Troubadour
Encyclopedia
Lyric poetry
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...
during the High Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....
(1100–1350). Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz
Trobairitz
The trobairitz were Occitan female troubadours of the 12th and 13th centuries, active from around 1170 to approximately 1260. The word trobairitz was first used in the 13th-century romance Flamenca. It comes from the Provençal word trobar, the literal meaning of which is "to find", and the...
.
The troubadour school or tradition began in the 11th century in Occitania
Occitania
Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language...
, but it subsequently spread into Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, and even Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. Under the influence of the troubadours, related movements sprang up throughout Europe: the Minnesang
Minnesang
Minnesang was the tradition of lyric and song writing in Germany which flourished in the 12th century and continued into the 14th century. People who wrote and performed Minnesang are known as Minnesingers . The name derives from the word minne, Middle High German for love which was their main...
in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, trovadorismo in Galicia and Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, and that of the 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...
s in northern France
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...
. Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
in his De vulgari eloquentia
De vulgari eloquentia
De vulgari eloquentia is the title of an essay by Dante Alighieri, written in Latin and initially meant to consist of four books, but abandoned in the middle of the second. It was probably composed shortly after Dante went into exile; internal evidence points to a date between 1302 and 1305...
defined the troubadour lyric as fictio rethorica musicaque poita: rhetorical, musical, and poetical fiction. After the "classical" period around the turn of the 13th century and a mid-century resurgence, the art of the troubadours declined in the 14th century and eventually died out around the time of the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
(1348).
The texts of troubadour songs deal mainly with themes of chivalry
Chivalry
Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...
and 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....
. Most were metaphysical, intellectual, and formulaic. Many were humorous or vulgar satires. Works can be grouped into three styles: the trobar leu
Trobar leu
The trobar leu , or light style of poetry, was the most popular style used by the troubadours. Its accessibility gave it a wide audience, though modern readers may find its somewhat formulaic nature tiresome after a while....
(light), trobar ric
Trobar ric
The trobar ric , or rich form of poetry, was a trobadour style.It was distinguished by its verbal gymnastics; its best exponent was Arnaut Daniel. Despite the fact that it outlasted trobar clus it always played a secondary role to trobar leu....
(rich), and trobar clus
Trobar clus
Trobar clus , or closed form, was a complex and obscure style of poetry used by troubadours for their more discerning audiences, and it was only truly appreciated by an elite few. It was developed extensively by Marcabru, but by 1200 its inaccessibility led to its disappearance...
(closed). Likewise there were many 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...
s, the most popular being the canso
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...
, but 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...
and tenso
Tenso
A tenso is a style of Occitan song favoured by the troubadours. It takes the form of a debate in which each voice defends a position on a topic relating to love or ethics. Closely related genres include the partimen and the cobla exchange...
s were especially popular in the post-classical period, in Italy, and among the female troubadours, the trobairitz
Trobairitz
The trobairitz were Occitan female troubadours of the 12th and 13th centuries, active from around 1170 to approximately 1260. The word trobairitz was first used in the 13th-century romance Flamenca. It comes from the Provençal word trobar, the literal meaning of which is "to find", and the...
.
Etymology of name
The name "troubadour" and its cognates in other languages—trov(i)èro and then trovatore in ItalianItalian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, trovador in Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, trobador in Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
—are of disputed origin.
Latin
The English word "troubadour" comes by way of Old FrenchOld French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...
from the Occitan word trobador, the oblique case
Oblique case
An oblique case in linguistics is a noun case of synthetic languages that is used generally when a noun is the object of a verb or a preposition...
of the nominative trobaire, a substantive of the verb trobar, which is derived from the hypothetical Late Latin
Late Latin
Late Latin is the scholarly name for the written Latin of Late Antiquity. The English dictionary definition of Late Latin dates this period from the 3rd to the 6th centuries AD extending in Spain to the 7th. This somewhat ambiguously defined period fits between Classical Latin and Medieval Latin...
*tropāre, in turn from tropus, meaning a trope
Trope (music)
A trope or tropus may be a variety of different things in medieval and modern music.The term trope derives from the Greek τρόπος , "a turn, a change" , related to the root of the verb τρέπειν , "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change"...
, from Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
τρόπος (tropos), meaning "turn, manner". Another possible Latin root is turbare, to upset or (over)turn. Trobar is cognative with the modern French word trouver, meaning "to find". Whereas French trouver became 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...
, the nominative form, instead of the oblique trouveor or trouveur, the French language adopted the Occitan oblique case and from there it entered English. The general sense of "trobar" in Occitan is "invent" or "compose" and this is how it is commonly translated. (In Latin the verb invenire meant precisely "to find".) A troubadour thus composed his own work, whereas a joglar performed only that of others. This etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
is supported by the French dictionaries Académie Française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
, Larousse
Grand Larousse encyclopédique
The Grand Larousse encyclopédique en dix volumes is a French encyclopedic dictionary published by Larousse, published in volumes between February 1960 and August 1964, with two later supplements....
, and Petit Robert
Petit Robert
Le Petit Robert is a popular single-volume French dictionary first published by Paul Robert in 1967, an abridgement of his eight-volume Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française....
.
Not surprisingly, the Greek → Latin → Occitan → French → English hypothesis has been widely supported by those who find the origins of troubadour poetry in classical Latin forms or in medieval Latin liturgies, such as Peter Dronke
Peter Dronke
Ernest Peter Michael Dronke FBA is a scholar specialising in Medieval Latin literature. He is one of the 20th century's leading scholars of medieval Latin lyric, and his book The Medieval Lyric is considered the standard introduction to the subject.-Life and career:Dronke was born in Cologne in...
and Reto Bezzola.
Arabic
There is a second, less traditional and less popular, theory as to the etymology of the word trobar. It has the support of some, such as María Rosa MenocalMaría Rosa Menocal
María Rosa Menocal is a Cuban-born scholar of medieval culture and history. Menocal earned a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania...
, in the camp which seeks the troubadours' origins in Arabic Andalusian musical practices. According to them, the Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
word tarab, "to sing", is the root of trobar.
Some proponents of this theory argue, on cultural grounds, that both etymologies may well be correct, and that there may have been a conscious poetic exploitation of the phonological
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
coincidence between trobar and the triliteral Arabic root TRB when sacred Sufi Islamic
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
musical forms with a love theme first spread from Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
to southern France. It has also been pointed out that the concepts of "finding", "music", "love", and "ardour"—the precise semantic field attached to the word troubadour—are allied in Arabic under a single root (WJD) that plays a major role in Sufic discussions of music, and that the word troubadour may in part reflect this.
Origins
The early study of the troubadours focused intensely on their origins. No academic consensus was ever achieved in the area. Today, one can distinguish at least eleven competing theories (the adjectives used below are a blend from the Grove Dictionary of Music and Roger Boase's The Origins and Meaning of Courtly Love):- Arabic (also Arabist or Hispano-Arabic)
Referring to the songs of the troubadours, Ezra PoundEzra PoundEzra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
wrote in his Canto VIII that William of Aquitaine "had brought the song up out of Spain / with the singers and viels". In his study, Lévi-ProvençalÉvariste Lévi-ProvençalÉvariste Lévi-Provençal was a French medievalist, orientalist, Arabist, and historian of Islam.Born 4 January 1894 in Constantine, French Algeria, as Makhlóuf Evariste Levi, his name already revealing Gallicized tendencies in his North-African Jewish family...
is said to have found four Arabo-Hispanic verses nearly or completely recopied in William's manuscript. According to historic sources, William VIIIWilliam VIII of AquitaineWilliam VIII , born Guy-Geoffrey , was duke of Gascony , and then duke of Aquitaine and count of Poitiers between 1058 and 1086, succeeding his brother William VII ....
, the father of William, brought to Poitiers hundreds of Muslim prisoners. Trend admitted that the troubadours derived their sense of form and even the subject matter of their poetry from the Andalusian Muslims. The hypothesis that the troubadour tradition was created, more or less, by William after his experience of Moorish arts while fighting with the ReconquistaReconquistaThe Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...
in Spain was also championed by Ramón Menéndez PidalRamón Menéndez PidalRamón Menéndez Pidal was a Spanish philologist and historian. He worked extensively on the history of the Spanish language and Spanish folklore and folk poetry. One of his main topics was the history and legend of The Cid....
in the early twentieth-century, but its origins go back to the CinquecentoCinquecentoCinquecento is a term used to describe the Italian Renaissance of the 16th century, including the current styles of art, music, literature, and architecture.-Art:...
and Giammaria Barbieri (died 1575) and Juan AndrésJuan AndrésJuan Andrés was a Spanish jesuit and writer....
(died 1822). Meg Bogin, English translator of the trobairitz, held this hypothesis. Certainly "a body of song of comparable intensity, profanity and eroticism [existed] in Arabic from the second half of the 9th century onwards." - Bernardine-Marianist or Christian
According to this theory, it was the theology espoused by Bernard of ClairvauxBernard of ClairvauxBernard of Clairvaux, O.Cist was a French abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian order.After the death of his mother, Bernard sought admission into the Cistercian order. Three years later, he was sent to found a new abbey at an isolated clearing in a glen known as the Val...
and the increasingly important MariologyMariologyRoman Catholic Mariology is theology concerned with the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ as developed by the Catholic Church. Roman Catholic teachings on the subject have been based on the belief that "The Blessed Virgin, because she is the Mother of God, is believed to hold a certain...
that most strongly influenced the development of the troubadour genre. Specifically, the emphasis on religious and spiritual love, disinterestedness, mysticism, and devotion to Mary would explain "courtly love". The emphasis of the reforming Robert of ArbrisselRobert of ArbrisselRobert of Arbrissel was an itinerant preacher, and founder of the abbey of Fontevrault. He was born at Arbrissel near Rhétiers, Brittany; and died at Orsan.-Biography:...
on "matronage" to achieve his ends can explain the troubadour attitude towards women. Chronologically, however, this hypothesis is hard to sustain (the forces believed to have given rise to the phenomenon arrived later than it). But the influence of Bernardine and Marian theology can be retained without the origins theory. This theory was advanced early by Eduard Wechssler and further by Dmitri Scheludko (who emphasises the Cluniac Reform) and Guido Errante. Mario Casella and Leo Spitzer have added "AugustinianAugustine of HippoAugustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
" influence to it. - Celtic or Chivalric-Matriarchal
The survival of pre-Christian sexual mores and warrior codes from matriarchal societies, be they CeltCeltThe Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....
ic, GermanicGermanic peoplesThe Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
, or Pictish, among the aristocracy of Europe can account for the idea (fusion) of "courtly love". The existence of pre-Christian matriarchy has usually been treated with scepticism as has the persistence of underlying paganism in high medieval Europe. - Classical Latin
The classical Latin theory emphasises parallels between OvidOvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
, especially his Amores and Ars amatoria, and the lyric of courtly love. The aetas ovidiana that predominated in the 11th century in and around OrléansOrléans-Prehistory and Roman:Cenabum was a Gallic stronghold, one of the principal towns of the Carnutes tribe where the Druids held their annual assembly. It was conquered and destroyed by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, then rebuilt under the Roman Empire...
