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How did Dufay come to Cambrai? Until a few years ago it was assumed that he was born in the area around Cambrai about nine years earlier, based on the usual age of a newly appointed choirboy. That led to the conclusion that his date of birth was 1400. But in a brilliant work of research published in 1988 and 1993, Alejandro Planchart discovered something that Dufay had made every effort throughout his life to conceal. He had been born in Brussels, most likely in 1397, the child of Marie du Fayt and a priest. Another cleric noted the fact in a petition sent to Rome in 1431, but it was possible for someone to obtain a dispensation from the impediment of illegitimacy that would permit him not to mention the fact in the future. He was first known as Willem du Fayt. Willem du Fayt (Willermus in Latin documents) became Guillaume du Fay (Guillermus in Latin documents) after 1426 in Italy, where, otherwise, Italian speakers would have pronounced the t.
Marie du Fayt benefited from the protection of her cousin, Jehan Hubert, a person of great influence who became a canon of the Cambrai cathedral in 1403 but did not take up residence there until 1408. He brought Marie and her son to Cambrai because another cousin, Jehanne Hubert, needed care. When Jehan Hubert died in 1424, he provided for Marie du Fayt to continue caring for his cousin.
Guillaume Dufay thus became a choirboy at Cambrai cathedral through the influence of one of its canons. Another proof of special favor is a gift that he received in 1411-12, the Doctrinale, a book of instruction in grammar, rhetoric and versification. The unusual gift of a manuscript book for a boy of 14 indicates that he showed unusual talent and promise of future greatness. By 1414 he was no longer a choirboy but a cleric. His presence is not documented after November 1414, the precise time that Jehan de Lens, the bishop of Cambrai, was leaving for Constance with his chapel. Once there, Dufay might even have joined the chapel of Cardinal d’Ailly, who would probably have known the promising boy during his first two years in the choir.
The gathering of English, French, German, Italian and (later in 1416) Spanish musicians in the city by the lake of Constance had a stunning effect on the course of music. The contenance angloise was beginning to make a mark in northern France, which was being overrun by the English. Flemish and French musicians had traveled to Italy, bringing the Ars Subtilior with them. The German composer Oswald von Wolkenstein was a member of the imperial chapel. At Constance everyone could hear and compare, admiring and adapting the musical style of each country.
Dufay’s teacher in Cambrai was Richard de Loqueville. One of Dufay’s early compositions is a Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei preserved in a manuscript, Bologna Q 15, along with a Gloria and Credo by Antonio Zacharias da Teramo, the leading singer in the chapel of Pope John XXIII. Dufay’s Sanctus uses the same cantus firmus as a Sanctus by Loqueville, taken from a chant Mass sung at Cambrai to pray for the end of the schism. This is a good indication of the type of contacts that the young composer made during his stay in Constance, for this composite Mass was probably sung at the Council as a votive Mass for the end of the schism.
Dufay left Constance just before the close of the Council, for he was in Cambrai again in November 1417. He resumed the chaplaincy at St. Géry that he had received just before his departure. His presence there is still documented in Lent of 1420. But soon after that, he went to Rimini, where he composed the motet Vasilissa, ergo gaude for the marriage of Carlo Malatesta’s niece to a Greek ruler who was the son of the Byzantine emperor.
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