Surname
Amerval (d’)
Given Name
Eloi
Variant Name
Eloy
Damerval
Amara valle (de)
Role
Composer
Master of choirboys
Musician
Active period
1455 - 1508
Biography
Bulletin de la Société archéologique d'Eure-et-Loir: Numéros 48 à 54 Société archéologique d'Eure-et-Loir - 1996 - Extraits PAGE 30
1478, mai : maître Elie d'Amerville dirige la psallette de Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand de Poitiers, A.D., Vienne, G 526, f. 115 (R. Favreau, "orgues et psalettes à Poitiers
1480, 16 septembre : Congé à "Eligio de Amara Valle", maître de la psallette de Saint-Hilaire, d'aller à Tours porter ... pour chanter doresenavant es processions qui se font chacun an ledit viije jour de may...; duquel motet il a fait ...
J. Soyer, "Notes pour servir à l'Histoire littéraire
JACOMET Humbert, « Pierre Plume Gilles Mureau, Jehan Piedefer, chanoines de Chartres, pèlerins de terre sainte et de Galice (1483-1484-1517-1518) », BULLETIN n°48, 1996-1, p. 1-32. BULLETIN n°49, 1996-2, p. 1-32. BULLETIN n°50, 1996-3, p. 1-34
Robert Favreau, «Orgues et psallettes à Poitiers à la fin du Moyen Age», Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de l’Ouest et des musées de Poitiers, 4e série, t. XII, p.47-64.
Higgins 2010. Documents, p. 180-181
1. [25 June 1471, Orléans, Archives départementales du Loiret, 6J22, pièce 211, Collection Joursanvault] Je Eloy d’Amerval, maistre des enfans de l’eglise mon seigneur sainct Aignan es fabours d’Orléans, confesse avoir eu et receu de Michel Gaillard conseiller et tresorier general de madame la duchesse d’Orléans, la somme de quatre livres ung soult vi deniers tournois qu’il a payez pour moy content; c’est ascavoir à Pierre Garendeau lix soults tournois et en deduction de ce qui me peut estre deu de mes gaiges de feux monseigneur le duc d’Orléans dont dieu a absolvé; de laquelle somme de iiii L. ung soult vi D. tournois je me tiengne content et bien payé et en quitte sondit tresorier et tous aultres tesmoing mon saing manuel cy donné le xxve de juing l’an mil iiiic soissante et onze.
Eloy d’Amerval Ita est
2. [15 July 1504, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS français 2926, fol. 30v] Roole des parties et sommes de deniers baillées et delivrés par Maistre Henry Bohier, Conseiller du Roy nostre Seigneur, tresorier et receveur de ses finances ès pais de Languedoc, Lyonnais, Foretz, et Beaujouloys…A Messire Eloy d’Amerval, prebtre, chanoine Chasteaudun. La somme de dix-huit livres deux sols six deniers tournois. Auquel ledit seigneur en a fait don en X [louis] d’or soleil en faveur de ce qu’il l’avoit autreffoys servy. Et pour luy aider à vivre plus honnestement. Pour ce cy, xviii L. ii S vi D.
3. [Tuesday, 4 July 1480, Archives départementales de la Vienne, G527, fols. ixr–v,Actes capitulaires de Saint-Hilaire de Poitiers] Datum fuit in mandatum domino fabricatori ecclesie tradere magistro Eligio de Amara Valle magistro clericulorum ecclesie et scriptori seu factori certorum librorum per ecclesiam notatorum summam decem librarum turonensium super pecuniam eidem debitam et debendam occasione premissorum librorum factorum et fiendorum.
4. [Saturday, 16 September 1480, Poitiers, Archives départementales de la Vienne, G527, fol. xixr, Actes capitulaires de Saint-Hilaire de Poitiers] Prefati domini dederunt licenciam Magistro Eligio de Amara Valle magistro clericulorum de celleta presentis ecclesie [ad] eundum turonis portatum quemdam librum quem ipse scripsit et fecit pro ecclesia sancti martini turonensis ab anno citra etc huic ad viij (octo) dies a die sui recessus computandos.
