Aspects of Benefice Patronage

In describing the willingness of northerners to work for little in Rome, both Cortesi and Lapo da Castiglionchio refer to the hope of acquiring northern benefices. The essential workings of this system and many of the implications for music patronage are by now common knowledge.^[32] But the extent to which political considerations shaped the conferral

[31] The information on Lourdel comes from Ariane Ducrot, "Histoire de la Cappella Grulia au XVIe siècle, depuis sa fondation par Jules II (1513), jusqu'à sa restauration par Grégoire XIII (1578)," 188-89, and Lockwood, "Adrian Willaert and Cardinal Ippolito I," 111.

[32] If the details of procuring benefices today seem intricate, benefice seekers also needed specialized assistance. Among the most popular juridical books printed in Rome between 1485 and 1500 were several how-to manuals, texts such as Modus vacandi et acceptandi beneficiorum, Modus servandus in executione gratiae expectative , and Termini causarum in Romana curia servari soliti in causa beneficiali . Many of these works often do not survive today in Italian libraries, suggesting that they were designed for northern markets. Musicians were but a small portion of the interested audience (Massimo Miglio, "Materiali e ipotesi per la Stampa a Roma," 222-24). Regarding benefices and musicians, see Pamela Starr, "Rome as the Center of the Universe: Papal Grace and Music Patronage"; idem, "Music and Music Patronage"; Alejandro E. Planchart, "Guillaume Du Fay's Benefices and His Relationship to the Court of Burgundy"; Reynolds, "Musical Careers, Ecclesiastical Benefices"; and the extensive bibliography cited in these.

of benefices is less well understood. Because papal privileges were sensitive to political changes, especially in the north, the regions from which foreigners came to Rome did not remain constant, with the exception of the diocese of Liege and, to a lesser extent, Cambrai. Certain of these changes can be detected in the makeup of the St. Peter's choir.

The prominence of northerners at the curia described by Lapo relates directly to a distinction between ecclesiastical patronage for Italians as opposed to northerners. It cannot have helped that benefices in Italy were generally far less lucrative than those in the north, if only because it increased the competition among the Italian aristocracy for those that did pay.^[33] Although there were some 700 bishoprics in Europe at this time, they ranged greatly in size and wealth. France, for instance, had only 131 sees, while the kingdom of Naples had 138; and the thirty-three bishops in England, Wales, and Scotland generally presided over far wealthier sees than the 125 who served in northern and central Italy. In contrast to prized northern sees like Rouen, most of those in the south of Italy were small and desperately poor. Incomes from the smallest have been estimated at less than a 200th of the wealthy bishoprics in the north.^[34] Put in other terms, a good canonry in the north yielded more than many Italian sees. When Leo X promised the papal musician Gaspar van Weerbecke the next canonry worth 200 gold ducats in the dioceses of Cambrai or Tournai, he promised an income equal to or greater than that of many Italian bishoprics. Italian church salaries for canons and lower officials diminished commensurately.

As was typical for a large church in Italy, benefices at St. Peter's rarely went to musicians, and then usually to individuals who were first of all chapter officials—some of the thirty canons, thirty-six bene-

[33] Local rulers and their families controlled the major benefices in their domains. They viewed these positions as economic rewards for political service, rewards to be given to relatives, faithful employees, or politically useful allies. Among recent studies, there is Giorgio Chittolini, "Stati regionali e istituzioni ecclesiastiche nell'Italia centrosettentrionale del Quattrocento," 163-68; for Florence, Roberto Bizzocchi, "Chiesa e aristocrazia nella Firenze del Quattrocento," 248-53; for Milan, L. Prosdocimi, Il diritto ecclesiastico dello stato di Milano dall'inizio della signoria viscontea al periodo tridentino (secc. XII-XVI) , 51ff for Ferrara, A. Prosperi, "Le istituzioni ecclesiastiche e le idee religiose," 128-29, n. 13; and for Venice, Antonio Menniti Ippolito, "Ecclesiastici veneti, tra Venezia e Roma," 209.

