S’il estoit nuls - S’Amours tous - Et gaudebit cor vestrum
On ne porroit penser
Dame, se vous m’estes lonteinne
Moult sui de bonne heure nee
Ne pensez pas, dame, que je recroie
En demantant et lamentant
Mes esperis se combat
J’aim sans penser laidure
Ma fin est mon commencement
C’est force, faire le vueil
Je puis trop bien ma dame comparer
Tant doucement m’ont attrait
Eins que ma dame (Ruina)

The titular ‘lion of nobility’ was (probably) King John II of France, making the most expansive work on this album a lament for a historical event: the French defeat at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. Elsewhere, Machaut’s protagonist continues to scrutinize the joys and sorrows of courtly love in obsessive detail.

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Recorded in the Parish Church of St John the Baptist, Loughton, Essex, on 26-28 March 2019.