Nicholas le Tourneaux

LE TOURNEAUX, Nicholas. b. Rouen, Normandy, 30 April 1640; d. Villers sur Fère, West of Rheims, 28 November 1686. Born into a poor family, he was educated by the Jesuits in Paris, and became a priest ‘under the canonical age’ (Frost, 1962, p. 574). He was appointed vicar of St Étienne des Tonneliers in his native Rouen, moving to the Sainte Chapelle, Paris, in 1675, before becoming Prior of the monastery at Villers sur Fère. Some of his hymns were included in the Paris Breviary of 1680, and the Cluniac Breviary of 1686. He is known to English readers for two hymns, ‘Emergit undis et Deo’, on the Baptism of Christ, translated by Jackson Mason* as ‘The Son of Man from Jordan rose’* and ‘Iussu...