musical careers, ecclesiastical benefices, and the example of johannes brunet

Musical Careers, Ecclesiastical Benefices, and the Example of Johannes BrunetAuthor(s): Christopher ReynoldsSource: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 49-97Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/831159 .

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Musical Careers, Ecclesiastical Benefices, and the Example of Johannes Brunet*

By CHRISTOPHER REYNOLDS

MUCH ARCHIVAL PROBING into the lives and travels of Renaissance

musicians has occurred since Nino Pirrotta observed that "our

attempts to establish the biographies of musicians" were hampered "by a mental habit of seeing them too exclusively as musicians."' Gone are the days when musicological digging could be conducted

principally or entirely in those segments of pay records devoted to lists of court and church musicians. Forays through benefices, books of decrees, diaries, notary documents, chancellery minutes, taxation lists, and rostra of everything from stable boys to university students have become routine, yielding new and surprising information about the lives of Dufay, Josquin, Willaert, and Marchetto Cara, to name a few. Thanks to this research, we have detailed and valuable accounts of when and where specific fifteenth- and sixteenth-century musicians

sang, played, and composed. These two centuries saw the cultivation and proliferation of the

professional musician, of singers and composers who considered music a calling sufficient in itself. With regard to musical careers, the differences between old and new are well known and can be summarized quickly: in earlier times singers and composers of polyphony were men of diverse talents and extensive education, with accomplish- ments in a variety of non-musical pursuits. Men such as Philippe de

* In August 1982 I presented an earlier and much condensed version of this study at the meeting of the International Musicological Society in Strasbourg. The present study owes much to Professors Edward E. Lowinsky and Nino Pirrotta for the lengthy comments each made on the version presented in Strasbourg. I also would like to acknowledge the generous counsel that I received from the late Charles McCurry of the Institute of Medieval Canon Law at Berkeley, California, and from his colleague Tom Izbicki. And for the opportunity to pursue the final archival work for this study during the summer of 1982, I am grateful to the McGill University Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research for their financial support.

I "Music and Cultural Tendencies in I5th-Century Italy," this JOURNAL, XIX (1966), 131.



50 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Vitry (bishop, royal officer, and theorist), Guillaume de Machaut (canon, royal secretary, and poet), and John Dunstable (according to his epitaph "an astrologian, a mathematician, a musitian, and what not")---men such as these were exceptional only in their genius, not in their breadth. By contrast, the new type of musician made a livelihood of music alone. A beautiful voice, a dazzling instrumental facility, or a flair for composition were sufficient to earn most of them a life's wages, while the best could expect both riches and acclaim. Musicians of this new type Pirrotta styled "mercenary profession- als."2

The aim of this essay is to raise questions about the factors bearing on the change in musicians' career patterns, in particular, the economic factor. By focusing first on the biography of Johannes Brunet, a Benedictine prior and abbot, a papal tax collector, an organist, and a composer, I intend to tie the emergence of the specialist musician to what is arguably the most influential form of music patronage in the Renaissance: the conferral of ecclesiastical benefices.

For the papacy, benefices were an ingenious means of patronage. Not only could popes reward singers, bureaucrats, cardinals, and others with money belonging to other people, but they could also collect taxes on each benefice several times. Musicians, for their part, valued benefices because they represented a lifetime income, often an income in or near their places of birth. Indeed, the only losers in this system were the cathedrals, churches, and monasteries whose money disappeared into the pockets of people residing far away. Northern rulers could also confer benefices, but by the fourteenth century the pope had gained control of far more benefices than any other individual. Thus Johannes Brunet, like Northerners of other generations, went to Rome seeking benefices from his native Brittany.

Many scholars-Herman-Walther Frey, Ursula Giinther, Edward Lowinsky, Jeremy Noble, Richard Sherr, Manfred Schuler, and Craig Wright among them-have published important biographical information drawn from the various types of benefice records.3 And

2 Ibid., p. I134. The following list, though long, is hardly exhaustive. Franz X. Haberl, Die

r6mische "schola cantorum" und die piipstlichen Kapellsinger bis zur Mitte des 16. Jahrhun-

derts, Bausteine fir Musikgeschichte, 3 (Leipzig, i888), was among the first to utilize papal benefice documents for their biographical information. Many have expanded on his research, including Franqois Baix, "La Carriere 'beneficiale' de Guillaume Dufay (vers 1398-1474): Notes et documents," Bulletin de l'Institut historique beige de Rome, VIII (1928), 265-72; Herman-Walther Frey, "Regesten zur papstlichen Kapelle unter



MUSICAL CAREERS, ECCLESIASTICAL BENEFICES 51

Lewis Lockwood, in addition to several of the writers just listed, has

recently called attention to some of the ways in which benefices functioned as tools of patronage.4 Yet if the study of benefice records is no longer "much neglected," as Lowinsky could remark as recently as 1976,s the extent and the development of benefices as a system of music patronage still needs more intensive study. Neither the incep- tion of this system, nor-perhaps of more immediate consequence- the waning of its abuse has been adequately examined for its effect on the duties and mobility of musicians. In this study I will briefly describe what benefices were and outline the development of this means of patronage before tracing the ecclesiastical career of Johannes

Leo X. und zu seiner Privatkapelle," Die Musikforschung, VIII (1955), 58-73, 178-99, 412-37; IX (1956), 46-57, 139-56; Manfred Schuler, "Zur Geschichte der Kapelle Papst Martins V.," Archiv fir Musikwissenschaft, XXV (1968), 30-45; idem, "Zur Geschichte der Kapelle Eugens IV.," Acta musicologica, XL (1968), 220-27; idem, "Die Kapelle Papst Pius' III.," Acta musicologica, XLII (1970), 225-30; Richard Sherr, "The Papal Chapel ca. 1492-1513 and Its Polyphonic Sources" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton Univ., 1975); idem, "New Archival Data Concerning the Chapel of Clement VII," this JOURNAL, XXIX (1976), 472-78; idem, "A Note on the Biography of Juan del Encina," Bulletin of the Comediantes, XXXIV (1982), 159-72. For the court of Avignon there are the studies of Suzanne Clercx and Richard H. Hoppin, "Notes biographiques sur quelques musiciens franqais du XIVe siecle," Les Colloques de Wigimont II- i955, L'Ars nova: Recueil d'etudes sur la musique du XIVe sidcle (Paris, 1959), pp. 63-92; and Ursula Giinther, "Zur Biographie einiger Komponisten der Ars subtilior," Archiv fir Musikwissenschaft, XXI (1964), 172-99. For the court of Burgundy, see especially Craig Wright, Music at the Court of Burgundy, 1364-1419: A Documentary History (Henryville, Pa., 1979), pp. 66-70. For Milan in the latter half of the quattrocento, see Edward E. Lowinsky, "Ascanio Sforza's Life: A Key to Josquin's Biography and an Aid to the Chronology of his Works,"Josquin des Prez: Proceedings of the International Josquin Festival-Conference Held at TheJuilliard School at Lincoln Center in New York City, 21-25June 1971, ed. Edward E. Lowinsky in collaboration with Bonnie J. Blackburn (London, 1976), especially pp. 33-40. And finally there is the exemplary study by Jeremy Noble, "New Light on Josquin's Benefices," Josquin des Prez, pp. 76-102, which demonstrates both the extent and the limitations of the information contained in benefice documents.

4 Lewis Lockwood, "Strategies of Music Patronage in the Fifteenth Century: The Cappella of Ercole I D'Este," Music in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Patronage, Sources and Texts, ed. lain Fenlon (Cambridge, 198i), pp. 227-48. Also see Edmond vander Straeten, La Musique aux Pays-Bas avant le XIXe sidcle, VI (Brussels, 1882); Charles van den Borren, Etudes sur le quinzieme sidcle musical (Anvers, 1941), pp. 37-38; Suzanne Clercx, Johannes Ciconia: Un musicien likgeois et son temps (vers 1335-I4V i) (Brussels, 1960), pp. 21-23, 27-30, 39-40; Craig Wright, "Dufay at Cambrai: Discoveries and Revisions," this JOURNAL, XXVIII (1975), 190o-92; Edward E. Lowinsky, "On the Presentation and Interpretation of Evidence: Another Review of Costanzo Festa's Biography," this JOURNAL, XXX (1977), 107-1ii; and Richard Sherr's review of Martin Staehelin, Die Messen Heinrich Isaacs (Bern, 1977), this JOURNAL, XXXIV (1981), 145-46.

s Preface to josquin des Prez, p. vi.




Brunet to demonstrate how a man of talent and ambition advanced himself. This, in turn, will give way to a more general evaluation of what Brunet's achievements, and the system he so successfully manipulated, imply for musical careers in the Renaissance.

I

The system of papal provisions that drew Brunet to Rome in the late 14oos was then centuries old. By the mid-thirteenth century both the administrative machinery and the juridical framework necessary for the papacy to provide massive numbers of benefices had been almost completely developed.6 What in theory constituted ecclesiastical endowments awarded to intellectually, morally, and spiritually deserving individuals, were in practice rewards handed out to curial officials in Rome (and Avignon) as well as to faithful servants throughout Christendom. Benefices thus financed the growth of the papal bureaucracy in the later Middle Ages.7 While this took place, those who held benefices came to view their offices as property that might be sold or exchanged when something more lucrative came along.8 Indeed, the two trends appear to have gone hand in hand: the more benefices served the papacy as means of ecclesiastical centraliza- tion, the more pronounced was the inclination to treat them solely as sources of income, ignoring all attendant duties, such as residency, except for payment of the various taxes they entailed.

The powers of a pope to grant benefices were never absolute. Cathedral chapters, bishops, kings, and other nobility had some rights, which varied both according to the legal nature of the provision and the political strength of the sovereign. In broadest terms, benefices fell into two categories: minor benefices, such as canonicates, prebends, dignities, and priorates, to name but a few;9 and

6 Geoffrey Barraclough, Papal Provisions: Aspects of Church History, Constitutional, Legal and Administrative, in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1935), pp. 9-io; and Guillaume Mollat, La Collation des benefices ecclhsiastiques sous les papes d'Avignon (1305- 1378), Bibliotheque de l'Institut de droit canonique, Universite de Strasbourg, i (Paris, 1921), pp. 70, 150-51. 7 Barraclough, Papal Provisions, pp. 4-5.

8 Denys Hay, The Church in Italy in the Fifteenth Century (Cambridge, 1977), p. i8; Barraclough, Papal Provisions, p. 73.-

9 Mollat, La Collation des benefices, pp. 2-4; Hay, The Church in Italy, p. 22.

Regarding nomination to minor benefices in the late fifteenth century, see Paul Ourliac, "The Concordat of 1472: An Essay on the Relations between Louis XI and Sixtus IV," The Recovery ofFrance in the Fifteenth Century, ed. P. S. Lewis, trans. G. F. Martin (New York, 1971), pp. ii 3 ff. This article appeared originally as "Le




major benefices, also called consistorial because the pope filled them in consistory (conference) with the assembled cardinals. These were the abbacies, bishoprics, and archbishoprics. 1o Characteristically, the

power of the pope to confer major benefices faced the greater constraints. Earlier, following decrees set forth in the first Lateran Council (1123), cathedral chapters had elected their own bishops and monasteries their abbots. But long before the quattrocento this system had been reduced to a confirmatory formality, whereby chapters and monasteries would "elect" the nominee submitted by the pope, a nominee more often than not chosen for the pope by the local head of state. Whether it was the king of France, the duke of Burgundy, or the duke of Milan, in those areas where the pope lacked the political strength necessary to guarantee the installation of his own candidate, he had little choice but to accede to regional wishes."I

When the pope shared jurisdiction over minor benefices with local authorities, the road between papal provision (in effect the nomination to a canonicate, priorate, etc.) and the actual collation (i.e., the

presentation to a benefice by a chapter or bishop) inevitably wound

through several rounds of litigation.12 To forestall the legal confusion

arising out of the claims made on behalf of rival candidates, the

papacy set out to limit the rights of the ordinary collator (e.g., a bishop) by reserving to its own authority sole jurisdiction over special classes of benefices. Beginning with the decree Licet ecclesiarum (i 265) of Clement IV, all benefices vacated at the court of Rome reverted to the pope. Subsequent additions to this reservation included benefices vacated by the deaths of cardinals, members of the papal household, and even members of a cardinal's household.' 3At the same time, the

Concordat de 1472: Etude sur les rapports de Louis XI et de Sixte IV," Revue historique de droitfrangais et itranger, ser. 4, XXI (1942), 174-223; XXII (i943), 117-54.

o10 Mollat, La Collation des benefices, pp. 150-51. On the procedure of consistorial provision, see Annie Isabella Cameron, ed., The Apostolic Camera and Scottish Benefices, 1418-1488 (London, 1934), pp. xx-xxii; and Adrien Clergeac, La Curie et les bnneficiers consistoriaux: Etude sur les communs et menus services, 1300-i6oo (Paris, 191 i), pp. 44- 80. I Hay, The Church in Italy, pp. 112-14; and Ourliac, "The Concordat of 1472, pp. 107, 109 f.

12 Barraclough, Papal Provisions, pp. 93-94; and Nikolaus Hilling, Die romische Rota und das Bistum Hildesheim am Ausgange des Mittelalters (1464-1513): Hildesheimische prozessakten aus dem Archiv der Rota zu Rom (Miinster i. W., 1908), pp. 60-63, who shows that curial officials accounted for most of the litigation.

13 The development of the system is summarized by Ourliac, "The Concordat of 1472," pp. i06-107; and by William E. Lunt, Studies in Anglo-Papal Relations during the Middle Ages, II, Financial Relations of the Papacy with England, 1327-I534, Publications of the Mediaeval Academy of America, 74 (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), 321-22.




papacy attempted to expand its prerogatives by awarding benefices before they became available. "Expectative graces" were formulated to give priority to the claim of the holder at such time as the benefice was actually vacated.14 Yet despite every precaution, few papal provisions went unchallenged, no matter how well grounded in canon law they happened to be. Unwilling to relinquish their own privi- leges, chapters and bishops put up steadfast resistance on behalf of the beneficiaries they had elected. According to one estimate, only about half of all apostolic litterae beneficiales led to actual collation. 1s

Through the fifteenth century, Brittany remained loyal to papal interests, and as a consequence, the flow of Breton clerics to Rome remained steady and substantial. Attracted initially by hopes of receiving papal provisions, some of them settled there permanently and flourished in the curia romana.16 Shortly after the French church broke with the papacy by drafting the Pragmatic Sanction (1438), Pope Eugenius IV and Duke Jean V formalized existing papal-Breton relations in the Concordat of Redon (1441). The agreement, after revisions made by Popes Nicholas V and Sixtus IV, gave the duke rights of refusal over nominees to the episcopate and permitted bishops and abbots to confer the benefices under their control that fell vacant in the alternate months of February, April, June, August, October, and December. Both sides honored the terms until 1532, even while Anne of Brittany was Queen of France and her husband Charles VIII reinstated the Pragmatic Sanction in the 1490S. "

14 Mollat gives a detailed history in La Collation des binefices, pp. 69-78, and also in "Les Graces expectatives du XIIe au XIVe si&cle," Revue d'histoire ecclisiastique, XLII (1947), 81-o102.

But the pope was not alone in his power to grant expectative graces. According to Joseph Salvini (quoting from Paris, Archives Nationales, LL I 20, p. 518), Louis XI requested one for "Jean Olreghem," a misreading for Ockeghem, in 1463; see "L'Application de la Pragmatique Sanction sous Charles VII et Louis XI au chapitre cathedral de Paris," Revue d'histoire de l'Eglise de France, III (1912), 289, 559. Frangois Lesure includes a facsimile of this document in his "Ockeghem

" Notre- Dame de Paris," Essays in Musicology in Honor of Dragan Plamenac on His 7oth Birthday, ed. Gustave Reese and Robert J. Snow (Pittsburgh, 1969), pp. 147-49.

"5 Frangois Baix, "De la valeur historique des actes pontificaux de collation des benefices," Hommage a Dom Ursmer Berlibre: Recueil publii par le Comiti directeur de l'Institut historique belge de Rome, avec le concours des anciens membres de l'institut (Brussels, 1931), pp. 58-66.

16 There are several studies of the Breton "nation" in Rome. Most focus on the church of S. Yves, established as the church of Bretons in Rome by Calixtus III in 1455. See especially Barth1l6my Amid&e Pocquet du Haut-Jusse, "La Compagnie de Saint-Yves des Bretons a Rome," Milanges d'archbiologie et d'histoire de l'Ecolefrangaise de Rome, XXXVII (1918-19), 201-83; and Amedee Guillotin de Corson, "Saint-Yves des Bretons ' Rome," Revue de Bretagne et de Vendie, XIX (1866), 5-15, 101-10.

