(b Nuremberg, c1470; d Mechelen, 26 June 1536). South Netherlandish music scribe of German birth. He was a member of the Nuremberg merchant family Imhof, but settled in the Netherlands in the early 1490s. He was active principally at the courts of Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands, her successor Mary of Hungary and Emperor Charles V, in Mechelen and Brussels. He was one of several copyists – the others are anonymous – of a complex of more than 60 manuscripts of polyphonic music produced there between about 1495 and 1535. The earliest references to Alamire appear in the accounts for 1496/7 of the Confraternity of Our Lady in ’s-Hertogenbosch. He is listed once as a new member, and was paid for having copied one book of masses and portions of a second book, as well as a book of motets. In 1499 the Confraternity of Our Lady in Antwerp paid him for having copied a book of motets and Magnificat settings. By 1503 he was living in Antwerp, and in that year Philip the Fair, Duke of Burgundy, bought from him ‘a large book of music, made up of 26 cahiers of parchment, containing several masses and other pieces used in the divine service which is celebrated daily in the domestic chapel of the household of this lord’. Alamire was still living in Antwerp in 1505, but by 1516 had moved to Mechelen.
In 1509 Alamire was attached to the chapel of the Archduke Charles (later Charles V) as ‘scribe and keeper of the books’. He retained this position, apparently continuously, for 25 years, probably supervising the copyists who worked with him in producing music manuscripts. He may well have edited or designed many of the books and engaged book-painters and binderies to complete them. He actually signed only a few pages, all in informal script, so his hand cannot be identified with certainty in the more usual formal style of writing. 47 choirbooks and sets of partbooks, as well as 14 sets of detached leaves and fragments, copied in whole or in part or supervised by Alamire, have survived, among them some of the largest and most handsomely penned and decorated choirbooks of the time, as well as smaller, more modest sets of partbooks. Together these contain a significant portion of the contemporary repertory of Franco-Flemish polyphony, including almost all the works of Pierre de La Rue, and many works by Josquin, Mouton, Févin, Obrecht, Isaac and lesser composers. Some of the books were made for the chapels of Charles, Margaret, Emperor Maximilian and other members of the Habsburg dynasty, and for highly placed courtiers; others were prepared for presentation by the court to such patrons of music as Frederick the Wise of Saxony (see illustration), Pope Leo X, Henry VIII and the Fugger family of Augsburg. While serving the Netherlands court Alamire continued to fulfil private manuscript commissions, notably for the Confraternities of Our Lady in Antwerp (1512–20) and ’s-Hertogenbosch (1530–31), and for important individuals. He also sold instruments and paintings. Documents calling him a singer, and a four-voice Tandernack ascribed to him (in A-Wn 18810), suggest that he was a practising musician.
Four autograph letters in Latin from Alamire to Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey, and a series of letters to them from the English ambassadors at the Netherlands court, show that between 1515 and 1518 Alamire not only supplied music manuscripts and instruments to Henry, but also served the king, whom he visited in 1516, as a spy against Richard de la Pole, exiled pretender to the English throne. Alamire gathered political information in Metz, where de la Pole lived, Wittenberg, Frankfurt and France, doubtless acquiring new music during his travels. His service for the king ceased when it was found that he was also a counterspy for de la Pole. Alamire also travelled as a diplomatic and private courier. In 1519 he was sent by Margaret of Austria to Augsburg and Wittenberg in connection with the election of Emperor Charles V, and between 1517 and 1520 he carried a number of messages and letters from Frederick of Saxony to Margaret of Austria, and from Frederick’s secretary, Georg Spalatin, and the Nuremberg humanist Willibald Pirkheimer to Erasmus. The last, humorously describing how Alamire had delivered six old letters to him in August 1519, calls the scribe ‘a not unwitty man’, a portrait corroborated by Alamire’s letters, as well as epigrams and insults directed at the singers in his manuscripts. That he had other, surprising areas of expertise can be seen from a payment to Alamire by Pompeius Occo of Amsterdam, a wealthy financial agent for whom he produced a book of sacred music, for giving lessons in ‘the craft of mining’ to Occo’s guest, King Christian IV of Denmark. By order of Mary of Hungary (Margaret’s successor), acting for the emperor, Alamire was pensioned off on 1 January 1534, but he continued to be paid for books of music for Mary’s chapel, and for other services, until June 1535.
Four of the other scribes involved in copying the corpus of manuscripts produced at the Netherlands court have been designated Netherlands court scribes B, B1, C and C1. It is possible that B, the main copyist of five manuscripts dating between about 1495 and about 1508, was Martin Bourgeois, a chaplain in the service of Margaret, Philip the Fair and Charles V from 1498 to 1514, and Alamire’s predecessor as principal music scribe. Scribe B1 was a different copyist, though contemporary with B; he executed two manuscripts. The workshop of Scribe B is thus represented by seven manuscripts, the earliest layer of the Netherlands court sources. Scribes C and C1 were active at the same time as Alamire and collaborated with him on occasion. Eight manuscripts, dating from about 1508 to 1523, can be wholly or partly attributed to them and are considered part of the production of Alamire’s workshop. These scribal identifications may have to be modified in the light of ongoing analysis of scripts. In a recent study, Flynn Warmington has distinguished the hands of seven main scribes of both music and text, as well as three further copyists of music alone and six of text alone (see Kiel and Warmington in Levven 1999).
