The Performance of Friendship: Paschal de L’estocart and His Circle at the University of Basel, 1581–1583

Abstract

Abstract In this article, I present new research on the composer Paschal de L’Estocart during his peak years of activity at the University of Basel (1581–3). In addition to discussing two fresh pieces of archival evidence related to L’Estocart found in the Basel archives, I offer new research on the identities of his laudatory contributors. Considering how little biographical information has survived on the composer beyond his published music, the identities of these poetic contributors are a critical piece of evidence that fills in our skeletal knowledge of L’Estocart’s network and the social context of his music. Taken together, this new evidence sheds light on L’Estocart’s active participation in the most elite academic circles in Basel and Geneva, which makes his return to the Catholic world at the end of his life all the more difficult to explain. L’Estocart’s 1583 letter to Zwinger, however, offers a clue that might explain his break from the Reformed faith.