The purpose of Machaut's Mass
It was once supposed that Machaut wrote his Mass for the coronation of Charles V in 1364. It is known that Machaut and Charles had contact, and there is even reason to believe that Charles stayed with Machaut during a trip to Reims in 1361, while he was still dauphin or heir to the throne. Since Machaut was a canon of the cathedral when Charles was crowned there, it seemed logical to think that he would have written this special piece for such an important occasion. Nevertheless, there was never any firm evidence for this association, though it was an attractive enough idea to survive in textbooks until fairly recently, and it still appears sometimes on the internet.
In the early 1990s, however, two scholars independently refuted this theory in favor of another: that Machaut wrote his Mass in honor of the Virgin Mary and as part of a memorial endowment after his death. These two purposes are interrelated, but they can be usefully separated here.
In the early 1990s, however, two scholars independently refuted this theory in favor of another: that Machaut wrote his Mass in honor of the Virgin Mary and as part of a memorial endowment after his death. These two purposes are interrelated, but they can be usefully separated here.
Machaut and Marian devotion
Devotion to the Virgin Mary was common in the high and late middle ages. Indeed, the language of fin’amors or courtly love and that of the Marian cult overlapped extensively: in both styles, the woman involved was worshipped from afar, and called upon for favors by the supplicant poet.
Marian devotion goes back to the earliest days of the Church, but in western Europe it explodes in the eleventh century, at the same time that the troubadours are beginning to write love songs in Occitan in southern France. Chartres, south of Paris, is a major center of the growing Marian cult, as Margot Fassler has shown in her recent book The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Liturgy and the Arts. Churches and cathedrals dedicated to Mary (Notre Dame, or Our Lady) proliferate all over France, with particularly important examples in the cathedrals of Chartres, Paris, and Reims, all built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Mary in this view is not only an intercessor, arguing for human forgiveness before her Son and his Father, but she is also Queen of Heaven. At Notre-Dame of Paris, she is crowned by her son in an image visible to all faithful. By effectively adding a fully human, female figure to the Trinity, this makes the Virgin both more effective as an object of prayer than previously and more accessible to ordinary people than even her Son. The veneration given to her takes on the patterns of that given to worldly lords and especially their ladies.
The potential for overlapping between a humanized love for the Queen of Heaven and a sacralized love for an unavailable earthly woman is clear, and it is exploited by poets working in both Latin and vernacular languages. Indeed, the boundary can be blurred, making it unclear which woman is the object of the poet’s devotion.
This intertwining of sacred and secular love can in a sense be seen throughout Machaut’s work, as witnessed in part by the interpretation of Anne Walters Robertson of Machaut’s French-texted motets, which she argues trace a spiritual journey. Machaut explicitly evokes the Virgin in his final motet, as well as his Lai de Nostre Dame. Another lai uses Marian imagery, and Robertson has gone as far as to suggest that Toute-Belle, the young beloved of Machaut’s Livre dou Voir Dit, can be linked with the Virgin, because the Latin form of her name, Tota pulchra, is a Marian epithet. All of this suggests that Machaut had a strong devotion to Mary, who was also the dedicatee of Reims cathedral, where he was in residence when he wrote the Mass.
Marian devotion goes back to the earliest days of the Church, but in western Europe it explodes in the eleventh century, at the same time that the troubadours are beginning to write love songs in Occitan in southern France. Chartres, south of Paris, is a major center of the growing Marian cult, as Margot Fassler has shown in her recent book The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Liturgy and the Arts. Churches and cathedrals dedicated to Mary (Notre Dame, or Our Lady) proliferate all over France, with particularly important examples in the cathedrals of Chartres, Paris, and Reims, all built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Mary in this view is not only an intercessor, arguing for human forgiveness before her Son and his Father, but she is also Queen of Heaven. At Notre-Dame of Paris, she is crowned by her son in an image visible to all faithful. By effectively adding a fully human, female figure to the Trinity, this makes the Virgin both more effective as an object of prayer than previously and more accessible to ordinary people than even her Son. The veneration given to her takes on the patterns of that given to worldly lords and especially their ladies.
The potential for overlapping between a humanized love for the Queen of Heaven and a sacralized love for an unavailable earthly woman is clear, and it is exploited by poets working in both Latin and vernacular languages. Indeed, the boundary can be blurred, making it unclear which woman is the object of the poet’s devotion.
This intertwining of sacred and secular love can in a sense be seen throughout Machaut’s work, as witnessed in part by the interpretation of Anne Walters Robertson of Machaut’s French-texted motets, which she argues trace a spiritual journey. Machaut explicitly evokes the Virgin in his final motet, as well as his Lai de Nostre Dame. Another lai uses Marian imagery, and Robertson has gone as far as to suggest that Toute-Belle, the young beloved of Machaut’s Livre dou Voir Dit, can be linked with the Virgin, because the Latin form of her name, Tota pulchra, is a Marian epithet. All of this suggests that Machaut had a strong devotion to Mary, who was also the dedicatee of Reims cathedral, where he was in residence when he wrote the Mass.
