MACHAUT, Guillaume de
b Rheims, c1300
d Rheims, April 1377, aged seventy-seven

He was in the service of the King of Bohemia from about 1323 until the king's death in 1346. Pope John XXII granted him canonries in 1330, 1332 and 1333. He settled in Rheims in about 1340, and for the rest of his life enjoyed the friendship and patronage of the highest nobility in France. He had a larger output of compositions than any other composer in the fourteenth century.

His work was almost entirely vocal, and included: a mass; twenty-three motets; forty-two ballades; twenty-two rondeaux; thirty-three virelais; nineteen lais.