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Feast of the Pheasant

 

 
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The Feast of the Pheasant (French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
: Banquet du Voeu du Faisan, "Banquet of the Oath of the Pheasant") was a banquet given by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy
Duchy of Burgundy

The Duchy of Burgundy was a feudal territory once existing within the France in the Middle Ages. It roughly conforms to the modern Bourgogne. Existing between 843 and 1477, the Duchy was ruled by a succession of Duke of Burgundy, whose extinction with the death of Charles the Bold in 1477 led to the Duchy being absorbed into the French crown...
 on 17 February 1454 in Lille
Lille

Lille is a city in northern France. It is the principal city of the Urban Community of Lille M?tropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille....
, now in France. Its purpose was to promote a crusade against the Turks
Growth of the Ottoman Empire

During the growth of the Ottoman Empire , the Ottoman Empire expanded southwestwards into North Africa and battled with the re-emergent Persian Shi'ia Safavid Empire to the east....
, who had taken Constantinople
Constantinople

Constantinople was the empire capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire . Strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, Byzantine Constantinople had been the capital of a Christendom empire, successor to ancient ancient Greece...
 the year before. The crusade never took place.

There are contemporary accounts of the banquet (notably the Memoirs of Olivier de la Marche, and the Chroniques of Mathieu d'Escouchy
Mathieu d'Escouchy

Mathieu d'Escouchy was a France chronicler during the last stages of the Hundred Years War. His Chronique was a continuation of the chronicle of Enguerrand de Monstrelet, with manuscripts of which it occurs as a third volume; it was edited by G....
), which name and describe in much detail the lavish entertainments staged during the meal and various pieces of music performed at it, perhaps including Dufay
Dufay

) WHAT TO ADD? Disambiguation pages help people choose between possible/likely meanings of a search term. They're not complete lists of meanings. More at...
's motet
Motet

In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choir musical compositions.The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is "motectum", and the Italian mottetto was also used....
 Lamentatio sanctae matris ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae
Lamentatio sanctae matris ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae

Lamentatio sanctae matris ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae is a motet by the Renaissance composer Guillaume Dufay. Its topic is a lament of the fall of Constantinople under the Ottoman empire in 1453....
.






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The Feast of the Pheasant (French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
: Banquet du Voeu du Faisan, "Banquet of the Oath of the Pheasant") was a banquet given by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy
Duchy of Burgundy

The Duchy of Burgundy was a feudal territory once existing within the France in the Middle Ages. It roughly conforms to the modern Bourgogne. Existing between 843 and 1477, the Duchy was ruled by a succession of Duke of Burgundy, whose extinction with the death of Charles the Bold in 1477 led to the Duchy being absorbed into the French crown...
 on 17 February 1454 in Lille
Lille

Lille is a city in northern France. It is the principal city of the Urban Community of Lille M?tropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille....
, now in France. Its purpose was to promote a crusade against the Turks
Growth of the Ottoman Empire

During the growth of the Ottoman Empire , the Ottoman Empire expanded southwestwards into North Africa and battled with the re-emergent Persian Shi'ia Safavid Empire to the east....
, who had taken Constantinople
Constantinople

Constantinople was the empire capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire . Strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, Byzantine Constantinople had been the capital of a Christendom empire, successor to ancient ancient Greece...
 the year before. The crusade never took place.

There are contemporary accounts of the banquet (notably the Memoirs of Olivier de la Marche, and the Chroniques of Mathieu d'Escouchy
Mathieu d'Escouchy

Mathieu d'Escouchy was a France chronicler during the last stages of the Hundred Years War. His Chronique was a continuation of the chronicle of Enguerrand de Monstrelet, with manuscripts of which it occurs as a third volume; it was edited by G....
), which name and describe in much detail the lavish entertainments staged during the meal and various pieces of music performed at it, perhaps including Dufay
Dufay

) WHAT TO ADD? Disambiguation pages help people choose between possible/likely meanings of a search term. They're not complete lists of meanings. More at...
's motet
Motet

In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choir musical compositions.The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is "motectum", and the Italian mottetto was also used....
 Lamentatio sanctae matris ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae
Lamentatio sanctae matris ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae

Lamentatio sanctae matris ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae is a motet by the Renaissance composer Guillaume Dufay. Its topic is a lament of the fall of Constantinople under the Ottoman empire in 1453....
. At one point in the show, according to the chronicles, an actor dressed as a woman in white satin clothes, personifying the church of Constantinople (according to one hypothesis, played by Olivier de la Marche himself) entered the hall of the banquet riding on an elephant, led by a giant Saracen
Saracen

Saracen was a term used by Europeans in the Middle Ages for Fatimids at first, then later for all who professed the religion of Islam....
, to recite a "complaint and lamentation in a piteous and feminine voice" ("commença sa complainte et lamentacion à voix piteuse et femmenine"), requesting aid from the Knights of the Golden Fleece
Order of the Golden Fleece

The Order of the Golden Fleece is an order of chivalry founded in 1430 by Duke Philip III, Duke of Burgundy of Duchy of Burgundy to celebrate his marriage to the Portugal princess Isabel, Duchess of Burgundy....
. It has been surmised that this was the moment when Dufay's motet would have been performed; other authors have conjectured that it was merely a moment of inspiration and that the motet was actually written later.

We are also told which music by Gilles Binchois
Gilles Binchois

Gilles Binchois, also known as Gilles de Binche or Gilles de Bins , was a Franco-Flemish School composer, one of the earliest members of the Burgundian School, and one of the three most famous composers of the early 15th century....
 was performed and of 24 musicians playing inside an enormous pie and a trick with a horse riding backwards.

The oath taken by the participants, the Vœux du faisan ("oath
Oath

An oath is either a promise or a statement of fact calling upon something or someone that the oath maker considers sacred, usually God, as a witness to the binding nature of the promise or the truth of the statement of fact....
 on the pheasant
Pheasant

Pheasants are a group of large birds in the order Galliformes.Pheasants are characterised by strong sexual dimorphism, with males being highly ornate with bright colours and adornments such as wattle and long tails....
") was in the tradition of the "bird oaths" of Late Medieval France as popularized in the 14th century romance of the Voeux du paon.

Bibliography

  • Agathe Lafortune-Martel, (1984), Fete noble en Bourgogne au XVe siecle: Le Banquet du Faisan (1454): Aspects politiques, sociaux et culturels Cahiers d'etudes medievales 8 Paris: Vrin.
  • Marie-Therèse Caron, Le banquet des voeux du Faisan et la fête de cour bourguignonne, Turnhout, 2003
  • J. Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages
    The Autumn of the Middle Ages

    The Autumn of the Middle Ages, or The Waning of the Middle Ages, is the best-known work by the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga.Its subtitle is 'a study of the forms of life, thought and art in France and the Netherlands in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries'....
     (ch. 3).
  • "Les historiens du "Banquet des voeux du Faisan"," Melanges d'histoire offerts a Charles Moeller, vol. I, Louvain & Paris 1914, pp


Discography

  • Le Banquet du Voeu, 1454, Music at the Court of Burgundy, Ensemble Gilles Binchois - Dominique Vellard, Virgin Classics 91441,Virgin Veritas 59043.