‘Premierement ma baronnie de Chasteauneuf’: Jean de Ockeghem, treasurer of St Martin's in Tours

Abstract

The beginning of the second half of the fifteenth century marks the appearance of Jean de Ockeghem at the French royal court. Apparently he was the first composer to be involved in the chapel of Charles VII, at the time when this institution, which had previously included only a few chaplains, began to expand. We owe our knowledge of Ockeghem's biography to three particular studies. The first is that of Michel Brenet (Marie Bobillier), whose ‘biographical study following unpublished documents’ laid the foundations for subsequent research on the royal chapel of the Valois monarchs. The second is an article by Jean-Michel Vaccaro published nearly thirty years ago, which reveals the precise date of the composer's death.