A series of entries in the chapter acts of the church of Saint-Hilaire in Poitiers document Eloy d’Amerval’s hitherto unknown four-year sojourn as master of the choirboys from 1476 to 1480. Publication of the full array of documents I have uncovered must await a more expansive forum than is available here. For now, I wish to draw attention to just two, dating from 1480, the last year in which Eloy d’Amerval’s activity at Saint-Hilaire is recorded. The first compensates him as master of the boys for having made certain “notated” books for the church (Appendix 2, Document 3):
Dating from 1480, three years before he would be compensated for the copying and writing of motets while master of the boys at Sainte-Croix of Orléans, this document corroborates Eloy’s activities as a professional music scribe. It also furnishes a new career detail: his service as master of the choirboys at Saint-Hilaire in Poitiers, a position
briefly occupied some fifteen years earlier by Antoine Busnoys. Busnoys, at the time of his clearly controversial recruitment as magister puerorum at Saint-Hilaire in 1465, already held the parallel position at Saint-Martin of Tours.22 The two churches enjoyed a reciprocity that honored the lifetime friendship between the namesakes of their respective churches, namely, St. Martin and St. Hilary.23
During his four years as head of Saint-Hilaire’s maîtrise, Eloy d’Amerval appears to have been filling in for the incumbent master, Johannes Le Begue, who was serving as master of the boys at the cathedral of Chartres, the institution at which Le Begue himself had been trained as a choirboy.24 Le Begue is the same magister whose post was famously usurped by Busnoys in a highly political appointment made in September 1465.25 Consequently, it is probably not surprising to find that, as for Busnoys, evidence of a similar connection between the two churches emerges with respect to Eloy d’Amerval. Whilst serving in his capacity as master of the boys at Poitiers, according to a document of 16 September 1480, Eloy had “copied and made” a “certain book” for Saint-Martin of Tours, for which the canons of Saint-Hilaire had granted him a week’s leave to travel to Tours to deliver in person (Appendix 2, Document 4):
Now, the document does not by any means suggest that the “certain book” Eloy “copied and made” for Saint-Martin was a music book, although the coincidence of his having
made several “notated” books for Saint-Hilaire barely two months earlier, as well as his official role as master of the choirboys there, would enhance that possibility. If the book
destined for Saint-Martin of Tours was indeed a music book, we cannot assume that it necessarily contained the Missa Dixerunt discipuli, which is cited in Tinctoris’s
Proportionale and thus was already completed by the early 1470s at the latest. What the document does establish conclusively is that Eloy d’Amerval had close
connections, in the capacity of professional scribe, to the church of Saint-Martin of Tours. Given his role as master of the choirboys, and the later evidence of his music
copying for the cathedral of Orléans, the possibility of his engagement by Saint-Martin as a professional music scribe cannot be ruled out.26 It is tempting to speculate still further that, given Eloy’s activities in the Loire Valley dating back to the mid-1460s, he might have had reason to come into contact not only with the church of Saint-Martin, but also with its outstanding musicians, Ockeghem and Busnoys.
1478, mai : maître Elie d'Amerville dirige la psallette de Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand de Poitiers, A.D., Vienne, G 526, f. 115 (R. Favreau, "orgues et psalettes à Poitiers
1480, 16 septembre : Congé à "Eligio de Amara Valle", maître de la psallette de Saint-Hilaire, d'aller à Tours porter ... pour chanter doresenavant es processions qui se font chacun an ledit viije jour de may...; duquel motet il a fait ...
J. Soyer, "Notes pour servir à l'Histoire littéraire
JACOMET Humbert, « Pierre Plume Gilles Mureau, Jehan Piedefer, chanoines de Chartres, pèlerins de terre sainte et de Galice (1483-1484-1517-1518) », BULLETIN n°48, 1996-1, p. 1-32. BULLETIN n°49, 1996-2, p. 1-32. BULLETIN n°50, 1996-3, p. 1-34
Robert Favreau, «Orgues et psallettes à Poitiers à la fin du Moyen Age», Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de l’Ouest et des musées de Poitiers, 4e série, t. XII, p.47-64.
Higgins 2010. Documents, p. 180-181
1. [25 June 1471, Orléans, Archives départementales du Loiret, 6J22, pièce 211, Collection Joursanvault] Je Eloy d’Amerval, maistre des enfans de l’eglise mon seigneur sainct Aignan es fabours d’Orléans, confesse avoir eu et receu de Michel Gaillard conseiller et tresorier general de madame la duchesse d’Orléans, la somme de quatre livres ung soult vi deniers tournois qu’il a payez pour moy content; c’est ascavoir à Pierre Garendeau lix soults tournois et en deduction de ce qui me peut estre deu de mes gaiges de feux monseigneur le duc d’Orléans dont dieu a absolvé; de laquelle somme de iiii L. ung soult vi D. tournois je me tiengne content et bien payé et en quitte sondit tresorier et tous aultres tesmoing mon saing manuel cy donné le xxve de juing l’an mil iiiic soissante et onze.