Workshop of Scribe B: A-Wn Vind.1783 (Scribe B1); B.Br 9126; D-Ju 22 (Scribe B1); GB-Ob Ashmole 831; I-Fc Basevi 2439 (facs. (Peer, 1990); see Meconi); Rvat Chigi C VIII 234 (facs. in RMF, xxii, 1987); VEcap DCCLVI
Workshop of Alamire: A-Wn Mus.15495 (Scribe C), Mus.15496, Mus.15497 (partly Scribe C), Mus.15941, Mus.18746 (partly Scribe C), Mus.18825, Mus.18832, Vind.4809, Vind.4810, Vind.9814 (ff.132r–152v; detached leaves), Vind.11778, Vind.11883 (several fascicles); B-Amp B948 IV (covers), M18.13/1 (fragments), M18.13/2 (fragments), R43.13 (Scribe C; fragments); Bruges, Rijksarchief, Aanwinsten 756 (fragment); Brussels, Algemeen Rijksarchief, Archief van St Goedele, 9423–4 (fragments; facs. in Schreurs, 1995); B-Br 215–16, 228 (Scribe C1; ed. Picker, 1965; facs. (Peer, 1986); see Picker, 1986), 6428, 15075, IV 922 (facs. in Facsimilia musica Neerlandica, i (Buren, 1979)); Ghent, Rijksarchief, Varia D 3360B (fragment; facs. in Schreurs, 1995); B-MEa choirbook; Tongeren, Stadsarchief, Oud regime 183 (fragment; facs. in Schreurs, 1995); D-Ju 2, 3 (Scribe C), 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 (detached leaves), 12 (Scribe C), 20, 21; Mbs Mus.ms.6, Mus.ms.7, Mus.ms.34, Mus.ms.F; E-MO 766, 773; GB-Lbl Roy.8 G VII (partly Scribe C; facs. in RMF, ix, 1987);Ob Lat.lit.a8 (detached leaves; facs. in Schreurs, 1995); I-Rvat C.S.34, C.S.36, C.S.160, Pal.lat.1976–9; SUsb 248; NL-SH 72A, 72B, 72C; URc 47 (fragments 1–2)
K.E. Roediger: Die geistlichen Musikhandschriften der Universitätsbibliothek Jena (Jena, 1935)
L. Nowak: ‘Die Musikhandschriften aus Fuggerschem Besitz in der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek’, Die Österreichische Nationalbibliothek: Festschrift … Josef Bick, ed. J. Stummvoll (Vienna, 1948), 505–15
H.J.M. Ebeling: ‘Peter Van den Hove alias Alamire’, Brabantia, ii (1953), 49
H. Kellman: ‘ The Origins of the Chigi Codex’, JAMS, xi (1958), 6–19
M. Picker: The Chanson Albums of Marguerite of Austria (Berkeley, 1965)
H. Kellman: ‘Josquin and the Courts of the Netherlands and France: the Evidence of the Sources’, Josquin des Prez: New York 1971, 181–216
B. Huys and S.A.C. Dudok van Heel: Introduction to Occo Codex, Facsimilia musica Neerlandica, i (Buren, 1979)
Census-Catalogue of Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music, 1400–1550, RMS, i (1979–88) [incl. entries by H. Kellman on all Netherlands court MSS]
H.M. Brown: ‘ In Alamire's Workshop: Notes on Scribal Practice in the Early Sixteenth Century’, Datierung und Filiation von Musikhandschriften der Josquin-Zeit: Wolfenbüttel 1980, 15–63
G.G. Thompson: ‘Music in the Court Records of Mary of Hungary’, TVNM, xxxiv (1984), 132–73
M. Picker: Introduction to Album de Marguerite d’Autriche (Peer, 1986)
K.K. Forney: ‘ Music, Ritual and Patronage at the Church of Our Lady, Antwerp’, EMH, vii (1987), 1–57
H. Kellman: Introduction to London, British Library, MS Royal 8 G.vii, RMF, ix (1987)
H. Kellman: Introduction to Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Chigi C VIII 234, RMF, xxii (1987)
R. de Beer: Petrus Alamire in ’s-Hertogenbosch (diss., Katholieke U. Nijmegen, 1988)
R. de Beer: ‘Petrus Alamire, muziekschrijver en calligraaf’, In Buscoducis, 1450–1629: Kunst uit de Bourgondische tijd te ’s-Hertogenbosch, ed. A.M. Koldeweij (Maarssen, 1990), 228–9; ii, 505–12
H. Meconi: Introduction to Basevi Codex (Peer, 1990)
J. van Benthem: ‘The Alamire Fragments of the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp’, Musicology and Archival Research: Brussels 1993, 542–57
E. Schreurs: Introduction to An Anthology of Music Fragments from the Low Countries (Middle Ages – Renaissance): Polyphony, Monophony, and Slate Fragments in Facsimile (Peer, 1995)
K. van der Heide: Polytekstuele religieuze muziek aan het Bourgondisch-Habsburgse hof als spiegel van het laat-Middeleeuws wereldbeeld (diss., U. of Utrecht, 1998)
Illuminated Music Manuscripts from the Burgundian-Habsburg Court, 1500–1535: Leuven 1999 (forthcoming)
HERBERT KELLMAN