Margaret also did much to encourage a taste for music, and the names of several of her musicians and composers have been preserved. Maître Agricola wrote accompaniments to her songs, and Bruneel, Josquin des Prés, Compère, Henry Isaac, and Pierre de la Rue are all mentioned as attached to her Court. Flemish singers were sought for far and wide, especially in Italy and France, and many of the Pope's choir were recruited from the Netherlands.
But if Margaret did much for art, she did no less for literature. Grouped around her stand forth the names of such men as Jean Molinet, Jean Lemaire de Beiges, Adrian of Utrecht, Cornelius Agrippa, Erasmus, Massé, Nicolas Everard, Renacle de Florennes, Louis Vivés, and many others whom she welcomed to her Court, lodged in her palace, and counted amongst her friends. It is no wonder that they sang her praises in prose and in verse, extolling her beauty, her golden hair, fresh complexion, and soft brown eyes, exclaiming how lovely she looked when attending the dances given on festive occasions, or dressed in satin with long hanging sleeves lined with ermine, and followed by her greyhound, parrot, and marmoset, she wandered amongst her roses in her sweet-scented garden at Malines.
Molinet, her librarian, comes first among the poets who celebrated her charms. Besides his chronicles, he wrote 'La Récollection des Merveilleuses,' and several epigrams. The following verses on Margaret's return are a curious tour de force:—
'Par vous nous vint grâce, miséricorde,
Paix et concorde, et cordastes la corde,
Qui se discorde et veult discorder,
Par bien corder, cordons par concorder,
Et recorder, accord fut par cordée,
La bonne harpe est tantôt accordée.'