, the quasi-CiceroCiceroMarcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
nian ideology that held sway in the Imperial courtHoly Roman EmpireThe Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
, and the scraps of PlatoPlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
then available to scholars have all been cited as classical influences on troubadour poetry. - (Crypto-)Cathar
According to this thesis, troubadour poetry is a reflection of CatharCatharCatharism was a name given to a Christian religious sect with dualistic and gnostic elements that appeared in the Languedoc region of France and other parts of Europe in the 11th century and flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries...
religious doctrine. While the theory is supported by the traditional and near-universal account of the decline of the troubadours coinciding with the suppression of Catharism during the Albigensian CrusadeAlbigensian CrusadeThe Albigensian Crusade or Cathar Crusade was a 20-year military campaign initiated by the Catholic Church to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc...
(first half of the 13th century), support for it has come in waves. The explicitly Catholic meaning of many early troubadour works also works against the theory. - Liturgical
The troubadour lyric may be a development of the Christian liturgyLiturgyLiturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...
and hymnody. The influence of the Song of SongsSong of songsSong of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. It may also refer to:In music:* Song of songs , the debut album by David and the Giants* A generic term for medleysPlays...
has even been suggested. There is no preceding Latin poetryLatin poetryThe history of Latin poetry can be understood as the adaptation of Greek models. The verse comedies of Plautus are the earliest Latin literature that has survived, composed around 205-184 BC, yet the start of Latin literature is conventionally dated to the first performance of a play in verse by a...
resembling that of the troubadours. On those grounds, no theory of the latter's origins in classical or post-classical Latin can be constructed, but that has not deterred some, who believe that a pre-existing Latin corpus must merely be lost to us. That many troubadours received their grammatical training in Latin through the Church (from clerici, clerics) and that many were trained musically by the Church is well-attested. The musical school of Saint Martial's at LimogesLimogesLimoges |Limousin]] dialect of Occitan) is a city and commune, the capital of the Haute-Vienne department and the administrative capital of the Limousin région in west-central France....
has been singled out in this regard. "Para-liturgical" tropeTrope (literature)A literary trope is the usage of figurative language in literature, or a figure of speech in which words are used in a sense different from their literal meaning...
s were in use there in the era preceding the troubadours' appearance. - Feudal-social or -sociological
This theory or set of related theories has gained ground in the 20th century. It is more a methodological approach to the question than a theory; it asks not from where the content or form of the lyric came but rather in what situation/circumstances did it arise. Under Marxist influence, Erich KöhlerErich KöhlerErich Köhler was a German politician. He was President of the Bundestag from 7 September 1949 to 18 October 1950.During the Weimar Republic he was active within the German People's Party. In West Germany he was a member of the Christian Democratic Union....
, Marc BlochMarc BlochMarc Léopold Benjamin Bloch was a French historian who cofounded the highly influential Annales School of French social history. Bloch was a quintessential modernist. An assimilated Alsatian Jew from an academic family in Paris, he was deeply affected in his youth by the Dreyfus Affair...
, and Georges DubyGeorges DubyGeorges Duby was a French historian specializing in the social and economic history of the Middle Ages...
have suggested that the "essential hegemony" in the castle of the lord's wife during his absence was a driving force. The use of feudal terminology in troubadour poems is seen as evidence. This theory has been developed away from sociological towards psychological explanation. - Folklore or Spring Folk Ritual
According to María Rosa MenocalMaría Rosa MenocalMaría Rosa Menocal is a Cuban-born scholar of medieval culture and history. Menocal earned a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania...
, Alfred JeanroyAlfred JeanroyAlfred Jeanroy was a French linguist.Jeanroy was born at Mangiennes, Meuse, Lorraine. He was a leading scholar studying troubadour poetry, publishing over 600 works. He established an influential view of the second generation of troubadours divided into two camps: “idealists” and “realists”...
first suggested that folkloreFolkloreFolklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
and oral traditionOral traditionOral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
gave rise to troubadour poetry in 1883. According to F. M. Warren, it was Gaston ParisGaston ParisBruno Paulin Gaston Paris , known as Gaston Paris, was a French writer and scholar.He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901, 1902 and 1903.-Biography:Paris was born at Avenay...
, Jeanroy's reviewer, in 1891 who first located troubadour origins in the festive dances of women hearkening the spring in the Loire ValleyLoire ValleyThe Loire Valley , spanning , is located in the middle stretch of the Loire River in central France. Its area comprises approximately . It is referred to as the Cradle of the French Language, and the Garden of France due to the abundance of vineyards, fruit orchards, and artichoke, asparagus, and...
. This theory has since been widely discredited, but the discovery of the jarchas raises the question of the extent of literature (oral or written) in the 11th century and earlier. - Medieval Latin or Mediolatin (Goliardic)
Hans Spanke analysed the intertextual connexion between vernacular and medieval LatinMedieval LatinMedieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors,...
(such as Goliardic) songs. This theory is supported by Reto Bezzola, Peter Dronke, and musicologist J. Chailley. According to them, trobar means "inventing a trope", the trope being a poem where the words are used with a meaning different from their common signification, i.e. metaphorMetaphorA metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
and metonymyMetonymyMetonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept...
. This poem was originally inserted in a serial of modulations ending a liturgic song. Then the trope became an autonomous piece organized in stanza form. The influence of late eleventh-century poets of the "Loire school", such as Marbod of Rennes and Hildebert of Lavardin, is stressed in this connexion by Brinkmann. - Neoplatonic
This theory is one of the more intellectualising. The "ennobling effects of love" in specific have been identified as Neoplatonic. It is viewed either as a strength or weakness that this theory requires a second theory about how the Neoplatonism was transmitted to the troubadours; perhaps it can be coupled with one of the other origins stories or perhaps it is just peripheral. Käte Axhausen has "exploited" this theory and A. J. Denomy has linked it with the Arabist (through AvicennaAvicennaAbū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...
) and the Cathar (through John Scotus Eriugena).
History
Early period
The earliest troubadour whose work survives is Guilhèm de Peitieus, better known as Duke William IX of AquitaineWilliam IX of Aquitaine
William IX , called the Troubador, was the Duke of Aquitaine and Gascony and Count of Poitou between 1086 and his death. He was also one of the leaders of the Crusade of 1101...
(1071–1126). Peter Dronke, author of The Medieval Lyric, however, believes that "[his] songs represent not the beginnings of a tradition but summits of achievement in that tradition." His name has been preserved because he was the Duke of Aquitaine
Duke of Aquitaine
The Duke of Aquitaine ruled the historical region of Aquitaine under the supremacy of Frankish, English and later French kings....
, but his work plays with already established structures; Eble II of Ventadorn
Eble II of Ventadorn
Eble II of Ventadorn was viscount of Ventadour . He was born at some date after 1086, the son of Eble I and of Almodis de Montberon....
is often credited as a predecessor, though none of his work survives. Orderic Vitalis
Orderic Vitalis
Orderic Vitalis was an English chronicler of Norman ancestry who wrote one of the great contemporary chronicles of 11th and 12th century Normandy and Anglo-Norman England. The modern biographer of Henry I of England, C...
referred to William composing songs about his experiences on his return from the Crusade of 1101
Crusade of 1101
The Crusade of 1101 was a minor crusade of three separate movements, organized in 1100 and 1101 in the successful aftermath of the First Crusade. It is also called the Crusade of the Faint-Hearted due to the number of participants who joined this crusade after having turned back from the First...
(c. 1102). This may be the earliest reference to troubadour lyrics. Orderic also provides us (1135) with what may be the first description of a troubadour performance: an eyewitness account of William of Aquitaine.
Picauensis uero dux ... miserias captiuitatis suae ... coram regibus et magnatis atque Christianis coetibus multotiens retulit rythmicis uersibus cum facetis modulationibus. (X.21)
Then the Poitevin duke ... the miseries of his captivity ... before kings, magnates, and Christian assemblies many times related with rhythmic verses and witty measures.
Spread (rayonnement)
The first half of the 12th century saw relatively few recorded troubadours. Only in the last decades of the century did troubadour activity explode. Almost half of all troubadour works survive from the period 1180–1220.In total, moreover, there are over 2,500 troubadour lyrics available to be studied as lingusitic artifacts (Akehurst, 23).
The troubadour tradition seems to have begun in western Aquitaine (Poitou
Poitou
Poitou was a province of west-central France whose capital city was Poitiers.The region of Poitou was called Thifalia in the sixth century....
and Saintonge
Saintonge
Saintonge is a small region on the Atlantic coast of France within the département Charente-Maritime, west and south of Charente in the administrative region of Poitou-Charentes....
) and Gascony
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...
, from there spreading over into eastern Aquitaine (Limousin
Limousin (province)
Limousin is one of the traditional provinces of France around the city of Limoges. Limousin lies in the foothills of the western edge of the Massif Central, with cold weather in the winter...
and Auvergne
Auvergne (province)
Auvergne was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne. It is now the geographical and cultural area that corresponds to the former province....
) and Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
. At its height it had become popular in Languedoc
Languedoc
Languedoc is a former province of France, now continued in the modern-day régions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées in the south of France, and whose capital city was Toulouse, now in Midi-Pyrénées. It had an area of approximately 42,700 km² .-Geographical Extent:The traditional...
and the regions of Rouergue
Rouergue
Rouergue is a former province of France, bounded on the north by Auvergne, on the south and southwest by Languedoc, on the east by Gévaudan and on the west by Quercy...
, Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
, and Quercy
Quercy
Quercy is a former province of France located in the country's southwest, bounded on the north by Limousin, on the west by Périgord and Agenais, on the south by Gascony and Languedoc, and on the east by Rouergue and Auvergne....
(c. 1200). Finally, in the early 13th century it began to spread into first Italy and then Catalonia
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...
, whence to the rest of Spain. This development has been called the rayonnement des troubadours (ʁɛjɔnmɑ̃ dɛ tʁubaduːʁ).
Classical period
The classical period of troubadour activity lasted from about 1170 until about 1220. The most famous names among the ranks of troubadours belong to this period. During this period the lyric art of the troubadours reached the height of its popularity and the number of surviving poems is greatest from this period. During this period the cansoCanso (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...
, or love song, became distinguishable as a genre. The master of the canso and the troubadour who epitomises the classical period is Bernart de Ventadorn
Bernart de Ventadorn
Bernart de Ventadorn , also known as Bernard de Ventadour or Bernat del Ventadorn, was a prominent troubador of the classical age of troubadour poetry. Now thought of as "the Master Singer" he developed the cançons into a more formalized style which allowed for sudden turns...
