Touppe, Michel (…-before 16 Nov. 1511). Musician

Papal chapel, 1504-1510. Touppe, a cleric of the diocese of Chartres may be the “Michael Toppe” who requested a benefice in the diocese of Chartres in 1492 (RS 964, fol. 127r: supplication dated 14 November 1492). In 1504, he is identified as a member of the papal chapel in a supplication requesting a canonry and prebend in the cathedral of Chartres (RS 1191, fols. 103r-103v: supplication dated 4 October 1504) and in a supplication requesting another benefice in the diocese of Chartres in 1505 (RS 1216, fols. 67v-68r: supplication dated 16 October 1505). He appears in all the extant chapel lists from 1506-1509 (there are many gaps in these lists, but beneficial documents testify to his membership in the chapel during those years) and was still a member of the chapel in 1510. He had died outside of Rome by 16 November 1511 (the earliest date of a supplication requesting benefices vacant because of his death - RS 1381, fols. 21r-21v). Touppe was also a member of the household of Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici (the future Leo X) as were the papal singers Jean Pocquetoy* and Lambertus Martini de Rummersvallis*. In common with his colleagues, he used the Indult of Innocent VIII to claim benefices made vacant by the deaths of papal singers and former papal singers (see Sherr 1998 on the Indult): in 1505, he claimed a canonry and prebend in the church of St Pierre in Lille, vacant on the death of former singer Valentin de Bersée*, a member of the chapel from 1474-1479 (Haberl 1888; RS 1197, fol. 22v: supplication dated 18 February 1505); in 1507, he claimed benefices in Avignon, vacant on the recent death of Bertrand Vaqueras (before 21 April 1507; RS 1256, fols.26v-27r: supplication dated 4 June 1507); in 1510, he claimed the church of Ste Hélène in Froberville, vacant on the recent death of Jean Pocquetoy (before 10 September 1510; RS 1356, fol. 69r: supplication dated 10 September 1510). At the time of his own death, Touppe was in litigation about a canonry and prebend in the church of St Omer in Saint-Omer, vacant on the death of the former singer Guillaume Caut, a member of the chapel from 1461-1476 (Starr 1987; RS 1381, fols. 21r-21v: supplication dated 16 November 1511). He seems also to have been interested in benefices in the cathedral of Metz, which he claimed by virtue of an expectative (many supplications, the first of which is dated 10 July 1508- RS 1297, fols. 114r-114v), and even tried to get a benefice in Arezzo (Annate 50, fol. 137r: entry dated 2 July 1506). There is, however, no confirmation that he actually took possession of any of the benefices he pursued.

Bibliographie: Haberl 1888; Sherr 1975; Starr 1987; Sherr 1998; Sherr à paraitre.
HABERL, Franz Xaver, Die römische “Schola Cantorum” und die päpstlichen Kapellsänger bis zur Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts, Bausteine für Musikgeschichte, 3 (Leipzig, 1888).
SHERR, Richard, The Papal Chapel ca. 1492–1513 and its Polyphonic Sources, Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1975.
SHERR, Richard, “A Curious Incident in the History of the Papal Choir,” in Papal Music and Musicians in Late Medieval and Renaissance Rome, ed. Richard Sherr (Oxford, 1998), 187–212.
SHERR, Richard, The Papal Choir during the Pontificates of Julius II to Sixtus V (1503-1590): An institutional History and Biographical Dictionary (à paraitre).
STARR, Pamela, Music and Music Patronage at the Papal Court, 1447-1464, unpublished Ph.D. thesis (Yale University, 1987).

Richard Sherr