Jaufré Rudel - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Jaufre Rudel was the Prince of Blaye

Blaye

Blaye is a commune and subprefecture in the Gironde department in Aquitaine in southwestern France.-Population:Its inhabitants are called Blayais or the Blayaises.-Geography:...

(Princes de Blaia) and 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 early–mid 12th century, who probably died during the Second Crusade

Second Crusade

The Second Crusade was the second major crusade launched from Europe. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa the previous year to the forces of Zengi. The county had been founded during the First Crusade by Baldwin of Boulogne in 1098...

, in or after 1147. He is noted for developing the theme of "love from afar" (amor de lonh or amour de loin) in his songs.

Very little is known about his life, but a reference to him in a contemporary song by 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...

describes him as being oltra mar—across the sea, probably on the Second Crusade

Second Crusade

in 1147. Probably he was the son of Girard, also castellan

Castellan

A castellan was the governor or captain of a castle. The word stems from the Latin Castellanus, derived from castellum "castle". Also known as a constable.-Duties:...

of Blaye, and who was titled "prince" in an 1106 charter. Girard's father was the first to carry the title, being called princeps Blaviensis as early as 1090. During his father's lifetime the suzerainty of Blaye was disputed between the Counts of Poitou and the Counts of Angoulême. Shortly after the succession of William VIII of Poitou

William X of Aquitaine

William X , called the Saint, was Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, and Count of Poitou between 1126 and 1137. He was the son of William IX by his second wife, Philippa of Toulouse....

, who had inherited it from his father, Blaye was taken by Wulgrin II of Angoulême

Wulgrin II of Angoulême

Wulgrin II , called Taillefer or Rudel, was the Count of Angoulême from 1120 to his death on 16 November 1140. He was a son of Count William Taillefer III....

, who probably vested Jaufre with it. According to one hypothesis, based on flimsy evidence, Wulgrin was Jaufre's father.

According to his legendary vida
Vida (Occitan literary form)
Vida is the usual term for a brief prose biography, written in Old Occitan, of a troubadour or trobairitz.The word vida means "life" in Occitan languages. In the chansonniers, the manuscript collections of medieval troubadour poetry, the works of a particular author are often accompanied by a...

, or fictionalised biography, he was inspired to go on Crusade upon hearing from returning pilgrims of the beauty of Countess Hodierna of Tripoli

Hodierna of Tripoli

Hodierna of Jerusalem was a Countess consort of Tripoli. She was the daughter of Baldwin II of Jerusalem and the Armenian noblewoman Morphia. She was countess of Tripoli through her marriage to Raymond II of Tripoli...

, and that she was his amor de lonh, his far-off love. The legend claims that he fell sick on the journey and was brought ashore in Tripoli

Tripoli, Lebanon

Tripoli is the largest city in northern Lebanon and the second-largest city in Lebanon. Situated 85 km north of the capital Beirut, Tripoli is the capital of the North Governorate and the Tripoli District. Geographically located on the east of the Mediterranean, the city's history dates back...

a dying man. Countess Hodierna is said to have come down from her castle on hearing the news, and Rudel died in her arms. This romantic but unlikely story seems to have been derived from the enigmatic nature of Rudel's verse and his presumed death on the Crusade.

Seven of Rudel's poems have survived to the present day, four of them with music. His composition Lanquan li jorn is thought to be the model for the Minnesinger Walther von der Vogelweide

Walther von der Vogelweide

Walther von der Vogelweide is the most celebrated of the Middle High German lyric poets.-Life history:For all his fame, Walther's name is not found in contemporary records, with the exception of a solitary mention in the travelling accounts of Bishop Wolfger of Erla of the Passau diocese:...

's crusade song Allerest lebe ich mir werde (Palästinalied).

Rudel in legend and literature

Nineteenth-century Romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

found his legend irresistible. It was the subject of poems by Ludwig Uhland

Ludwig Uhland

Johann Ludwig Uhland , was a German poet, philologist and literary historian.-Biography:He was born in Tübingen, then Duchy of Württemberg, and studied jurisprudence at the university there, but also took an interest in medieval literature, especially old German and French poetry...

, Heinrich Heine

Heinrich Heine

Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann...

, Robert Browning

Robert Browning

Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...

(Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli) and Giosué Carducci

Giosuè Carducci

Giosuè Alessandro Michele Carducci was an Italian poet and teacher. He was very influential and was regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy. In 1906 he became the first Italian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.-Biography:...

(Jaufré Rudel). Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...

returned several times to the story in his poetry, in The Triumph of Time, The Death of Rudel and the now-lost Rudel in Paradise (also titled The Golden House). In The Triumph of Time, he summarises the legend though:

There lived a singer in France of old
By the tideless dolorous midland sea.
In a land of sand and ruin and gold
There shone one woman, and none but she.
And finding life for her love’s sake fail,
Being fain to see her, he bade set sail,
Touched land, and saw her as life grew cold,
And praised God, seeing; and so died he.

Died, praising God for his gift and grace:
For she bowed down to him weeping, and said
“Live”; and her tears were shed on his face
Or ever the life in his face was shed.
The sharp tears fell through her hair, and stung
Once, and her close lips touched him and clung
Once, and grew one with his lips for a space;
And so drew back, and the man was dead.

Sir Nizamat Jung Bahadur, of Hyderabad, also wrote an epic poem on the subject, Rudel of Blaye, in 1926.

The French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

dramatist Edmond Rostand

Edmond Rostand

Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand was a French poet and dramatist. He is associated with neo-romanticism, and is best known for his play Cyrano de Bergerac. Rostand's romantic plays provided an alternative to the naturalistic theatre popular during the late nineteenth century...

took the legend of Rudel and Hodierna as the basis for his 1895 verse drama La Princesse lointaine, but reassigned the female lead from Hodierna to her jilted daughter Melisende

Melisende of Tripoli

Melisende of Tripoli was the daughter of Hodierna of Tripoli and Raymond II, count of Tripoli.- Biography :Melisende was named for her aunt, Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem. She was a cousin of Kings Baldwin III and Amalric I....

, played by Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...

.

More recently, Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

Kaija Saariaho

Kaija Saariaho is a Finnish composer.Kaija Saariaho studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg and Paris, where she has lived since 1982. Her studies and research at IRCAM have had a major influence on her music and her characteristically luxuriant and mysterious textures are often created by...

has written an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

about Rudel called L'amour de loin
L'amour de loin
L’amour de loin is the first opera by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho from a five act French libretto by Amin Maalouf...

, with a libretto by Amin Maalouf

Amin Maalouf

Amin Maalouf , born 25 February 1949 in Beirut, is a Lebanese-born French author. Although his native language is Arabic, he writes in French, and his works have been translated into many languages. He received the Prix Goncourt in 1993 for his novel The Rock of Tanios...

, which was given its world premiere at the Salzburg Festival

Salzburg Festival

The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...

in 2000 and its US premiere at the Santa Fe Opera

Santa Fe Opera

The Santa Fe Opera is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe in the U.S. state of New Mexico, headquartered on a former guest ranch of .-General history:...

in 2002.

External links

Jaufré Rudel: Complete Works (in English and Provençal, with MIDIs of the extant melodies)
Text of Rostand's La Princesse Lointaine
Collected poetry and prose on the Rudel legend, essentially an online version of the Riddle/Sedgwick anthology (see above) plus extra material
The afterlife of Jaufré Rudel, a growing resource of Rudel-related material and links

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Rudel in legend and literature

Further reading

External links