. He was highly regarded by his contemporaries, as were Giraut de Bornelh
Giraut de Bornelh
Giraut de Bornelh , whose first name is also spelled Guiraut and whose nickname was Borneil or Borneyll, was a troubadour, born to a lower class family in the Limousin, probably in Bourney, near Excideuil...
, reputed by his biographer to be the greatest composer of melodies to ever live, and Bertran de Born
Bertran de Born
Bertran de Born was a baron from the Limousin in France, and one of the major Occitan troubadours of the twelfth century.-Life and works:...
, the master of 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...
, or political song, which became increasingly popular in this period.
The classical period came to be seen by later generations, especially in the fourteenth and 15th centuries and outside of Occitania, as representing the high point of lyric poetry and models to be emulated. The language of the classic poets, its grammar and vocabulary, their style and themes, were the ideal to which poets of the troubadour revival in Toulouse and their Catalan and Castilian contemporaries aspired. During the classical period the "rules" of poetic composition had first become standardised and written down, first by Raimon Vidal and then by Uc Faidit.
Who they were
The 450 or so troubadours known to us came from a variety of backgrounds. They made their living in a variety of ways, lived and travelled in many different places, and were actors in many types of social context. The troubadours were not wandering entertainers. Typically, they stayed in one place for a lengthy period of time under the patronage of a wealthy nobleman or woman. Many did travel extensively, however, sojourning at one court and then another.Status
The earliest troubadour, the Duke of Aquitaine, came from the high nobility. He was followed immediately by two members of the knightly class, CercamonCercamon
Cercamon , whose real name, as well as any actual biographical data, is unknown, was one of the earliest troubadours. He was apparently a jester of sorts, born in Gascony, who spent most of his career in the courts of William X of Aquitaine and perhaps of Eble III of Ventadorn...
and 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...
, and by a member of the princely class, 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...
. At the outset, the troubadours were universally noblemen, sometimes of high rank and sometimes of low. Many troubadours are described in their vidas as poor knights. It was one of the most common descriptors of status: Berenguier de Palazol
Berenguier de Palazol
Berenguier de Palazol, Palol, or Palou was a Catalan troubadour from Paillol in the County of Roussillon. Of his total output twelve cansos survive, and a relatively high proportion—eight—with melodies....
, Gausbert Amiel
Gausbert Amiel
Gau'bert Amiel or Gausbertz Amiels was a 13th-century Gascon troubadour. His only surviving song is Breu vers per tal que meins y poing, a humorous satire of contemporary courtly poetry. This lone example of Gausbert's work is well-represented in the manuscripts, however, appearing six, labelled...
, Guilhem Ademar
Guilhem Ademar
Guilhem Ademar was a troubadour from the Gévaudan. Noble by birth, but very poor, he travelled between the courts of Albi, Toulouse, Narbonne, and Spain. He achieved fame enough in his lifetime to be satirised by the Monge de Montaudon. He entered holy orders towards the end of his life...
, Guiraudo lo Ros
Guiraudo lo Ros
Guiraudo lo Ros or Guiraudet le Roux was a troubadour from Toulouse of a poor family of knightly rank. According to his vida he travelled to the court of his lord, called Count Alfonso, probably a reference to either Alfonso Jordan or his son, another Alfonso...
, 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...
, Peire de Maensac
Peire de Maensac
Peire de Maensac was an Auvergnat knight and troubadour. He was from Maensac in the lands of Dalfi d'Alvernha. He came from the petty nobility. His brother Austor or Austors was also a troubadour, but none of his works survives. According to Peire's vida the brothers agreed that one of them would...
, Peirol
Peirol
Peirol or PeiròlIn Occitan, peir means "stone" and -ol is a diminutive suffix, the name Peirol being understood as the equivalent of "Little Stone" but also "Petit Pierre" or "Pierrot" ; however, "peiròl" also meant a cauldron or a stove...
, Raimon de Miraval
Raimon de Miraval
Raimon de Miraval was a troubadour and, according to his vida, "a poor knight from Carcassonne who owned less than a quarter of the castle of Miraval." Favoured by Raymond VI of Toulouse, he was also later associated with Peter II of Aragon and Alfonso VIII of Castile...
, Rigaut de Berbezilh
Rigaut de Berbezilh
Rigaut de Berbezilh was a troubadour of the petty nobility of Saintonge. He was a great influence on the Sicilian School and is quoted in the Roman de la Rose...
, and Uc de Pena
Uc de Pena
Uc, Uco, or Ugo de Pena or Penna was a troubadour of the late 12th and early 13th centuries. He left behind three cansos and no music....
. Albertet de Sestaro
Albertet de Sestaro
Albertet de Sestaró, Sestairó, Sestairon, Sestarron, Sisteron, or Terascon was a Provençal jongleur and troubadour from the Gapençais . Of his total oeuvre, twenty three poems survive. "Albertet" or "Albertetz" is the Occitan diminutive of Albert...
is described as the son of a noble jongleur, presumably a petty noble lineage.
Later troubadours especially could belong to lower classes, ranging from the middle class of merchants and "burgers" (persons of urban standing) to tradesmen and others who worked with their hands. Salh d'Escola
Salh d'Escola
Salh, Sail, or Saill d'Escola was a troubadour from Bergerac in the Périgord, a former province of France.The meaning of his name is disputed. It may be his actual name or a family name or a nickname...
and Elias de Barjols
Elias de Barjols
Elias de Barjols was a bourgeois Aquitainian troubadour who eventually established roots in Provence as a landed nobleman. Thirteen of his lyrics survive, but none of his music....
were described as the sons of merchants and Elias Fonsalada
Elias Fonsalada
Elias Fonsalada was a troubadour from Bergerac in the Périgord . Only two cansos of his survive....
was the son of a burger and jongleur. Perdigon
Perdigon
Perdigon or Perdigo was a troubadour from Lespéron in the Gabales, diocese of Gévaudan, modern Lozère. Fourteen of his works survive, including three cansos with melodies...
was the son of a "poor fisherman" and Elias Cairel
Elias Cairel
Elias Cairel was a troubadour of international fame. Born in Sarlat in the Périgord, he first travelled with the Fourth Crusade and settled down in the Kingdom of Thessalonica at the court of Boniface of Montferrat before moving back to Western Europe, where he sojourned in both Spain...
of a blacksmith. Arnaut de Mareuil
Arnaut de Mareuil
Arnaut de Mareuil was a troubadour, composing lyric poetry in the Occitan language. Twenty-five, perhaps twenty-nine, of his songs, all cansos, survive, six with music....
is specified in his vida as coming from a poor family, but whether this family was poor by noble standards or more global ones is not apparent.
Many troubadours also possessed a clerical education. For some this was their springboard to composition, since their clerical education equipped them with an understanding of musical and poetic forms as well as vocal training. The vidas of the following troubadours note their clerical status: Aimeric de Belenoi
Aimeric de Belenoi
Aimeric de Belenoi was a Gascon troubadour. At least fifteen of his songs survive and there are seven more which were attributed to him in some medieval manuscripts....
, Folquet de Marselha
Folquet de Marselha
Folquet de Marselha, alternatively Folquet de Marseille, Foulques de Toulouse, Fulk of Toulouse came from a Genoese merchant family who lived in Marseille...
(who became a bishop), Gui d'Ussel
Gui d'Ussel
Gui d'Ussel, d'Ussèl, or d'Uisel was a turn-of-the-thirteenth-century troubadour of the Limousin. Twenty of his poems survive: eight cansos, two pastorelas, two coblas, and eight tensos, several with his relatives and including a partimen with Maria de Ventadorn...
, Guillem Ramon de Gironella
Guillem Ramon de Gironella
Guillem Ramon de Gironella was a late thirteenth-century Catalan troubadour. His poetry, while difficult, is highly original and praised for its beauty....
, Jofre de Foixà
Jofre de Foixà
Jofre de Foixà was a troubadour from Foixà in the Empordà, the second son of Bernard of Foixà.At a young age Jofre became a Franciscan and appears in that position when mentioned for the first time at Monzón in 1267...
(who became an abbot), Peire de Bussignac
Peire de Bussignac
Peire de Bussignac, Bossinhac, or Bocinhac was a nobleman, cleric, and troubadour from the Périgord. He was probably from Bussignac in Hautefort, but possibly Boussignac in Tulle. He was, according to his vida, "from the castle of Bertran de Born"...
, Peire Rogier
Peire Rogier
Peire Rogier or Rotgiers was a twelfth-century Auvergnat troubadour and cathedral canon from Clermont. He left his cathedral to become a travelling minstrel before settling down for a time in Narbonne at the court of the Viscountess Ermengard...
, Raimon de Cornet
Raimon de Cornet
Raimon de Cornet was a fourteenth-century Toulousain priest, friar, grammarian, poet, and troubadour. He was a prolific author of verse; more than forty of his poems survive, most in Occitan but two in Latin. He also wrote letters, a didactic poem , a grammar, and some treatises on computation...
, Uc Brunet
Uc Brunet
Uc Brunet, Brunec, or Brunenc was a nobleman and troubadour from Rodez in the Rouergue. Six of his works survive.Outside of his own works and those of other troubadours, including a vida, Uc is mentioned in only one document dated to around 1190...
, and Uc de Saint Circ
Uc de Saint Circ
Uc de Saint Circ or Hugues de Saint Circq was a troubadour from Quercy. Uc is perhaps most significant to modern historians as the probable author of several vidas and razos of other troubadours, though only one of Bernart de Ventadorn exists under his name...
.
Trobadors and joglars
The Occitan words trobador and trobaire are relatively rare compared with the verb trobar (compose, invent), which was usually applied to the writing of poetry. It signified that a poem was original to an author (trobador) and was not merely sung or played by one. The term was used mostly for poetry only and in more careful works, like the vidas, is not generally applied to the composition of music or to singing, though the troubadour's poetry itself is not so careful. Sometime in the middle of the 12th century, however, a distinction was definitely being made between an inventor of original verse and the performers of others'. These last were called joglars, from the Latin ioculatores, giving rise also to the French jongleur, Castilian juglar, and English juggler, which has come to refer to a more specific breed of performer. The medieval jongleur/joglar is really a minstrelMinstrel
A minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty...
.
At the height of troubadour poetry (the "classical period"), troubadours are often found attacking jongleurs and at least two small genres arose around the theme: the ensenhamen joglaresc and the sirventes joglaresc. These terms are debated, however, since the adjective joglaresc would seem to imply "in the manner of the jongleurs". Inevitably, however, pieces of said genres are verbal attacks at jongleurs, in general and in specific, with named individuals being called out. It is clear, for example from the poetry of Bertran de Born
Bertran de Born
Bertran de Born was a baron from the Limousin in France, and one of the major Occitan troubadours of the twelfth century.-Life and works:...
