Jehan le Cuvelier d'Arras (fl. c. 1240–70) was a trouvère

Trouvère

Trouvère , sometimes spelled trouveur , is the Northern French form of the word trobador . It refers to poet-composers who were roughly contemporary with and influenced by the troubadours but who composed their works in the northern dialects of France...

 associated with the so-called "school of Arras

Arras

Arras is the capital of the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. The historic centre of the Artois region, its local speech is characterized as a Picard dialect...

". He may be the same person as Johannes Cuvellarius from Bapaume

Bapaume

Bapaume is a commune and the seat of a canton in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.-Geography:A farming and light industrial town located 10 miles south of Arras at the junction of the A1 autoroute and the N17 and N30 national roads its location is...

, a suburb of Arras, who is mentioned in documents of 1258. He was the respondent in nine jeux partis and judge of six; he also composed six chansons courtoises. His six chansons are:

• Amours est une merveille
• Anuis et desesperance
• J'ai une dame enamee
• Jolivetés et joenece
• Mout me plaisent a sentir
• Pour la meillour qu'onques formast Nature

This last one can be approximately dated, since it is dedicated to Wagon Wion, sheriff (échevin) of Arras in 1265 and dead by February 1273. Cuvelier's chansons are predominantly heptasyllabic, although one (Pour la meillour) is decasyllabic and there are pentasyllabic lines in the others. All are in bar form

Bar form

Bar form is a musical form of the pattern AAB.-Original Use:The term comes from the rigorous terminology of the Meistersinger guilds of the 15th to 18th century who used it to describe their songs and the songs of the predecessors, the minnesingers of the 12th to 14th century...

 with the exception of Amours est, which is AA'BB'CC'DE. The use of motives

Motif (music)

In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....

 in the caudae

Coda (music)

Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...

 is typical. Unusual for his place and time he favoured plagal mode

Plagal mode

A Plagal mode may mean different church chanting modes, depending on the context.-In Western Practice:A plagal mode   is a musical mode, which is one of four Gregorian modes whose range includes the octave from the fourth below the tonic, or final, to the fifth above...

s, save for the authentic

Authentic mode

An authentic mode is one of four Gregorian modes whose final is the lowest note of the scale...

 J'ai une dame. In the readings of the music for Amours est, Mout me plaisent, and Pour la meillour found in the Chansonnier Cangé (BnF

BNF

BNF may stand for:In science:*Biological nitrogen fixation, a process that converts nitrogen in the atmosphere to ammonia*British National Formulary, the standard drug reference manual**British National Formulary for Children...

 fr.846), there is evidence of modal rhythm

Rhythmic mode

In medieval music, the rhythmic modes were set patterns of long and short durations . The value of each note is not determined by the form of the written note , but rather by its position within a group of notes written as a single figure called a "ligature", and by the position of the ligature...

. Ligatures

Ligature (music)

In music notation, a ligature is a graphic symbol representing two or more notes performed in a single gesture, and on a single syllable, primarily in use ca. 800–1650 AD. They are characteristic of neumatic and mensural notation...

 in Anuis et desesperance and Jolivetés also suggest the "free use" of modal rhythm.

Jehan de Grieviler

Jehan de Grieviler

Jehan de Grieviler was an Artesian cleric and trouvère.Jehan was probably born at Grévillers near Arras. A certain "Grieviler" is mentioned in the necrology of the Confrérie des jongleurs et des bourgeois d'Arras under 1254–5, but since Jehan was a known member of the Puy d'Arras, he cannot...

 debated Cuvelier in Cuvelier, un jugement and in Cuvelier, j'ain mieus que moi Gamart de Vilers addressed Cuvelier as "sire", an indication of his rank. Cuvelier's most popular debating partner was Jehan Bretel

Jehan Bretel

Jehan Bretel was a trouvère. Of his known oeuvre of probably 97 songs, 96 have survived. Judging by his contacts with other trouvères he was famous and popular...

, who initiated six juex partis with him:

• Cuvelier, dites moi voir
• Cuvelier, et vous, Ferri (also addressed to Lambert Ferri
  Lambert Ferri
  Lambert Ferri was a trouvère and cleric at the Benedictine monastery at Saint-Léonard, Pas-de-Calais. By 1268 he was a canon and a deacon of the monastery; he is last associated with the monastery in 1282....
  
  )
• Cuvelier, or i parra
• Cuvelier, s'il est ainsi
• Cuvelier, vous amerés
• Je vous demant, Cuvelier, espondés

Bretel and Ferri joined up to propose a jeu with Cuvelier and the Tresorier d'Aire: Biaus sire tresorier d'Aire. Cuvelier also judged a jeu parti involving Adam de la Halle

Adam de la Halle

Adam de la Halle, also known as Adam le Bossu was a French-born trouvère, poet and musician, whose literary and musical works include chansons and jeux-partis in the style of the trouveres, polyphonic rondel and motets in the style of early liturgical polyphony, and a musical play, "The Play of...

.