17 See Guillaume Mollat, "L'EVglise de France aux XIVe et XVe siecles," Histoire des institutionsfrangaises au moyen age, ed. Ferdinand Lot and Robert Fawtier, III (Paris,




II

The prior and abbot Johannes Brunet, organist at the basilica San Pietro in Vaticano from August 1490 through May 1491, was not

entirely overlooked by Franz X. Haberl, only incompletely identified. The payment Haberl published in his study of papal musicians referred to Brunet by ecclesiastical title and not by name, calling him "D. priori organiste."18 Among the archival documents that Haberl did not print, are several that further identify the San Pietro organist. With a completeness not commonly found in the San Pietro account books, a payment for August 1490 formally introduces the "Reverend prior Johannes Brunettus, abbot of S. Mattheius." (San Pietro payments to Johannes Brunet are listed in Table i.) Thereafter, monthly disbursements retain the title only and invariably mention his servant ("famulo"), "he who gives wind [to the organ]." Haberl inadvertently included in his list of San Pietro singers a "Guil. Mallon," who, though not a singer, may well be the famulo paid with Brunet, since, in the Quietanza for 1491, Guillelmus Mallon collected Brunet's salary for one month. In ink so faded it is now barely legible, Mallon signed for "Johannes Brunet, abbot of Sancti Mathei in finibus terrarum."19 Vatican archival documents show that Brunet was appointed abbot of S. Mathieu of Finistere, a Benedictine monastery in Brittany, in 1489; while according to notices summarized in Gallia christiana, the abbey's archives recorded Brunet's name again in 1512 and on 6 June 1515, probably the date of his death.20

1962), 461-63; and also his "L'Application du droit d'alternative b6neficiale en Bretagne," Milanges Bretons et Celtiques offerts d M.]J. Loth (Paris, 1927), pp. 32-37; and Barth616my Amed6e Pocquet du Haut-Juss6, Les Papes et les ducs de Bretagne: Essai sur les rapports du Saint-Siege avec un itat, 2 vols. (Paris, 1928), II, 865, 902-909.

18 Die r6mische "schola cantorum" und die papstlichen Kapellsanger, p. 239, n. The reference to "D. priori organiste" occurs in the midst of an extensive footnote devoted not to musicians of the papal chapel, but to the singers and organists of San Pietro. Haberl, with the "friendly help" of Don Peter Wenzel, compiled lists of musicians from the account books of the Archivio Capitolare di San Pietro in Vaticano (ACSP), now housed in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. However, it is probable that Haberl (or Wenzel) consulted the abridged copy of the documents made between 1804 and 1829 by Giuseppe Gueriggi, Sottoarchivista of the basilica, because the same errors appear both in Haberl's study and Gueriggi's extract. See my study, "The Music Chapel at San Pietro in Vaticano in the Later Fifteenth Century" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton Univ., 1982), pp. 18-19.

'9 The signature appears in the San Pietro archival series known as the Quietanza (ACSP, Armaria 47-50), books of autograph receipts. This series of eighteen volumes supplements the much larger series of account books known as the Censualia (ACSP, Armaria 41-42), which record the basilica's credits and debits from 1384 to i6o6.

20 Gallia christiana in provincias ecclesiasticus distributa, XIV, ed. Bartholomaeus Haureau (Paris, 1856), 989: "Joannes IV Brunet occurrit annis 1499 [sic], I512.




TABLE I

Payments to Johannes Brunet in the Archivio Capitolare di San Pietro*

ACSP, Armaria 41-42, Censualia no. 14 (1490-9I) fol. 135V 31 August 1490 . . solvatis Reverendo priori Joanii brunetti abbatis S. Matthei etc. pro suo

salario mensis Augusti organorum unam cum salario ipsius qui dat ventum. ...

fol. I 37 1 October 1490 solvatis . . . domino Joanni organiste et ei qui dat ventum organis ... fol. 139 i November 1490 solvatis . . . domino Joanni organiste ... fol. 142 1 December 1490 solvatis . . . domino priori organiste cum suo famulo.

... fol. 145v 27 December 1490 solutio Nativitatis domini . . Prior organiste ... fol. 153 15 January 1491 solvatis domino priori pulsatori organorum et eius famulos ducatos duos pro

termino mensis decembris de anno 1490. .... fol. 153'v i February 1491 solvatis . . . domino priori organiste cum famulo

... fol. i54' i March 1491 solvatis . . . domino abbati organiste cum famulo

... ACSP, Armaria 47-50, Quietanza no. 17 (1491-92)

unfoliated no date (probably March 1491) Ego uillelmus mallon recepi a domino Dominicus [de Rubeis] camerario nomen

Johannis brunet abbatis Sancti Mathei in finibus terrarum ipsorum duorum ducatorum de carlinis pro salario ipsius debito pro organis

unfoliated April 149I Ego P. Johannes halet recepi nomen Johannis brunet pro salario mensis aprilis pro

horgrannis ducatos duos unfoliated May 1491

Ego P. Johannes halet recepi nomen Johannis brunet pro salario mensis Maii pro organis ducatos duos

* Payments are made for the preceding month. Italic letters have been supplied to complete abbreviations.

Brunet is very likely the composer of three or four motets and one chanson ascribed to "Jo. Brunet" in Cappella Sistina sources and elsewhere. Table 2 lists his compositions. The idiosyncratic style marked by the liberal use of harsh dissonances, which on occasion take the form of tone clusters, has been described previously by Edgar Sparks and Edward Lowinsky.21 Few though they are, the prove-

Decessit 6 Junii 1515." The first date should be 1489; see below, n. 59. Several words are used to signify death throughout Gallia christiana: obire, mori, and decedere (see, for instance, cols. 759A and 779A for decessit in this sense); this last, however, could also refer simply to a departure (e.g., col. 778E).

21 See Lowinsky's comments in The Medici Codex of q518, ed. Edward E. Lowinsky, Monuments of Renaissance Music, 3 (Chicago, 1968), p. I69; and Edgar H. Sparks, "Problems of Authenticity in Josquin's Motets,"Josquin des Prez, pp. 347- 49-



MUSICAL CAREERS, ECCLESIASTICAL BENEFICES 57 TABLE 2

Compositions by "Jo. Brunet"

Title Ascription Source

Motets: hIte in orbem universum (4v) Brunet Florence, Bibl. Medicea-Laurenziana,

Ms. Acquisti e doni 666, fols. 74v-77 Veni sancte spiritus (5v) Brunet Rome, Hibl. Vat., Cappella Sistina 46,

fols. 73v-77 Victimae paschali laudes (6v) Jo. Brunet Rome, Bibl. Vat., Cappella Sistina 24, fols. 92V-99

Josquin Rome, Bibl. Vallicelliana, Ms. San Borromeo E. II, fols. 55-60

Josquin Toledo, Catedral Primada, Bibl. Cap. Ms. io, fols. 60V-7 I

Anonymous Florence, Bibl. Nazionale Centrale, Ms. Magliabecchi XIX. I125bis, fol. 9 (alto only)

Ave Maria. . . virgo serena Jo. Brumes Rome, Bibl. Vat., Cappella Sistina 45, (4v) (index = Brumel) fols. 194V-200oo

Chanson: Helas ma dame (3v) Jo. Brunet Cambridge, Ms. Pepys 1760, fol. 80

nances of the manuscripts accord with the regions prominent in

biographical data: Roman sources for the most part contain the motets, and the chanson appears in a manuscript thought to be written originally for Anne of Brittany.22

The documentation of Brunet's ecclesiastical career exists in several litterae beneficiales preserved in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano series known as the Registra vaticana. Table 3 lists these letters in

chronological order, citing the number of the volume and also the dioceses concerned. Pertinent extracts from these letters appear in the

appendix. During the three years between March 1486 and May 1489, Brunet sought benefices at Benedictine houses throughout Brittany, but principally at four in the dioceses of Tr6guier, St. Malo, Nantes, and St. Pol de L6on: the priorates at S. Sauveur de Guingamp, S.

Jacques de B6cherel, and Indre; and the abbacy at S. Mathieu in Finistere. The majority of papal letters refers to at least one of them while also linking his name to nine other monasteries in Brittany.

22 The copying of Cambridge 1760 for Anne of Brittany is argued persuasively by Herbert Kellman in "Musical Links between France and the Empire, i500-1530," paper read at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society, Toronto, 1970. Louise Litterick proposed instead that it was "originally intended for Louis XII himself, or for the royal couple." But she also recognizes that the ermine tail is a symbol of Brittany and Queen Anne; "The Manuscript Royal 20. A. XVI of the British Library" (Ph.D. diss., New York Univ., 1976), pp. 50-51.




TABLE 3

Letters in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Registra Vaticana, pertaining to Johannes Brunet

Letter Date Source Dioceses Concerned

I 20 March 1486 Reg. Vat. 741, 18'-i9' Rennes, Treguier 2 26 November 1486 Reg. Vat. 764, I20-I2v1' St. Malo 3 16 January 1487 Reg. Vat. 741, 206V'-208 St. Malo, Dol 4 7 February 1487 Reg. Vat. 729, I88V-I90v'

St. Malo, Nantes 5 3 June 1488 Reg. Vat. 738, 139'-I42 Tours, Vannes, Nantes 6 7 October 1488 Reg. Vat.735, 70-72v St. Malo, Treguier, Rennes,

Poitiers, Angers 7 19 December 1488 Reg. Vat. 741, 67-70 St. Malo 8 7 February 1489 Reg. Vat. 737, 323-325 St. Pol de Leon, St. Malo 9 7 February 1489 Reg. Vat. 737, 325-327 St. Pol de Leon, St. Malo

io 14 May 1489 Reg. Vat. 744, 38 -39 St. Pol de Leon, St. Malo, Dol

II 24 June 1493 Reg. Vat. 777, I5V-17 Tours

There is nothing unusual about finding Brunet in pursuit of so many benefices over such a short time; on the contrary, in order for him to be assured of acquiring even a few, that much was a necessity. But of

greater interest for our purposes, the quantity does suggest that Brunet had obtained highly influential backing. Quite possibly his

support came from Pope Innocent VIII (1484-92). The benefice documents agree on two aspects of Brunet's biogra-

phy: he is consistently described as a member of the papal household ("continuus commensalis noster") and as a descendant of nobility ("de nobili genere procreatus existis"). If he served the papal household in any musical capacity, the letters give no indication of it. The lack of such standard terms of identification as cubicularius, cubicularius secretus, capellanus secretus, and, most of all, cantor capellanus, corresponds to a similar absence of Brunet's name in contemporary rolls of scribes, singers, and curial officials.23 Brunet's noble ancestry accords with his attachment to the Order of St. Benedict. At whatever point he was ordained, Brunet assumed a legal responsibility to acquire a "title," that is, either an income from a benefice, office, or some other source, or else a membership in a religious order, which in theory constituted

23 The second volume of Walther von Hofmann, Forschungen zur Geschichte der kurialen Behb6rden vom Schisma bis zur Reformation, 2 vols. (Rome, 1914), gives lists of curial officials by office. Lists of clergy and dignitaries also occur throughout Johannes Burchard, Liber notarum, ed. Enrico Celani, Rerum italicarum scriptores, 32, ed. Lodovico Antonio Muratori, pts. 1-2 (Citt' di Castello, 1907-14).




a means of support.24 He fulfilled this obligation by becoming a Benedictine. Due to a recruitment policy implemented in the middle of the twelfth century, the Benedictine order had grown increasingly aristocratic, turning monasteries into "hospitals for nobility."2s In the

eyes of popes and princes alike, Benedictine abbacies were viewed as

significant sources of taxable income, while papal curiales competed with cardinals and bishops for Benedictine priorates.26

S. SAUVEUR DE GUINGAMP

Brunet's attempt to become the prior of S. Sauveur de Guingamp provides the material for two letters (Appendix, Letters i and 6). The first, from 20 March 1486, is formally addressed to "Johannes Brunet, monk of the monastery S. Melaine-outside-the-walls-of-Rennes, o.s.b., familiar of the pope [familiari nostro]." The titles given to him in this salutation contributed to his candidacy for the priorate at S. Sauveur, bolstering his claim to it once by virtue of his relationship to the pope and again because of his connection to S. Melaine, one of the largest and most powerful Benedictine monasteries in Brittany. Even more to the point, the monks of S. Melaine had controlled S. Sauveur since the year I 187.27 The abbot of S. Melaine therefore held the right to collate the priorate of S. Sauveur, which carried with it the moderate annual income of sixty livres tournois, as we learn from the diocesan tax registers (pouillks).28

The letter grants to Brunet an extension of an expectative grace conferred on him in an earlier letter. According to a summary of the previous gratia expectativa, additional benefices were contingent upon Brunet's collation to the priorate of S. Sauveur. With it he could hold two others, without it three, with or without parochial duties ("cure of souls"). Only one could be held "in title," the others would have to be in commendam, that is, he could receive the incomes without occupying

24 Hay, The Church in Italy, p. 51. 25 For a general account see Ursmer Berliere, "Le Recrutement dans les monas-

teres bnendictins

aux XIIe et XIVe siecles," Mimoires de la classe des lettres de l'Acadimie royale de Belgique, ser. 2, XVIII (1924), 14-26; and with a regional focus, F. Rapp, Reformes et reformation a Strasbourg: Eglise et sociiti dans le diocese de Strasbourg (0450-1525) (Paris, 1974), pp. 282 ff.

26 Berliere, "Le Recrutement," pp. 4-5. 27 Brief histories of S. Sauveur are contained in Jean Ogee, Dictionnaire historique et

giographique de la province de Bretagne, rev. ed. by A. Marteville and P. Varin, I (Rennes, 1843), 333; and Gallia christiana, XIV, 1138.

28 Pouillis for the dioceses of Brittany have been published by Auguste Longnon, Pouillis de la province de Tours (Paris, 1903); see p. 342, for S. Sauveur.




the offices.29 These benefices, the summary continues, were to be obtained through two monasteries, S. Melaine and Marmoutier, "within a certain time." Evidently, Brunet felt too much time had elapsed. He had complained that many of the benefices possessed by these monasteries were being obtained by others in commendam, and he expressed doubts about the validity of his own position as provided in the earlier document.30 Further details are lacking. The summary draws to a close, and, in the second half of the letter, Brunet receives the extension he sought.

No mention is made of an event that surely would have prompted Brunet to doubt the value of the earlier provision. By early February 1486, approximately six weeks before the date of the extension, Jean le L60onnais had resigned his charge as abbot of S. Melaine, touching off a brief struggle between Pope Innocent VIII and the duke of Brittany, Francis II.31 Just how esteemed this office was, if only for the benefices it controlled, may be gathered from the fact that after the news reached Rome, Innocent VIII nominated one of the most influential French cardinals, Jean Balue. Then, when this choice proved unacceptable to Francis II, the pope turned to Cardinal Pierre de Foix, a newly established resident of Rome, and more importantly, the duke's brother-in-law.32 Eventually Pierre de Foix would play a key role in Brunet's promotion to S. Mathieu.

Two years later the extension was revalidated, but under much wider terms, in language more favorable to Brunet (Letter 6). By the fall of 1488 his association with S. Melaine had weakened to the point that it no longer represented a fruitful source of benefices. Therefore, following an almost verbatim restatement of the terms granted for the priorate of S. Sauveur, the new letter broadened the scope of the reservation to include benefices owned by monasteries in other dioceses. Brunet first gained reservations on priorates at the Benedic- tine priories on the islands of Batz (diocese of Rennes) and Tristan

29 Clergeac, citing P. Eubel, "In commendam verliehene Abteien wihrend der Jahre 143 1-1503," Studien und Mitteilungen aus dem Benediktiner- und dem Cistercienser- Orden, XXI (1900), 4 f., estimated that by the mid-I4oo00s nearly 500 abbeys had been awarded in commendam; see La Curie, pp. 47-48; and Hay, The Church in Italy, p. 74-

30 There were a variety of reasons that could lead a beneficiary to doubt the efficacy of a provision and, with the support of one of a number of tenets of canon law, to seek an apostolic revalidation; see Cameron, The Apostolic Camera, p. lxviii.

31 Gallia christiana, XIV, 779; and Pocquet du Haut-Jusse, Les Papes, II, 875. 32 Balue is cited as an example of a "most effective curial spokesman for national

interests" by William E. Wilkie, The Cardinal Protectors of England (London, 1974), p. 8. Henri Forgeot, Jean Balue, Cardinal d'Angers (142I?-1491) (Paris, 1895), does not mention this incident.