, that jongleurs were performers who did not usually compose and that they often performed the troubadour's songs: singing, playing instruments, dancing, and even doing acrobatics.
In the late 13th century Guiraut Riquier
Guiraut Riquier
Guiraut Riquier is among the last of the Provençal troubadours. He is well known because of his great care in writing out his works and keeping them together—the New Grove Encyclopedia considers him an "anthologist" of his own works....
bemoaned the inexactness of his contemporaries and wrote a letter to Alfonso X of Castile
Alfonso X of Castile
Alfonso X was a Castilian monarch who ruled as the King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1252 until his death...
, a noted patron of literature and learning of all kinds, for clarification on the proper reference of the terms trobador and joglar. According to Riquier, every vocation deserved a name of its own and the sloppy usage of joglar assured that it covered a multitude of activities, some which, no doubt, Riquier did not wish to be associated. In the end Riquier argued—and Alfonso X seems to agree, though his "response" was probably penned by Riquier—that a joglar was a courtly entertainer (as opposed to popular or low-class one) and a troubadour was a poet and composer.
Despite the distinctions noted, many troubadours were also known as jongleurs, either before they began composing or alongside. Aimeric de Belenoi
Aimeric de Belenoi
Aimeric de Belenoi was a Gascon troubadour. At least fifteen of his songs survive and there are seven more which were attributed to him in some medieval manuscripts....
, Aimeric de Sarlat
Aimeric de Sarlat
Aimeric de Sarlat was a troubadour from Sarlat in the Périgord. According to his vida he rose by talent from the rank of jongleur to troubadour, but composed only one song, though four cansos survive under his name....
, Albertet Cailla
Albertet Cailla
Albertet "Albert" Cailla or Calha was a Albigeois jongleur and troubadour. According to his vida he was "of slight worth" but beloved by his neighbours and the local women. His vida says that he composed one good canso and several sirventes, but only one partimen survives...
, Arnaut de Mareuil
Arnaut de Mareuil
Arnaut de Mareuil was a troubadour, composing lyric poetry in the Occitan language. Twenty-five, perhaps twenty-nine, of his songs, all cansos, survive, six with music....
, Elias de Barjols
Elias de Barjols
Elias de Barjols was a bourgeois Aquitainian troubadour who eventually established roots in Provence as a landed nobleman. Thirteen of his lyrics survive, but none of his music....
, Elias Fonsalada
Elias Fonsalada
Elias Fonsalada was a troubadour from Bergerac in the Périgord . Only two cansos of his survive....
, Falquet de Romans
Falquet de Romans
Falquet de Romans was the most famous troubadour attached to the court of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, where he garnered a high reputation despite the fact that his career began as a jongleur...
, Guillem Magret
Guillem Magret
Guillem or Guilhem Magret was a troubadour and jongleur from the Viennois. He left behind eight poems, of which survive a sirventes and a canso with melodies....
, Guiraut de Calanso
Guiraut de Calanso
Giraut or Guiraut de Calanso or Calanson was a Gascon troubadour in the Occitan language. Of his lyric works that remain five are cansos, two descorts, a congé, a planh, and a vers . He also wrote a mock ensenhamen entitled Fadet juglar.Guiraut's hometown cannot be located...
, Nicoletto da Torino
Nicoletto da Torino
Nicoletto da Torino was a Piedmontese jongleur and troubadour of the first half of the thirteenth century, probably from Turin, though some believe that to be his father's name...
, Peire Raimon de Tolosa
Peire Raimon de Tolosa
Peire Raimon de Tolosa or Toloza was a troubadour from the merchant class of Toulouse. He is variously referred to as lo Viellz and lo Gros , though these are thought by some to refer to two different persons. On the other hand, lo Viellz could refer to his being of an early generation of...
, Peire Rogier
Peire Rogier
Peire Rogier or Rotgiers was a twelfth-century Auvergnat troubadour and cathedral canon from Clermont. He left his cathedral to become a travelling minstrel before settling down for a time in Narbonne at the court of the Viscountess Ermengard...
, Peire de Valeira
Peire de Valeira
Peire de Valeira, Valeria, or Valera was a Gascon troubadour. Since troubadour poetry probably originated in northwest Aquitaine and first spread—within a generation—south into Gascony, Peire was one of the earliest troubadours...
, Peirol
Peirol
Peirol or PeiròlIn Occitan, peir means "stone" and -ol is a diminutive suffix, the name Peirol being understood as the equivalent of "Little Stone" but also "Petit Pierre" or "Pierrot" ; however, "peiròl" also meant a cauldron or a stove...
, Pistoleta
Pistoleta
Pistoleta was a Provençal troubadour. His name means "little letter " in Occitan. He left behind eleven songs, comprising nine cansos and two tensos...
, Perdigon
Perdigon
Perdigon or Perdigo was a troubadour from Lespéron in the Gabales, diocese of Gévaudan, modern Lozère. Fourteen of his works survive, including three cansos with melodies...
, Salh d'Escola
Salh d'Escola
Salh, Sail, or Saill d'Escola was a troubadour from Bergerac in the Périgord, a former province of France.The meaning of his name is disputed. It may be his actual name or a family name or a nickname...
, Uc de la Bacalaria
Uc de la Bacalaria
Uc de la Bacalaria was a Limousin troubadour from La Bachellerie near Uzerche, the home town of Gaucelm Faidit. According to his vida, he was a jongleur who travelled infrequently and was hardly known. He composed cansos, tensos, one alba, and one descort...
, Uc Brunet
Uc Brunet
Uc Brunet, Brunec, or Brunenc was a nobleman and troubadour from Rodez in the Rouergue. Six of his works survive.Outside of his own works and those of other troubadours, including a vida, Uc is mentioned in only one document dated to around 1190...
, and Uc de Saint Circ
Uc de Saint Circ
Uc de Saint Circ or Hugues de Saint Circq was a troubadour from Quercy. Uc is perhaps most significant to modern historians as the probable author of several vidas and razos of other troubadours, though only one of Bernart de Ventadorn exists under his name...
were jongleur-troubadours.
Vidas and razos
A vida is a brief prose biography, written in Occitan, of a troubadour. The word vida means "life" in Occitan. In the chansonnierChansonnier
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...
s, the manuscript collections of medieval troubadour poetry, the works of a particular author are often accompanied by a short prose biography. The vidas are important early works of vernacular prose nonfiction. Nevetheless, it appears that many of them derive their facts from literal readings of their objects' poems, which leaves their historical reliability in doubt. Most of the vidas were composed in Italy in the 1220s, many by Uc de Saint Circ
Uc de Saint Circ
Uc de Saint Circ or Hugues de Saint Circq was a troubadour from Quercy. Uc is perhaps most significant to modern historians as the probable author of several vidas and razos of other troubadours, though only one of Bernart de Ventadorn exists under his name...
.
A razo (from Occitan for "reason") was a similar short piece of Occitan prose detailing the circumstances of a particular composition. A razo normally introduced the poem it explained; it might, however, share some of the characteristics of a vida. The razos suffer from the same problems as the vidas in terms of reliability. Many are likewise the work of Uc de Saint Circ.
Podestà-troubadours
A phenomenon arose in Italy, recognised around the turn of the twentieth century by Giulio Bertoni, of men serving in several cities as podestàPodestà
Podestà is the name given to certain high officials in many Italian cities, since the later Middle Ages, mainly as Chief magistrate of a city state , but also as a local administrator, the representative of the Emperor.The term derives from the Latin word potestas, meaning power...
s on behalf of either the Guelph or Ghibelline
Guelphs and Ghibellines
The Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in central and northern Italy. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the split between these two parties was a particularly important aspect of the internal policy of the Italian city-states...
party and writing political verse in Occitan rhyme. These figures generally came from the urban middle class. They aspired to high culture and though, unlike the nobility, they were not patrons of literature, they were its disseminators and its readers.
The first podestà-troubadour was Rambertino Buvalelli
Rambertino Buvalelli
Rambertino di Guido Buvalelli , a Bolognese judge, statesman, diplomat, and poet, was the earliest of the podestà-troubadours of thirteenth-century Lombardy. He served at one time or other as podestà of Brescia, Milan, Parma, Mantua, Genoa, and Verona. Ten of his Occitan poems survive, but none...
, possibly the first native Italian troubadour, who was podestà of Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
between 1218 and 1221. Rambertino, a Guelph, served at one time or another as podestà of Brescia
Brescia
Brescia is a city and comune in the region of Lombardy in northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, between the Mella and the Naviglio, with a population of around 197,000. It is the second largest city in Lombardy, after the capital, Milan...
, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Parma
Parma
Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....
, Mantua
Mantua
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...
, and Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
. It was probably during his three-year tenure there that he introduced Occitan lyric poetry to the city, which was later to develop a flourishing Occitan literary culture.
Among the podestà-troubadours to follow Rambertino, four were from Genoa: the Guelphs Luca Grimaldi
Luca Grimaldi
Luca Grimaldi was a Genoese troubadour and Guelph politician and diplomat. None of his poetic work survives.Jean de Nostredame listed one Luco ou Lucas de Grymaud, natif de Grymauld en Provence as a Provençal troubadour, and speculated that his birthplace may also have been Gennes. However, it is...
, who also served in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, and Ventimiglia
Ventimiglia
Ventimiglia is a city and comune in Liguria, northern Italy, in the province of Imperia. It is located southwest of Genoa by rail, and 7 km from the French-Italian border, on the Gulf of Genoa, having a small harbour at the mouth of the Roia River, which divides the town into two parts...
, and Luchetto Gattilusio
Luchetto Gattilusio
Luchetto Gattilusio was a Genoese statesman, diplomat, and man of letters. As a Guelph he played an important role in wider Lombard politics and as a troubadour in the Occitan language he composed three poems descriptive of his times.-Poetry:...
, who served in Milan, Cremona
Cremona
Cremona is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...
, and Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, and the Ghibellines Perceval Doria
Perceval Doria
Perceval Doria was a Genoese naval and military leader in the thirteenth century. A Ghibelline, he was a partisan of the Hohenstaufen in Italy and served the Emperor Frederick II and Manfred of Sicily as vicar of Romagna, the March of Ancona, and the Duchy of Spoleto.He was probably a member of...
, who served in Arles
Arles
Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....
, Avignon
Avignon
Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...
, Asti
Asti
Asti is a city and comune of about 75,000 inhabitants located in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy, about 55 kilometres east of Turin in the plain of the Tanaro River...
, and Parma
Parma
Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....
, and Simon Doria
Simon Doria
Simon Doria was a Genoese statesman and man of letters, of the important Doria family. As a troubadour he wrote six surviving tensos, four with Lanfranc Cigala, one incomplete with Jacme Grils, and another with a certain Alberto...
