| From the early thirteenth to the mid-fourteenth centuries, Amiens flourished. Benefitting from the drapery trade, the citizens and clerics of this city built a remarkable cathedral and established its educational institutions. The clergy of the cathedral demonstrated a particular interest in the music of its liturgy. Two dignitaries of equal rank governed the chant of the choir as early as 1219. To insure that the liturgy was sufficiently solemn, clerics of the cathedral created positions for individuals to sing the office, enforced discipline in the choir, and, most importantly, founded a select group of cantorial vicars and a mai trise at notably early dates.;These clerics also acted to increase the amount, the quality, and the complexity of the chant in the service. Some changes are connected to the composition of rhymed offices and sequences. Others specify the addition of pre-existent chants to feasts to increase their solemnity. Actions of both sorts document the continuing elaboration of a rite that was distinctive, complex and labor-intensive. Moreover, the chapter went to considerable lengths to engage lay devotion. These clerics countenanced both the displacement of a temporal Christmastide feast by a sanctoral celebration with spectacles and chants, and the creation of a parish church within a chapel of the cathedral.;During this period, Amiens was an important center for both polyphony and secular monophony. Much of this activity was centered around the cathedral. Among the trouveres of the city were two dignitaries of the chapter, Dean Simon d'Authie and Chancellor Richard de Fournival, the latter of whom composed motets as well. Two further trouveres, Guillaume d'Amiens and Jehan li Petit, have apparent connections, respectively, to the Vatican and Arras chansonniers. In addition, at least four clerics of the cathedral possessed books of polyphony, including the composer Petrus de Cruce, a senior cleric of the bishop and native of Amiens. Moreover, several specific pieces can be connected to Amiens, including two In seculum hockets in the Bamberg Codex. One final composer, Guillaume de Machaut, though received as a canon of the chapter in 1343, appears to have been most active elsewhere. |
