Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.
Note: Messe De Nostre Dame is correct. 14th-Century French said "Nostre Dame",
unlike modern-day French, which says "Notre Dame".
English: Cloister of the Cistercian Abbey of Le Thoronet, Var, France.
Français: Cloître de l'abbaye du Thoronet, Var, France.
Photo: 14 June 2005.
Author: Alain Bourque (http://www.flickr.com/people/zboula/).
(Wikimedia Commons)
Le Thoronet Abbey (French: L'abbaye du Thoronet) is a former Cistercian Abbey, built in the Late-12th-Century and Early-13th-Century, now restored as a museum. It is sited between the towns of Draguignan and Brignoles in the Var Départment of Provence, in South-East France. It is one of the three Cistercian Abbeys in Provence, along with the Sénanque Abbey and Silvacane Abbey, that, together, are known as "the Three Sisters of Provence."
Le Thoronet Abbey is one of the best examples of the spirit of the Cistercian Order. Even the acoustics of the Church imposed a certain discipline upon the Monks. Because of the stone walls, which created a long echo, the Monks were forced to sing slowly and perfectly together. The Abbey is fundamentally connected to its site, and is an exceptional example of spirituality and philosophy transformed into architecture. It is distinguished, like other Cistercian Abbeys, by its purity, harmony, and lack of decoration or ornament.
A page from a manuscript of the poet and composer, Guillaume de Machaut,
showing the three-part Rondeau Dame, mon cuer en vous remaint
(Rondeau 22 in the Schrade edition).
Picture from library of Congress web page [1].
Original manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fons français, 1586.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Machaut composed in a wide range of styles and forms. He is a part of the musical movement known as the ars nova. Machaut helped develop the motet and secular song forms (particularly the lai and the formes fixes: rondeau, virelai and ballade). Machaut wrote the Messe de Nostre Dame, the earliest known complete setting of the Ordinary of the Mass attributable to a single composer.
Messe de Nostre Dame.
Guillaume de Machaut
(1300 - 1377).
Performed at the Cistercian Abbey
of Le Thoronet (Var, France)
Available on YouTube at
Cloister and Tower of Le Thoronet Abbey,
Provence, France.
Photo: December 2007.
Source: Own work.
Author: SiefkinDR.
(Wikimedia Commons)
He was employed as secretary to John I, Count of Luxembourg and King of Bohemia, from 1323 to 1346 and also became a Canon (1337). He often accompanied King John on his various trips, many of them military expeditions around Europe (including Prague). He was named the Canon of Verdun in 1330, Arras in 1332, and Rheims in 1337. By 1340, Machaut was living in Rheims, having relinquished his other Canonic posts at the request of Pope Benedict XII.
English: Cloisters of Le Thoronet Abbey, Var, France.
Deutsch: Ehemaliges Zisterzienserkloster Le Thoronet im Département Var
in der französischen Region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Kreuzgang.
Photo: 19 September 2011.
Source: Own work.
Author: GFreihalter.
(Wikimedia Commons)
In 1346, King John was killed fighting at the Battle of Crécy, and Machaut, who was famous and much in demand, entered the service of various other aristocrats and rulers, including King John's daughter Bonne (who died of the Black Death in 1349), her sons Jean de Berry and Charles (later Charles V, Duke of Normandy), and others, such as Charles II of Navarre.
The Chapter House, Le Thoronet Abbey, Var, France,
where the Monks met daily.
This building is classé au titre des Monuments Historiques. It is indexed
in the Base Mérimée, a database of architectural heritage
maintained by the French Ministry of Culture,
under the reference PA00081747.
Photo: 31 July 2012.
Source: Own work.
Author: Katty Castellat.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Machaut survived the Black Death that devastated Europe and spent his later years living in Rheims composing and supervising the creation of his complete-works manuscripts. His poem Le voir dit (probably 1361–1365) purports to recount a late love affair with a 19-year-old girl, Péronne d'Armentières, although the accuracy of the work as autobiography is contested. When he died in 1377, other composers such as François Andrieu wrote elegies lamenting his death.
Machaut (at right) receiving Nature and three of her children.
From an illuminated Parisian manuscript of the 1350s.
Guillaume de Machaut as shown in a French miniature of the 14th-Century,
"An allegorical scene in which Nature offers Machaut
three of her children - Sense, Rhetoric, and Music."
Quoted description from http://www.nvcc.edu/home/jwulff/machaut/M2.JPG,
image itself from http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/machaut_pic.html [does not work]
(Wikimedia Commons)