, sometime podestà of Savona
Savona
Savona is a seaport and comune in the northern Italian region of Liguria, capital of the Province of Savona, in the Riviera di Ponente on the Mediterranean Sea....
and Albenga
Albenga
Albenga is a city and comune situated on the Gulf of Genoa on the Italian Riviera in the Province of Savona in Liguria, northern Italy.left|thumb|220px|Towers of Albenga.The economy is mostly based on tourism, local commerce and agriculture-History:...
. Among the non-Genoese podestà-troubadours was Alberico da Romano
Alberico da Romano
Alberico da Romano , called Alberico II, was an Italian condottiero, troubadour, and an alternatingly Guelph and Ghibelline statesman. He was also a patron of Occitan literature.-Life and death:...
, a nobleman of high rank who governed Vicenza
Vicenza
Vicenza , a city in north-eastern Italy, is the capital of the eponymous province in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, straddling the Bacchiglione...
and Treviso
Treviso
Treviso is a city and comune in Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 82,854 inhabitants : some 3,000 live within the Venetian walls or in the historical and monumental center, some 80,000 live in the urban center proper, while the city...
as variously a Ghibelline and a Guelph. He was a patron as well as a composer of Occitan lyric.
Mention should be made of the Provençal troubadour Isnart d'Entrevenas
Isnart d'Entrevenas
Isnart or Iznart d'Entrevenas or d'Antravenas was a Provençal troubadour, the son of Raimon d'Agout, a patron of troubadours, and wife of Beatrice, daughter of Jaufre Reforzat de Trets....
, who was podestà of Arles in 1220, though he does not fit the phenomenon Giulio Bertoni first identified in Italy.
Trobairitz
The trobairitz were the female troubadours, the first female composers of secular musicSecular music
Secular music is non-religious music. "Secular" means being separate from religion.In the West, secular music developed in the Medieval period and was used in the Renaissance. Swaying authority from the Church that focused more on Common Law influenced all aspects of Medieval life, including music...
in the Western tradition. The word trobairitz was first used in the thirteenth-century Romance of Flamenca
Romance of Flamenca
The Romance of Flamenca is a 13th century romance, written in the Occitan language in Occitania. A certain Sir Bernardet may have been the author, however the Bernardet mentioned may simply be the fictional narrator. Nothing is known for certain about the author; however, a number of things may be...
and its derivation is the same as that of trobaire but in feminine form. There were also female counterparts to the joglars: the joglaresas. The number of trobairitz varies between sources: there were twenty or twenty-one named trobairitz, plus an additional poetess known only as Domna H. There are several anonymous texts ascribed to women; the total number of trobairitz texts varies from twenty-three (Schultz-Gora), twenty-five (Bec
Pierre Bec
Pierre Bec , is an Occitan poet and linguist. Born in Paris, 1921, he spent his childhood in Comminges, where he learnt Occitan. He was deported to Germany between 1943 and 1945. After returning, he studied in Paris, where he graduated in 1959...
), thirty-six (Bruckner, White, and Shepard), and forty-six (Rieger). Only one melody composed by a trobairitz (the Comtessa de Dia
Beatritz de Dia
Beatritz or Beatriz de Dia was the most famous of a small group of trobairitz, or female troubadours who wrote courtly songs of love during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.-Life:...
) survives. Out of a total of about 450 troubadours and 2,500 troubadour works, the trobairitz and their corpus form a minor but interesting and informative portion. They are, therefore, quite well studied.
Tenso
A tenso is a style of Occitan song favoured by the troubadours. It takes the form of a debate in which each voice defends a position on a topic relating to love or ethics. Closely related genres include the partimen and the cobla exchange...
s; only one sirventes by a named woman, Gormonda de Monpeslier
Gormonda de Monpeslier
Na Gormonda de Monpeslier or Montpelher was a trobairitz from Montpellier in Languedoc. Her lone surviving work, a sirventes, has been called "the first French political poem by a woman."...
, survives (though two anonymous ones are attributed to women). One salut d'amor
Salut d'amor
A salut d'amor or pistola was an Occitan lyric poem of the troubadours, written as a letter from one lover to another in the tradition of courtly love...
, by a woman (Azalais d'Altier
Azalais d'Altier
Azalais or Azalaïs d'Altier was an early-13th-century trobairitz. She was from Altier in the Gévaudan. She has sometimes been confused with Almucs de Castelnau....
) to a woman (Clara d'Anduza
Clara d'Anduza
Clara d'Anduza was a trobairitz from the first third of the 13th century, probably born to the ruling family of Anduze. Her only surviving work is a canso beginning En greu esmay et en greu pessamen. She was mentioned in a long razo to a canso of Uc de Saint Circ and was probably the addressee of a...
) is also extant and one anonymous planh
Planh
The planh or plaing is a funeral lament used by the troubadours, modeled on the medieval Latin planctus. It differed from the planctus in that it was intended for a secular audience...
is usually assigned a female authorship. They wrote almost entirely within the trobar leu
Trobar leu
The trobar leu , or light style of poetry, was the most popular style used by the troubadours. Its accessibility gave it a wide audience, though modern readers may find its somewhat formulaic nature tiresome after a while....
style; only two poems, one by Lombarda
Lombarda
Lombarda was an early 13th-century trobairitz from Toulouse known only from her vida and a short tenso. Though her name has been taken to imply that she was from Lombardy, it rather indicates that she was from a banking or merchant family, since "Lombard" was used throughout western Europe in...
and another Alais, Yselda, and Carenza
Alais, Yselda, and Carenza
Alais and Yselda were two young noble trobairitz, probably sisters or nuns, who wrote an Occitan tenso with an elderly woman named Carenza. Their poem beings Na Carenza al bel cors avinen and the first two stanzas were composed by Alais and Yselda...
, are usually considered to belong to the more demanding trobar clus
Trobar clus
Trobar clus , or closed form, was a complex and obscure style of poetry used by troubadours for their more discerning audiences, and it was only truly appreciated by an elite few. It was developed extensively by Marcabru, but by 1200 its inaccessibility led to its disappearance...
. None of the trobairitz were prolific, or if they were their work has not survived. Only two have left us more than one piece: the Comtessa de Dia, with four, and Castelloza
Castelloza
Na Castelloza was a noblewoman and trobairitz from Auvergne. According to her later vida, she was the wife of Turc de Mairona, probably the lord of Meyronne. Turc's ancestors had participated in a Crusade around 1210 or 1220, which was the origin of his name...
, with three or four. One of the known trobairitz, Gaudairença, wrote a song entitled Coblas e dansas, which has not survived; no other piece of hers has either.
The trobairitz came almost to a woman from Occitania
Occitania
Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language...
. There are representatives from the Auvergne
Auvergne (province)
Auvergne was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne. It is now the geographical and cultural area that corresponds to the former province....
, Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
, Languedoc
Languedoc
Languedoc is a former province of France, now continued in the modern-day régions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées in the south of France, and whose capital city was Toulouse, now in Midi-Pyrénées. It had an area of approximately 42,700 km² .-Geographical Extent:The traditional...
, the Dauphiné
Dauphiné
The Dauphiné or Dauphiné Viennois is a former province in southeastern France, whose area roughly corresponded to that of the present departments of :Isère, :Drôme, and :Hautes-Alpes....
, Toulousain, and the Limousin
Limousin (province)
Limousin is one of the traditional provinces of France around the city of Limoges. Limousin lies in the foothills of the western edge of the Massif Central, with cold weather in the winter...
. One trobairitz, Ysabella
Ysabella (trobairitz)
Ysabel or Ysabella was a 13th-century trobairitz. Almost nothing is known about her with certainty, but many conjectures have been put forward...
, may have been born in Périgord
Périgord
The Périgord is a former province of France, which corresponds roughly to the current Dordogne département, now forming the northern part of the Aquitaine région. It is divided into four regions, the Périgord Noir , the Périgord Blanc , the Périgord Vert and the Périgord Pourpre...
, Northern Italy
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
, Greece
Latin Empire
The Latin Empire or Latin Empire of Constantinople is the name given by historians to the feudal Crusader state founded by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Byzantine Empire. It was established after the capture of Constantinople in 1204 and lasted until 1261...
, or Palestine
Kingdom of Jerusalem
The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Catholic kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, but its history is divided into two distinct periods....
. All the trobairitz whose families we know were high-born ladies; only one, Lombarda, was probably of the merchant class. All the tobairitz known by name lived around the same time: the late 12th century and the early thirteenth (c. 1170 – c. 1260). The earliest was probably Tibors de Sarenom
Tibors de Sarenom
Tibors de Sarenom or Tiburge is the earliest attestable trobairitz, active during the classical period of medieval Occitan literature at the height of the popularity of the troubadours.-Biography:...
, who was active in the 1150s (the date of her known composition is uncertain). The latest was either Garsenda of Forcalquier
Garsenda of Forcalquier
Garsenda or Garsende de Sabran was the Countess of Provence as the wife of Alfonso II from 1193 and the Countess of Forcalquier in her own right from 1209. She brought Forcalquier to the House of Barcelona and united it to Provence...
, who died in 1242, though her period of poetic patronage and composition probably occurred a quarter century earlier, or Guilleuma de Rosers, who composed a tenso with Lanfranc Cigala
Lanfranc Cigala
Lanfranc Cigala was a Genoese nobleman, knight, judge, and man of letters of the mid thirteenth century. He remains one of the most famous Occitan troubadours of Lombardy. Thirty-two of his poems survive, dealing with Crusading, heresy, papal power, peace in Christendom, and loyalty in love...
, known between 1235 and 1257. There exist brief prose biographies—vidas—for eight trobairitz: Almucs de Castelnau
Almucs de Castelnau
Almucs de Castelnau or Castelnou was a trobairitz, that is a female troubadour, from a town near Avignon in Provence. Her name is also spelled Almuc, Amucs, Almois, Almurs, or Almirs....
(actually a razo
Razo
Raso is an islet of 8 square kilometers in the Barlavento archipelago of Cape Verde. Raso is flanked by the smaller Branco islet on the west and by São Nicolau island on its eastern side. Raso is uninhabited and is now the only home of the Raso Lark. The Brown Booby and Red-billed Tropicbird visit...
), Azalais de Porcairagues
Azalais de Porcairagues
Azalais de Porcairagues or Alasais de Porcaragues was a trobairitz , composing in Occitan in the late 12th century....
, the Comtessa de Dia, Castelloza, Iseut de Capio
Iseut de Capio
NIseut de Capio or Capion was a noblewoman and trobairitz from Gévaudan. She was a neighbour of Almucs de Castelnau, with whom she composed a tenso, her only surviving piece of work....
(also a razo), Lombarda, Maria de Ventadorn
Maria de Ventadorn
Maria de Ventadorn was a patron of troubadour poetry at the end of the 12th century.Maria was one of las tres de Torena, "the three of Turenne", the three daughters of viscount Raymond II of Turenne and of Elise de Séverac. These three, according to Bertran de Born, possessed tota beltat terrena,...
, and Tibors de Sarenom.