MUSICAL CAREERS, ECCLESIASTICAL BENEFICES 6I

(diocese of Quimper) whose "collation, provision, presentation, or other disposition" belonged respectively to "the abbots and convents" of S. Melaine and Marmoutier.33 Not stopping with two, the document goes on to reserve a third benefice, one "to be obtained

through the monks of the monastery S. Jovinus of Marnes." Situated to the south of Brittany in the diocese of Poitiers, S. Jovinus nevertheless controlled a large number of benefices in Breton dioceses.34

Whether any of the three reservations ever led to a collation cannot be determined without further archival research, though in the first two instances this is doubtful at best. The priorate of Tristan is not

likely to have materialized soon for Brunet, because it had been awarded to another Breton familiar of the pope just four months earlier. The priorate at Batz, meanwhile, was held by the future cardinal Robert Guib. 35 Moreover, a clause inserted toward the end of the letter leaves the impression that Brunet had despaired of

acquiring a benefice through the monks of S. Melaine. The clause

effectively gave Brunet the freedom to exchange his dependency on S. Melaine, in the event that he attained "no fruits," for a reservation made to the abbot and monks of S. Florent near Saumur in the diocese of Angers. And as for his pursuit of the third, the general reservation to a benefice collated by S. Jovinus, a marginal notation made on i8 March 1489 in the letter itself indicates that Brunet's efforts persisted even after he was named abbot of S. Mathieu in January. The note officially corrected a single word: the diocese of S. Jovinus had been written "maleacensis" (Maillezais, in Bordeaux) rather than "pictaviensis" (Poitiers). Such a mistake could provide a rival claimant with all the reason needed to have the entire document invalidated. 36 Thus, to avoid a court challenge based on scribal error, the order to rectify matters came down from the highest authority, Innocent VIII himself. 37

1Ogde, Dictionnaire historique, I, 256, 374. 34 See the listings in the index to Longnon, Pouillis, p. 559; and Amid&e Guillotin

de Corson, Pouilli historique de l'archbvici de Rennes (Rennes, i 88o-86), II, 563-70. 31 Pocquet du Haut-Juss6, Les Papes, pp. 508, 748. Biographical information about

Guib6 and other Breton cardinals is found in Paul Paris-Jallobert, "Les Cardinaux de Bretagne," Revue de Bretagne et de Vendie, n. ser., II (1887), 26-38, 273-91. Errors in his tabulation are cited by Guillotin de Corson, "Saint-Yves," pp. 206-207.

36 Errors of this sort were just one of several potential reasons for invalidating letters of provision; see Baix, "De la valeur historique," p. 66; and Mollat, La Collation, pp. 123-33.

37 The correction was made by A. Drago, an apostolic notary since 1488, at the order of the pope. Celani gives further biographical details for Drago in his edition of Burchard's Liber notarum, pt. 2, p. 35, n. 1.




S. JACQUES DE BICHEREL

If, between the time of the two letters just discussed, Brunet met with no discernible success through the monks of S. Melaine, his fortunes prospered in the interim on a second front. A settlement reached in the Rota, the pontifical court of law, awarded him the

priorate of S. Jacques de B6cherel. Established in the diocese of St. Malo in the II 6os, the priory owed allegiance and rent to the monastery of Marmoutier. It was never large. When the abbot of Marmoutier visited the priory in 1319, he found a population of three: a prior and two monks. However small then, it later became smaller. A late sixteenth-century report mentions just two inhabitants, "le prieur avec un compagnon."38 Yet during the period under consideration, two factors helped to make this priorate a desirable benefice: parochial duties were handled by the resident vicar ("per vicarum perpetuum exerceri"), and the financial endowment was ample. The letters initially set the amount at 120 livres tournois (Letter 2) and then at 140 (Letters 3 and i o). With the earliest letter, dated 26 November

1486, the final provision to the priorate of S. Jacques awaited the decision of the Rota. Judged by Johannes Ceretani, Bishop of Nocera and Auditor of the Sacred Palace,39 the dispute pitted Brunet against the local nominee, Guy du Quirisec, who had instigated the proceedings. Rather than coming to Rome himself, Guy argued his position via a proctor, Yvo du Quirisec.40 Because Brunet's transferal from S. Melaine to Marmoutier was declared illegal ("legitime translatus non fueris"), we may infer that Guy's objection concerned Brunet's lack of proper ties with the monastery of Marmoutier, the ordinary collator of the benefice. Therefore, in the final pages of the letter, three executors ("judices executories") were named to put either Brunet or his proctor in "bodily possession" of the priorate, and also to ensure

38 Guillotin de Corson, Pouilli historique, II, 370-71. 9 Hofmann, Forschungen zur Geschichte, II, 28; and Burchard, Liber notarum, passim.

40 Proctors had to be trusted friends or relatives. On occasion, a musician in Rome would assist a colleague in another city. As an example, Noble has found that Nicolas Rembert, a singer at San Pietro, served in this capacity for Johannes Tinctoris; "New Light on Josquin's Benefices," pp. 82-84. Similarly, the papal singer Johannes Pullois aided Johannes Ockeghem by paying his taxes (annates) on "un canonicat et une prebende et la prev6to de Saint-Martin de Cande," on 24 October 1466. The citation is from E. R. Vaucelle, "Les Annates du diocese de Tours, 1421-1521," Bulletin trimestriel de la Sociiti archbiologique de Touraine, XVI (1907-1908), i 16. This indicates that Pullois was in Rome in I466 and not in Antwerp as stated by Keith E. Mixter, "Pullois, Johannes," The New Grove Dictionary, XV, 453-54.




that the transferal to Marmoutier took place.41 Sometime during the next few weeks, Ceretani ruled in favor of Brunet, but, as frequently happened in this type of case, the solution effected a compromise whereby the stipend was divided between both claimants. We learn indirectly from the next letter, 16 January 1487, that Brunet acquired the priorate with a salary of 140 livres tournois, "from which an annual pension of 50 livres in the money of Brittany" would go to Guy du Quirisec.42

The priorate of S. Jacques provides the first measure of Brunet's stature, not so much from monetary comparisons as from the status of his competitor and of others who held the benefice. The few biographical documents that exist for Guy du Quirisec portray him as a figure of purely regional prominence, as one whose career seldom exceeded the diocesan boundaries of Vannes.43 Those who did succeed in procuring the priorate of S. Jacques generally had more impressive credentials. A partial list of priors compiled by Guillotin de Corson includes several bishops, councilors to the king of France and the French parliament, as well as two individuals with demonstra- ble ties to Rome: Robert d'Espinay, an apostolic protonotary who was also a cantor and canon of Rennes, appointed prior in 1541; and Brunet's predecessor, Jean Noul (or Johannis Natalis), whose career followed a path with obvious parallels to that of Brunet.44 Nou6l also progressed from the priorate of S. Jacques to the abbacy of S. Mathieu. Both he and Brunet were nominated by the pope after having spent time in Rome, and both received permission to retain the

4' Each individual executor was given the authority to install the beneficiary without the assistance of the other two. Moreover, Brunet routinely received permission to accept a benefice by himself, without the presence or assistance of any of his executors ("decernentes ex nunc est, irritum et inane"). See Mollat, La Collation, pp. 116-20.

42 The practice of reserving pensions grew during the fifteenth century as expectative graces and conflicting provisions became more common. See Cameron, The Apostolic Camera, p. lxx.

41 Aside from his pension on Brunet's priorate, Guy may also have had a benefice from the cathedral chapter of Nantes together with his cousin, whom the proctor sent in 1487 to represent Brunet in Rome. A magister Yvo du Queriset and magister Guy Drolard, "nepos du Queriset," account for two of the cathedral's seven sacerdotal prebends in 1486; see Longnon, Pouillis, p. 274. Two other benefices from parochial churches within the diocese are known from tax payments (Rome, Archivio di Stato, Camerale I, busta 1135, fol. I54v; and busta 1138, fol. 243v). Further, according to one account, before his death in 1515, Guy was elected archdeacon of the cathedral chapter; see Pocquet du Haut-Jusse, Les Papes, II, 669, n. 2.

SGuillotin de Corson, Pouilli historique, II, 373-75.




priorate with their new benefice.4s When Nouel came to Rome in

1463, he did so as special envoy from Duke Francis II to Pope Pius II with the charge to negotiate the amount of aid Brittany would contribute to the crusade against the Turks. Upon Noul's arrival, Pius II granted him an expectative grace on a benefice from either Marmoutier or Redon, and this led soon to the priorate of Locoal (diocese of Vannes). Following the death of Pius in 1464, Nou6l resumed his mission with Paul II, pleading with the new pope for a reduction in the taxes levied by the previous administration. Paul II, whose own enthusiasm for the crusade was restrained, acceded to Nouel's request. Whether this is also the period in which Nouel received the priorate of S. Jacques is not known, though it was his by 5 November 1468.46

Certainly part of Noul's success derived from his close association with Duke Francis II, but information contained in the letter to Brunet (Letter 2) hints at a source of support much closer to the papacy. After stating that the current vacancy at S. Jacques was due to the recent death of Nouel "extra romanum curiam," the letter refers to Nou6l as "continuus commensalis" of Alain de Coetivy at the time of the original provision.47 Bishop of Avignon since 1437, Cardinal of S. Praxedis in Rome since 1448, and once an apostolic legate to France and Brittany, this Breton cardinal was as generous in procuring benefices for members of his household as he was adept at accumulat- ing them for himself.48 Alain de Coetivy resided in Rome for most of his career, attracting Bretons to the Holy See all the while.49

45 Pocquet du Haut-Jusse, Les Papes, p. 731. 46 That is the date of a papal letter (Reg. vat. 530, fol. 9) that gives the following

description of Nouel's circuitous route to the abbey of S. Mathieu. Late in 1467, when Paul II provided Vincent de Kerleau, abbot of the Cistercian monastery at Begars, with the abbacy of Prieres, Nou6l stepped in as his successor at Begars. However, the pope soon changed his mind and gave Vincent a dispensation to hold both monasteries. After Nou6l then acquired S. Mathieu, he had to relinquish his old benefices. Once again Paul II changed his mind. Letters of 17 and 22 June 1469 returned the priorates to Noual, while also setting aside two-thirds of the taxes he owed. Pocquet du Haut-Juss6 renders a summary of the letter in Les Papes, p. 731, n. 11.

47' ". . . dictus Johannes illum olim obtinens bone memorie Alani [Co&tivy] episcopi tunc sancte Praxedis presbiterium cardinalis familiaris continuus commensalis existit. . . "(Reg. vat. 764, fol. 121). Because Nouel had been the commensal of a cardinal, the benefice lay under a general reservation and, thus, under papal jurisdiction.

48 A lengthy list of his familiars is printed by Pocquet du Haut-Juss6, Les Papes, pp. 665-66, n. 2; personal and household benefices are listed op. cit., pp. 664-65, n. 6.

49 He died in his palace on the Campo de' Fiori on 3 May 1474. For this and other particulars, see Pocquet du Haut-Juss6, Les Papes, p. 664; as well as his "La Compagnie de Saint-Yves," pp. 207-o10; and Paris-Jallobert, "Les Cardinaux de Bretagne," p. 33.




PRIORY OF INDRE

The years 1487 and 1488 brought steady progress in Brunet's search for additional benefices. Three of the letters written during these years (Letters 3 to 5) deal specifically with his attempt, by means of standard legal proceedings, to circumvent the restrictions against pluralism-the holding of two or more "incompatible" benefices.s50

Except for cardinals, who were not bound by normal constraints of

incompatibility, pluralism had been an offense punishable by depriva- tion ever since the decree Exsecrabilis, issued by John XXII in 1317. However, long before the end of the quattrocento, provisions to

multiple benefices could skirt the issue altogether by offering one benefice "in title" and others in commendam, as in the first two letters to Brunet discussed above, or by legally uniting two incompatible charges, thereby giving one benefice two incomes.5' Brunet took

advantage of each method. Letter 3 grants him a union of S. Jacques with the priorate of S. Petreuc (diocese of Dol), Letter 4 instructs three executors to make certain Brunet was installed as prior of Indre (diocese of Nantes),52 and Letter 5, the most complex of the three, denies an immediate provision to the priory of the Magdalena in Malestroit (diocese of Vannes), because its incumbent, Hieronymus Franchini, an apostolic notary and commensal of Cardinal Pierre de Foix, still retained possession. But once Franchini resigned or otherwise gave up the post, it might be united with Brunet's benefice at Indre.s3 Brunet evidently succeeded in becoming prior of Indre, at least the Catalogue historique des eveques et abbis de Bretagne (Paris, 1756) lists him among the abbots of S. Mathieu as "Prieur d'Aindre."s54

Monetarily the priorates Brunet collected were superior to the canonicates and chaplaincies meted out to Josquin and most other papal singers. In combination with the stipend from S. Jacques (140

5o Incompatibility generally applied to two benefices requiring "cure of souls," since it was physically impossible for one cleric to tend to the needs of two parishes simultaneously.

51 Regarding unions, see Clergeac, La Curie, pp. 47, 51-53; and Cameron, The Apostolic Camera, p. lxxiii.

52 The executors were the Bishop of Lescar (Robert d'Espinay), the scholastic of the cathedral of Vannes, and an official from Nantes.

53 Brunet may have had familial roots in Malestroit. One of the city's noble houses belonged to a Brunet family. See Ogee, Dictionnaire historique, II, 8.

54The Catalogue historique forms part of Dom Charles Taillandier's Histoire ecclisiastique et civile de Bretagne, II (Paris, 1756). The listing of Brunet (p. xcviii) wrongly dates his appointment as abbot: "'Jean Brunet Prieur d'Aindre au Diocese de Nantes etoit Abbe en 1487. & mourut en 1515." The year 1487 probably represents the time in which he acquired the priorate.




livres minus the fifty for Guy de Quirisec), the estimated annual incomes of the three priorates-respectively twenty-four, 120, and sixty livres tournois-would have made Brunet a man of no small means. Few musicians of the period could aspire to a sum of comparable magnitude. If Josquin could, he had the patronage of the Sforzas to thank, for his profits from papal generosity are surprisingly meager. Were their collations not doubtful, the three benefices discovered by Noble would have yielded a maximum of fifteen, twenty-four, and thirty livres tournois.ss But while Brunet's provisions gave him a financial advantage, they were still classified as minor benefices. Barring exceptionally influential family ties, the best minor benefices, comparable to the priory of the Trinity (diocese of St. Malo) worth 8oo00 livres,s6 lay beyond his grasp.

S. MATHIEU IN FINISTERE

The groundwork for Brunet's pursuit of a major benefice, which culminated this phase of his career, was laid in the winter of 1488-89. The letter dated 19 December 1488 did not concern another provision per se, rather it gave Brunet "full and free license" ("plenam et liberam licentiam") to seek a permutatio, an exchange of benefices. It was a freedom he may never have exercised. Within little over a month, Innocent VIII and the cardinals then in Rome approved his nomination to the abbacy of S. Mathieu, a nomination the pope sweetened by allowing Brunet to retain his old benefices.

The Benedictine abbey S. Mathieu in Finistere suffered from its location on the western-most coast of Brittany. Built in the sixth or seventh century, according to some reports to house the remains of St. Matthew, it was reduced to rubble on numerous occasions by attacks from the Saxons, the Normands, the British, and the Flemish. Despite the fortress, which the monks erected in the 1330s to reduce their vulnerability, the invasions persisted, and over the final centuries of its existence, assignment to S. Mathieu represented a form of punishment, literally an exile to the "end of the earth."s7 Neverthe- less, through Brunet's time the abbey had achieved a modicum of

5 Noble, "New Light on Josquin's Benefices," pp. 81, 86, 88. 56 Longnon, Pouillis, p. 370. 1' When British and Flemish invaders burned the monastery to the ground in

1558, just three decades after Brunet's term, many books and two organ pairs were among the possessions destroyed. See Ogee, Dictionnaire historique, II, 835-36; and Gallia christiana, XIV, 987-90. On the final destruction of S. Mathieu there is Rene Daniel, "La Mort de l'abbaye benedictine de Saint-Mathieu de Fine-Terre," Bulletin de la Socifti archbiologique de Finistere, XC (1964), 1i06-33.




prosperity, supporting the abbot with 300 livres tournois annually and thus attracting individuals close either to the pope or to the duke of Brittany. When Jean Noud died and left the abbacy vacant in November 1486, Innocent VIII promoted one of his own, Antonius de Grassis, Bishop of Tivoli and a papal referendary. But since he had promised Francis II in 1485 that he would nominate a candidate acceptable to the duke, Innocent retracted his initial choice and gave the nomination to Jean de la Forest, confessor of Francis II.s58 Early in 1489, the next provision went to Brunet, "per obitum ipsium Johannis [de la Forest] abbatis."s59

The official announcement of Brunet's provision came on 7 February 1489, in a series of letters copied into Reg. vat. 737.60 For Brunet, as for all who sought a major, or consistorial, benefice, the registered letters entered into the volumes of the Registra vaticana marked the last of many stages in the procurement of a papal provision. The first step was to garner the support of a cardinal, who then became the applicant's agent, introducing and promoting the nomination in consistory.

Curial cardinals customarily sponsored or protected the interests of particular nations or religious orders.61 Brunet thus turned to one of

58 The promise had been made in a letter of 6 July 1485. Antonius was mollified by a reservation totaling 300 livres on benefices in the diocese of Nantes; Pocquet du Haut-Jusse, Les Papes, pp. 770-71; and Gallia christiana, XIV, 989. Concerning Antonius de Grassis, who at the time of the provision was sixty-four years old, see Liber notarum, ed. Celani, pt. i, p. 8i, n. 4.

59 Letter 8, fol. 323. The account in Gallia christiana, XIV, 989, stating that la Forest died and that Brunet succeeded him in 1499, is in error. For an indication of the shortcomings of Gallia christiana, see A. Degert, "Pour refaire la Gallia christiana," Revue d'histoire de l'Eglise de France, VIII (1922), 28 1-301.

