Jacobus Clemens non Papa: Pastores Quidnam Vidistis

Jacobus Clemens non Papa (also Jacques Clément or Jacob Clemens non Papa) (c. 1510 to 1515 -- 1555 or 1556) was a Flemish composer of the Renaissance based for most of his life in Flanders. He was a prolific composer in many of the current styles, and was especially famous for his polyphonic settings of the psalms in Dutch known as the Souterliedekens. Nothing is known of his early life, and even the details of the years of his artistic maturity are sketchy. He may have been born in Middelburg, Zeeland, though the evidence is contradictory; certainly he was from somewhere in modernBelgium or the Netherlands. The first unambiguous reference to him is from the late 1530s, when Pierre Attaingnant published a collection of his chansons in Paris. Between March 1544 and June 1545 he worked as succentor at thecathedral of Bruges, and shortly thereafter he began a business relationship with Tielman Susato, the publisher in Antwerp, which was to last for the rest of his life. From 1545 until 1549 he was