Guillem Ramon de Gironella was a late thirteenth-century Catalan

Catalan people

The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...

 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....

. His poetry, while difficult, is highly original and praised for its beauty.

Guillem Ramon was from Gironella

Gironella

Gironella is a municipality in the comarca of the Berguedà in Catalonia, Spain. It is situated in the left bank of the Llobregat river to the south of Berga...

 in the Berguedà

Berguedà

Berguedà is a comarca in the interior of Catalonia, Spain, lying partly in the Pyrenees and partly in Catalonia's Depressió Central.-Geography:...

. There are many persons carrying the name "Ramon de Gironella" in twelfth- and thirteenth-century documents, but no others named "Guillem Ramon". The troubadour has been identified with a person bearing the initials "G.R." marked on a tomb in the monastery

Monastery

Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...

 of Sant Daniel de Girona and lying next to the tomb of his mother, Brunissendis de Gerundella. If this identification is correct, then Guillem Ramon was the canon

Canon (priest)

A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....

 Guillelmus Raimundi de Gerundella whose death is recorded in monastic records on 8 July of an unknown year.

All of Guillem Ramon's surviving poetry, four works in total, is preserved in a single chansonnier

Chansonnier

A chansonnier is a manuscript or printed book which contains a collection of chansons, or polyphonic and monophonic settings of songs, hence literally "song-books," although some manuscripts are so called even though they preserve the text but not the music A chansonnier is a manuscript or...

, three cansos

Canso (song)

The canso is a song style used by the troubadours. It consists of three parts. The first stanza is the exordium, where the composer explains his purpose. The main body of the song occurs in the following stanzas, and usually draw out a variety of relationships with the exordium. The canso can end...

under the full name Guilem Raimon de Gironela and one partimen

Partimen

The partimen is a genre of Occitan lyric poetry composed between two troubadours, a subgenre of the tenso or cobla exchange in which one poet presents a dilemma in the form of a question and the two debate the answer, each taking up a different side. It was especially popular in poetic contests....

with the jongleur Pouzet under the name Guilem Raimon. Towards the end of this piece, "Del joi d'amor agradiu", Guillem suggests submitting it to the judgement of la de Palau ("[she] of Palau"), but the lady and the Palau

Palau

Palau , officially the Republic of Palau , is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Philippines and south of Tokyo. In 1978, after three decades as being part of the United Nations trusteeship, Palau chose independence instead of becoming part of the Federated States of Micronesia, a...

 to which this refers are not securely identifiable. The contemporary Catalan troubadour Cerverí de Girona

Cerverí de Girona

Cerverí de Girona was a Catalan troubadour born Guillem de Cervera in Girona. He was the most prolific troubadour, leaving behind some 114 lyric poems among other works, including an ensenhamen of proverbs for his son, totaling about 130. He was a court poet to James the Conqueror and Peter the...

, in his Recepta de xarob, wrote (between 1260 and 1285): E si Na Guyllamona (or Guillemona) / lay a Palau, vos dona / un pauc de cuyndia. . . . The lady Guillemona may be the la de Palau of Guillem Ramon's partimen. If so, this would establish a link between the obscure Guillem Ramon and the famous Cerverí, putting the former in better context.

One further reference from Cerverí, however, throws the identification of Guillem Ramon the troubadour with the canon into doubt. Cerverí, in his Testament (1274), says that En Poncet is grateful to the don de Gironella (lord of Gironella), but Guillem Ramon was not the feudal lord of Gironella nor even a nobleman, but a cleric. Whether Cerverí was confused or Guillem Ramon only took up his clerical career late in life is not known.

In two of his cansos—"Gen m'apareill" and "La clara lutz del bel jorn"—Guillem Ramon celebrates a person by the senhal (or nickname) Sobreluenh ("Over-a-distance"), but whether this is his lady or a friend, like the viscount

Viscount

A viscount or viscountess is a member of the European nobility whose comital title ranks usually, as in the British peerage, above a baron, below an earl or a count .-Etymology:...

 of Cardona

Cardona

Cardona is a town ìn Catalonia, Spain, in the province of Barcelona; about 90 km northwest of the city of Barcelona, on a hill almost surrounded by the river Cardoner, a branch of the Llobregat.Near the town is an extensive deposit of rock salt...

 or Cabrera

Cabrera

Cabrera means goatherd in Spanish and Catalan. It may refer to:Places:* Cabrera, Balearic Islands* Cabrera, a town in the northeast of the Dominican Republic* Cabrera, Cundinamarca, a town in Colombia* Cabrera, Santander, a town in Colombia...

 is debated. Ramon Guillem was familiar with the poem Erec and Enide

Erec and Enide

Erec and Enide is the first of Chrétien de Troyes' five romance poems, completed around 1170. It is one of three completed works by the author...

of Chrétien de Troyes

Chrétien de Troyes

Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Perhaps he named himself Christian of Troyes in contrast to the illustrious Rashi, also of Troyes...

, as he makes known in "Gen m'apareill":

Cor es de bos aips complida

   deu esser enantida

sa valors, s'ap si m'acueill;

enquer n'er meils que d'Enida

can Erecs l'ac enrequida,

quar mais la tem e l'am meils.

He also wrote the canso "Pos l'amors r'ensen".