60 There are six letters in all, five to notify anyone affected by the provision (combined as Letter 8), and one reserving for Brunet his previous benefices, both those held and expected (Letter 9). In the group of five, two addressed Brunet himself, one as abbot and one as prior, while the others, as was customary, went out to the bishop of the diocese, the vassals of the monastery, and its monks. Only the first letter was full length. The subsequent letters, called "conclusiones," copied the paragraphs geared to each interested party and omitted the general introduction; Lunt, Financial Relations, II, 260. In later months Brunet may have encountered a challenge to his retention of the priorate of S. Jacques in commendam, because a letter of 14 May 1489 granted Brunet license to "unite, annex, and incorporate" it with S. Mathieu (Letter io).

61 Although Julius II (1503-13) was the first to legitimize cardinal protectors of nations, the practice had existed long enough for Martin V to attempt to forbid it in 1425. According to Josef Wodka, "Zur Geschichte der nationalen Protektorate der Kardinale an der r6mischen Kurie," Publikationen des 6sterreichischen historischen Instituts in Rom, IV, pt. i (Innsbruck, 1938), 4, the origins lay in the fourteenth century. Wilkie, The Cardinal Protectors, pp. 6-7, traces the practice back to the cardinal protectors of religious orders in the thirteenth century.




the cardinals then speaking for French and Breton interests, the cardinal with the most influence in Brittany, Pierre de Foix. During the years 1489 and 1490 Cardinal de Foix guided nine nominations through consistory, beginning on 26 January 1489 with one for "Dominus Johannes Brimet [sic]" to the "Monasterio S. Mathei in finibus Terre."62 From consistory to the registration of the final letters then, his provision to the abbey required two weeks to process- impressive speed considering the labyrinthine system of checks and double-checks that the curia applied to each case.63

At present S. Mathieu constitutes the last provision that we can unequivocally assign to the future organist of San Pietro, but three other benefices, two from dioceses outside of Brittany, also deserve consideration. Tax payments made by a "Dominus Johannes Brunet" exist from 1472 on the parochial church S. Dionysius of Busard (diocese of Seez),64 from 31 January 1485 on the Benedictine priory of S. Egidius (diocese of Rennes),65 and from 1492 on a parochial church in the diocese of Aosta.66 Of these three, the second comes closest in locale and time to the benefices just discussed; moreover, it belonged to the abbot and monks of S. Melaine,67 the same abbey that had been a potential source of benefices for Brunet from at least 1486. Recalling for a moment two features of the first letter, specifically the salutation to Brunet as a "monk of the monastery S. Melaine" and the referral back to an earlier letter, it seems improbable that this is not the same Johannes Brunet. If the antecedent of Letter I led to the priory S.

62 This is recorded in the second volume of the Acta consistoralia, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, fol. 3 (olim fol. 2): "Die et consistorio predictis [26 January 1489] S. . providit de persona D. Jo. Brimet monasterio S. Matthei in finibus terre leonensis

diocesis per obitem D. Jo. De Foresta ultimi abbatis extra romanam curiam defuncti vacantes." Wodka, "Zur Geschichte der nationalen Protektorate der Kardinile," p. 431, gives all the details except for Brunet's name.

63 Lunt, Financial Relations, II, 257-69, counts nine steps in the provision process. Examples of the expenses assumed in becoming an abbot are given by Lunt, ibid., pp. 276-78; and Clergeac, La Curie, pp. 262-63.

64 Rome, Archivio di Stato, Camerale I, busta 1129, fol. 57". Annates were paid on 18 February 1472 pro compositione, that is, once litigation over the benefice ceased.

65 Rome, Archivio di Stato, Camerale I, busta 1 135, fol. 33. Annates were paid at the collation of the benefice, i.e., ratione collationis.

66Rome, Archivio di Stato, Camerale I, busta 1136, fol. 219. The name of the church was left blank. Payment occurred on 17 May 1492 at the provision of the benefice, i.e., ratione provisionis.

67 Ogee, Dictionnaire historique, II, 756; and Longnon, Pouillis, p. 178.




Egidius, then Brunet's status as a papal familiar would stem from some months before January 1485.68

PAPAL COLLECTOR AND APOSTOLIC NUNCIO

Brunet's departure from Rome, but not from papal service, was ordained in 1493 (Letter ii). The new pope, Alexander VI, returned him to Brittany as a collector of papal taxes and diplomat, formally entitled "apostolic nuncio and collector of fruits, rents, and revenues owed to the apostolic chamber in the province of Tours of the Duchy of Brittany and its cities and dioceses."69 Appointed either by the pope or by his chamberlain, Raphael Riario, Brunet had to be in Rome to accept the commission, to receive his instructions, and to make a copy of the registers left by his predecessor.70 His term was open ended, "usque ad nostrum et eiusdem sedis beneplacitum" (fol. 16), and beyond collecting money, his powers were many. To name a few, he could issue various ecclesiastical censures, including the sentence of excommunication; he could impound the possessions and incomes of debtors; and he had license to appoint deputy collectors, a particularly useful prerogative because, with twelve dioceses, the province of Tours amounted to one of the largest collectorates.7' He

68 On the basis of Brunet's projected arrival in Rome in 1484, we can estimate his age. For a collation in January 1485, the provision to this minor benefice would have come some months earlier in 1484. Five years later, in 1489, Brunet gained his first major benefice, the abbacy of S. Mathieu. This span of five years accords with the span between the minimum legal ages for each provision: twenty-five years of age for a minor benefice and thirty for a major; see Bernard Guillemain, La Politique bineficiale du Pape Benoit XII, 1334-1342 (Paris, 1952), p. 134. Brunet may therefore have been born in 1459, making him fifty-six at his death in 1515.

69 See Letter i i. The letter follows the official formulas instituted in the fourteenth century, especially when permanent collectors were established under Clement VI (i 342-52). For a translation of a similar commission, see William E. Lunt, Papal Revenues in the Middle Ages, 2 vols., Records of Civilization, Sources and Studies, 19 (New York, 1934), I, 202-204.

70 Guillaume Mollat and Charles Maxime Donatiene Samaran, La Fiscalitipontifi- cale en France au XIVe siecle (Piriode d'Avignon etgrandschisme d'occident) (Paris, 1905), p. 79; and Lunt, Papal Revenues, I, 44. The series Collettoria della Camera Apostolica of the Camerale in Rome, Archivio di Stato, comprises 185 of these registers from the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, mostly from Italy. Jean Rott has described a few from fifteenth-century France in his "Note sur quelques comptes de collecteurs pontificaux du XVe si&cle concernant la France," Milanges d'archbiologie et d'histoire, LI (1934), 293-327.

7' It included Tours, Le Mans, Angers, Rennes, Dol, Nantes, Saint-Brieuc, Saint-Malo, Quimper, Saint-Pol de Leon, Treguier, and Vannes.




received both a generous daily stipend and a house, and since Brunet was a nuncio as well as a collector, the local clergy also had to furnish him with mounts, entertainment, and additional income.72

Such power and independence drew men of proven administrative talents. Of the various qualifications, a degree in law-canon or civil-mattered more for the appointment than a high rank in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.73 Brunet was no exception. Although it is not stated in the 1493 commission, Letter io (May 1489) did append to the usual series of salutatory titles one not seen before, in decretis baccalario, bachelor of canon law. Without more information we cannot determine whether Brunet came to Rome intending to prepare for a position as a collector or whether he simply pursued an opportunity that arose during his presence. It would, for instance, be helpful to know if he earned the baccalaureate shortly before the announcement in the letter. That much is implied both by the absence of any reference to the degree in previous letters and by the number of years Brunet is known to have resided in Rome beforehand. His arrival by 1484 or 1485 allows sufficient time to have completed the normal course of study for a bachelor of canon law, which lasted either four or five years depending on whether the canonist studied a single title of law or a whole decretal.14 As a member of the papal household, Brunet had access to the university of the Roman Court, the so-called studium curiae, a university primarily for the study of canon and civil law. 7s

The biographical data gained from benefices assist in distinguish- ing Brunet from individuals with a similar name.76 For example, a

72 Lunt, Papal Revenues, I, 44-47. On the powers and limitations of nuncii, see Donald E. Queller, The Office of Ambassador in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1967), pp. 5- 9.

73 Mollat and Samaran, La Fiscaliti, p. 78. For a biographical account of an illustrious contemporary of Brunet's, see Michele Monaco's commentary to his edition of Pietro Griffi, II "De officio collectoris in regno Angliae" (Rome, 1973).

74A degree in civil law demanded five years; Hastings Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (London, 1895; new ed., 1936), I, 220-21.

7 There was also a theological faculty; Rashdall, The Universities, II, 28-31. Also see Raymond Creytens, "Le 'studium romanae curiae' et le maitre du sacr6 palais," Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, XII (1942), I8, 73-74. It is also possible that Brunet studied law at the Breton university established in 1460 at Nantes, where "principally legal studies flourished"; Michael Jones, "Education in Brittany during the Later Middle Ages: A Survey," Nottingham Mediaeval Studies, XXII (1978), 58-77. Accord- ing to Jones, Breton lawyers came "largely from the ranks of the noblesse" (p. 75) and studied in Italy only "on extremely rare occasions" (p. 67).

76 Manuscript ii i8 (21 T.L.) of the Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal in Paris, a thirteenth- century Bible, has the following colophon: "Si nomen meum queris/ Joannes plenus



MUSICAL CAREERS, ECCLESIASTICAL BENEFICES 71I

Patrem omnipotentem attributed to "Prunet" in the early fifteenth- century manuscript Strasbourg, Bibliotheque Municipale, 222. C. 22, was ascribed to "Brunet" in an index compiled by Edmond de Coussemaker. Charles van den Borren disputed this identification due to the much later dates of the manuscript sources for Brunet.7 While van den Borren's correction hardly needs archival confirmation, several accounts of a Johannes Brunetus (or Brunetti) emanating from late quattrocento Florence are not so easily dismissed, especially since Brunet's motets Ite in orbem universum and Victimae paschali laudes appear in sources with Florentine associations. Perhaps the earliest report is an undated addition to a 1451 inventory of the parva libraria of the Florentine monastery Santo Spirito. The entry describes a language treatise written by Bartholomeus de Pistorio for Johannes Brunetus, who eventually donated it to the monastery.78 In all probability, it is he who we find serving a year as a director of the university of Florence. Beginning the first week of April 1496, a Johannes Brunetti Dominici Brunetti (i.e., descendant of Dominicus) filled a term as one of the five ufficiali charged with administering the university, then housed in Pisa, as well as all educational facilities of the Republic.79 This Johannes begins to look too much like a member of the local aristocracy to be the Breton abbot, and when he turns up at the Florentine council meeting of 14 March 1498 to testify against Savonarola, that conclusion is reinforced.80

amoris/ Sub meo cognomine/ Brunet [?] dicitur esse," followed by the signature "Joannes Brunet [?]." But the script is contemporary with the manuscript, thus too early for our purposes. The colophon appears in Henry Martin, Catalogue des manuscrits de la Bibliothique de l'Arsenal, I (Paris, 1885), 62-63. 77 Edmond de Coussemaker, Le Manuscrit musical M. 222 C. 22 de la Bibliothique de Strasbourg (XVe si cle) brdli en i 87o, et reconstitu6 d'apres une copie partielle (Anvers, 1924), p. 53; van den Borren felt them to be later by "au moins trois quarts de si&cle." Thurston Dart argues for identifying Prunet with "Benet de Anglia," a name present in some Italian sources in various permutations; see "Une Contribution anglaise au manuscrit de Strasbourg?" Revue beige de musicologie, VIII (1954), 122-24.

78 "Item in eodem bancho tractatus quidam magistri Bartholomei de Pistorio medici de lingua ad Johannem Brunetum, quem ipse Johannes largitus [est] sua humanitate conventui," Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnham 1897, fol. 40'. The inventory has been published by Antonia Mazza, "L'inventario della 'Parva Libraria' di Santo Spirito e la Biblioteca del Boccaccio," Italia medioevale e umanistica, IX (1966), 1-74. 79 Lists of ufficiali, rectori, and docenti have been published by Armando F. Verde, Lo studio fiorentino, 1473-1503: Ricerche e documenti, 2 vols. (Florence, 1973), I, 263, 279.

80 Brunetti was one of eight present. For an account of the meeting, which led to Savonarola's demise, see Ludwig, Freiherr von Pastor, The History of the Popes, VI, ed. Frederick Ignatius Antrobus (London, I898), 39. Brunetti's remarks are quoted by Erich Frantz, Sixtus IV. und die Republik Florenz (Regensburg, i88o), pp. 72-73.




Finally, the possibility that the Prior Johannes Brunet and Johan- nes Prioris were the same person should be entertained, if only because scholars concerned with the biography of Prioris have

mistakenly turned to Haberl's citation of "D. priori organiste" as the earliest known record of the future master of the French Royal Chapel and as the explanation of the presence of so many compositions by Prioris in Cappella Sistina sources.8' Archival evidence is inconclu- sive, mainly because so little is known about Johannes Prioris. He is the first named among the composers in Guillaume Cretin's lament on the death of Johannes Ockeghem in 1497, and three subsequent references identify him as chapel master for Louis XII: a letter written in 1503 to Duke Ercole I of Ferrara, Jean d'Auton's chronicle of the French siege of Genoa in 1507, and the poem Cretin wrote in 1512 to commemorate the deaths of the singers Braconnier and de Fevin. His name does not appear in the roster of musicians attending the funeral of Louis XII in January 1515. Manuscript attributions point to

separate identities. No motet or chanson ascribed to Prioris in one

manuscript is known to have an attribution to Brunet in another, or vice versa; further, Cambridge 1760 and Cappella Sistina 45 contain attributions to both, a situation difficult to explain if the pieces were by the same composer. In these two manuscripts, at least the scribes adhered to a distinction between the name Prioris and the ecclesiastical title prior, which Brunet possessed.82 He may have been referred to by ecclesiastical rank in the San Pietro pay records, but there is no manuscript or archival evidence that Brunet was responsible for any of the compositions ascribed to Prioris. A stylistic examination of the motets of each composer supports this conclusion. Though there are similarities, such as in the approach to phrase structure and harmonic variety, the distinctive use of dissonances in Brunet's motets is nowhere matched in Prioris's music.

81 Prioris and his music have been the subject of Ph.D. dissertations by Richard Wexler, "The Complete Works of Johannes Prioris" (Ph.D. diss., New York Univ., 1974); and Thomas Herman Keahey, "The Masses of Johannes Prioris: A Critical Edition" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Texas at Austin, 1968). There is also the master's thesis by Conrad Edward Mary Douglas, "The Motets of Johannes Prioris with a Prefatory Bio-bibliographical Study" (M.A. thesis, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, 1969). Wexler's biography of Prioris, The New Grove Dictionary, XV, 275-76, downplays an identification of "D. priori organistae" with Prioris.

82 Thuasne, in his edition of Johannes Burchard's Liber notarum, 2 vols. (Paris, 1883), I, 170o, confused the two by referring to Johannes Prioris, the auditor general of the Apostolic Chamber under Sixtus IV, as a prior. This Prioris died on 22 December 1485; see Federico Patetta, Venturino de Prioribus: Umanista ligure del secolo XV, Studi e testi, 149 (Rome, 1950), p. 71, n. 2.




Were it not for the San Pietro records of his employment as an

organist, there would be no reason to suspect that Johannes Brunet-

prior, abbot, bachelor of canon law, apostolic nuncio, and collector- was anything other than a moderately influential Breton, in Rome like hundreds of others to further his ecclesiastical career. Conversely, were it not for the Vatican records, there would be no means of

knowing that this organist and composer could also vie successfully for benefices sought by bishops and ducal counsellors. The difficulty in comparing the import of these distinct spheres of activity stems from our total ignorance surrounding Brunet's musical life except for the ten months he spent at San Pietro in 1490-91.

On the surface, Brunet's years in Rome bear a resemblance to the career of the notary and apostolic abbreviator Nicolaus Rembert, whose only recorded musical experience consists of seven months of singing contra in the San Pietro choir.83 The backgrounds of each no doubt manifested the requisite talents for them to have been employed to begin with; thus, to imagine that Brunet's talents had lain dormant while he was a continuus commensalis of the pope, we would have to believe that the canons of San Pietro were willing to hire an organist who had not played in at least four or five years. His motets in Cappella Sistina manuscripts evince a papal appreciation of his abilities, which assuredly did not begin or end with the ten-month stint Brunet served at San Pietro.

III

Brunet's career is evidence that the medieval type of musician persisted well into the Renaissance. Just as scholastic philosophers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries followed a methodology centuries old-in Italy as well as in France-so did many fifteenth- and sixteenth-century cleric-musicians and courtier-musicians follow paths that musicians had trod since the thirteenth century. It is, however, easier to identify the descendants of Machaut and Dunstable than to pinpoint the ancestors of Festa and Palestrina. To chart the rise of the specialist musician it is useful to distinguish between educational, cultural, and economic factors and to assess their relative contributions.

