Gilbert Banester (also ''Banaster'', ''Banastir'', ''Banastre''; 1445 – 1487) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

composer and poet of

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

influences. Possibly a native of

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, he was Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal from 1478 to 1490. His works are found in a number of Tudor manuscript collections of church music, including the

Pepys Manuscript The Pepys Manuscript is a late fifteenth-century English choirbook, in the library of Magdalene College, Cambridge, MS Pepys 1236. Along with the Ritson Manuscript it is much less elaborate than the Eton, Lambeth and Caius Choirbooks; it cont ...

; there is also an antiphon by his hand in the

Eton Choirbook The Eton Choirbook (Eton College MS. 178) is a richly illuminated manuscript collection of England, English sacred music composed during the late 15th century. It was one of very few collections of Latin liturgical music to survive the English R ...

. Stylistically the work is similar to those of William Horwood in the same book, but is unusual in that it is written to a

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

text. Two poems have been ascribed to Banester, the ''Miracle of St Thomas'' of 1467 and a translation of Boccaccio, dating to 1450, that is the first known in the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

. Little else is known of Banester's life. He was recorded as the "king's servant" in 1471. In addition, it is known that

Edward IV Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England ...

provided him with corrodies for two Abbeys, and he was made a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1475. In 1478, he became master of the choristers. He died in 1487.

References

1440s births 1487 deaths English classical composers Renaissance composers Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal Composers from London 15th-century English composers Composers of the Tudor period English male classical composers Masters of the Children of the Chapel Royal {{UK-composer-stub