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1500–1505: Back at the Burgundian Court

Markus Grassl

Only two months after the end of the Augsburg Reichstag, on November 2, 1500, Schubinger was again employed as a “joueur de lut” (lute player) by Philip the Fair, as in 1497, with an annual salary of 270 livres.[58] This began a second period of more than five years of service at the Burgundian court,[59] characterized not least by participation in the Archduke’s first journey to Spain. Philip and his entourage set off from Brussels on November 4, 1501, and reached Spain at the end of January 1501. In the spring of 1503, they took a longer return journey that led through France and Savoy to the Tyrol, where Philip met his father in September, and ended with their arrival in Mechelen in early November 1503.

For the first time, several reports from these years specifically relate to certain performances by Schubinger. We know that he played at a service at the collegiate church of Sint Rombout in Mechelen on Candlemas 1501.[60] More importantly, through a description of Philip’s journey to Spain written by Antoine de Lalaing, a chamberlain at the Burgundian court, we know about Schubinger’s involvement in two significant events: the High Mass on Pentecost Sunday (May 15) 1502 at the Cathedral of Toledo, attended by Philip, his wife Joanna, and her parents Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile; and the Mass on Easter Sunday (April 16) 1503 in Bourg-en-Bresse, the then residence of Philip’s sister Margaret of Austria and her husband, Duke Philibert of Savoy.[61]

 

Lalaing’s description of both occasions explicitly mentions that the singers and Schubinger played the cornett together: “avoecq les chantres jouoit de son cornet maistre Augustin lequel foisoit bon à ouyr” (together with the singers, Master Augustin played his cornett, which was beautiful to hear). This provides the second oldest clear evidence for the then-emerging practice of combining vocalists and wind players after the payment record for the “in den Zinken singenden” boys (singing with the cornetts) at the Reichstag of 1500 (» H. Kap. „Posaun vnd Zinckhen han wir gestelt zu dem Gesang“). It is remarkable that Lalaing even reported this at all, since contemporary chroniclers usually omitted detailed information about musical performances, let alone the names of the musicians involved. Aside from Schubinger’s reputation and the quality of his playing, it was probably the novelty and thus the unfamiliarity of this practice that drew Lalaing’s attention.

So far, the secondary literature has assumed that Schubinger accompanied Philip on his second journey to Spain, which began in January 1506; during this trip, Philip died unexpectedly on September 25. This assumption is based on the identification of Schubinger with Augustin de (la) Scarparye (also Scarperye, de Carperie, etc.), a trumpeter who appears in several documents of the Burgundian court from 1501 to 1506.[62] However, this identification is incorrect. These are two different people, as evidenced by the Ordonnance de l’hotel issued by Philip on the occasion of his first journey to Spain in 1501. In this document, both musicians are listed—Augustin de Scarparye (possibly referring to Scarperia near Florence) among the trumpeters, and Schubinger separately among other instrumentalists, namely three “musette” players and a fife-drum pair.[63] While Augustin de la Scarparye is repeatedly documented in connection with Philip’s second journey to Spain, there is no evidence that Schubinger was at the Burgundian court from January 1506 onward. In fact, he was back in Germany by early June at the latest, as indicated by a payment from the city of Nördlingen to him and an unnamed trombonist:[64]

[59] Further payments from the Burgundian court to Schubinger are documented in: F-LadB B 2173 (Registres de comptes de la recette générale des finances 1501), fol. 73r–v; B 2180 (1502), fol. 154r and 186r (see van Doorslaer 1934, 39, and 163); B 2191 (1505), fol. 318r (see Fiala 2002, 379).

[60] B-Baeb Algemeen Rijksarchief / Archives générales du Royaume, V132–41281 (Stadsrekeningen Mechelen 1500/1501), fol. 192v: Payment to “Meester Augustyn diener ons genedige Herrn Hertoge Phillips van dat hij op ons liever vrouwen lichtmes dach speelde te hoogmissen In Sinte Rombouts kerke.” See also Polk 2005a, 65

[61] Gachard (Ed.) 1876, 178 and 287. See also Straeten 1885 1885, 158, and Polk 1989a, 501, who mistakenly identify Lausanne instead of Bourg-en-Bresse as the location of the Easter 1503 service.

[62] See van Doorslaer 1934, 51; Straeten 1885, 162–165; Pietzsch 1963, 746; Haggh 1980, 172–176; Ferer 2012, 33.

[64] It is also possible that Schubinger was the “des Ro. Ko zincken plaser” (imperial cornett player) documented in Nuremberg in 1506. See D-Nsa Reichsstadt Nürnberg, Losungsamt, Stadtrechnungen 181, fol. 407v: “Item i gulden des Ro. Ko zincken plaser”.