Egardus, alternatively Engardus or Johannes Echgaerd, was a European composer of music in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Almost no information survives about his life, and only three of his works are known. A certain "Johannes Ecghaerd", who held chaplaincies in Bruges and Diksmuide, may be a possible match for Egardus. The extant works—a canon and two Glorias—appear to be less complex than music by mid-century composers, possibly because they date from either very early or very late in Egardus' career.
Biography
Little is known with certainty about his life. The enigma of his biography stems from a difficulty in knowing whether he was Flemish or Italian. A northern origin is suggested by his name, a copy of one of his works in a Flemish manuscript, and a possible citation of his music by Thomas Fabri. But with only one other exception, all of his works are found in Northern Italian manuscripts, and that exception, a Polish manuscript, has strong Italian connections. The most important biographical research on the composer was conducted by Reinhard Strohm, who notes that it was more common for Northern works to travel to Italy than the opposite. Strohm identifies a "Magister Johannes Ecghaerd" appointed as succentor of St Donatian's Cathedral in Bruges in 1370 as a possible match for the composer. This appointment suggests to Strohm that Echgaerd would have been born by or before 1340. Strohm also finds connections to a work by Thomas Fabri, a Dutch composer, in the text of Furnos reliquisti, an unlikely coincidence if they were not working in close proximity to each other. Johannes Egardus held chaplaincies in Diksmuide and Bruges. The number of his pieces in Paduan manuscripts suggested to Strohm that he may have been resident there. Nino Pirrotta had suggested that he may have been one of the musicians in the papal court of Bologna c.1410. However, Pirrotta's evidence was based on the position of Egardus's works within the manuscript Mod A—a connection between manuscript and court now considered more tenuous, and not from the lists of singers in the Italian papal chapels: lists from which Egardus is absent.
Works
Only three works by Egardus survive. A canon, Furnos reliquisti quare; Equum est et salutare is found in a single source, Mod A. His other two works have a somewhat wider distribution. The Gloria with the trope "Spiritus et Alme" appears in three sources, Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek 1846 and two sources from Padua, Biblioteca Universitaria: MSS Ba 2.2.a and 1475. Both of the Paduan sources originally come from the Paduan abbey of Santa Giustina. An untroped Gloria appears in five independent sources: Warsaw, Biblioteka Narodowa, MS III.8054 f. 204v-205r, Mod A f. 21v-22r, a collection of sources in Grottaferrata and at Dartmouth College, Padua Ba 2.2.a, f. 1v, and, recently identified, in Udine, Archivio di Stato framm. 22 recto.
