Composers

Abstract Discussion of their lives, their employment, their education, their identity. Almost all were churchmen in the sense that they earned their living as singers in court or cathedral establishments. How we know of them with various examples of composers for whom the available information is unclear or has only recently been discovered. The likelihood that some were women. Then the literary evidence: Martin Le Franc; Simon Greban; Guillaume Cretin; Eloy d’Amerval; Loyset Compere; the Escorial theorist; Tinctoris; Moulu’s Mater floreat; Hothby; Ramos de Pareja; Gafori. Consideration of the clear evidence that Fedé and Guarnerius are enormously more important than the evidence of their known compositions appears to suggest.