The change for musicians was not first educational. Especially in areas that remained Catholic, medieval patterns of musical instruction

83 See n. 40, above.




prevailed through much of the sixteenth century.84 As to non-musical education, a shift did occur earlier. Brunet's education and career, however, still belong to the older pattern, as do those of another Northerner who had arrived in Rome three or four years earlier, Bertrandus Vaqueras. Both were briefly employed at San Pietro, both accumulated several benefices, both seem to have attended a university in Rome, both were composers, and both had non-musical skills. That Vaqueras's other skill was humanist poetry and Brunet's canon law matters little. The point is that both of them could combine music with other endeavors.8s Out of a similar mold, and far superior as a composer, their contemporary Loyset Compare held bachelor's de- grees in canon and civil law and eventually became provost of the

collegiate church of S. Pierre in Douai.86 But these composers stand at the end of an educational tradition. Among composers of the next

generation, the example of Adrian Willaert is particularly cogent. According to his pupil Zarlino, Willaert originally went to Paris with the intention of studying law, only to divert his attention to musical studies with Mouton.

Cultural changes came still earlier. These changes, perhaps corre- lated with a shift from values that are somewhat more scholastic to those that are somewhat more humanistic, are reflected in a new appreciation of artistic expression; and they seem to result in a simultaneous narrowing of a musician's duties and the widening of a musician's sense of professionalism. By the 1470s patrons up and down the Italian peninsula were competing for Northern musicians to add luster and prestige to their courts. Certainly there are exceptions,

84 See Nan Cooke Carpenter on "Universities" and lain Fenlon on "Renaissance and Reformation Schools," The New Grove Dictionary, VI, 8-i i1. Innovations in music education first occurred in Germany during the Reformation. Initially, practical musical instruction remained in Latin, heeding Luther's desire to have Latin retained in portions of worship services; see Carl Parrish, "A Renaissance Music Manual for Choirboys," Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: A Birthday Ofering to Gustave Reese, ed. Jan LaRue (New York, 1966), pp. 649-64; and Frederick W. Sternfeld, "Music in the Schools of the Reformation," Musica disciplina, II (1948), 99-I122.

85 Vaqueras has a few Latin poems, apparently autograph, in two late quattrocen- to miscellanies, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vaticana latina, MSS 2836 and 7192. The literary historian Marco Vattasso printed one of them, an epistle to Antonio Flaminio, in the appendix to his monograph, Antonio Flaminio e le principali poesie dell'autografo Vaticano 2870, Studi e testi, i (Rome, 1900oo), pp. 60-64. For further details, see Reynolds, "The Music Chapel at San Pietro," pp. 138-42. Richard Sherr provides more on his biography in his entry, "Vaqueras," The New Grove Dictionary, XIX, 529; and in his edition, Bertrandi Vaqueras Opera Omnia, Corpus mensurabilis musicae, 78 ([Rome], 1978), pp. ix-x.

86 Herbert Kellman discovered Compere's association with Douai; see Joshua Rifkin, "Compare, Loyset," The New Grove Dictionary, IV, 595-96.




but the tide now begins to turn in favor of those for whom performing and composing are daily activities. Whereas Johannes Gallicus heaped scorn on the singers who "frivolously perform all day long new and vain songs," Tinctoris now lavishes praise on Flemish composers, for "they freshly create new works day by day."'87 By the end of the century some talented composers act, or are treated, like the tempera- mental artists more familiar to us in a much later era. When Ercole I of Ferrara is warned that Josquin composes only when he wishes, the impression conveyed is that Josquin is exceptional in his working habits; but when Piero de' Medici promises the papal singer Mervino a job in which he can sing only as much as he wants, the exceptional party is the patron, making concessions never offered to earlier generations of musicians.88 Indeed, the enticement reveals less about the quality of Mervino's voice than it does about the favorable bargaining position that Northern musicians of talent had already enjoyed in Italy for several decades.

Piero's offer thus leads us to consider economic factors. In its failure to lure Mervino up from Rome, the offer underscores an inherent shortcoming in an argument that musicians became specialists principally because of an exposure to a new culture. The allure of Italy for Northern musicians lay less in the artistic environment than in the economic situation, in the abundance of potential patrons. Brunet journeyed to Rome in order to acquire benefices. He differed from other musicians primarily in his noble parentage, an enormous advantage that made it possible for him to accumulate benefices beyond the grasp of even the best musicians. Other Northern musicians in Italy shared Brunet's desire for benefices, but their best hope was not in competing with ecclesiastical bureaucrats-hundreds of them-but, through their specialized musical skills, in winning the favor of a generous patron.

Economic factors that encouraged musical specialization, especially the use of benefices as a system of musical patronage, took root in

87 The translations are taken from Edward E. Lowinsky, "Music of the Renais- sance as Viewed by Renaissance Musicians," The Renaissance Image of Man and the World, ed. Bernard O'Kelly (Columbus, Ohio, 1966), pp. 133-34. For a sociological approach to the question of careers in the Renaissance, see Peter Burke, Tradition and Innovation in Renaissance Italy (London, i1974), who lists painting, sculpture, and music among the "professional and full-time occupations" and writing among the "amateur and part-time" (p. 82).

88 The letter warning Ercole about Josquin appeared most recently in Martin Staehelin, Die Messen Heinrich Isaacs, 3 vols. (Bern, 1977), I, 56-57. Piero's promise to Mervino appears in Marcello del Piazzo, "I ricordi di lettere di Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici," Archivio storico italiano, CXII (954), 410.




fourteenth-century Avignon.89 Perhaps the practice became insti- tutionalized under Benedict XII in 1334, when, in addition to the grande chapelle of thirty to forty members, he founded a private chapel with twelve singers; or perhaps it had already occurred under John XXII (1316-34), who awarded or promised the unprecedented total of nearly 3,000 benefices in his first year alone. In any case, not only popes but also cardinals at Avignon supported their singers with benefices.90 At first these benefices had little to do with musical specialization. As Bernard Guillemain has found for the entourages of cardinals in Avignon, it is difficult to distinguish between the chaplains, the clerks of the chapels, the singers, and the servants.91 But in the far largerfamilia of the popes, the steady growth in size led inexorably to specialization among the various functionaries. In this light, a change in the title of singers in the pope's private chapel assumes significance. By 1371 their official designation was capellani et cantores capellae intrinsicae, while toward the end of the century, as shown in the recent dissertation of Andrew Tomasello, they were in many cases simply labeled cantores.92

89 See Andrew Tomasello, "Musical Culture at Papal Avignon" (Ph.D. diss., Yale Univ., 1982); and Bernard Guillemain, La Cour pontficale d'Avignon (13o09-1376): Etude d'une socidte (Paris, 1962). Guillaume Mollat, Les Papes d'Avignon (1305-1378), 9th ed. (Paris, 1949), p. 532, sees a precedent for the papal abuse of benefices in the practice of the kings of France, "qui faisaient a leurs courtisans des dons en argent ou en nature et generalement de terres provenant de confiscations." Another account, in stressing the centrality of benefices to the organization of all ecclesiastical institutions, credits the popes of Avignon with developing the benefice patronage system "a une quasi-perfection"; E. Delaruelle, E.-R. Labande, and Paul Ourliac, L'Eglise au temps du Grand Schisme et de la crise conciliaire (1378-1 449), 2 vols., Histoire de l'eglise depuis les origines jusqu'd nos jours, 14, pts. i and 2 (Paris, 1962-64), I, 306; II, 11 38.

90 Tomasello, "Musical Culture at Papal Avignon," pp. 397-403, lists thirty-three cardinals and eleven bishops who supported musicians in their families; and Guillemain, La Courpontficale d'Avignon, describes the place of Northern musicians in the entourages of cardinals (pp. 252 ff.) and popes (pp. 362 ff.). For a detailed look at how benefices helped to support an ecclesiastical family in a slightly later period, see Roy M. Haines, "The Associates and Familia of William Gray, and His Use of Patronage while Bishop of Ely (1454-78)," The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, XXV (1974), 225-47. My thanks to Professor Tomasello for providing me with portions of his dissertation before they were otherwise available.

91 La Courpontificale d'Avignon, p. 257. 92 The official titles for musicians varied from pope to pope. Capellani et cantores

capellae intrinsicae begins to appear after 1334. Tomasello, "Musical Culture at Papal Avignon," includes individual titles in the separate biographical sketches on pp. 405- 82. Roger Bowers, in his fine study "Some Observations on the Life and Career of Lionel Power," Proceedings of the Royal Music Association, CII (1975-76), 107, also detects a "new class of specialist church musician" arising in English chapels during the late fourteenth century.




The spread and development of these two complementary phe- nomena-musical patronage through benefices and the specialist musician-seem to have come only later and in Italy, spurred by a new political stability arising in the 1440S. During this decade the papal curia ceased wandering, and the House of Aragon prevailed over the House of Anjou, with the result that Milan, Ferrara, and Florence had two major sources of patronage to the south, eagerly bringing art and commerce to Rome and Naples. The increased competition for musicians seemingly worked to the benefit of all patrons, for the attractions of Italy to Northern singers were more numerous than ever. In the succeeding decades, the principal ruling families of Italy pressured Roman popes for two concessions, each with important implications for music patronage: they sought permission to confer a limited number of benefices in their territories, and each family wanted one of its members appointed a cardinal.

Among those who wanted rights to grant benefices in their own lands to their singers, the Milanese, Neapolitan, and Ferrarese courts were particularly active, though not always successful, in seeking this power to finance the expansion and maintenance of their musical establishments. Lewis Lockwood has termed Ferrarese attempts to get a papal Indult "one of the most important and enduring of Ercole's strategies for music patronage." Ercole spent years in arduous negotia- tions before Pope Innocent VIII finally acquiesced in 1487, granting him limited permission to confer twenty local benefices. The most serious limitation was the necessity to renew the agreement with each successive pope.93 The courts at Naples and Milan also sought Indults from Rome, but while the king of Naples was granted the liberty to award benefices to forty singers, the Sforzas met with little success.94 The Sforza dukes seemed to have countered by affirming a Milanese tradition of ecclesiastical independence. As the Visconti had done before them, the Sforzas continued to dispense benefices in their own territory as they saw fit.95

9Lockwood, "Strategies of Music Patronage," pp. 238-41. Before the Indult, the meager number of benefices at Ercole's command may explain the comparatively harsh stipulation he described in a letter of 1479: "and if it should happen that they lose their voices then it will be understood that they will exchange these benefices, but with our approval, as they may request"; ibid., p. 246.

94Regarding Naples, see Lockwood, "Strategies of Music Patronage," p. 239 and n. 34. Sixtus IV granted the Indult for Naples in 1479. Regarding Galeazzo Maria Sforza's attempts, see Lowinsky, "Ascanio's Life," pp. 37-40.

91 In his "Une crise ignor&e: Comment s'est perdue la propriete ecclksiastique dans l'Italie du Nord entre le XIe et le XVIe siecle," Annales, II (1947), 320, n. i, Carlo M.




The Medici policy in Florence contrasts tellingly with these endeavors. As a family of merchants and bankers, their own access to benefices was difficult; consequently, benefices play a much less prominent role in their patronage of musicians.96 The leading composer of polyphony under Lorenzo, Heinrich Isaac, was in fact ineligible for benefices because he was not a cleric, as his marriage to a Florentine attests. And Baccio Ugolini, who serenaded Lorenzo in the 1470s with verses improvised to the lyre, did receive a benefice, but not until 1494, and then from Alfonso II, King of Naples, in gratitude for his diplomatic and administrative service.97

Once again, the precedents extend back to fourteenth-century Avignon. Philip the Bold traveled to Avignon in 1391, met with Pope Clement VII, and secured rights to confer 120 benefices in and out of French territories, plus one benefice in every cathedral and collegiate church in Flanders, all this in addition to the control of a large number of appointments that had fallen to him when he became Count of Flanders and Duke of Burgundy.98 If the forty benefices that Sixtus IV granted to Alfonso II and the twenty that Innocent VIII conceded to Ercole I seem miserly in comparison, it is because the exigencies of papal politics during the Great Schism (1378-1417) favored the secular powers. Clement VII's generous concession to Philip the Bold was neither his first nor his largest. Both of the schismatical popes

Cipolla quotes the following passage of a letter from Cardinal Piccolomini to Pope Paul II (1467): "Hec tamen duritas non exercetur in me solum, sed in ceteros quoque Cardinales qui in ditione sua [of the duke] beneficium habent. Dico item non me prefatae res gravant; gravat contemptus Cardinalatus, contemptus Ecclesie, qui ut videtur crescitur in dies." On the earlier period, see Delaruelle, Labande, and Ourliac, L'Eglise au temps du Grand Schisme, I, 313.

96 Giovanni Battista Picotti gives a thoroughly documented account of problems Lorenzo faced in procuring benefices for his son Giovanni in La giovinezza di Leone X (Milan, 1928), especially Chapter 2, "La caccia dei benefizi." This situation may also explain why fewer Florentine writers sought church patronage than writers from elsewhere in Italy; see n. 135 below.

'7 Richard Sherr attributes Isaac's complete "break with his native Flanders" to his ineligibility for benefices. See his informative review of Martin Staehelin, Die Messen Heinrich Isaacs (cited above, n. 4). Biographical accounts of Ugolini are in Nino Pirrotta, Music and Theatre from Poliziano to Monteverdi, trans. Karen Eales (Cam- bridge, 1982), p. 24; and Isidoro Del Lungo, Florentia: Uomini e cose del quattrocento (Florence, 1897), pp. 307 ff. Details of his appointment as Bishop of Gaeta are given by Picotti, La giovinezza di Leone X, p. 122, n. 218.

98 Wright, Music at the Court of Burgundy, 1364-1419, pp. 67-68. Also see Richard Vaughan, Philip the Bold: The Formation of the Burgundian State (Cambridge, Mass., I962), p. I86.




resorted to such agreements in order to shore up their control over provisions within their rival obediences.99

It is now commonly recognized that many Northern singers in Italy depended on cardinals for patronage, although important questions remain about the scope of that patronage and the nature of its relationship to the patronage of princes and popes. A crucial development, increasing the numbers of Italian patrons as well as their resources, was the Italianization of the papal curia during the final decades of the fifteenth century. As noted by Denys Hay, when Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini became Pope Pius II in 1458, there were no cardinals from the major Italian dynasties; however, by the end of the century there was one cardinal from the Gonzaga (1461), Sforza (1484), Medici (1489), and Este (1493) families, and two from the Aragon (1477 and 1494).•

00 In the space of twenty years, Northern musicians thereby gained three of the more prominent patrons of their era: Ascanio Sforza, Giovanni de' Medici, and Ippolito d'Este. Ascanio Sforza, who, as papal vice-chancellor, had frequent contact with the papal choir, supported Josquin des Prez and Serafino dall'Aquila. Giovanni de' Medici became Pope Leo X (1513-21), a patron sought after by musicians from all over Europe. But his advancement to the cardinalate (at the age of thirteen) brought instantaneous rejoicing in Florence, in part because this ensured the Medici and other Florentine families easier access to benefices.'0?

99 The King of Portugal approached Clement VII at the beginning of the Schism, requesting favors for the members of his court; see Clercx and Hoppin, "Notes biographiques sur quelques musiciens franqais," p. 80. And Clement VII also awarded the kings of France the power to dispose of many benefices; in 1389, power over 750 of them went to Charles VI. Delaruelle, Labande, and Ourliac give details in L'Eglise au temps du Grand Schisme, I, 330. Hubert Nelis remarks in "La Collation des benefices ecclesiastiques en Belgique sous Clement VII (1378-1394)," Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique, XXVIII (1932), 34, that a collation or "la simple promesse de benefices ecclesiastiques y on ete, entre les mains des papes antagonistes, une arme puissante de propagande et de contrainte."

100oo The Church in Italy, pp. 36-38. The decline in the proportion of non-Italians in the College of Cardinals continued throughout the sixteenth century, as shown in Jean Delumeau, Vie economique et sociale de Rome dans la seconde moitie du XVIe siecle, 2 vols., Biblioth que des Ecoles franqaises d'Athenes et de Rome, 184 (Paris, 1957-59), I, 219.

o101 Richard C. Trexler makes this point as he stresses the importance that Giovanni's appointment had for Lorenzo and Piero de' Medici, in Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York, 1980), pp. 454-58. On Ascanio Sforza's patronage, see Edward E. Lowinsky, "Josquin des Prez and Ascanio Sforza," Congresso interna- zionale sul duomo di Milano, Atti, ed. Maria Luisa Gatti Perer, 2 vols. (Milan, 1969), II, 17-22; Lowinsky, "Ascanio's Life."