Schools and styles
There have been three main styles of Occitan lyric poetry identified: the trobar leuTrobar leu
The trobar leu , or light style of poetry, was the most popular style used by the troubadours. Its accessibility gave it a wide audience, though modern readers may find its somewhat formulaic nature tiresome after a while....
(light), trobar ric
Trobar ric
The trobar ric , or rich form of poetry, was a trobadour style.It was distinguished by its verbal gymnastics; its best exponent was Arnaut Daniel. Despite the fact that it outlasted trobar clus it always played a secondary role to trobar leu....
(rich), and trobar clus
Trobar clus
Trobar clus , or closed form, was a complex and obscure style of poetry used by troubadours for their more discerning audiences, and it was only truly appreciated by an elite few. It was developed extensively by Marcabru, but by 1200 its inaccessibility led to its disappearance...
(closed, hermetic
Hermeticism
Hermeticism or the Western Hermetic Tradition is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus...
). The first was by far the most common: the wording is straightforward and relatively simple compared to the ric and literary devices are less common than in the clus. This style was the most accessible and it was immensely popular. The most famous poet of the trobar leu was Bernart de Ventadorn
Bernart de Ventadorn
Bernart de Ventadorn , also known as Bernard de Ventadour or Bernat del Ventadorn, was a prominent troubador of the classical age of troubadour poetry. Now thought of as "the Master Singer" he developed the cançons into a more formalized style which allowed for sudden turns...
. The most difficult style on the other hand was the last. The trobar clus regularly escapes modern scholarly interpretation. Words are commonly used metaphorically and symbolically and what a poem appears to be about on its surface is rarely what is intended by the poet or understood by audiences "in the know". The clus style was invented early 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...
but only favoured by a few masters thereafter. The trobar ric style is not as opaque as the clus, rather it employs a rich vocabulary, using many words, rare words, invented words, and unusual, colourful wordings.
Modern scholars recognise several "schools" in the troubadour tradition. Among the early is a school of followers of Marcabru, sometimes called the "Marcabrunian school": Bernart Marti
Bernart Marti
Bernart Marti was a troubadour, composing poems and satires in Occitan, in the mid twelfth century. Nine or ten of his poems survive; they show that he was influenced by his contemporaries Marcabru and knew Peire d'Alvernha, whom, in one poem, he accused of abandoning holy orders...
, Bernart de Venzac
Bernart de Venzac
Bernart de Venzac was an obscure troubadour from Venzac near Rodez in the Rouergue. He wrote in the Marcabrunian style, leaving behind five moralising pieces and one religious alba...
, Gavaudan
Gavaudan
Gavaudan was a troubadour and hired soldier at the courts of both Raymond V and Raymond VI of Toulouse and later on in Castile. He was from Gévaudan, as his name implies...
, and 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...
. These poets favoured the trobar clus or ric or a hybrid of the two. They were often moralising in tone and critical of contemporary courtly society. Another early school, whose style seems to have fallen out of favour, was the "Gascon school" of Cercamon
Cercamon
Cercamon , whose real name, as well as any actual biographical data, is unknown, was one of the earliest troubadours. He was apparently a jester of sorts, born in Gascony, who spent most of his career in the courts of William X of Aquitaine and perhaps of Eble III of Ventadorn...
, Peire de Valeira
Peire de Valeira
Peire de Valeira, Valeria, or Valera was a Gascon troubadour. Since troubadour poetry probably originated in northwest Aquitaine and first spread—within a generation—south into Gascony, Peire was one of the earliest troubadours...
, and Guiraut de Calanso
Guiraut de Calanso
Giraut or Guiraut de Calanso or Calanson was a Gascon troubadour in the Occitan language. Of his lyric works that remain five are cansos, two descorts, a congé, a planh, and a vers . He also wrote a mock ensenhamen entitled Fadet juglar.Guiraut's hometown cannot be located...
. Cercamon was said by his biographer to have composed in the "old style" (la uzansa antiga) and Guiraut's songs were d'aquella saison ("of that time"). This style of poetry seems to be attached to early troubadours from Gascony
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...
and was characterised by references to nature: leaves, flowers, birds, and their songs. This Gascon "literary fad" was unpopular in Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
in the early 13th century, harming the reputation of the poets associated with it.
In the late 13th century a school arose at Béziers
Béziers
Béziers is a town in Languedoc in southern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the Hérault department. Béziers hosts the famous Feria de Béziers, centred around bullfighting, every August. A million visitors are attracted to the five-day event...
, once the centre of pre-Albigensian Languedoc and of the Trencavel lordships, in the 1260s–80s. Three poets epitomise this "school": Bernart d'Auriac
Bernart d'Auriac
Bernat or Bernart d'Auriac was a minor troubadour notable mainly for initiating a cycle of five short sirventes in the summer of 1285. According to a rubric of the chansonnier in which the cycle is preserved, Bernart was a mayestre de Bezers .The sirventes cycle was prompted by the Aragonese...
, Joan Esteve, Joan Miralhas
Joan Miralhas
Joan Miralhas was troubadour of Béziers in the late 13th century. Nothing is known of him besides this and that he wrote a partimen with Raimon Gaucelm, Joan Miralhas, si Dieu vos gart de dol...
, and Raimon Gaucelm. All three were natives of Béziers and lived there. All three were members of the urban middle class and no courtesans: Miralhas was possibly a potter and Bernart was a mayestre (teacher). All three were supporters of the French king Louis IX
Louis IX of France
Louis IX , commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and...
and the French aristocracy against the native Occitan nobility. They have been described as "Gallicised". Raimon Gaucelm supported the Eighth Crusade
Eighth Crusade
The Eighth Crusade was a crusade launched by Louis IX, King of France, in 1270. The Eighth Crusade is sometimes counted as the Seventh, if the Fifth and Sixth Crusades of Frederick II are counted as a single crusade...
and even wrote a planh, the only known one of its kind, to a burgher of Béziers. Joan Esteve and Bernart both composed in support the French in the Aragonese Crusade
Aragonese Crusade
The Aragonese Crusade or Crusade of Aragon, a part of the larger War of the Sicilian Vespers, was declared by Pope Martin IV against the King of Aragon, Peter III the Great, in 1284 and 1285...
. The Béziers are a shining example of the transformation of Occitania in the aftermath of Albigensian Crusade, but also of the ability of troubadours to survive it.
Genres
Troubadours, at least after their style became established, usually followed some set of "rules", like those of the Leys d'amors (compiled between 1328 and 1337). Initially all troubadour verses were called simply vers, yet this soon came to be reserved for only love songs and was later replaced by canso, though the term lived on as an antique expression for the troubadours' early works and was even employed with a more technically meaning by the last generation of troubadours (mid-14th century), when it was thought to derive from the Latin word verus (truth) and was thus used to describe moralising or didactic pieces. The early troubadours developed many genres and these only proliferated as rules of composition came to be put in writing. The known genres are:- AlbaAlba (poetry)The alba is a subgenre of Occitan lyric poetry. It describes the longing of lovers who, having passed a night together, must separate for fear of being discovered by their respective spouses....
(morning song)— the song of a lover as dawn approaches, often with a watchman warning of the approach of a lady's jealous husband - ArlabeccaArlabeccaThe arlabecca was a genre of Occitan lyric poetry. First mentioned in an ensenhamen by Peire Lunel. It was translated by François Juste Marie Raynouard as complainte or chant funèbre and by Emil Levy as sorte de poésie. It may derive from the Galician-Portuguese term arrabecca for a rebec. The...
— a song defined by poetic metre, but perhaps once related to the rebecRebecThe rebecha is a bowed string musical instrument. In its most common form, it has a narrow boat-shaped body and 1-5 strings and is played on the arm or under the chin, like a violin.- Origins :The rebec dates back to the Middle Ages and was particularly popular in the 15th and 16th centuries... - CansoCanso (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...
, originally vers, also chanso or canço— the love song, usually consisting of five or six stanzaStanzaIn poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...
s with an envoiEnvoiIn poetry, an envoi is a short stanza at the end of a poem used either to address an imagined or actual person or to comment on the preceding body of the poem.-Form:... - Cobla esparsaCobla (Occitan literary term)A cobla is a stanza in Occitan lyric poetry, the art form of the troubadours. Though not usually standalone work in itself, in many instances a cobla or two is all that survives of what was once a complete poem. Each cobla of a song was usually played to the same melody, but a few songs were...
— a stand-alone stanza - Comiat— a song renouncing a lover
- Crusade songCrusade songA Crusade song is any vernacular lyric poem about the Crusades. Crusade songs were popular in the High Middle Ages: 106 survive in Occitan, forty in Old French, thirty in Middle High German, two in Italian, and one in Old Castilian. The study of the Crusade song, which may be considered a genre of...
(canso de crozada)— a song about the CrusadesCrusadesThe Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
, usually encouraging them - DansaDansaA dansa was an Occitan form of lyric poetry developed in the late thirteenth century among the troubadours. It is related to the English term "dance" and was often accompanied by dancing. A closely related form, the balada or balaresc, had a more complex structure, and is related to the ballade...
or balada— a lively dance song with a refrainRefrainA refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song... - DescortDescortThe descort is a subgenre of Occitan lyric poetry used by the troubadours. It is a song heavily discordant in verse form and/or feeling and often used to express disagreement. It was invented by Garin d'Apchier when he wrote Quan foill'e flors reverdezis...
— a song heavily discordant in verse form and/or feeling - Desdansa— a dance designed for sad occasions
- EnsenhamenEnsenhamenAn ensenhamen was an Occitan didactic poem associated with the troubadours. As a genre of Occitan literature, its limits have been open to debate since it was first defined in the 19th century...
— a long didactic poem, usually not divided into stanzas, teaching a moral or practical lesson - EnuigEnuigThe enuig or enueg is a genre of lyric poetry practised by the troubadours. Somewhat similar to the sirventes, the enuig was generally a litany of complaints, few of them connect topically to the others. The word "enuig" appears frequently in such works. It is generally regarded more as...
— a poem expressing indignation or feelings of insult - Escondig— a lover's apology
- Estampida— a late thirteenth-century dance song
- Gap— a boasting song, often presented as a challenge, often similar to modern sports chants
- Maldit— a song complaining about a lady's behaviour and character
- PartimenPartimenThe 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....
— a poetical exchange between two or more poets in which one is presented with a dilemma by another and responds - PastorelaPastorelaThe pastorela was an Occitan lyric genre used by the troubadours. It gave rise to the Old French pastourelle. The central topic was always meeting of a knight with a shepherdess, which may lead to any of a number of possible conclusions. They are usually humorous pieces...
— the tale of the love request of a knightKnightA 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....
to a shepherdess - PlanhPlanhThe planh or plaing is a funeral lament used by the troubadours, modeled on the medieval Latin planctus. It differed from the planctus in that it was intended for a secular audience...
