Benedictus Appenzeller

Benedictus Appenzeller (between 1480 and 1488 – after 1558) was a Franco-Flemish singer and composer of the Renaissance, active in Bruges and Brussels. He served Dowager Queen Mary of Hungary for much of his career, and was a prolific composer of vocal music, both sacred and secular, throughout his long career. Life Appenzeller was probably born in Oudenaarde in East Flanders, and his approximate birthdate is inferred from a document late in his life, dated July 1558, in which he gave his age as “over 70”. Appenzeller is first mentioned in cathedral records in 1518, when he is a singer, and in 1519, when he became choirmaster at the cathedral of St. Jacob in Bruges. His several publications during the following years show that he was active then as a composer, but nothing is known of his actual whereabouts or employment until 1536, when Dowager Queen Mary of Hungary (daughter of Philip I and Joanna the Mad of Castile) brought him into her Brussels chapel as a singer. By the next year he had become the master of the choirboys – the one responsible for teaching them music, and caring for them – and he was to hold this position, or its equivalent, until either 1551 or 1555. While he s