8o JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Ippolito d'Este was older when he became cardinal and was therefore less tractable to the wishes of his father. Yet, after an initial period of competition with Ercole I over an Indult, Ippolito enjoyed a better rapport with his brother Alfonso II, Ercole's successor as duke.102 And Ippolito was the recipient of a revealing letter about the singer- composer Jean de la Fage. Writing from Rome in 1516, Enea Pio advised Ippolito of a newly arrived talent. The singer Turluron

told me that it is a certain La Fage, a man recently arrived with Monsignore d'Auch, who has departed and has left him here, ill, with some other boys who sing very well.... But he tells me that if he goes to stay with anyone he wants the boys to go with him, and he wants a benefice.... I know that he has been hunted by Monsignore Lang and Monsignore Cibo.o03

We can glean from this letter an indication of just how extensive and international were the opportunities singers had with curial cardinals. La Fage came to Rome with one cardinal (French), two others (Italian and German) had hunted him, and a fourth in Ferrara (Italian) received a report conveying the sick singer's conditions for employment.

Much remains to be done before we can properly understand the impact of benefices on the habits of musicians. I would like to indicate three types of information to be gathered and to suggest a few of the ways in which it might be examined. Most obvious, and increasingly available, is stated evidence. I refer to comments by singers and patrons about specific benefices. To cite a pertinent example, there is the well-known letter of 1492 from the papal singer Balthazar to Piero de' Medici declining a position:

My Lord, may it please you to know that I would have never come to this court if I had not had the hope of obtaining some benefice in my native land, in order to help me provide for myself when it is time for me to

102 Lockwood describes the rift over the Indult in "Strategies of Music Patronage," p. 240. Ippolito maintained a coterie of musicians distinct from that of Alfonso, although "there was surely a good deal of interchange among these formally separate groups of musicians"; Lewis Lockwood, "Jean Mouton and Jean Michel: New Evidence on French Music and Musicians in Italy, 1505-1520," this JOURNAL, XXXII (1979), 199. On Ippolito's patronage of Adrian Willaert, see Lockwood, "Josquin at Ferrara: New Documents and Letters," Josquin des Prez, pp. 19-20. In the next generation, the court of Duke Ercole II profited from Cardinal Ippolito II's support of Nicola Vicentino; see the last of Henry W. Kaufmann's studies on Vicentino, the entry in The New Grove Dictionary, XIX, 699-701.

103 Lockwood, "Jean Mouton and Jean Michel," p. 222.



MUSICAL CAREERS, ECCLESIASTICAL BENEFICES 8 I

cease singing and leave youth. On several occasions I have been offered by different chapels a much larger salary than what I have here, but I have never wanted to accept, because it would grieve me greatly to leave Rome without obtaining some considerable advantage, the more so since I have been resident here now for five years and have somehow gotten used to it . . . If I had a provision such as I would like there is no other prince nor other lord to whom I would rather submit myself than to you. 104

Balthazar's conclusion has an important implication for patronage. Since he had arrived in Rome five years earlier (shortly after Brunet) and was still waiting for the benefice he wanted, the pope apparently recognized that the promise of a benefice could be as useful as an actual conferral. This lesson may have been taught to the papal court by Dufay, who left the papal choir within three months of securing the benefice in Cambrai that he coveted.105

The strategic value of withholding a promised benefice elicits a passing acknowledgment from the theorist Glareanus writing in the mid-sixteenth century. Truth here is less important than interpretation, that is, the anecdote may be apocryphal, but Glareanus's analysis of it is very much to the point:

Louis XII, the French king, had promised Josquin some benefice, but when the promises remained unfilled, as is wont to happen in courts of kings, Josquin was thereupon aroused and composed the psalm Memor esto verbi tui servo tuo with such majesty and elegance that . . . it was admired by everyone. The king, filled with shame, did not dare to defer the promise any longer, and discharged the favor which he had promised; but then Josquin, having experienced the liberality of a ruler, immediate- ly began, as an act of gratitude, another psalm, Bonitatem fecisti servo tuo Domine. Between these two harmonies one can see how much more of a stimulus is the uncertain hope of a reward than is a securely established benefice. For in my opinion, if one considers the affections, the first is much more beautiful than the second.106

In the second category, there is evidence that is observed, chiefly in the movements and activities of singers when a benefice is at stake.

o104 Frank A. d'Accone, "The Singers of San Giovanni in Florence during the 15th Century," this JOURNAL, XIV (1961), 345.

o105 The Cathedral of Cambrai received Dufay as a canon on 12 November 1436, but his littera de fructibus, granting him the income with a dispensation from residency, came only on 21 March 1437, just months before he left the papal court in Bologna at the beginning of June. See Baix, "La Carriere beneficiale," pp. 270-71 (cited in n. 3); and Wright, "Dufay at Cambrai," p. i8o (cited in n. 4).

o106 Heinrich Glarean, Dodecachordon, ed. and trans. Clement A. Miller, 2 vols., Musicological Studies and Documents, 6 ([Rome], 1965), II, 271-72.




To avoid circumstantial associations between a singer's travels and his quest for benefices, I have chosen examples for which some kind of corroborative documentation exists, beginning with the careers of singers during the Great Schism. For many, the unprecedented existence of two papal choirs surely enhanced the opportunities for employment, but for those who unexpectedly found themselves on one side of the split and their benefices on the other, the enmity between popes forced difficult choices. While French allegiance belonged to Clement VII in Avignon and Italian support to Urban VI in Rome, the loyalties of the Flemish were bitterly divided. 107 Flemish dioceses had two bishops, one appointed by each pope, and ecclesiastical obedience had to be determined church by church and monastery by monastery. Yet, because the Avignon obedience included the Flemish nobility and the duke of Burgundy, the popes at Avignon held a distinct advantage in their ability to collate Flemish benefices. In contrast, partisans of the Roman popes dominated ecclesiastical institutions in the nearby diocese of Liege, which was then outside the territories controlled by the duke of Burgundy. The spheres of influence vividly emerge in a numerical comparison of the benefices awarded between 1389 and 1394 in the diocese of Liege with those conferred in three dioceses of Flanders: Cambrai, Therouanne, and Tournai. Of the 289 benefices assigned by the Roman pope Boniface IX, fully 249 went to clerics of the diocese of Liege. 08 This imbalance bears directly on the curious preponderance of musicians from Liege serving in the papal chapel in Rome at just this time. '09 Avignon, on the other hand, experienced the reverse trend. The Schism reduced the number of singers who received benefices at Liege from roughly a quarter of those serving at Avignon before 1378 to only seven percent afterwards. 110

107 Noel Valois looks in depth at the effect of the Schism in Flanders and the struggle of the two obediences, in La France et le Grand Schisme d'Occident, II (Paris, 1896), 224-71. The organization of two papal choirs is one of the "positive effects" of the Schism cited by Giulio Cattin in his comprehensive survey "Church Patronage of Music in Fifteenth-Century Italy," Music in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, pp. 26- 27.

108 Nelis, "La Collation des b6nefices eccl6siastiques," p. 64. o109 Eugenie Droz, "Musiciens li6geois du XVe siecle," Revue de musicologie, XXXII

(1929), 284-89. Albert Dunning, in discussing the movements of musicians from the Netherlands at the end of the fourteenth century, observes that, "the most remarkable axis was Liege to Italy, especially Rome"; in his contribution to the entry "Low Countries: Art Music," The New Grove Dictionary, XI, 263.

110o My calculations are based on the biographies supplied in Tomasello, "Musical Culture at Papal Avignon." Of seventy-four singers provided with benefices before




When the historic split commenced, papal singers with canonicates in Liege found themselves at a crossroads. Benefice records from the years leading up to the Schism show Johannes Volkardi and Henricus Poneti to have shared a penchant for acquiring provisions in that diocese. Volkardi may have held four and Poneti four, possibly five. But within two months after the start of the Schism, Volkardi apparently cast his lot with Urban VI because Clement VII immedi- ately began to deprive him of his benefices. In Rome, Volkardi soon became magister capelle for Urban VI. Poneti, meanwhile, remained in Avignon and foreswore seeking benefices in Liege. While accumulat- ing new titles in Douai (diocese of Arras), Quievrain (diocese of Cambrai), Cambrai cathedral, Guise (diocese of Laon), and Lille (diocese of Tournai), he also lost at least two of his benefices in Liege, one by virtue of his own resignation, the other because he was deprived of it.111

These examples may be exceptional in their historical context, but they are neither isolated nor limited to the Great Schism. Indeed, we encounter the identical scenario in 1439, this time involving Guil- laume Dufay. Through the decade of the 1430s Dufay shuttled between the papal court (1428-33 and 1435-37) and the court of Duke Louis V of Savoy (i433-35 and 1437-39) collecting benefices from each. In other times or at other courts, Dufay's adept alternation of two patrons would have served him well, but in 1439 Savoy and Rome clashed head to head. The Council of Basel, with Dufay in attendance, deposed Eugenius IV and picked as his successor Ama-

1378, eighteen received at least one in the diocese of Liege. After 1378 the ratio is four singers out of fifty-seven (taking into account resignations and deprivations). Anne- Lise Rey-Courtel describes the same reversal in "L'Entourage d'Anglic Grimoard, Cardinal d'Albano (i 366-I 388)," Genese et d6buts du Grand Schisme d'Occident: Avignon, 25-28 septembre 1978, Colloques internationaux du centre national de la recherche scientifique, 586 (Paris, 1980), pp. 59-64. In this cardinal's household in 1378, five of his familiars came from the diocese of Liege. Only one other diocese was better represented. By contrast, of ninety-five familiars listed in 1379 and 1388, none came from the diocese of Liege. " The details are in Tomasello, "Musical Culture at Papal Avignon," pp. 420- 21, 455-56. During the Schism it was standard practice for each pope to invalidate the benefices conferred by the other pope within their respective obediences and in contested regions. Nelis, "La Collation des benefices ecclesiastiques," compiled a representative listing of these deprivations, pp. 50-54. Even Johannes Ciconia eventually lost his benefice in Liege, deprived of it in 1408 by agents of the Roman pope; see Clercx, Johannes Ciconia: Un musicien liegeois et son temps, p. 40. Clercx and Hoppin, "Notes biographiques sur quelques musiciens frangais," p. 8i, n. 7, also cite the example of Henri Desire de Latines. After trying to procure benefices in Liege from Clement VII, he joined the Roman choir of Boniface IX in 1389.




deus VIII of Savoy, the father of Dufay's patron. The brief ten-year antipapacy of Felix V (as Amadeus called himself) caught Dufay squarely in the middle of opposing factions, quickly forcing him to choose between patrons and benefices. Remaining in Savoy meant forfeiture of his canonicates outside Savoy (in Bruges and Cambrai); leaving meant abandoning those within the Duchy (in Versoix and Lausanne) but remaining in the good graces of Pope Eugenius IV and his staunchest ally, Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy. Dufay left. Two years later Louis V sought Dufay's return with this unambigu- ous, but futile plea to Philip the Good:

My well loved chaplain and master of my chapel, sire Guillaume du Fay . .would be content to return to my service if it were your pleasure to

so command him and assure him that the benefices that he holds with you would not be withdrawn or removed because of the division which now exists within the Church ... 112

In later decades, unfettered by schismatical politics, patrons composed similar pleas on behalf of favored musicians, as in the 1480s when Ercole I of Ferrara tried to procure benefices from Innocent VIII for Johannes Martini and Jacob Obrecht. Martini received his and stayed, Obrecht did not and returned north.113

The third category contains evidence inferred from related events. For the moment this presents the best means of apprehending the dissolution of the patronage system that freely supplied singers with benefices. With the Council of Trent and the struggle of the church to end abuses and counter the Reformation, there was never a move to abolish benefices. To do so would have invited the financial collapse of the papal bureaucracy.114 But to deal with the abuse of benefices as

112 The quote and the preceding summary of Dufay's actions are drawn from Wright, "Dufay at Cambrai," pp. 191-92.

113 Two of the letters regarding Obrecht's benefices are published by Bain Murray, "New Light on Jacob Obrecht's Development-A Biographical Study," The Musical Quarterly, XLIII ('957), 509-16; and two others by Lewis Lockwood, "Music at Ferrara in the Period of Ercole I d'Este," Studi musicali, I (1972), 112-13, I27-29. There is no reason to assume, as Murray does, that Obrecht sought benefices in Ferrara. The letters implicitly discuss benefices in an unnamed Northern diocese. Indeed, Ercole had just received papal permission to grant Ferrarese benefices the previous year; see n. 93 above.

114 Peter Partner estimates that support of the papal bureaucracy by means of benefices may have doubled "the monies directly controlled by the papal central government" within the course of the sixteenth century; Renaissance Rome, i5oo-i559 (Berkeley, 1976), pp. 50-51.




agents of patronage-both musical and ecclesiastical-such drastic measures were hardly necessary. Singers may soon have felt the

impact of prohibitions on expectancies, restrictions on holding more than one benefice, and reforms designed to require examinations for those seeking ordination or benefices. Further, one of the biggest battles of the Council, fought with particular vehemence at the closing Session of 1562-63, was over the question of residency, that is, of

requiring bishops to reside in their dioceses, rather than in Rome, Paris, or elsewhere. The aim was to enforce residency and the reform of all clergy."•5 This was to take decades to implement, but the effort had begun. With probable repercussions on the flow of musicians to Italy, resident bishops who were inclined to apply Tridentine reforms within their dioceses grew more numerous and influential from the

1560s onward. Northern musicians could no longer turn to patrons in Italy with the certainty of acquiring benefices in their homeland. If they came from Protestant areas, the pope had no benefices to provide; if they came from a Catholic diocese loyal to Rome, much would depend on the sympathies both of the bishop--reform-minded bishops date from 1559 at Cambrai and 1561 at Arras-and of the reigning monarch.116

Papal insistence on the residency of bishops soon tethered the generosity of Roman patrons. The Venetian ambassador to Rome, Girolamo Soranzo, lamented in 1565 that men of talent no longer came to make their fortunes in the service of cardinals, because these cardinals could scarcely provide for themselves. "On account of the

115I To this end, post-Tridentine popes issued numerous decrees and ultimatums, attesting as much to the difficulties of enforcement as to the seriousness of their resolve. The decrees are extensively discussed in the pertinent volumes of Pastor's History of the Popes. On papal attempts to secure French royal support for stringent measures against non-resident bishops, see Victor Martin, Le Gallicanisme et la riforme catholique: Essai historique sur l'introduction en France des dicrets du Concile de Trente (1563-1615) (Paris, I919), pp. I I-I6. A. V. Antonovics, "Counter-Reformation Cardinals: 1534-90," European Studies Review, II (1972), 301-28, reviews many of Pastor's sources, but is more cautious in evaluating the efficacy of certain reform measures.

116 The appointment of bishops who sought reforms in Flemish dioceses, and the prolonged resistance they encountered is well documented, notably by Edouard de Moreau, Histoire de 'Eglise en Belgique, V, L'Eglise des Pays-Bas, i559-i633 (Brussels, 1952), 38-49; and F. Willocx, L'Introduction des dicrets du concile de Trente dans les Pays- Bas et dans la principaute de Liege, Recueil de Travaux . . . de L'Universiti de Louvain, ser. 2, fasc. 14 (1929), pp. I52-79. Willocx cites a survey conducted by the Archbishop of Cambrai ca. 1572, revealing that "the great majority of the clergy had acquired their benefice through simoniacal means" (p. 177).




Tridentine decrees of residence, such men [of talent] could, in spite of all their efforts to secure the favour of the great, only succeed in obtaining a single benefice."'117 To make matters worse, in a decree of 30 April 1567, Pope Pius V curtailed the cardinals' right to bestow benefices on members of their households.118 Pius was only widening the scope of a policy that had drastically diminished the size of the papalfamilia. The cutbacks were far-reaching and methodical, beginning in 1564 with more than 400 dismissals in July and August. In August 1565, Firminus Lebel was among fourteen singers purged. And in November 1566, an observer predicted further reductions, because Pius V did not want "married men or persons with benefices requiring residency in his service."'119 As the work of Pius IV (1559- 65) and Pius V (1566-72) continued through the pontificates of Gregory XII (1572-85) and Sixtus V (1585-90), Europe witnessed a succession of popes intent on making Rome a model of reform.

Benefices for musicians did not quickly disappear, but by the end of the century the more significant Northerners were either not clergy at all, or, if they were-Philippe de Monte with Maximillian II in Vienna, for instance, or Philippe Rogier with Philip II in Madrid- they had found the patronage of employers with stronger political ties

117 " . . e per la medesima causa [residency] in gran parte sono mancati quelli che vogliano servire, perche non si potendo dar ad uno piu di un benefizio

.." This

partially explains Soranzo's preceding observation: "La Corte di Roma non e gia quella che soleva esser ne di qualith ne di quantith di cortigiani." Soranzo's litany of woes faced by curial cardinals and their subordinates is published in Le relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al senato durante il secolo decimosesto, ed. Eugenio Alberi, 15 vols. (Florence, I857), ser. 2, IV, I33-36. The translation is from Pastor, History of the Popes, XVI, 79. 118 Antonovics, "Counter-Reformation Cardinals," pp. 320-21; and Pastor, His- tory of the Popes, XVII, 149-50. In theory this decree should mark a turning point in patronage by cardinals, forcing them to pay their familiars more to compensate for the absence of benefices. But there are not sufficient data from which to compare their patronage before and after I567. Frederick Hammond's study, "Girolamo Frescobal- di and a Decade of Music in Casa Barberini: 1634-1643," Analecta musicologica, XIX (1979), 94-124, documents only one benefice procured with Cardinal Francesco Barberini's help, but several monetary gifts.

