gordon Athol Anderson, 1929–81, in memoriam, ed. L. Dittmer (Henryille, 1984), 1–54, esp. 7–10
A. Wathey: ‘The Peace of 1360–1369 and Anglo-French Musical Relations’, EMH, ix (1989), 129–74
G. Di Bacco and J. Nadás: ‘The Papal Chapels and Italian Sources of Polyphony during the Great Schism’, Papal Music and Musicians in Late Medieval and Renaissance Rome: Washington DC 1993, 44–92
ANDREW WATHEY