Pagnier, Nicolas (…-…)

Dijon, Sainte-Chapelle. He served in the Sainte-Chapelle of Dijon, first mentionned as a priest and chorister, receiving a chapel of the church (F-AD 21, G 1521, f. 120v : “De maistre Nicolas Panyer, prebstre et chorial de ladite eglise, la somme de 15 l. … pour les premiers fruictz appartenant a ladite fabrique de la chappelle fondée en ladite eglise par feu messire Hugues Bertault), then as one of the two “sous-chantres”, just after he left this position, and probably the church (F-AD21, G 1522, f. 38 : “Me Nicolas Panier, ancien souschantre”).

• Cathedral of Paris, 1548-1550. Little is known of the life of the singer and composer Nicolas Paignier apart from the fact that he was master of the choirboys at the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris between 1548 and 1550 (Chartier 1897, p. 78; Wright 1989, p. 172).
• Reputation and works. The first mentions of Pagnier goes back to two motets printed in 1532 in a collection (see sources in Motet database) …  His songs appeared … (for title and sources see CCR [Chansons] He evidently enjoyed some reputation, for he is mentioned in Rabelais’ Quart livre amongst a group of eminent composers and musicians who sing in a pleasant garden, surrounded by mountains of food and wine (RabelaisQL 1552, fol. B8r). Paignier is known to have written both sacred and secular vocal music. The inventory of the music library of Christofle Brocart*, canon and possibly choir director at the cathedral of Senlis († 1557) lists two manuscripts which contained two masses by Paignier, now lost (F-AD 60, G 2183). The first of these was a parody mass based on the motet Peccata mea domine (perhaps that by Richafort), while the other was based on the chanson Si je m’y plains, j’ay bien raison, perhaps the five-voice canon attributed to Richafort in the Livre de meslanges (Paris: Le Roy et Ballard, 1560/28) and Mellange de chansons tant des vieux autheurs que des modernes (Paris: Le Roy & Ballard, 1572/2). It may be that the original was Paignier’s own chanson Si je me plains ce n’est sans apparence (Du Chemin 1550/7) and that the scribe simply confused the name of the model (McDonald 2009). The Fugger music library contained Paignier’s first book of motets, for four, five and six voices (Schaal 1957, p. 131). The inventory of the Plantin archive also contains a reference to a collection of “Motets de Arcadelt, Certon, Goudimel, Paignier” printed at Paris in 1556 (Stellfeld 1940-1941, p. 25). Out of this production, only two of Paignier’s motets have survived. Fortunately a dozen of his chansons are extant, all printed at Paris between 1540 and 1553.