Life
Guillaume de Machaut was born c. 1300 and educated in the region around Rheims. Though his surname most likely derives from the nearby town of Machault, 30 km east of Rheims in the Ardennes region, most scholars believe his birthplace was, in fact, Rheims.
He was employed as secretary to John I, Count of Luxemburg and King of Bohemia, from 1323 to 1346 and also became a canon (1337). He most likely accompanied King John on his various trips, many of them military expeditions, around Europe (including Prague). He was named the canon of Verdun in 1330, Arras in 1332, and Rheims in 1337. By 1340, Machaut was living in Rheims, having relinquished his other canonic posts at the request of Pope Benedict XII. In 1346, King John was killed fighting at the Battle of Crécy, and Machaut, who was famous and much in demand, entered the service of various other aristocrats and rulers, including King John's daughter Bonne (who died of the Black Death in 1349), her sons Jean de Berry and Charles (later Charles V, Duke of Normandy), and others such as Charles II of Navarre.
Machaut survived the Black Death that devastated Europe and spent his later years living in Rheims composing and supervising the creation of his complete-works manuscripts. His poem Le voir dit (probably 1361–1365) purports to recount a late love affair with a 19-year-old girl, Péronne d'Armentières, although the accuracy of the work as autobiography is contested. When he died in 1377, other composers such as François Andrieu wrote elegies lamenting his death.
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