119 "Non vuole maritate ne persone che habino benefici di residenzia al suo servitio"; Pastor, History of the Popes, XVII, 142, n. 2, in its continuation on p. 143. Concerning the reductions, also see his remarks in Vol. XVI, p. 81. The musical cutbacks came as a result of a review made by Cardinals Borromeo and Vitelli; see Edmond vander Straeten, La Musique aux Pays-Bas, VI, 376-77. Papal insistence on residency forced the singer Marino Lupi to leave the Cappella Sistina from 27 February 1567 until December, after he had resigned a distant benefice. Richard Sherr documents Lupi's stalling tactics in "From the Diary of a 16th-Century Papal Singer," Current Musicology, XXV (1978), 83-85, 96.




to their homelands. Writing from Rome shortly after the Council of Trent, Cardinal Giovanni Commendone provides this assessment:

The princes . . . looked upon ecclesiastical property as belonging to them, the good ones in the belief that they could administer it better than the church, and the bad ones from greed, and a kind of mania to absorb all rights into their own hands. The Curia, therefore, no longer had the free disposal of benefices. . .. The greater part of the official posts and ecclesiastical revenues were likewise in the power of the princes, wherefore many clerics entered into the service of the secular power.

120

Thus, we have the example of Claude Le Jeune in Paris, who at the time of his death in i6oo, was in the midst of acquiring a benefice from King Henry IV. What makes Le Jeune's provision remarkable is his singular lack of qualifications to hold an ecclesiastical benefice in the Catholic church. He was a devout and vocal Protestant. This would have been unthinkable in Italy or Spain, but in France the clergy did not ratify the articles of the Council of Trent until 161 5.121

Patrons who had no benefices to confer, or singers who were ineligible for them, turned to incomes drawn from non-clerical sources: revenues from land or from the rental of various buildings, the "concession to work various mines,"'22 or the gift of a house. These incomes were competitive with benefices but had the disadvantage for patrons of depleting their own treasuries; moreover, they constituted property that could be passed on hereditarily. With benefices, a patron could look forward to regaining his right to confer the favor anew when the previous holder either died or advanced to a better benefice. But with awards of lands, houses, and the like, a patron's expectation of retrieving the gift in the foreseeable future diminished considerably. 123 Francesco II of Mantua certainly realized

120 This quote is taken from Pastor's careful and extended paraphrase of Commen- done's Discorso sopra la corte di Roma in The History of the Popes, XVI, 62-63. Pastor substantiates his 1564 dating of the Discorso on pp. 482-84.

121 Franqois Lesure and D. P. Walker print the relevant documents and discuss them in their introduction to Claude Le Jeune, Airs (16o8), 4 vols. (Rome, 195i), I, vii-xvii. Victor Martin, Le Gallicanisme et la reforme catholique, discusses the long history of attempts to have the articles ratified in France. On their acceptance in 1615, see pp. 344-95.

122 Lowinsky, "Ascanio's Life," p. 37; and Emilio Motta, "Musici alla corte degli Sforza," Archivio storico lombardo, ser. 2, IV (1887), 517-18.

123 Cecil H. Clough makes this observation in "Francis I and the Courtiers of Castiglione's Courtier," European Studies Review, VIII (1978), 47. For background to the development of inheritance practices in the Middle Ages, see Norman Zacour, An Introduction to Medieval Institutions, 2nd ed. (New York, 1976), pp. 81-83.




this when he bestowed upon Marchetto Cara two estates (apparently for their rental incomes) within a year of Cara's return to secular life. By his subsequent gift of two houses (one worth 6oo ducats), Francesco not only made Marchetto wealthy but also Marchetto's heir. These properties undoubtedly figured among the possessions he willed to his second wife, Barbara, with the proviso that they would revert back to the Marchese if she remarried anyone but a Mantuan citizen. 124

With this we come to some concluding remarks on the subject of salaries. In the face of far larger sums to be made in benefices and properties, salaries for some musicians may have been a lesser concern. 125 The pitfall of confusing a singer's salary with his artistic stature has been sufficiently exposed in discussions of Josquin's wages. That Josquin earned just five ducats a month in Milan and eight in Rome implies neither that his patrons were blind to his talent nor that his talent was somehow latent or undeveloped. On the contrary, as Lowinsky and Noble have discovered, beyond his meager wages Josquin received provisions to benefices, local ones from the Sforza court and Northern ones from Popes Innocent VIII and Alexander VI.126 How then are we to construe his subsequent yearly salary of 2oo00 ducats in Ferrara (1503)? If his earlier low salaries did not signify the absence of artistic recognition, then, conversely, this impressive sum should not connote the presence of such recognition. Rather, whether through Josquin's wishes or through the initiative of Ercole I, this figure seems to have been designed to obviate the need for a benefice. Either Josquin preferred to avoid the administrative difficulties associated with collecting benefices, or Ercole had no benefices to provide.127 In other words, the amount of the salary is

124 William F. Prizer, "Marchetto Cara at Mantua: New Documents on the Life and Duties of a Renaissance Court Musician," Musica disciplina, XXXII (1978), 90, I09.

125 Carl Anthon, "Some Aspects of the Social Status of Italian Musicians during the Sixteenth Century," Journal ofRenaissance and Baroque Music, I (1946), 1 1-23, 222- 34, includes a useful compilation of salary figures for church, town, and court musicians. But his interpretations of the figures overemphasize the importance of salaries.

126 Lowinsky, "Ascanio's Life," and Noble, "New Light on Josquin's Benefices." 127 It is curious that Ercole never provided his maestro di cappella with a benefice.

The list of benefices held by Ferrarese singers in October, I503, published by Helmuth Osthoff,Josquin Desprez, 2 vols. (Tutzing, 1962-65), I, plate I2 and pp. 2 12-

15, places no benefices next to Josquin's name. See also Lockwood, "Josquin at Ferrara," Josquin des Prez, pp. 115-16. Josquin's attempts to procure benefices from Rome in the 1480s and 1490s seemingly proved fruitless, according to Noble's research cited above. The frustration of trying to collect on these provisions would




less remarkable than the simplicity of the funding. Antoine Brumel, one of Josquin's successors as chapelmaster at Ferrara, had a more traditional financial arrangement. His salary was just i oo00 ducats, but this was supplemented by a benefice worth another io00 ducats, plus traveling expenses, thereby matching Josquin's earnings.128 The same figure surfaces again in the intricate fiscal package offered to the lutenist Giovanni Testagrossa by the Duke of Urbino in 151o. As with Isaac and Cara, Testagrossa had married, making benefices unfeasible. Instead, the duke proposed (in Testagrossa's words) to

give me the position of man-at-arms without having to go to battle, which is worth I20 ducats, and then 24 ducats in [assigned] taxes, which totals 144, and then his Lordship will supply the remainder up to 200, and will give me the expenses for three to eat well and three horses, and then, to spite Gian Maria Giudeo, he will give me as soon as his Lordship arrives in Urbino, a benefice of o100 ducats a year for my son.129

Josquin's salary compares in size, and I believe also in context, to the 200 ducat salary offered by the basilica of San Marco in Venice to their maestri di cappella from the appointment of Adrian Willaert (1527-62) onward.130 San Marco was the church of the doge, and its

only have added to the attraction for him of employment at a salary that exceeded what most singers made from a salary plus a benefice. Josquin's competitor for the Ferrarese post was Isaac, to whom, of course, Ercole could not have given a benefice. Lockwood discusses Ercole's inability to have his papal Indult reconfirmed during 1503 and the first half of 1504, exactly the period of Josquin's residence, in "Strategies of Patronage," p. 240.

128 Vander Straeten published the series of letters pertaining to his salary and hiring in La Musique aux Pays-Bas, VI, 95-102. Also see Craig Wright, "Antoine Brumel and Patronage at Paris," Music in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, p. 56.

129 The translation is William F. Prizer's, from his "Lutenists at the Court of Mantua in the Late Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries," Journal of the Lute Society of America, XIII (1980), ii. The ruse of granting a benefice to the infant son of a married man also occurred twenty years earlier, when Johannes Verbonnet petitioned Ercole I for a provision for his child Hercule; see Lowinsky's editorial note to Lockwood's "Josquin at Ferrara," p. io09, n. i8. The spite intended for Gian Maria Giudeo, the favorite lutenist of Leo X, alludes to the impracticality of this ploy for Gian Maria, a Jew, and his son Camillus. Frey attributes the "aussergewohnliche H6he seiner monatlichen Provision" to Gian Maria's talent, but it attests also to his ineligibility for benefices. This ineligibility may also explain the brief presence of Camillus on Leo X's payroll in 1518; see Frey, "Regesten zu pipstlichen Kapelle unter Leo X.," pp. 4x15, 427-3 x (cited in n. 3).

13o The Procurators of San Marco hired Willaert, a married man, for seventy ducats a year plus his residence. By the end of his tenure, his annual salary had risen to 200 ducats.




musical positions were civic appointments, which ruled out the benefice as a form of patronage. Accordingly, when the basilica's Procurators attempted to lure singers from elsewhere in Italy and from the North in 1595, two of the three enticements they advertised were "security of employment [in Venice] for their entire life," and the "many opportunities to earn extra money by singing in other churches in the city.""131 To a Flemish singer evaluating the relative merits of a lump-sum salary in Venice, or the combination of a living wage plus a local canonicate in Ferrara, or a salary plus a rental property near Milan, the essential differences would have been administrative. A home, some land, an honorary position as man-at- arms, or a local Italian benefice-these emoluments could lead to wealth, but they also tied the patronized to the patron. And, for Northerners in Italy, they precluded retirement to the musician's birthplace. Willaert's salary would not follow him back to Flanders; nor, for that matter, would Brumel's income from his Ferrarese benefice. 132

These are preliminary thoughts, but ones that may help to answer the question of why (in Pirrotta's words) "the age that saw an enormous display of native [i.e., Italian] ingenuity in architecture, the fine arts, and all minor crafts should have leaned so heavily on foreign talent only for music." As Pirrotta also observes, "the undisputed prestige of the French musical tradition" cannot account for it all. 133 It bears stressing that music was the art most susceptible to the exploitation of benefices as a major form of patronage. Unlike most architects, artists, craftsmen, and the like, musicians were frequently members of the clergy.134 Literature is the exception that proves the rule, since the church and its benefices constituted a traditional means of support for numerous writers. But the importance of the vernacular in the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries and of the classics in the

13 James H. Moore, Vespers at St. Mark's: Music of Alessandro Grandi, Giovanni Rovetta and Francesco Cavalli (Ann Arbor, 1981), p. 76. The third was freedom from service on ferial days.

132 Alfonso II of Ferrara said as much when he informed Antoine Brumel that theirs was a lifetime agreement. Should Brumel leave, the benefice would be withdrawn. "Et advertiti bene chio volendo venire veniati com pensero de servirni in vita et non ne partire mai senza nostra bona licentia, altramente stativene pii presto a casa vostra, perche quando contrafacesti, ve faremo levare subito el beneficio"; (my italics) vander Straeten, La Musique aux Pays-Bas, VI, ioi.

133 "Music and Cultural Tendencies in i5th-Century Italy," p. 129. '34 It is indicative of how small a role benefices played in the patronage of artists

that benefices are not once mentioned in D. S. Chamber's useful anthology, Patrons and Artists in the Italian Renaissance (London, 1970), neither in the introduction nor in the chapter on "Clerical Patronage."




fifteenth century precluded any widespread influx of Northern writers into Italy.135

The systematic use of benefices to patronize musicians put Italians at a disadvantage through much of the Renaissance. Although in many ways atypical, Brunet's example is nevertheless revealing. Brunet did not venture to Rome because the pope had recruited him for his musical abilities; rather, he seems to have come of his own initiative, drawn, it seems likely, by papal access to benefices in Brittany. Since he was already in the papal family seeking benefices, Brunet was available when the canons of San Pietro needed a new organist. Yet for deeper reasons than this, the system was inherently discriminatory against Italian musicians. While the pope could attract Northerners because of his rights to confer Northern benefices, other Italian prelates or nobles who wanted Northern musicians were restricted to provisions of local benefices. Italian musicians remaining in the church thus faced a restricted future. Few of them could acquire a Northern benefice, and the finite pool of local benefices had to be shared with Northerners. Cara's return to secular life (ca. 1498) may betoken a tendency-musical and cultural-among the ambitious musicians of his generation to see their brightest prospects outside the church. Indeed, Italian instrumentalists rivaled Flemish singers in their mobility, finding patrons in France and Italy with equal ease.136

In the evolution from medieval generalist to Renaissance specialist, economic incentives outweigh the effects of cultural differences and educational reforms. Benefices stand out as the form of remuneration most likely to have contributed to this evolution. For musicians, benefices represented an enviable combination of a comparatively secure income, support in old age, and freedom to concentrate on a musical livelihood. A singer in Rome, Madrid, or any court removed from the source of his prebends and canonicates enjoyed a recompense for non-musical duties, duties that he was exempt from performing. It is not difficult to see how popes and princes could exploit this

•3 Carlo Dionisotti's essay, "Chierici e laici nella letteratura italiana del primo

Cinquecento," Problemi di vita religiosa in Italia nel cinquecento: Atti del Convegno di storia della chiesa in Italia (Bologna, 2-6 sett. 1958) (Padua, I960), pp. I167-85, examines one hundred writers in the first half of the sixteenth century. Of the fifty who were clerics, fully twenty attained the rank of bishop or cardinal. The situation of writers in Florence parallels that of musicians. Out of fifty Italian lay writers, a quarter were Florentine and a third were Tuscan (p. 175). For a study of French clergy, humanists, and diplomats who wrote in Italian, see Emile Picot, Les Frangais italianisants au XVIe siecle (Paris, i906).

136 Emile Picot laid the groundwork for a study of Italian musicians in France with "Les Italiens en France au seizieme siecle," a six-part study in Bulletin italien, I-IV




situation for their own artistic gain: benefices gave patrons the financial means to afford the luxury of familiars whose responsibilities were primarily or exclusively musical. The principal was one of external funds for internal favor.

Before any firm conclusions can be reached many more benefices must be examined and analyzed, especially from later in the sixteenth century. We need studies of how benefices functioned as agents of

patronage at individual courts, generation by generation, and ruler by ruler; and we would like to know when the traditional difficulties of

securing the collation of Northern benefices became prohibitive. Further, specific religious and civic events need to be scrutinized for their impact on the movements of musicians toward benefices. From a Northern perspective, the short-term effect of ecclesiastical reforms on musical careers may actually have been less than that of political realignments. In this light, the diocesan reorganization of Flanders and Lie'ge from six dioceses before 1559 to nineteen afterward may prove less consequential for our concerns than the treaty of Cateau-

Cambr6sis in the same year, the event that led to the departure of the French from Italy and the entrenchment of the Spanish. Finally, with an eye to the fourteenth century, the initial move by patrons to endow their singers with benefices that did not require residency may represent a key step toward a new professionalism among musicians. Future research will help determine whether the creation of a class of specialists was the intent of this policy or its chance result. For now, it

appears that benefices may be at the heart of a patronage system that allowed music to take precedence in the careers of musicians, while also helping Northerners to take precedence in Italian courts.

McGill University

(1901-1904), and XVII-XVIII (1917-18). He discusses musicians, all of them instrumentalists, in Vol. IV, pp. 307-1 I. For Italians, the first step toward receiving French patronage, ecclesiastical or secular, was to obtain a letter of naturalization; see Jules Mathorez, "Le Clerg6 italien en France au seizieme sicle," Revue d'histoire de l'Eglise de France, VIII (1922), 424. More recent studies include Fernando Liuzzi, I musicisti italiani in Francia (Rome, 1946); and, though not of musicians, Eric Cochrane's monumental work, Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago, 1981), especially the section "Italians in the North," pp. 342-59. One of his sources is the chronicle of the instrumentalist Cerbonio Besozzi. At one time a string player under Lassus, Besozzi includes several references to musical performance in his text. In addition to the bibliography cited by Cochrane, see the recent edition by Cesare Malfatti, Cronaca di Cerbonio Besozzi (Trent, 1967), and the discussion of Cerbonio's musical references by Bruno Pederzolli, "Cerbonio Besozzi della cappella musicale di Trento (I548)," Studi trentini di scienze storiche, XL (1961), 2 I19-3 16; XLI (I962), 3-21, I21-40.




APPENDIX

EXTRACTS FROM LITTERAE BENEFICIALES IN THE ARCHIVIO SEGRETO VATICANO PERTAINING TO JOHANNES BRUNET

Italic letters indicate editorial completions of abbreviations. Punctuation has been added and spelling standardized. My thanks to George Wright of the Institute of Medieval Canon Law, Berkeley, California, for his assistance in putting these documents in order.

