SOURCE: Levarie, Siegmund. “Guillaume de Machaut and His Time.” In Guillaume de Machaut, edited by John J. Baker, pp. 3-36. New York: Da Capo Press, 1969.

In the following essay, originally published in 1954, Levarie discusses Machaut's life and work in the wider context of fourteenth-century social and political upheavals, also explaining the impact of the plague epidemic on social life.

Guillaume de Machaut, composer and poet, was born around 1300 in the village of Machault near Réthel in the Champagne in France and died in 1377 as a canon of Rheims. Chronologically and artistically he represents his century, with which his life almost coincided and from which he emerges as the outstanding creative musician.

The dry facts, “He was born, lived, and died,” are of no distinction unless related to the specific forces around them. The particulars of Machaut's life, as we know them from his own writings as well...