— a lament, especially on the death of some important figure - Plazer— a poem expressing pleasure
- Salut d'amorSalut d'amorA salut d'amor or pistola was an Occitan lyric poem of the troubadours, written as a letter from one lover to another in the tradition of courtly love...
— a love letter addressed to another, not always one's lover - Serena— the song of a lover waiting impatiently for the evening (to consummate his love)
- Sestina— highly structure verse form
- SirventesSirventesThe 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...
— a political poem or satireSatireSatire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
, originally put in the mouth of a paid soldier (sirvens) - SonnetSonnetA sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
(sonet)— an Italian genre imported into Occitan verse in the 13th century - TensoTensoA tenso is a style of Occitan song favoured by the troubadours. It takes the form of a debate in which each voice defends a position on a topic relating to love or ethics. Closely related genres include the partimen and the cobla exchange...
— a poetical debate which was usually an exchange between two poets, but could be fictional - TorneyamenTorneyamenA torneyamen or certamen was a lyric genre of the troubadours of the thirteenth century. Closely related to the tenso, a debate between two poets, and the partimen, a question posed by one poet and another's response, the torneyamen took place between several poets, originally usually three...
— a poetical debate between three or more persons, often with a judge (like a tournament) - ViadeiraViadeyraThe viadera was a lyric genre of Catalan and Occitan literature invented by the troubadours. It was a dance song devised to lighten the burden of a long voyage or to enliven the trip. It was a popular as opposed to "high" form and only infrequently used by cultivated poets...
— a traveller's complaint
All these genres were highly fluid. A cross between a sirventes and a canso was a meg-sirventes (half-sirventes). A tenso could be "invented" by a single poet; an alba or canso could be written with religious significance, addressed to God or the Virgin; and a sirventes may be nothing more than a political attack. The maldit and the comiat were often connected as a maldit-comiat 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).
Peire Bremon Ricas Novas
Peire Bremon Ricas Novas
Peire Bremon Ricas Novas was a Provençal troubadour who left behind twenty works: thirteen cansos, six sirventes, and one tenso. His treatment of courtly love was somewhat original....
uses the term mieja chanso (half song) and 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...
uses a similar phrase, miga canço, both to refer to a short canso and not a mixture of genres as sometimes supposed. Cerverí's mig (or meig) vers e miga canço was a vers in the new sense (a moralising song) that was also highly critical and thus combined the canso and the sirventes. Among the more than one hundred works of Cerverí de Girona are many songs with unique labels, which may correspond more to "titles" than "genres", but that is debatable: peguesca (nonsense), espingadura (flageolet
Flageolet
The flageolet is a woodwind musical instrument and a member of the fipple flute family. Its invention is ascribed to the 16th century Sieur Juvigny in 1581. There are two basic forms of the instrument: the French, having four finger holes on the front and two thumb holes on the back; and the...
song), libel (legal petition), esdemessa (leap), somni (dream), acuyndamen (challenge), desirança (nostalgia), aniversari (anniversary), serena (serene).
Most "Crusading songs" are classified either as cansos or sirventes but sometimes separately. Some styles became popular in other languages and in other literary or musical traditions. In French
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...
, the alba became the aubade
Aubade
An aubade is a morning love song , or a song or poem about lovers separating at dawn. It has also been defined as "a song or instrumental composition concerning, accompanying, or evoking daybreak"....
, the pastorela the pastourelle
Pastourelle
The pastourelle is a typically Old French lyric form concerning the romance of a shepherdess. In most of the early pastourelles, the poet knight meets a shepherdess who bests him in a wit battle and who displays general coyness. The narrator usually has sexual relations, either consensual or...
, and the partimen the jeu parti
Jeu parti
Jeu parti [Fr.; Occitan joc partit, “partimen”]. A debate or dialogue in the form of a poem. According to Guilhem Molinier, the author of Las leys d'amors, a 13th-century treatise on how to write poetry in the style of the troubadours, there is a clear difference between a partimen and a tenso: in...
. The sestina became popular in Italian literature
Italian literature
Italian literature is literature written in the Italian language, particularly within Italy. It may also refer to literature written by Italians or in Italy in other languages spoken in Italy, often languages that are closely related to modern Italian....
. The troubadours were not averse to borrowing either. The planh developed out of the Latin planctus
Planctus
A planctus is a lament or dirge, a song or poem expressing grief or mourning. It became a popular literary form in the Middle Ages, when they were written in Latin and in the vernacular . The most common planctus is to mourn the death of a famous person, but a number of other varieties have been...
and the sonnet was stolen from the Sicilian School
Sicilian School
The Sicilian School was a small community of Sicilian, and to a lesser extent, mainland Italian poets gathered around Frederick II, most of them belonging to his court, the Magna Curia. Headed by Giacomo da Lentini, they produced more than three-hundred poems of courtly love between 1230 and 1266,...
. Interestingly, the basse danse
Basse danse
The basse danse, or "low dance", was the most popular court dance in the 15th and early 16th centuries, especially at the Burgundian court, often in a combination of 6/4 and 3/2 time allowing for use of hemiola...
(bassa dansa) was first mentioned in the troubadour tradition (c. 1324), but only as being performed by jongleurs.
Performance
Troubadours performed their own songs. Jongleurs (performers) and cantaires (singers) also performed troubadours' songs. They could work from chansonnierChansonnier
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...
s, many of which have survived, or possibly from more rudimentary (and temporary) songbooks, none of which have survived, if they even existed. Some troubadours, like Arnaut de Maruelh, had their own jongleurs who were dedicated to singing their patron's work. Arnaut's joglar et cantaire, probably both a singer and a messenger, who carried his love songs to his lady, was Pistoleta
Pistoleta
Pistoleta was a Provençal troubadour. His name means "little letter " in Occitan. He left behind eleven songs, comprising nine cansos and two tensos...
. The messenger was commonplace in troubadour poetry; many songs reference a messenger who will bring it to its intended ear. A troubadour often stayed with a noble patron of his own and entertained his court with his songs. At court songs could be used not only as enterntainment but also as propaganda, praising the patron, mocking his enemies, encouraging his wars, teaching ethics and etiquette, and maintaining religious unity.
The court was not the only venue for troubadour performance. Competitions were held from an early date. According to the vida of the Monge de Montaudon
Monge de Montaudon
The Monge de Montaudon , born Pèire de Vic, was a nobleman, monk, and troubadour from the Auvergne, born at the castle of Vic-sur-Cère near Aurillac, where he became a Benedictine monk around 1180...
, he received a sparrow hawk, a prized hunting bird, for his poetry from the cour du Puy, some sort of poetry society associated with the court of Alfonso II of Aragon
Alfonso II of Aragon
Alfonso II or Alfons I ; Huesca, 1-25 March 1157 – 25 April 1196), called the Chaste or the Troubadour, was the King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona from 1164 until his death. He was the son of Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona and Petronilla of Aragon and the first King of Aragon who was...
. The most famous contests were held in the twilight of the troubadours in the fourteenth and 15th centuries. The jocs florals held by the Consistori del Gay Saber
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:...
at Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
, by Peter IV of Aragon
Peter IV of Aragon
Peter IV, , called el Cerimoniós or el del punyalet , was the King of Aragon, King of Sardinia and Corsica , King of Valencia , and Count of Barcelona Peter IV, (Balaguer, September 5, 1319 – Barcelona, January 6, 1387), called el Cerimoniós ("the Ceremonious") or el del punyalet ("the one...
at Lleida
Lleida
Lleida is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Lleida, as well as the largest city in the province and it had 137,387 inhabitants , including the contiguous municipalities of Raimat and Sucs. The metro area has about 250,000 inhabitants...
, and the Consistori de la Gaya Sciència
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...
at Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
awarded floral prizes to the best poetry in various categories, judging it by its accordance with a code called the Leys d'amors.
Troubadour songs are still performed and recorded today, albeit rarely.
Music
Troubadour songs were usually monophonicMonophony
In music, monophony is the simplest of textures, consisting of melody without accompanying harmony. This may be realized as just one note at a time, or with the same note duplicated at the octave . If the entire melody is sung by two voices or a choir with an interval between the notes or in...
. Fewer than 300 melodies out of an estimated 2500 survive. Most were composed by the troubadours themselves. Some were set to pre-existing pieces of music. Raimbaut de Vaqueyras wrote his Kalenda maya ("The Calends of May") to music composed by jongleurs at Montferrat
Montferrat
Montferrat is part of the region of Piedmont in Northern Italy. It comprises roughly the modern provinces of Alessandria and Asti. Montferrat is one of the most important wine districts of Italy...
.
