Earning a living
Machaut received a salary for his work for John of Bohemia, but such funds were often supplemented by benefices—church positions often received as a reward for service to royal or noble employers. This system may seem strange to modern eyes, but it was an important part of the medieval world.
Take the first piece of documentary evidence we have for Machaut. In a bull dated 30 July 1330, Pope John XXII makes a grant to Machaut. This position is called a canonicate and prebend (salary or stipend) at Verdun cathedral “in expectation,” meaning the position was not currently open, but Machaut would receive the next vacancy, when one of the current community of canons would die or leave for another position. It also mentions that Machaut already held a chaplaincy at the Hospital of Sainte-Marie-de-Houdain, a position without formal responsibilities that Earp suggests may have been intended to fund Machaut’s education.
A cathedral such as Verdun would have a number of canons, who would celebrate the liturgy and serve as the overall administrators of the church and its property. Reims, according to Leach, had 72 canon positions, which were held by 70 full prebends and four semi-prebends. This does not, however, mean that all canons were in fact actively working in the cathedral. On the contrary, Leach notes that less than half Reims’ canons were usually in residence; even an occasion as important as the installation of a new archbishop in 1340 drew only 30 canons. Canons not in residence usually were actually serving royal and noble patrons. They would receive income from their benefice, and then they could pay a vicar (substitute) to perform the liturgy and do any other necessary work. Like most members of the administrative class in fourteenth-century France, Machaut held various benefices in this way.
This 1330 document also tells us that Machaut served as John’s “clerico, elemosinario et familiari suo domestico,” his clerk, almoner, and a member of his household. The title “almoner” suggests one who gives alms in the name of his employer, but by this time the position had acquired a wide range of other responsibilities, especially associated with ritual and ceremony and with hospitals. Later documents show Machaut moving up the administrative ladder, as a notary in 1332 and secretary in 1333. As secretary, Machaut would have signed both private and official documents. (Unfortunately, no example in Machaut’s hand is known to survive, but some copies do.) By his mid-thirties, then, Machaut was a trusted member of the king’s administration.
As a result, he continued to receive benefices at the king’s request. Sometimes he would give up one in favor of another, but often the documents show he was allowed to hold more than one. This was not uncommon, and it even makes sense in the case of expectatives, which are not actually prebends but a promise for sometime in the future. Clerics such as Machaut would often collect benefices, or trade them until they finally settled on one, often in the region from which they came. That became not only a source of income, but a position to which the cleric could retire in a sense. For Machaut, that retirement position was a canonry at Reims cathedral. The practice of holding more than one benefice was often criticized, and Pope Benedict XII in 1335 reduced Machaut’s to one in expectation in addition to one he already held—and that one he would have to give up when a canonry at Reims became available.
That finally happened on 28 January 1338. The relevant document shows that Machaut was not actually in Reims, so a proxy formally received the position in his name. He can be documented in Reims in April 1340, at the installation of a new archbishop, and at various dates thereafter, but it is unclear exactly when he entered more or less full-time residence there. The traditional view sees him settling in Reims from 1340, but Roger Bowers and Elizabeth Eva Leach read the rather sparse surviving documents from the 1340s as indicating short-term visits to Reims rather than permanent residency. Bowers puts Machaut in Reims more or less continually only from around 1360, which would fit the notion of a canonry as effectively a retirement position.
Take the first piece of documentary evidence we have for Machaut. In a bull dated 30 July 1330, Pope John XXII makes a grant to Machaut. This position is called a canonicate and prebend (salary or stipend) at Verdun cathedral “in expectation,” meaning the position was not currently open, but Machaut would receive the next vacancy, when one of the current community of canons would die or leave for another position. It also mentions that Machaut already held a chaplaincy at the Hospital of Sainte-Marie-de-Houdain, a position without formal responsibilities that Earp suggests may have been intended to fund Machaut’s education.
A cathedral such as Verdun would have a number of canons, who would celebrate the liturgy and serve as the overall administrators of the church and its property. Reims, according to Leach, had 72 canon positions, which were held by 70 full prebends and four semi-prebends. This does not, however, mean that all canons were in fact actively working in the cathedral. On the contrary, Leach notes that less than half Reims’ canons were usually in residence; even an occasion as important as the installation of a new archbishop in 1340 drew only 30 canons. Canons not in residence usually were actually serving royal and noble patrons. They would receive income from their benefice, and then they could pay a vicar (substitute) to perform the liturgy and do any other necessary work. Like most members of the administrative class in fourteenth-century France, Machaut held various benefices in this way.
This 1330 document also tells us that Machaut served as John’s “clerico, elemosinario et familiari suo domestico,” his clerk, almoner, and a member of his household. The title “almoner” suggests one who gives alms in the name of his employer, but by this time the position had acquired a wide range of other responsibilities, especially associated with ritual and ceremony and with hospitals. Later documents show Machaut moving up the administrative ladder, as a notary in 1332 and secretary in 1333. As secretary, Machaut would have signed both private and official documents. (Unfortunately, no example in Machaut’s hand is known to survive, but some copies do.) By his mid-thirties, then, Machaut was a trusted member of the king’s administration.
As a result, he continued to receive benefices at the king’s request. Sometimes he would give up one in favor of another, but often the documents show he was allowed to hold more than one. This was not uncommon, and it even makes sense in the case of expectatives, which are not actually prebends but a promise for sometime in the future. Clerics such as Machaut would often collect benefices, or trade them until they finally settled on one, often in the region from which they came. That became not only a source of income, but a position to which the cleric could retire in a sense. For Machaut, that retirement position was a canonry at Reims cathedral. The practice of holding more than one benefice was often criticized, and Pope Benedict XII in 1335 reduced Machaut’s to one in expectation in addition to one he already held—and that one he would have to give up when a canonry at Reims became available.
That finally happened on 28 January 1338. The relevant document shows that Machaut was not actually in Reims, so a proxy formally received the position in his name. He can be documented in Reims in April 1340, at the installation of a new archbishop, and at various dates thereafter, but it is unclear exactly when he entered more or less full-time residence there. The traditional view sees him settling in Reims from 1340, but Roger Bowers and Elizabeth Eva Leach read the rather sparse surviving documents from the 1340s as indicating short-term visits to Reims rather than permanent residency. Bowers puts Machaut in Reims more or less continually only from around 1360, which would fit the notion of a canonry as effectively a retirement position.