A name appearing frequently in musical sources from the 14th and early 15th centuries that refers to several musicians, including Egidius de Murino, Egidius de Pusiex, Gilet Velut and Gilles de Bins dit Binchois.
‘Magister Egidius’ is named in the Modena manuscript (I-MOe α.M.5.24) as the composer of the ballade Courtois et sages (also in F-Pn n.a.fr.6771) with an acrostic ‘Clemens’, probably referring to Pope Clement VII (1378–94). In the same manuscript the ballade Franchois sunt nobles is ascribed to ‘Magister Egidius ordinis heremitorum Sancti Agustini’ (both works are ed. in PMFC, xx, 1982). ‘Magister Egidius Augustinus’ is credited with the ballade Roses et lis ay veu en une fleur in the Chantilly manuscript (F-CH 564; a fragment of it is also in NL-Lu 2720; Reaney, pp.76–7, connected the song with the wedding of Jean, Duke of Berry, in 1389; it is ed. in PMFC, xviii, 1981). All three songs are in three voices and are so similar in style that it would be perverse to attribute them to different composers. (All three songs are ed. in CMM, liii/1, 1970.)
Five two-voice ballatas in the Squarcialupi MS (I-Fl 87) are preceded by the ascription ‘M. frater Egidius et Guilelmus de Francia’ and an illuminated capital representing the two (see Guilielmus de Francia for editions, work-list and illustration). Their clothing in the miniature suggests that Guilielmus, at least, was an Augustinian monk and therefore that it may be possible to identify this Egidius with those mentioned in the Chantilly and Modena manuscripts. But two of these ballatas are elsewhere (F-Pn it.568) ascribed to Guilielmus alone, and Pirrotta (CMM, viii/5, 1964, p.ii) has suggested that only the texts are by Egidius (which would make this a unique occurrence, at this period in Italy, of poet and composer being jointly named).
‘Egidius de Thenis’ is named in the lost Strasbourg manuscript (F-Sm 222) as the composer of a song Sy liefstich is der mey (ed. in Cw, xlv, 1937/R) and of a Sanctus setting that was copied into the manuscript twice and has its tenor and contratenor in canon. In musical style these works seem to belong to the second decade of the 15th century, and it is unlikely that this Egidius is to be identified with any of those mentioned above.
‘Egidius des Burces’ is named as a musician in the 14th-century motet Musicalis scientia; Hoppin and Clercx suggested three possible identifications from around 1350.
‘Egidius de Aurolia’ is named in the motetus of the 14th-century motet Alma prolis religio/Axe poli in a context that led Harrison (PMFC, v, 1968) to suggest he was the writer of the text.
G. Reaney: ‘The Manuscript Chantilly, Musée Condé 1047’, MD, viii (1954), 59–113, esp. 68ff
R.H. Hoppin and S. Clercx: ‘Notes biographiques sur quelques musiciens français du XIVe siècle’, L’Ars Nova: Wégimont II 1955, 63–92, esp. 83ff
U. Günther: ‘Datierbare Balladen des späten 15. Jahrhunderts, II’, MD, xvi (1962), 151–74 [on Roses et lis and Courtois et sages]
U. Günther: ‘Das Manuskript Modena, Biblioteca Estense, α.M.5.24 (olim lat. 568 = Mod)’, MD, xxiv (1970), 16–67
M.P. Long: Musical Tastes in Fourteenth-Century Italy: Notational Styles, Scholarly Traditions, and Historical Circumstances (diss., Princton U., 1981)
DAVID FALLOWS