Grimoart Gausmar(s) was a Gascon

Gascony

Gascony is an area of southwest France that was part of the "Province of Guyenne and Gascony" prior to the French Revolution. The region is vaguely defined and the distinction between Guyenne and Gascony is unclear; sometimes they are considered to overlap, and sometimes Gascony is considered a...

 troubadour

Troubadour

A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....

 of the third quarter of the twelfth century. The sole source of information about his life comes from a satire of Peire d'Alvernhe

Peire d'Alvernhe

Peire d'Alvernhe or d'Alvernha was an Auvergnat troubadour with twenty-one or twenty-four surviving works. He composed in an "esoteric" and "formally complex" style known as the trobar clus...

, which mentions that Grimoart was a knight

Knight

A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....

 and jongleur. Only one known poem by Grimoart has survived. The poet names himself in its last lines:

e vec vos del vers la fi, qu'En Grimoartz vos espelha, qu'ab joi lo lass'e l'afina, si.s qui be.l chant ni.l espelha.

and here is the end of the verse, which Lord Grimoart unveils for you, with joy he intertwines it and ends it, if there is anyone who can sing and unveil it well.

Grimoart's work is misattributed in two manuscripts to Jaufre Rudel

Jaufré Rudel

Jaufre Rudel was the Prince of Blaye and a troubadour of the early–mid 12th century, who probably died during the Second Crusade, in or after 1147...

. The misattribution probably stems from the similarity between the first lines of two works: Lanquan lo temps renovelha by Grimoart and Lanquan li jorn son lonc e may by Rudel. The influence of Marcabru

Marcabru

Marcabru is one of the earliest troubadours whose poems are known. There is no certain information about him; the two vidas attached to his poems tell different stories, and both are evidently built on hints in the poems, not on independent information.According to the brief life in MS...

 comes across in the poem of Grimoart.

A hypothesis has been forwarded that Grimoart Gausmar is a corruption of the name of another troubadour, Guilhem Azemar, which the copyist and later Peire got wrong. It has not received widespread support.

Sources

• Riquer, Martín de. Los trovadores: historia literaria y textos. 3 vol. Barcelona: Planeta, 1975.