Letter i: Reg. Vat. 741, fols. I8v-I9v (20 March 1486) Dilecto filio Johanni Brunet, monacho monasterii sancti Melanii extra muros Redon- enses ordinis Sancti benedicti, familiari nostro, Salutem etc. . . . dudum siquidem volentes tibi, cum quo ante, ut accepimus, tunc prioratum sancti Salvatoris de Guimgampo ordinis sancti benedicti Trecorensis diocesis obtinente, ut unacum illo duo et absque eo tria alia quacumque cum cura et sine cura beneficia ecclesiastica

... gratiam facientes specialem, motu proprio, et ex certa scientia, unum vel duo beneficium seu beneficia ecclesiasticum vel ecclesiastica cum cura vel sine cura per Sancti melanii extra muros Redonenses et maioris monasterii prope Turonensem dicti ordinis monachos obtineri . . . Nos te qui etiam continuus commensalis noster et, ut [fol. 19] accepimus, de nobili genere procreatus existis . . . motu simili non ad tuam

.. instantiam, sed de nostra mera liberalitate litteras predictas cum reservationibus inhibitionibus et decretis ac omnibus et singulis aliis in eis contentis clericis necnon processus habitos per easdem ac inde secuta quocunque ab eorum omnium data ad infrascripta extendentes

...

Letter 2: Reg. Vat. 764, fols. 120-2,v (26 November 1486) Dilecto filio Johanni Brunet, priori prioratus de Becherello ordinis sancti Benedicti Macloviensis diocesis, familiari nostro, Salutem etc. .

.. Exhibita siquidem nobis nuper

pro parte tua petitio continebat quod olim prioratu de Becherello ordinis sancti Benedicti Macloviensis diocesis, quem quondam Johannes Natalis, ipsius prioratus prior, dum viveret, obtinebat, per obitum dicti Johannis, qui extra romanam curiam diem clausit extremum, vacante . . . [fol. 12ov] Nos causam huiusmodi, non obstante quod ad dictam curiam legitime devoluta et apud eam de iuris necessitate tractanda et finienda non esset, venerabili fratri nostro Johanni [Ceretano] episcopo Nucerinensi, locum unius ex auditoribus causarum palatii apostolici de mandato nostro tenenti, ad ipsius Guidonis du Quirissec [clerici venetensis diocesis] instantiam audiendam commisimus . . . [fol. 121] ac quamvis tu de monasterio sancti Melanii ordinis sancti Benedicti Redonensis diocesis, cuius, tempore tibi factarum collationis et provisionis predictarum, monachus eras, ad dictum monasterium maioris monasterii legitime translatus non fueris, te de monasteriis sancti Melanii [ad] monasterium maioris monasterii huiusmodi trasferendum et inibi recipiendum. . . et nichilominus venerabili fratri nostro episcopo Dolensi et dilecto filio thesaurario ecclesie Trecorensis ac officiali Macloviensi per apostolica scripta mandamus

...

Letter 3: Reg. Vat. 741, fols. 2o6v-2o8 (16 January 1487) Innocentius etc. Ad futuram rei memoriam romanus pontifex .... Exhibita siquidem nobis nuper pro parte dilecti filii Johannis Brunet, prioris prioratus de Becherello ordinis sancti Benedicti Macloviensis diocesis, familiaris nostri, petitio continebat quod si prioratus de sancto Pedreuc dicti ordinis Dolensis diocesis, quem et prioratum de




Becherello predictum ipse Johannes ex concessione et dispensatione apostolica inter alia obtinet, eidem prioratui de Becherello, quando ipse Johannes ilium obtinuerit, dumtaxat uniretur annecteretur et incorporaretur profecto ex hoc commoditatibus ipsius Johannis oportune consuleretur, quare pro parte dicti Johannis asserentisse de nobili genere ex utroque parente procreatum fore quodque de sancto Pedreuc viginti- quatuor et de Becherello prioratuum predictorum centum quadraginta librarum turonensium parvarum fructus redditus et proventus, super quibus annua pensio quinquaginta librarum monete Britannie dilecto filio Guidoni du Quirissec clerico Venetensis diocesis auctoritate apostolica reservata existit . . . [fol. 207] voluimus pro expresso [ut] pendeat [causa] indecisa dummodo tempore datum presentium non sit in eo aliud alicui specialiter ius quesitum cum omnibus iuribus et pertenentibus suis eidem prioratui de Becherello ad vitam ipsius Johannis dumtaxat auctoritate apostolica tenore presentium uniretur annecteretur et incorporaretur ...

Letter 4: Reg. Vat. 729, fols. I88v-9ov (7 February 1487) Venerabili fratri episcopo Lascurensi et dilectis filiis scolastico ecclesie Venetensis ac officiali Nannetensi, Salutem etc. Grata familiaritatis obsequia quae dilectus filius Johannes Brunet, prior prioratus de Becherello ordinis sancti Benedicti Macloviensis diocesis, familiaris noster . . . cum itaque, sicut accepimus, prioratus de Aindre dicti ordinis Nannetensis diocesis, quam quondam Egidius le Morays clericus in commendam ex concessione et dispensatione sedis apostolice, dum vivet, obtinebat, commenda huiusmodi, per obitum ipsius Egidii, qui extra romanam curiam diem clausit extremum, cessante .. . [fol. I89] Motu proprio. .. mandamus quatenus vos vel duo aut unus vestrum per vos vel alium seu alios prioratum de Aindre predictum qui etiam conventualis non est et monasterio Burgidolensi dn. vr. Bituricensis diocesis dependet et cuius fructibus redditus et proventus centum viginta librarum turonensium parvarum secundum communem extimationem valorem annuum ...

Letter 5: Reg. Vat. 738, fols. I39v-42 (3 June 1488) Venerabili fratri Johanni [Ceretano] episcopo Nucerinensi in romana curia residenti, Salutem etc. Grata familiaritatis obsequia quae dilectus filius Johannes Brunet, monachus monasterii maioris monasterii prope Turonensem ordinis sancti Benedicti, familiaris noster. . . . Exhibita siquidem nobis nuper pro parte dicti Johannis petitio continebat quod orta dudum inter eum et dilectum filium Simonem Rio qui legerit pro monacho dicti ordinis super prioratum beate Marie magdalenes de Malestructo [fol. 140] dicti ordinis Venetensis diocesis quem tunc certo modo vacantem Johannes se vigore quarundam aliarum litterarum nostrarum gratis expectative per nos sibi concessar- ium et processum desuper habitorum, prout ex illorum forma poterat, infra ipsius legitimum acceptasse. . . . Nos causam huiusmodi, non obstante quod ad romanam curiam legitime devoluta et apud eam de iuris necessitate tractanda et finienda non esset, tibi, locum unius ex causarum palatii apostolici auditoribus tenenti, ad ipsius Johannis instantiam audiendam commisimus et sine debito terminandam; tuque in ea ad nonnullos actus citra tuam conclusionem diceris processisse. Cum autem, sicut eadem petitio subiungebat, nonnullis asseratur neutri dictorum Johannis et Simonis in ipso prioratu vel ad illud ius competere et, si dictus prioratus prioratui de Aindre eiusdem ordinis Nannetensis diocesis, quem prefatus Johannes ex concessione et dispensatione apostolica in commendam obtinet, ad vitam ipsius Johannis, dumtaxat uniretur annecteretur et incorporaretur profecto ex hoc, comoditatibus [fol. 140v] ipsius, postquam dictus prioratus beate Marie assecutus foret, oportune consuleretur. Quare pro parte dicti Johannis asserentes quod beate Marie magdalenes sexaginta et de Aindre prioratum predictorum centum librarum turonensium . . . non excedunt . [fol.

14i] Mandamus . . . tibi constiterit neutri ipsorum Johannis et Simonis in ipso




prioratu beate Marie seu ad illud ius quomodolibet competere ilium qui conventualis aut dignatus non est et [a] monasterio maioris monasterii huiusmodi dependet et per illius monachos gubernari consuevit quovis modo et ex quacumque persona seu per liberam resignationem cuiusvis aut similem cessionem dicti Jeronimi [Franchini] de illo extra dictam curiam etiam coram notario publico et testibus sponte factam

...

Letter 6: Reg. Vat. 735, fols. 70-72v (7 October 1488) Dilecto filio Johanni Brunet, priori prioratus sancti Jacobi de Becherello ordinis sancti Benedicti Macloviensis diocesis, familiari nostro, Salutem etc. . . . Dudum siquidem postquam tecum, sicut accepimus, ut unacum prioratu sancti Salvatoris de Guin- campo ordinis sancti Benedicti Trecorensis diocesis, quem tunc obtinebas, duo et absque eo tria alia . . . [fol. 7 I] prout in singulis litteris predictis, quarum tenores presentibus haberi litteris volumus, tu postmodum insule Tristam ad maioris monasterii et de Baton ad sancti Melanii monasteriorum abbatum et conventum predictorum collationem provisionem presentatem seu quamvis aliam dispositionem pertinentes Corisopi- tensi et Rhedonensi diocesibus prioratus tunc certo modo vacantes sunt. . . [fol. 71Iv] ac cum illis reservationibus inhibitionibus et decretis huiusmodi aliisque in eis contentis clericis quibuscunque ad aliud beneficium ecclesiasticum per monachos monasterio sancti Jovini de Narni dicti ordinis Maleacensis [corrected in the margin to "Pictaviensis"] diocesis obtineri solitum ad dilectorum filiorum abbatis et conventus eiusdem monasterium sancti Jovini collationem. . . et cum, sicut accepimus, ex litteris huiusmodi etiam si reintegratis et revalidatis quo ad collationem provisionem presentationem electionem seu ipsius aliam dispositionem [fol. 72] abbatis et conventus monasterii sancti Melanii predictorum, nullum fructum consequi speres litteras ipsas ac processus habitos per easdem quo ad collationem provisionem . . . seu ipsius aliam dispositionem abbatis et conventus monasterii sancti Melanii huiusmodi, te ad volente ius et ex hoc expresse consentiente, cessantes irritante et amittentes ac viribus vacantes et ad collationem dilectorum filiorum abbatis et conventus monasterii sancti Florenti prope Salmurum dicti ordinis Andegavensis diocesis mutantes et extendentes

...

Letter 7: Reg. Vat. 741, fols. 67-70 (19 December 1488) Dilecto filio Johanni Bruneti, priori prioratus sancti Jacobi de Becherello Macloviensis diocesis ordinis sancti Benedicti, familiari nostro, Salutem etc. . . . [fol. 69] tibi, quo ad vixeris, vel procuratori tuo legitimo in locis et terminis ac sub penis et censuris ad hoc per eosdem ordinarios, personas dignitate ecclesiastica constitutas, seu canonicos statuendis solvendos et per te, quo ad vixeris, una cum omnibus et singulis beneficiis ecclesiasticis cum cura et sine cura, per te pro tempore obtentis percipiendas exigendas, et levandas reservandi constituendi et assignandi ac omnia et singula alia in premissis et circa ea necessaria seu quomodolibet oportuna faciendi et exequendi auctoritate apostolica tenore presentium plenam et liberam licentiam concedimus et etiam faculta- tem.

Letter 8: Reg. Vat. 737, fols. 323-25 (7 February 1489)

Dilecto filio Johanni abbati monasterii sancti Mathei in finibus terrarum ordinis sancti Benedicti Leonensis diocesis, Salutem etc. . .. Dudum siquidem quondam Johanne abbate monasterii sancti Mathei in finibus terrarum Leonensis diocesis regimini eiusdem monasterii presidente. . .. Postmodum non prefato monasterio per obitum ipsius Johannis abbatis, qui extra romanam curiam diem clausit extremum, vacante.. . . [fol. 323v] Cum fratribus nostris huiusmodi diligentem donum ad te priorem prioratus de Becherello dicti ordinis Macloviensis diocesis ordinem ipsum expresse professum de




nobili genere ex utroque parente procreatum, familiarem nostrum, continuus commensalis . . . accepta dicto monasterio de fratrum eorundem consilio auctoritate apostolica providemus. . . [fol. 324] Similmodo: Dilecto filio Johanni Brunet, priori prioratus de Becherello ordinis sancti Benedicti Macloviensis diocesis, Salutem etc. .. . Cum itaque nos hodie monasterio sancti Mathei in finibus terrarum ordinis sancti Benedicti Leonensis diocesis abbatem ad presentes certo modo, regimine destituto, de persona tua nobis et fratribus nostris ob tuorum exigentiam meritorum accepta de fratrum eorundem consilio auctoritate apostolica providemus. . . . [fol. 324v] Similmodo: Venerabili fratri episcopo Leonensi, Salutem etc . . . Hodie monasterio sancti Mathei in finibus terrarum ordinis sancti Benedicti Leonensis diocesis tunc, per obitum quondam Johannis de Forestia olim ipsius monasterii abbatis extra romanam curiam defuncti, abbatis regimine destituto, de persona dilecti filii Johannis Brunet abbatis dicti monasterii etc ... Similmodo: [fol. 325] Dilectis filiis universis vasallis monasterii sancti Mathei in finibus terrarum ordinis sancti Benedicti Leonensis diocesis, Salutem. Hodie monasterio sancti Mathei etc ... Similmodo: Dilectis filiis conventui monasterii sancti Mathei in finibus terrarum etc. Hodie etc ...

Letter 9: Reg. Vat. 737, fols. 325-27 (7 February 1489) Dilecto filio Johanni Brunet, abbati monasterii sancti Mathei in finibus terrarum ordinis sancti Benedicti Leonensis diocesis, Salutem etc. . . . [fol. 325v] et, sicut accepimus, tu speres provisionis et perfectionis eorundem nonnullas dispensationes et gratias etiam expectationes illarumque revalidationem extensiones et collationum mutationes apostolica sede et alias haberes: ac prioratum de Becherello ordinis sancti Benedicti Macloviensis diocesis et nonnulla alia beneficia ecclesiastica. . . . Motu proprio S

... liberalitate auctoritate apostolica decerimus [fol. 326] dispensationes et gratias

etiam expectationes illarumque revalidationes extensiones et collationum mutationes. ... Et nichilominus tecum ut unacum monasterio predicto, quo olim illi prefueris prioratus prefatus, qui conventualis non est et a monasterio maioris monasterii prope Turonensem dicti ordinis dependet, cuique cura per vicarium perpetuum exerceri solita imminet animarum ...

Letter io: Reg. Vat. 744, fols. 38v-39v (14 May 1489) Dilecto filio abbati monasterii sancti Mathei in finibus terrarum ordinis sancti Benedicti Leonensis diocesis, in decretis bacalario, familiari nostro, Salutem etc

... Exhibita siquidem nobis nuper pro parte tua petitio continebat quod si prioratus de Becherello dicti ordinis Macloviensis diocesis quem ex concessione et dispensatione apostolica in commendam obtinet, et, super tuis fructibus redditibus et proventibus, pensio annua quinquaginta librarum monete usualis in partibus Britannie cuiusvim habentes dilecto filio Guidoni du Quirissec clerico Venetensis diocesis dudum apostolica auctoritate reservata constituta et assignata existit monasterio sancti Mathei in finibus terrarum dicti ordinis Leonensis diocesis, cui preesse ignoscitur, quo olim eidem monasterio prefueris, uniretur annecteretur et incorporaretur ex hoc commoditatibus tuis consuleretur quare pro parte tua nobis fuit humiliter supplicatum et prioratum predictum dicto monasterio cuius fructus redditus et proventus trecentarum librarum Turonensium parvarum . . non excedunt, quo olim illi prefueris, ut prefertur unire annectere et incorporare aliisque in premissis oportune providere de benignitate apostolica dignaremus . . huiusmodi supplicatum inchoati prioratum predictum qui



MUSICAL CAREERS, ECCLESIASTICAL BENEFICES 97 conventualis aut [fol. 39] dignatus non est et a monasterio maioris monasterii prope Turonensem dicti ordinis dependet ac per illius monachos obtineri consuevit cuiusque et prioratus de sancto Pedreuc dicti ordinis Dolensis diocesis eidem prioratui de Beche- rello ad vitates tuas uniti fructus redditus et proventus centum quadraginta librarum Turonensium . . . non excedunt cum annexa huiusmodi ac omnibus iuribus et pertenentibus sive dicto monasterio sancti Mathei, quo olim illi prefueis, auctoritate apostolica tenore presentium uniretur annecteretur et incorporaretur ...

Letter Ii: Reg. Vat. 777, fols. I5v-I7 (24 June 1493)

Dilecto filio Johanni, abbati monasterii sancti Mathei in finibus terrarum ordinis sancti Benedicti Leonensis diocesis, apostolice sedis nuntio ac in Turonensis provincia Ducatus Britannie eiusque civitatibus que diocesibus fructuum reddituum et proventuum camere apostolice debitorum collectori, Salutem etc. .

.. Hinc est quod nos tibi ac tua probitate

plena in domino confidentes te in provincia Turonense eiusque civitatibus et diocesibus in Ducatu britannie consistentibus nostrum quo apostolice sedis nuntium ac fructuum reddituum et proventuum [fol. 16] censuum aliorumque iurium quorumcunque nobis ac Romane ecclesie et camere apostolice inibi debitorum que debendorum collectorem et generalem receptorem usque ad nostrum et eiusdem sedis beneplacitum ...

