COUSSEMAKER, CHARLES-EDMOND-HENRI de. — Musicologist, b. at Beilueli on 19 Apr. 1805, d. at Lille on 10 Jan. 1876.
He studied law in Paris and served as a judge in the courts of Cambrai, Dunkirk, Lille, etc., while simultaneously devoting himself to music, composing masses and motets. His most significant work, however, lay in musicology, particularly in the field of medieval music, through the publication of a large number of treatises in the collection Scriptores de musica medii aevi (4 vols., 1864–76), by which he continued the enterprise of M. Gerbert. In addition to numerous monographs, often of considerable length, such as Histoire de l'harmonie au moyen âge (Paris 1852) and L'Art harmonique au XIIe et XIIIe siècle (Lille 1865), etc., he published the works of the trouvère Adam de la Halle (ibid. 1872), the Trattato di Musica by J. Tinctoris (ibid. 1875), Mémoires sur Huchald (Douai 1841), etc. His work, though imperfect due to still insufficient paleographic studies and the limited scientific basis of his philological preparation, nonetheless represents a valuable contribution to the historiography of medieval music.