Bedyngham, John (EN)

Bedyngham, Bedyngeham, Bodingham, Bellingan, Benigun, John, †1458/59, English composer. In 1453–54, he was employed in the choir of the Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey. In 1456, he wrote to the king requesting the release of his cousin Thomas Bedyngham. In the late 1450s, he was recorded as vicar of St. Stephen’s Chapel in London (Westminster). He was a member of the London Guild of Parish Clerks, which recorded his death in a document from 1458/59. It is believed that the composer may be identical with John Bodenham, born in Oxford in 1422, first associated with Winchester College there and then New College, where he obtained degrees in law (1449 and 1455).

Bedyngham’s masses are free in form; the connection between the Dueil angoisseux mass and the model based on G. Binchois’ ballad is loose. The motets have been preserved in a much later source and are characterized by rhythmic and notational complications. Some of Bedyngham’s secular works are of dubious authorship: they were copied in different versions, with different texts. Gentil madonna and O rosa bella (often attributed to J. Dunstable) were among the most popular songs of the 15th century, becoming the basis for new works, including mass cycles. Bedyngham, along with W. Frye and J. Plummer, is considered one of the most important English composers of the mid-15th century, widely known outside England.

Literature: H. Besseler Bourdon und Fauxbourdon, Leipzig 1950; R. Ficker Die frühen Messenkompositionen der Trienter Codices, “Studien zur Musikwissenschaft” XI, 1924; E. Apfel Studien zur Satztechnik der mittelalterlichen englischen Musik, Heidelberg 1959; E. Sparks Cantus Firmus in Mass and Motet, 1420–1520, Berkeley 1963; E. Southern Foreign Music in German Manuscripts of the 15th Century, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XXI, 1968; D. Fallows English Song Repertoires of the Mid-Fifteenth Century, “Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association” CIII, 1976–77; D. Fallows Dunstable, Bedingham and „O rosa bella”, “Journal of Musicology” XII, 1994; A. Kirkman Innovation, Stylistic Patterns and the Writing of History: the Case of Bedyngham’s Mass Dueil angoisseux, in: I codici musicali trentini, Trento 1994; D. Fallows A Catalogue of Polyphonic Songs, 1415–1480, Oxford 1999; A. Erhard Bedynghams „O rosa bella” und seine Cantus-firmus-Bearbeitungen in Cantilena-Form, Tutzing 2010; D. Fallows John Bedyngham and the Case of the Disappearing Composer, in: I codici musicali trentini del quattrocento: nuove scoperte, nuove edizioni e nuovi strumenti informatici, ed. D. Curti-Feininger and M. Gozzi, Trento 2013; D. Fallows A Hidden Arrangement of Gentil madonna, in: Instruments, Ensembles, and Repertory, 1300–1600, celebratory publication for K. Polk, eds. T.J. McGee and S. Carter, Turnhout 2013.