A maldit was a genre

Genre

Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

 of Catalan

Catalan literature

Catalan literature is the name conventionally used to refer to literature written in the Catalan language. The Catalan literary tradition is extensive, starting in the Middle Ages....

 and Occitan literature practised by the later 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....

s. It was a song complaining about a lady's behaviour and character. A related genre, the comiat (kuˈmjat, kumiˈat or komiˈat; "dismissal"), was a song renouncing a lover. The maldit and the comiat were often connected as a maldit-comiat (or comiat-maldit) and they could be used to attack and renounce a figure other than a lady or a lover, like a commanding officer (when combined, in a way, with the sirventes

Sirventes

The sirventes or serventes is a genre of Occitan lyric poetry used by the troubadours. In early Catalan it became a sirventesch and was imported into that language in the fourteenth century, where it developed into a unique didactic/moralistic type...

). The maldit-comiat is especially associated with the Catalan

Catalonia

Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...

 troubadours. Martí de Riquer describes un autèntic maldit-comiat as a song where a poet leaves a mistress to whom he has long been fruitlessly devoted, and explains her failings which have led him to depart.

The earliest comiat is probably a fragmentary work by Uc Catola

Uc Catola

Uc Catola was a knight and early troubadour, possibly a participant in the Second Crusade and perhaps later a monk.Uc composed what is possibly the first tenso with his famous contemporary Marcabru: Amics Marchabrun, which concerned the nature of love. Uc argued that it was good and noble, while...

, of the first generation of troubadours.

Maldits in Catalonia

The most famous maldit is probably poem XLII of Ausiàs March

Ausiàs March

Ausiàs March was a Valencian poet who was born in Gandia towards the end of the 14th century. He was the son of Pere March, nephew of Jaume March II, and cousin of Arnau March....

. It is a virulent attack on several named women. The poem is only explicitly named as a maldit in one minor manuscript, but since the term could refer, at its most general, to any poem "cursing" another, the term is accepted by modern scholars as accurate. Other Catalan authors who wrote maldits, so identified in the manuscripts or by later scholars, include Pau de Bellviure

Pau de Bellviure

Pau de Bellviure was a Catalan poet of the fourteenth and/or fifteenth centuries. To the Catalan and Spanish writers of the Renaissance he was a model of courtly love who had attained gran fama . Pere Torroella lists him among the "doctors" of poetry...

, Pere de Queralt

Pere de Queralt

Pere de Queralt was a Catalan nobleman, diplomat, and poet; "una destacada figura del seu temps" . He was the nephew of Guerau de Queralt, husband of Clemença de Perellós, and lord of Santa Coloma...

, Simon Pastor, Jordi de Sant Jordi

Jordi de Sant Jordi

Jordi de Sant Jordi was born in the Kingdom of Valencia. He was Chamberlain at the court of King Alfons V of Aragon but is best known for his poetry....

, Joan Basset (two), Guillem de Masdovelles

Guillem de Masdovelles

Guillem de Masdovelles was a Catalan soldier, courtier, politician, and poet. His family came from the Penedès, but he was active in Barcelona, where he became a civic leader. His fifteen poems are preserved alongside the work of his nephew, Joan Berenguer, in a chansonnier compiled by Joan...

 (three), Johan Berenguer de Masdovelles (ten), and Pere Johan de Masdovelles (two). Francesc Ferrer in Lo conhort quotes from six other authors, works which may have been maldits. It was evidently a popular genre in the second quarter of the fifteenth century.

All of the above poets do not name their lovers and do not include a comiat in their poems. On the basis of this, March has been argued to be creating a new form, politically motivated and less encumbered by the ethics of courtly love

Courtly love

Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....

. The composers of traditional maldits often refer to their women by senhals (code names) like Na Maliciosa (Lady Malicious) and Na Mondina (Worldly Lady). Simon Pastor, however, wrote a maldit against an unnamed man. The Leys d'amor, the guiding treatise of the Consistori de Tolosa

Consistori del Gay Saber

The Consistori del Gay Saber , commonly called the Consistori de Tolosa today, was a poetic academy founded at Toulouse in 1323 to revive and perpetuate the lyric school of the troubadours.-Foundation:...

 and the Consistori de Barcelona

Consistori de Barcelona

The Consistori de Barcelona was a literary academy founded in Barcelona by John the Hunter, King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona, in 1393 in imitation of the Consistori del Gay Saber founded at Toulouse seventy years earlier . The poetry produced by and for the Consistori was heavily influenced...

, condemned the maldig especial (regarded as usually a type of sirventes), which attacked a specific individual (alquna certa persona: some certain person).

Comiats in Catalonia

Bernart de Palaol wrote a comiat that has often been mis-identified as a maldit or comiat-maldit, when in fact it contains no invective. Guillem de Masdovelles, besides his three maldits, wrote one comiat, perhaps his most famous piece. He takes leave, not of his lover, but of the military service of Guerau Alamany de Cervelló, the governor of Catalonia (governador de moltes gens e pobles, governor of many peoples and towns) at the time (1394–1405). From the same family, Johan Berenguer wrote a comiat often mis-characterised as a comiat-maldit. Another Catalan poet of the comiat was Blai Saselles.

Seven characteristics of a maldit

Robert Archer suggests (p. 73) the following seven (four typical, three common) characteristics of a maldit based on his analysis of surviving examples:

1. Usually, but not always, alludes to a past amorous relationship between poet and a woman.
2. Usually, but not always, represents the formal end of the relationship.
3. Consists mainly of accusations of bad content, usually but not always with regards to the treatment of the poet.
4. Woman is unnamed.
5. Often, the poet claims to have had a sexual relationship with the woman.
6. Often, the poet calls the woman ugly.
7. Often, the poet is sensitive to the generally hostile reception of defamatory works of literature.

Archer does not interpret March's famous poem LXII as a maldit-comiat, though he admits it is a maldit in the general sense. One reason for this is that March was not the lover of the woman he is attacking.