[34] Denys Hay, Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries , 269; as well as his The Church in Italy , 10-11, and also the tax tables for Italian sees on 110-22.

ficiaries, or twenty-six clerics—who like Loysio de Diano (beneficiary and regens chori ) by 1450, Christoforo Sancti (beneficiary and from 1481 to 1489 also a soprano), and Cambius (cleric and from 1476 off and on until 1489 a soprano) also sang.^[35] In the 1450s at least three singers were awarded benefices, Robinetto (beneficiary) and Andreas de Palermo (beneficiary and tenor) in 1450-51, and Nicholas Volfardo, a northerner who was made a cleric and then forced to resign it in 1459.^[36] By the second half of the century, popes conferred benefices at St. Peter's on their familiars or local residents with complete freedom, and not only popes, but papal relatives. Alexander VI's son Cardinal Cesare Borgia saw to it that Nicola di Canosio received one in 1497.^[37] In the absence of a pope, even the papal master of ceremonies could wield power over chapter officials.^[38] Exceptionally, two musicians who became canons after 1460 were both organists, Bartholomeo de Ferrara and Aloviso de Spiritu. They held one of the two Sistine canonries that Sixtus IV had created in a bull of 1 March 1482.^[39]

[35] On the organization of the St. Peter's chapter, see Filippo Maria Mignanti, Istoria della sacrosanta patriarcale Basilica Vaticana dalla sua fondazione fino al di presente , 2:264-68; and the writings of Robert Montel, especially his "Premières recherches sur la mense capitulaire de la Basilique Saint-Pierre de Rome." Mr. Montel kindly provided me with a copy of this unpublished paper.

[36] On Volfardo, see pp. 42-44; the monthly disbursements to Robinetto and Andreas are listed in Censualia 6, int. 2, passim .

[37] Mario Menotti, ed., Documenti inediti sulla famiglia e la torte di Alessandro VI , 35.

[38] During the funeral ceremonies for Sixtus IV in 1484, Burchard recounted in his diary that, as instructed by the College of Cardinals, "I forbade the canons and the clergy of [St. Peter's], under penalty of being deprived of their benefices, [to allow] any man to touch the deceased, or to dare to remove the said signet-ring, or the chasuble, or anything else" (The Diary of John Burchard of Strasbourg, 1483-1506 , vol. 1, 1483-1492 , 9-10).

[39] Bartholomeo was, from Aug. 1482 until his death in Aug. 1493, one of the original Sistine canons. He remained active in Rome, buying two bellows of the organ at San Agostino in April 1491 (ASR, Congregazioni religiose, busta 107, San Agostino, introitus 1474-96, fol. 105v [April 1491]). Aloviso received his Sistine canonry on 6 July 1505, identified as "de Gaeta" and a papal familiar. His successor Anthonio de Piperno was provided in Sept. 1508 because of the death of Aloviso. This information comes from a sixteenth-century list of canons, SPH59B, fol. 77; the reference to him as a continuus commensalis is in ACSP, Arm. 16-18, Privilegi e atti notarili 16, fol. 241v. Thus he is not, as previously supposed, the first organist of the Cappella Giulia in 1514, Aloysio from Bourges (Ducrot, "Histoire de la Cappella Giulia," 502). On the reception of the new members see L. Martorelli, Storia del clero vaticano dai primi secoli del Cristianesimo fino al XVII secolo , 237-38, who claims—quite plausibly—that the rest of the chapter did not easily accept the Sistine additions.

In part because desirable Italian benefices were the prey of the upper class, in part because he had compelling economic and political reasons for doing so, Martin V hired northern rather than Italian musicians, even before he reached Rome in 1420.^[40] Northern musicians helped Martin fulfill his obligation to broaden the international makeup of the curia; they also made it possible for him to award comparatively lucrative northern benefices to his familiars, benefices that then contributed much-needed tax revenues into papal coffers. The taxes they generated may have amounted to a trickle, but with all of the papacy's financial reserves depleted, Martin was compelled to exploit every potential source of income.^[41] This papal need to benefice (as opposed to the desire of a singer to be beneficed) may well explain the difference between the speed and abundance with which benefices were awarded by Martin as opposed to popes in the latter decades of the fifteenth century. Within two or three months of becoming pope, Martin V liberally rewarded several singers with canonicates and prebends. Northerners who subsequently joined his choir in Rome also received provisions with equal haste. Richardus de Bellengues came to Rome in January 1422 and by March was provided with a benefice in Antwerp, despite his inability to speak Flemish. Nicholas Grenon apparently received a benefice in Cambrai as soon as he arrived in June 1425. In contrast, Josquin may have waited three-and-a-half years before Innocent VIII gave him a provision. That singers under Martin did not have to wait also helps to explain the rapid turnover in his choir. From the standpoint of the singers, the quick rewards may have been necessary to offset the poor condition of the

[40] That the nationality of artists could serve political purposes was nothing new in 1417. Thirty years earlier Gian Galeazzo Visconti had hired German and French architects to build the Milan duomo, the northernmost Gothic building in Italy. This forwarded his aim of being named duke by the German emperor (John Onians, "Brunelleschi: Humanist or Nationalist?" 259-72). As recently as the papacy of Boniface IX (1391—1404), a majority of the singers in the Roman chapel were Italian; see Richard Sherr, "Notes. on Some Papal Documents in Paris," 8. These political reasons do not obscure the educational advantages of northerners discussed on pp. 131-38 and 290-91.

