Guillaume de Machaut

Timeline

1. c. 1300–1323Reims · ReimsBorn around 1300 near Reims, he received ecclesiastical education in Champagne and possibly studied in Paris. In the early 1320s he entered the household of John of Luxembourg (King of Bohemia), rising from clerk to secretary and receiving several church benefices.
2. 1323–1346Prague · PragueFrom 1323 to 1346 he followed John on campaigns in Bohemia, Prussia, Poland, and Italy. He became a canon of Verdun in 1330, Arras in 1332, and Reims in 1337. Court travels supplied material for his narrative poems and chansons and exposed him to networks of European noble patronage.
3. 1340–1360Reims · ReimsAfter around 1340 he was permanently based at Reims. Following John's death at Crécy in 1346, he served John's daughter Bonne and her sons, and corresponded with magnates such as Charles of Navarre. The Black Death and siege experiences entered his poetry, and his reputation among English and French nobles continued to rise.
4. 1360–1377Reims · ReimsIn his later years at Reims he oversaw the compilation of a lavish collected-works manuscript and completed the four-voice Messe de Nostre Dame around the early 1360s, the earliest known mass ordinary conceived as a whole by a single composer. He died at Reims around 1377.