I.

Introduction

Guillaume de Machaut (c.1300-1377), pre-eminent French composer of the late Medieval period of early music, and a leading poet. He was the chief exponent of the musical modernizing movement known as the Ars Nova. Born in Machaut in the Champagne district, he was clerk of the diocese of Reims and served as secretary to John of Bohemia, and then, after the latter’s death at Crécy in 1346, to different princes of France and of Navarre. He ended his days as a canon of Reims Cathedral.