ABSTRACT
Franco-Flemish composer, active mainly in France. According to recently discovered documents, he was born in Saint-Ghislain, a village near Mons in the Belgian province of Hainaut. His career is first traced in Antwerp, where he was a singer at the church of NotreDame in 1443/44. From 1446 to 1448, he was singer in the chapel of Charles I, duke of Bourbon, at Moulins. He became a member of the French royal chapel under Charles VII ca. 1450 and continued to serve that institution under Louis XI and Charles VIII. Named as first chaplain in 1454, he was subsequently cited as master of the chapel (1464) and counselor to the king (1477). In 1459, Charles VII, who was hereditary abbot of SaintMartin of Tours, appointed Ockeghem to the important post of treasurer of Saint-Martin. Sometime before 1472, possibly in 1464, he was ordained a priest at Cambrai. The only journey he is known to have undertaken outside France and the Low Countries is one to Spain in 1470. In 1484, he revisited his native country when he and other members of the royal chapel traveled to Damme and Bruges in Flanders. He eventually retired to Tours, where he died on February 6, 1497.
