(d Sens, 1222). French theologian and prelate. He was a master of theology at the University of Paris; his best-known pupil later became Pope Innocent III. Pierre received ecclesiastical preferment, becoming a canon of Notre Dame in Paris, Archdeacon of York (1198), Bishop of Cambrai (1199) and Archbishop of Sens (1200). He led the council at Paris in 1210 which forbade the public teaching and private reading of Aristotle's works on natural history. As archbishop Pierre was a respected familiar of King Philip Augustus. Of his works, including sermons and commentaries, very few have survived. An Office of the Assumption, used at Sens until the 17th century, and the Office for Circumcision are attributed to him.
It is on the latter that his musical reputation is founded. In 1198 Cardinal Peter of Capua, papal legate for France, addressed a letter to the Bishop and cathedral chapter of Paris concerning the Feast of Fools which traditionally took place on the Feast of Circumcision and which had become the focus for much abuse. This document, an attempt to regulate the celebration of the feast, sets guidelines including prescriptions for processions and the performance of liturgical items ‘in organo, vel triplo, vel quadruplo’. Reference to ‘quadruplo’ at once suggests the four-voice compositions of Parisian composers associated with Notre Dame. Other works of the Notre Dame repertory are, furthermore, associated with Sens; it seems possible that Pierre, who is named among the other members of the chapter, responded to the cardinal's letter by writing an Office for the Feast of Circumcision, and by taking the decrees on musical practice with him to Sens.
The Office for Circumcision (ed. H. Villetard, Paris, 1907) was first attributed to Pierre in 1524 and thereafter in various notes referring to documents no longer traceable, but his association with the Office is circumstantially acceptable. His role in creating it would, however, be rather that of a compiler than author, since the majority of items are of standard liturgical use, or are drawn from the Christmas cycle. Of the 57 pieces not in the normal Circumcision Office, about half have not been traced to other sources: the additions consist mainly of tropes, to versicles such as Deus in adjutorium, to Benedicamus Domino, to the Ordinary and Proper of the Mass including the Credo, and to responsories and the like. As well as tropes, the Office includes seven conductus, the most famous of which is Orientis partibus, a conductus ad tabulam from one line of which derives the common but false title of the Office, the ‘Feast of the Ass’. Other interesting features are the presence of invitatory and hymn in each of the three nocturnes of Matins, and the rubrics, which refer to performance ‘in falso’ or ‘cum organo’.
J.W. Baldwin: Masters, Princes, and Merchants: the Social Views of Peter the Chanter and his Circle, i (Princeton, NJ, 1970), 46, 105
J.W. Baldwin: The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1986)
M.-C. Gasnault: ‘Corbeil, Pierre de’, Lexikon des Mittelalters, ed. R. Auty and others (Munich, 1977–98)
C.M. Wright: Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris, 500–1500 (Cambridge, 1989)
ANDREW HUGHES/RANDALL ROSENFELD