Eloy d’Amerval Ita est
2. [15 July 1504, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS français 2926, fol. 30v] Roole des parties et sommes de deniers baillées et delivrés par Maistre Henry Bohier, Conseiller du Roy nostre Seigneur, tresorier et receveur de ses finances ès pais de Languedoc, Lyonnais, Foretz, et Beaujouloys…A Messire Eloy d’Amerval, prebtre, chanoine Chasteaudun. La somme de dix-huit livres deux sols six deniers tournois. Auquel ledit seigneur en a fait don en X [louis] d’or soleil en faveur de ce qu’il l’avoit autreffoys servy. Et pour luy aider à vivre plus honnestement. Pour ce cy, xviii L. ii S vi D.
3. [Tuesday, 4 July 1480, Archives départementales de la Vienne, G527, fols. ixr–v,Actes capitulaires de Saint-Hilaire de Poitiers] Datum fuit in mandatum domino fabricatori ecclesie tradere magistro Eligio de Amara Valle magistro clericulorum ecclesie et scriptori seu factori certorum librorum per ecclesiam notatorum summam decem librarum turonensium super pecuniam eidem debitam et debendam occasione premissorum librorum factorum et fiendorum.
4. [Saturday, 16 September 1480, Poitiers, Archives départementales de la Vienne, G527, fol. xixr, Actes capitulaires de Saint-Hilaire de Poitiers] Prefati domini dederunt licenciam Magistro Eligio de Amara Valle magistro clericulorum de celleta presentis ecclesie [ad] eundum turonis portatum quemdam librum quem ipse scripsit et fecit pro ecclesia sancti martini turonensis ab anno citra etc huic ad viij (octo) dies a die sui recessus computandos.
A series of entries in the chapter acts of the church of Saint-Hilaire in Poitiers document Eloy d’Amerval’s hitherto unknown four-year sojourn as master of the choirboys from 1476 to 1480. Publication of the full array of documents I have uncovered must await a more expansive forum than is available here. For now, I wish to draw attention to just two, dating from 1480, the last year in which Eloy d’Amerval’s activity at Saint-Hilaire is recorded. The first compensates him as master of the boys for having made certain “notated” books for the church (Appendix 2, Document 3):
Dating from 1480, three years before he would be compensated for the copying and writing of motets while master of the boys at Sainte-Croix of Orléans, this document corroborates Eloy’s activities as a professional music scribe. It also furnishes a new career detail: his service as master of the choirboys at Saint-Hilaire in Poitiers, a position
briefly occupied some fifteen years earlier by Antoine Busnoys. Busnoys, at the time of his clearly controversial recruitment as magister puerorum at Saint-Hilaire in 1465, already held the parallel position at Saint-Martin of Tours.22 The two churches enjoyed a reciprocity that honored the lifetime friendship between the namesakes of their respective churches, namely, St. Martin and St. Hilary.23
During his four years as head of Saint-Hilaire’s maîtrise, Eloy d’Amerval appears to have been filling in for the incumbent master, Johannes Le Begue, who was serving as master of the boys at the cathedral of Chartres, the institution at which Le Begue himself had been trained as a choirboy.24 Le Begue is the same magister whose post was famously usurped by Busnoys in a highly political appointment made in September 1465.25 Consequently, it is probably not surprising to find that, as for Busnoys, evidence of a similar connection between the two churches emerges with respect to Eloy d’Amerval. Whilst serving in his capacity as master of the boys at Poitiers, according to a document of 16 September 1480, Eloy had “copied and made” a “certain book” for Saint-Martin of Tours, for which the canons of Saint-Hilaire had granted him a week’s leave to travel to Tours to deliver in person (Appendix 2, Document 4):
Now, the document does not by any means suggest that the “certain book” Eloy “copied and made” for Saint-Martin was a music book, although the coincidence of his having
made several “notated” books for Saint-Hilaire barely two months earlier, as well as his official role as master of the choirboys there, would enhance that possibility. If the book
destined for Saint-Martin of Tours was indeed a music book, we cannot assume that it necessarily contained the Missa Dixerunt discipuli, which is cited in Tinctoris’s
Proportionale and thus was already completed by the early 1470s at the latest. What the document does establish conclusively is that Eloy d’Amerval had close
connections, in the capacity of professional scribe, to the church of Saint-Martin of Tours. Given his role as master of the choirboys, and the later evidence of his music
copying for the cathedral of Orléans, the possibility of his engagement by Saint-Martin as a professional music scribe cannot be ruled out.26 It is tempting to speculate still further that, given Eloy’s activities in the Loire Valley dating back to the mid-1460s, he might have had reason to come into contact not only with the church of Saint-Martin, but also with its outstanding musicians, Ockeghem and Busnoys.