Preparing for the afterlife
Medieval people understood well the tenuousness of human life. Infant mortality was high, and death in childbirth was common. Machaut himself spent much of his life in a time of war, not fighting himself but, as a figure at the center of government, all too aware of its costs. His own long-time employer, John of Bohemia, was killed at the battle of Crécy in 1346. As if all this were not enough, the plague spread through western Europe from 1348, occasionally wiping out entire communities.
Not only was death a common part of life, there was the afterlife to consider. Actions during life could lead to eternity in heaven or hell, or a transitional period in purgatory. One way to shorten that interim period was to seek prayers from those who outlived you. From an early date, those who had means paid for the prayers of professional religious, whether monks or canons in colleges, churches, or cathedrals. This practice may seem mercenary, and indeed it could easily be abused. On the other hand, communities of religious have basic physical needs that must be supported. As such, such endowments are very like modern gifts to support the activities of churches and charities.
These prayers were generally not part of the main cycle of services—indeed, as time goes on and they become more common, they could not be. So a system of secondary services comes into being, and side chapels become essential to cathedrals and larger churches in order to accommodate the need for these special services. Mass could therefore be said many times each day, at the various chapels. These subsidiary services would likely be simpler than the ones at the main altar, spoken rather than sung and usually requiring little more than a celebrant and an assistant.
Machaut’s own endowment was to support a specific service: the Saturday Marian Mass at the altar of the Rouelle. This altar was not a side chapel, but the site where Saint Nicasius was martyred in 406, just outside the church as it existed at that time. This was a particularly solemn location, second only to the high altar itself. It was not only marked by a round stone (now an engraving in the pavement), but by an altar dedicated originally to St. Paul. This site, however, was particularly associated with the Virgin in the fourteenth century, and a votive Mass was celebrated for her there each Saturday.
Votive Masses were increasingly common at this time. These special services were separate from the main Mass of the day, and also from the various endowed Masses that occurred. The Virgin was commonly venerated at a Saturday votive Mass, and such a celebration was established at Reims in 1341 by Jean de Vienne, the archbishop at the time. Robertson has suggested that Machaut wrote his music as a way of enhancing this service. This function is comparable to the apparent function of the Tournai Mass as well.
The Mass was not only a gift to the Virgin, however: after Machaut’s death and that of his brother, a prayer for their souls would be added to the service. The endowment of a prayer, as we have seen, is not uncommon, but this combination of music and prayer marks a turning point, Robertson argues, because it requires that a piece of music outlive its composer. In our world, which focuses extensively on classic masterpieces whose authors are often no longer alive, it can be hard to remember that before the nineteenth century or so the expectation was that all music was new music, or at least not very old. Machaut’s Mass, on the other hand, was apparently performed well into the fifteenth century, and quite possibly beyond, as later figures added to the endowment initiated by the Machaut brothers.
Not only was death a common part of life, there was the afterlife to consider. Actions during life could lead to eternity in heaven or hell, or a transitional period in purgatory. One way to shorten that interim period was to seek prayers from those who outlived you. From an early date, those who had means paid for the prayers of professional religious, whether monks or canons in colleges, churches, or cathedrals. This practice may seem mercenary, and indeed it could easily be abused. On the other hand, communities of religious have basic physical needs that must be supported. As such, such endowments are very like modern gifts to support the activities of churches and charities.
These prayers were generally not part of the main cycle of services—indeed, as time goes on and they become more common, they could not be. So a system of secondary services comes into being, and side chapels become essential to cathedrals and larger churches in order to accommodate the need for these special services. Mass could therefore be said many times each day, at the various chapels. These subsidiary services would likely be simpler than the ones at the main altar, spoken rather than sung and usually requiring little more than a celebrant and an assistant.
Machaut’s own endowment was to support a specific service: the Saturday Marian Mass at the altar of the Rouelle. This altar was not a side chapel, but the site where Saint Nicasius was martyred in 406, just outside the church as it existed at that time. This was a particularly solemn location, second only to the high altar itself. It was not only marked by a round stone (now an engraving in the pavement), but by an altar dedicated originally to St. Paul. This site, however, was particularly associated with the Virgin in the fourteenth century, and a votive Mass was celebrated for her there each Saturday.
Votive Masses were increasingly common at this time. These special services were separate from the main Mass of the day, and also from the various endowed Masses that occurred. The Virgin was commonly venerated at a Saturday votive Mass, and such a celebration was established at Reims in 1341 by Jean de Vienne, the archbishop at the time. Robertson has suggested that Machaut wrote his music as a way of enhancing this service. This function is comparable to the apparent function of the Tournai Mass as well.
The Mass was not only a gift to the Virgin, however: after Machaut’s death and that of his brother, a prayer for their souls would be added to the service. The endowment of a prayer, as we have seen, is not uncommon, but this combination of music and prayer marks a turning point, Robertson argues, because it requires that a piece of music outlive its composer. In our world, which focuses extensively on classic masterpieces whose authors are often no longer alive, it can be hard to remember that before the nineteenth century or so the expectation was that all music was new music, or at least not very old. Machaut’s Mass, on the other hand, was apparently performed well into the fifteenth century, and quite possibly beyond, as later figures added to the endowment initiated by the Machaut brothers.
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