Il Est Bel Et Bon

This madrigal was written by Pierre Passereau (d. 1547), and was first published in Paris in 1534. Passereau wrote many such chansons; most of them were of a rustic character, and similar to so-called ‘patter’ songs in that they have lots of alliterative words and other vocal sounds that are fun to listen to when sung fast. Passereau’s songs apparently also often featured double entendres and obscenity, common features of popular music in France and the Low(!) Countries in the 1530s.

Il est Bel et Bon (He is handsome and good) is a conversation between two women about the merits of their husbands – see this translation. Perhaps helped by its lack of obviously obscene content (or maybe in spite of this) it has always been Passereau’s most popular song.