John Dunstaple

Lore & Background

Nothing is known for certain of John Dunstaple's background or early life. This uncertainty has led to much speculation and sometimes fictionalized information. Some spurious information comes from misreadings of Johannes Tinctoris's writings, leading to the erroneous identification of the composer with the 10th-century saint Dunstan. Dunstaple's birthdate is a conjecture based on his earliest surviving works from around 1410–1420; the musicologist Margaret Bent records c. 1390. His birthplace is unknown, though it is assumed that his family adopted their surname after the town of Dunstable, Bedfordshire. Sources of the composer's time generally refer to him as 'Dunstaple' instead of 'Dunstable'. He is widely held to have been in the royal service of John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, the fourth son of Henry IV and brother of Henry V. As such he may have stayed in France for some time, since the duke was Regent of France from 1423 to 1429, and then Governor of Normandy from 1429 to his death in 1435. He owned property in Normandy, and also in Cambridgeshire, Essex and London, according to tax records of 1436. After the death in 1437 of another patron, the Dowager Queen Joan, he evidently was in the service of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the fifth son of Henry IV. Unlike many composers of the time, he was probably not a cleric or monk, though there are links with St Albans Abbey; he was probably married, based on the record of women sharing his name in his parish, and he also owned a manor in Hertfordshire. Dunstaple died on Christmas Eve 1453, as recorded in his epitaph in London's church of St Stephen Walbrook, where he was buried.

Reader's Guide

Dunstaple's surviving music is exclusively vocal, and frequently uses isorhythms, while pioneering the prominent use of harmonies with thirds and sixths. Of the works attributed to him only about fifty survive, among which are two complete masses, three sets of connected mass sections, fourteen individual mass sections, twelve complete isorhythmic motets (including the one combining the hymn Veni creator spiritus and the sequence Veni sancte spiritus, and Albanus roseo rutilat), as well as twenty-seven separate settings of various liturgical texts, including three Magnificats and seven settings of Marian antiphons. He was one of the first to compose masses using a single melody as cantus firmus—a good example is his Missa Rex seculorum. Dunstaple's influence on the continent's musical vocabulary was enormous, particularly considering the relative paucity of his attributable works. He was recognized for possessing something never heard before in music of the Burgundian School: la contenance angloise ('the English countenance'), a term used by the poet Martin le Franc in his Le Champion des Dames. Le Franc added that the style influenced Dufay and Binchois. Writing a few decades later in about 1476, the Flemish composer and music theorist Tinctoris reaffirmed the powerful influence Dunstaple had, stressing the 'new art' that Dunstaple had inspired. Tinctoris hailed Dunstaple as the fons et origo of the style.

Did You Know?

• Dunstaple's epitaph in London's church of St Stephen Walbrook records his death on Christmas Eve 1453.
• The musicologist Margaret Bent notes that the 'p' spelling of 'Dunstaple' is more than twice as common as the 'b' variant in musical sources.
• Dunstaple owned a series of astronomy treatises and was described as a 'musician with the Duke of Bedford'.
• He was probably not a cleric or monk, and likely married, based on records of women sharing his name in his parish.
• Tinctoris hailed Dunstaple as the fons et origo (wellspring and origin) of the 'new art' in music.