Machauts

Machauts is a term used in musicology to refer to the body of works associated with Guillaume de Machaut, or more broadly to the corpus of works attributed to his circle within the Ars Nova tradition. Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377) was a leading French composer and poet of the 14th century, whose career helped shape late medieval polyphony and courtly verse.

The Machauts encompass both sacred and secular vocal music. Sacred works include mass movements and motets, among which the Messe de Nostre Dame stands out as one of the earliest known complete settings of the Mass Ordinary by a single composer. In secular music, Machaut composed numerous ballades, virelais, and rondeaux, often setting his own poetry. His compositions are characterized by a high degree of formal organization, the use of fixed poetic and musical forms, and innovations in rhythmic notation that reflect the Ars Nova aesthetic.

Surviving sources place Machaut among the best-documented medieval French composers, and his music is central to studies of 14th-century polyphony and the transition from medieval to early Renaissance practices. The Machauts thus serve as a benchmark for understanding the evolution of secular and sacred song, the development of the cyclic mass, and the broader literary and musical culture of 14th-century France.

In scholarly usage, the term Machauts may refer specifically to Machaut’s works or to a collective group of pieces attributed to him and his contemporaries within the same stylistic milieu.