[41] Martin V made the payment of the first year's taxes, the annates, payable in Rome, before delivery of the bull of provision to the benefice. The annates could be paid either in person or by a proctor (William Lunt, Financial Relations of the Papacy with England, 1327-1534 , 428).

city.^[42] Much later Pope Clement VII vainly tried to persuade Michelangelo to become a cleric by arguing that "there is money of the church that one spends within the church."^[43] Until the discovery of the alum mines in 1462, this money lay largely in the north.

Following this early period when the papacy sought to reclaim its right to benefices throughout Europe, northern rulers began to impose various restrictions to defend their own claims. Papal rights in France declined markedly with the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges in 1438, according to which the king and the French clergy reserved to themselves most of the relevant powers to confer benefices and to settle grievances previously handled in papal courts.^[44] Not until Louis XI revoked it in November 1461 were popes able to award and, just as crucially, to tax many French benefices. This moment constituted one of the great political triumphs of Pius II, despite subsequent French threats to restore the sanctions (as Louis XII eventually did in the 1490s). From then on musicians from France had more incentive to come to Rome.

St. Peter's may have become a particular goal because of one well-connected French cleric. At the head of the large delegation that Louis XI sent to Rome to renounce the Pragmatic Sanction were two cardinals, including Richard Olivier de Longueil, bishop of Coutances.^[45] Originally from Normandy, de Longueil had proven ties to the king of France. Before his service for Louis XI, he had been Charles VII's am-

[42] Schuler, "Zur Geschichte der Kapelle Papst Martins V." Martin's haste to provide benefices has also been noted in a study of Roman attitudes toward Scottish clerics; see D. E. R. Watt, "The Papacy and Scotland in the Fifteenth Century," 121.

[43] "[É] danari della Chiesa si spendono in chiesa." This is quoted by Romeo De Maio, Michelangelo e la Controriforma , 355.

[44] Noël Valois, Histoire de la pragmatique sanction de Bourges sous Charles VII ; Starr, "Music and Music Patronage," 215; and Joachim Stieber, Pope Eugenius IV, the Council of Basel, and the Secular and Ecclesiastical Authorities in the Empire: The Conflict over Supreme Authority and Power in the Church , 64-71.

[45] He and the other cardinal, Jean Jouffroy, bishop of Arras, headed a group of high clergy and nobility numbering approximately 120; see Chr. Lucius, Pius II. und Ludwig XI. von Frankreich 1461-1462 , 67-68; and Joseph Combet, Louis XI et le Saint-siège (1461-1483) , 8-15. The three-day ceremonies marking the arrival in Rome on 13 March 1462 are described by Pius II in Commentarii: Rerum memorabilium que temporibus suis contigerunt , 1:454-56. On their passage through Florence, see also D. S. Chambers, "Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga in Florence," 241-61.

bassador to the duke of Burgundy in 1459.^[46] As noted above, with the accession of Paul II in 1464 de Longueil became cardinal archapriest of St. Peter's. And since the papal chapel had scant openings during these years, it is to St. Peter's that Johannes Fede came from France, where he had been serving Marie Anjou, her husband Charles VII, and then Louis XI between 1461 and 1464. Other Frenchman in these years include Carulo Britonio, Gilles Crepin (Egidius Crispini), and Molinet's friend, Johannes Cornuel.^[47]

Even during the 1450s and 1460s many singers and clerics came to Rome from one particularly embattled region of France: Normandy. The conclusion of the Hundred Years War between France and England in the early 1450s gave way to more fighting in the 1460s and 1470s as Charles the Bold and Louis XI struggled for control of the region. Cardinals d'Estouteville, Johannes Castiglione, and Olivier de Longueil were the most prominent of those who found refuge in the curia, but the number of Normans living in Rome in the 1450s and 1460s was such that a cleric in England could reasonably argue that it was unnecessary for him to prove the legitimacy of his birth by going to Normandy (where it was dangerous); instead, among the "many Normans" living in the papal court there were "sufficient witnesses."^[48] Normans filled positions from the upper echelons of the curia to the lowest. Among the fifteen potentially Norman singers listed in Table

[46] Charles Fierville, Le Cardinal Jean Jouffroy et son temps (1412-1473) , 98-99. See also the entry in Moroni, Dizionario , 39: 180-81.

