Post Description

Whatever his age, by the 1440s and 1450s, Jean de Okeghem (as many contemporary French documents call him) was well on the way to a musical career of international renown. He can reliably be documented in service as a singer at the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp at least from June 1443 till June 1444 and in the private chapel of the French Duke of Bourbon at Moulins from 1446 to 1448. In 1450, he began serving the Kings of France directly, and would remain to his death the jewel in the crown of the French Royal Chapel.
Ockeghem served three successive Kings over nearly 50 years: Charles VII (until the monarch's death in 1461, for which the Requiem may have been composed), Louis XI (1461-1483), and Charles VIII. As early as 1454, court registers record Ockeghem giving a songbook to the King personally; these refer to him as premier chapellain.
Upon Ockeghem's death, laments were composed by some of the greatest figures of his age, including poets (Guillaume Crétin and Jean Molinet), composer (Josquin Desprez), and thinker (Erasmus of Rotterdam).