[47] In the 1470s Cornuel sent a verse letter to Nicholas Rembert in Rome, in which his ties to France are plainly stated. Pleading for assistance in procuring benefices, Cornuel reveals that he and Rembert were both from Boullenois. He also mentioned two other French musicians; Michault and Leporis. Michault is most likely Michault Sauvage de le Lutin, a singer in the French Royal Chapel from 1461-62 to 1469-70. And Leporis is surely the singer Thomas Leporis, in the papal chapel from 1458 to 1472 (thus he and Cornuel were in Rome at the same time). In the 1470s Leporis went to Paris and Savoy recruiting singers for Milan, implying that he also had some more stable connection with Paris. Michault's dates are in Perkins, "Musical Patronage at the Royal Court of France under Charles VII and Louis XI (1422-83)," 554; on Leporis see Starr, "Music and Music Patronage," 191-96. For Cornuel, there is André Pirro, "Jean Cornuel, vicaire à Cambrai"; and E. Droz, "Notes sur Me Jean Cornuel, dit Verjus."

[48] Letter of 25 August 1461, Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, XI, A.D. 1455-1464 , 599-600.

10, the papal singers have been identified by benefice records and those at St. Peter's by name.^[49]

Northern political realignments occasionally led to precipitous changes in the sources of patronage available to musicians in search of jobs. The death of Charles the Bold in 1477 and the subsequent partitioning of his Burgundian territories had an immediate impact on where singers could hope to find benefices, and this in turn sharply affected the paths musicians took in search of patronage. To take singers known, or likely, to have had ties to Bruges as an example, those with foreign affiliations between 1452 and 1477 (Table 11) differ markedly in their destinations from those who left in the next twenty-five years, 1477-1502 (Table 12). Once Bruges became part of the empire, the identifiable journeys of musicians to St. Peter's (Table 13) and the Sistine Chapel dwindled from eight singers out of eleven to just three out of thirteen. Among those in the papal chapel during the 1470s, Johannes Margas left in 1483, shortly after the Peace of Arras (December 1482) had determined exactly which territories belonged to Archduke Maximilian, and Johannes Raat left the next year. The decline in the number of Rome-bound musicians is all the more dramatic because a succession of disasters between 1481 and 1492 hit the Low Countries all at once: plague, rebellion, currency troubles.^[50]

With the Peace of Arras the courts of Maximilian I and Philip the Fair in Vienna and Spain were easily the most promising foreign sources of patronage—that is to be expected given their political power in the Netherlands. What is surprising is how poorly Rome fared in comparison. After 1483 the only resident of Bruges admitted to the

[49] Regarding the papal singers, see the individual biographies in Starr, "Music and Music Patronage," chapter 3. The trip of Robinet de la Magdalaine with three other singers in the entourage of Cardinal Castiglione is discussed above, pp. 35-36. Herré is a name common in both Normandy and Brittany; regarding Britoni see p. 39, n. 20; the possible connection between Guillelmus and Guillaume des Mares is discussed in chapter 7; Jachettus and Johannes are both identified as "di Rouen"; Anthonius de Mota is listed in a papal tax account (ASV, Liber annatarum 24, fol. 151r, 20 May 1476) as a cleric from Rouen and also in 1480 as "cleric of Rouen and magister in artibus (Reg. vat. 605, fols. 158v-60r, and Reg. vat. 606, fols. 303v-6v); and Fr. Francisco de malo passu may have had ties to the Capella de Malo passu near Bayeux (on which, see Chanoine Beziers, Histoire sommaire de la ville de Bayeux , 49).

[50] On these disasters and others, see Wim Blockmans, "Die Niederlande vor und nach 1400: Eine Gesellschaft in der Krise?" 117-32. I compare northern pressures to emigrate with enticements to come to Italy in "Aspects of Clerical Patronage."

papal chapel, Frater Anthonius Waltherus, is also evidence of the serious difficulty papal singers had gaining or holding benefices in Bruges. Despite identifying himself as a musician from Bruges on the tomb he left himself in the Roman church San Giuliano dei Fiaminghi, Anthonius received no benefices in Bruges.