Grammars and dictionaries
Beginning in the early 13th century, the spread of Occitan verse demanded grammars and dictionaries, especially for those whose native tongue was not Occitan, such as the Catalan and Italian troubadours, and their imitators. The production of such works only increased with the academisation of the troubadour lyric in the 14th century.| Title | Translation of title | Author | Date, place | Character |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Razos de trobar | "Explanations of composition" | Raimon Vidal | c.1210 |  |
| Donatz proensals | "Provençal Donatus" | Uc Faidit | c.1243 | An Occitan imitation of Latin grammar Latin grammar The grammar of Latin, like that of other ancient Indo-European languages, is highly inflected; consequently, it allows for a large degree of flexibility in choosing word order... ian Aelius Donatus Aelius Donatus Aelius Donatus was a Roman grammarian and teacher of rhetoric. The only fact known regarding his life is that he was the tutor of St... . A rhymary and Latin–Occitan dictionary designed for Italians. |
| Doctrina de compondre dictats | "Doctrinal of understanding sayings" | Anonymous, possibly Raimon Vidal |
late 13th century | A catalogue and explanation of the different poetic genres. It expands on the Razos and may be the concluding section of the Regles of Jaufre de Foixa. |
| Lo breviari d'amors | "Breviary of love" | Matfre Ermengau Matfre Ermengau Matfre Ermengau was a Franciscan friar, legist, and troubadour from Béziers. He had a master of laws degree.... |
begun 1288 |  Encyclopedia An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge.... , the last section of which, "Perilhos tractatz d'amor de donas, seguon qu'en han tractat li antic trobador en lurs cansos", is an Occitan grammar. |
| Doctrina d'acort | "Doctrinal of concordance" | Terramagnino da Pisa Terramagnino da Pisa Terramagnino da Pisa was a Pisan author in Italian and Occitan of the second half of the 13th century. In Italian he wrote lyric poetry and in Occitan he penned the famous Doctrina de cort, basically a condensed form of the Razos de trobar of Raimon Vidal... |
1282–96, Sardinia | A condensed verse adaptation of the Razos, poorly preserved in the manuscripts. |
| Regles de trobar | "Rules of composition" | Jaufre de Foixa | 1289–91, Sicily |  |
| Mirall de trobar | "Mirror of composition" | Berenguer d'Anoia Berenguer d'Anoia Berenguer d'Anoia or de Noya was a Catalan troubadour from Majorca. He wrote the Mirall de trobar, an Occitan poetic, grammatical, and rhetorical treatise in the tradition of the Razos de trobar of Raimon Vidal and the Regles de trobar of Jofre de Foixà, a genre always popular in Catalan... |
early 14th century |  |
| Cançoneret de Ripoll Cançoneret de Ripoll The Cançoneret de Ripoll , now manuscript 129 of Ripoll in the Arxiu de la Corona d'Aragó, is a short Catalan-Occitan chansonnier produced in the mid-fourteenth century but after 1346, when Peter IV of Aragon held a poetry competition which is mentioned in the chansonnier... |
"Little Chansonnier of Ripoll" | Anonymous | 1346, Roussillon or Cerdagne | A 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... containing a unique grammar, including a catalogue of poetic genres, expands on the Doctrina de compondre dictats and the Leys d'amors. |
| Leys d'amors | "Laws of love" | Guilhem Molinier | 1328–37, Toulouse |  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... . |
| Leys d'amors | "Laws of love" | Anonymous | 1337–47, Toulouse | Verse adaptation of the prose Leys. |
| Leys d'amors | "Laws of love" | Joan de Castellnou Joan de Castellnou Joan de Castellnou was a troubadour of the Consistori del Gay Saber active in Toulouse. He left behind five or six cansos, three vers, a dansa, a conselh, and a sirventes... |
1355, Toulouse | Final, expanded, prose version of the previous Leys. |
| Doctrinal de trobar | "Doctrinal of composition" | Raimon de Cornet Raimon de Cornet Raimon de Cornet was a fourteenth-century Toulousain priest, friar, grammarian, poet, and troubadour. He was a prolific author of verse; more than forty of his poems survive, most in Occitan but two in Latin. He also wrote letters, a didactic poem , a grammar, and some treatises on computation... |
c.1324 (before 1341) |
Dedicated to Peter IV of Aragon Peter IV of Aragon Peter IV, , called el Cerimoniós or el del punyalet , was the King of Aragon, King of Sardinia and Corsica , King of Valencia , and Count of Barcelona Peter IV, (Balaguer, September 5, 1319 – Barcelona, January 6, 1387), called el Cerimoniós ("the Ceremonious") or el del punyalet ("the one... , identical in structure to the Leys of Guilhem Molinier. |
| Glosari | "Glossary" | Joan de Castellnou Joan de Castellnou Joan de Castellnou was a troubadour of the Consistori del Gay Saber active in Toulouse. He left behind five or six cansos, three vers, a dansa, a conselh, and a sirventes... |
1341 | A commentary on the Doctrinal de trobar. |
| Compendi | "Compendium" | Joan de Castellnou Joan de Castellnou Joan de Castellnou was a troubadour of the Consistori del Gay Saber active in Toulouse. He left behind five or six cansos, three vers, a dansa, a conselh, and a sirventes... |
before 1341 | A catalogue of all the "vices" one can commit by transgressing the Leys etc. |
| Libre de concordances (or Diccionari de rims) |
"Book of concordances" (or "Dictionary of rhymes") |
Jaume March II Jaume March II Jaume March was a Catalan language poet.Brother of Pere March and uncle of Arnau March and the renowned Ausiàs March, Jaume's family had been lawyers and officers of the court of the kingdom of Aragon. Born in Valencia he was seemingly the eldest son, and inherited the family's possessions around... |
1371 | An Occitan rhymary for Catalans. |
| Torcimany | "Translation" | Luys d'Averçó Luys d'Averçó Luys d'Averçó or Luis de Aversó was a Catalan politician, naval financier, and man of letters. His magnum opus, the Torcimany, is one of the most important medieval Catalan-language grammars to modern historians... |
late 14th century | A rhymary and Catalan–Occitan dictionary. |
Transmission and critical reception
Some 2,600 poems or fragments of poems have survived from around 450 identifiable troubadours. They are largely preserved in songbooks called chansonnierChansonnier
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...
s made for wealthy patrons.
Troubadour songs are generally referred to by their incipit
Incipit
Incipit is a Latin word meaning "it begins". The incipit of a text, such as a poem, song, or book, is the first few words of its opening line. In music, it can also refer to the opening notes of a composition. Before the development of titles, texts were often referred to by their incipits...
s, that is, their opening lines. If this is long, or after it has already been mentioned, an abbreviation of the incipit may be used for convenience. A few troubadour songs are known by "nicknames", thus D'un sirventes far by Guilhem Figueira
Guilhem Figueira
Guillem or Guilhem Figueira or Figera was a Languedocian jongleur and troubadour from Toulouse active at the court of the Emperor Frederick II in the 1230s. He was a close associate of both Aimery de Pégulhan and Guillem Augier Novella...
is commonly called the Sirventes contra Roma. When a writer seeks to avoid using unglossed Occitan, the incipit of the song may be given in translation instead or a title may even be invented to reflect the theme of the work. Especially in translations designed for a popular audience, such as Ezra Pound's, English titles are commonly invented by the translator/editor. There are examples, however, of troubadour songs given Occitan titles in the manuscripts, such as an anonymous pastorela that begins Mentre per una ribeira, which is entitled Porquieira.
Table of parchment chansonniers
| Image | Troubadour manuscript letter | Provenance (place of origin, date) | Location (library, city) | Manuscript name/number | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
A | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , 13th century |
Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome Rome Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half... |
Latin 5232 | |
| B | Occitania Occitania Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language... , 13th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de France Bibliothèque nationale de France The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:... , Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... |
BN f.f. 1592 | ||
 |
C | Occitania Occitania Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language... , 14th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de France Bibliothèque nationale de France The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:... , Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... |
BN f.f. 856 | |
 |
D | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , 12 August 1254 |
Biblioteca Estense Biblioteca Estense The Biblioteca Estense , established in Modena in the seventeenth century, is one of the most important libraries in Italy. The library is located in the Palazzo del Musei, Off Via Emilia, at Piazza Sant'Agostino 48.- Collection :... , Modena Modena Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy.... |
Kg.4.MS2=E.45=α.R.4.4 | Poetarum Provinciali. |
| E | Occitania Occitania Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language... , 14th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de France Bibliothèque nationale de France The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:... , Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... |
BN f.f. 1749 | ||
| F | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , 14th century |
Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome Rome Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half... |
Chigi L.IV.106 | ||
 |
G | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... or Venetia, late 13th century |
Biblioteca Ambrosiana Biblioteca Ambrosiana The Biblioteca Ambrosiana is a historic library in Milan, Italy, also housing the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the Ambrosian art gallery. Named after Ambrose, the patron saint of Milan, it was founded by Cardinal Federico Borromeo , whose agents scoured Western Europe and even Greece and Syria for books... , Milan Milan Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,... |
R 71 sup. | Contains troubadour music. |
| H | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , late 13th century |
Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome Rome Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half... |
Latin 3207 | ||
 |
I | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , 13th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de France Bibliothèque nationale de France The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:... , Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... |
BN f.f. 854 | |
| J | Occitania Occitania Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language... , 14th century |
Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence Florence Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area.... |
Conventi Soppressi F.IV.776 | ||
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K | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , 13th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de France Bibliothèque nationale de France The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:... , Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... |
BN f.f. 12473 | |
| L | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , 14th century |
Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome Rome Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half... |
Latin 3206 | ||
| M | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , 14th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de France Bibliothèque nationale de France The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:... , Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... |
BN f.f. 12474 | ||
| N | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , 14th century |
Pierpont Morgan, New York New York City New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and... |
819 | The Philipps Manuscript. | |
| O | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , 14th century |
Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome Rome Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half... |
Latin 3208 | ||
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P | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , 1310 |
Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence Florence Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area.... |
XLI.42 | |
| Q | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , 14th century |
Biblioteca Riccardiana Biblioteca Riccardiana The Biblioteca Riccardiana is a library in Florence, Italy. The library is located in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi.- History :... , Florence Florence Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area.... |
2909 | ||
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R | Toulousain Toulouse Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea... or Rouergue Rouergue Rouergue is a former province of France, bounded on the north by Auvergne, on the south and southwest by Languedoc, on the east by Gévaudan and on the west by Quercy... , 14th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de France Bibliothèque nationale de France The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:... , Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... |
BN f.f. 22543 | Contains more troubadour music than any other manuscript. Perhaps produced for Henry II of Rodez Henry II of Rodez Henry II , of the House of Millau, was the Count of Rodez and Viscount of Carlat from 1274 until his death. He was the son of Hugh IV of Rodez and Isabeau de Roquefeuil.... . |
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S | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , 13th century |
Bodleian Library Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library... , Oxford Oxford The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through... |
Douce 269 | |
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Sg | Catalonia 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... , 14th century |
Biblioteca de Catalunya, Barcelona Barcelona Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of... |
146 | The famous Cançoner Gil Cançoner Gil The Cançoner Gil is an Occitan chansonnier produced in Catalonia in the middle of the 14th century. In the systematic nomenclature of Occitanists, it is typically named MS Sg, but as Z in the reassignment of letter names by François Zufferey. It is numbered MS 146 in the Biblioteca de Catalunya in... . Called Z in the reassignment of letter names by François Zufferey. |
| T | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , late 13th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de France Bibliothèque nationale de France The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:... , Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... |
BN f.f. 15211 | ||
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U | Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , 14th century |
Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence Florence Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area.... |
XLI.43 | |
| V | Catalonia 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... , 1268 |
Biblioteca Marciana Biblioteca Marciana The Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana is a library and Renaissance building in Venice, northern Italy; it is one of the earliest surviving public manuscript depositories in the country, holding one of the greatest classical texts collections in the world. The library is named after St. Mark, the... , Venice Venice Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region... |
fr. App. cod. XI | ||
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W | perhaps Artois Artois Artois is a former province of northern France. Its territory has an area of around 4000 km² and a population of about one million. Its principal cities are Arras , Saint-Omer, Lens and Béthune.-Location:... , 1254–c.1280 |
Bibliothèque nationale de France Bibliothèque nationale de France The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:... , Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... |
BN f.f. 844 | Also trouvère manuscript M. Contains the chansonnier du roi of Theobald I of Navarre Theobald I of Navarre Theobald I , called the Troubadour, the Chansonnier, and the Posthumous, was Count of Champagne from birth and King of Navarre from 1234... . Possibly produced for Charles I of Naples. Contains troubadour music. |
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X | Lorraine, 13th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de France Bibliothèque nationale de France The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:... , Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... |
BN f.f. 20050 | Chansonnier de Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Also trouvère manuscript U and therefore has marks of French influence. Contains troubadour music. Owned by Saint-Germain-des-Prés Saint-Germain-des-Prés Saint-Germain-des-Prés is an area of the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France, located around the church of the former Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.... in 18th century. |
| Y | France 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... /Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... , 13th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de France Bibliothèque nationale de France The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:... , Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... |
BN f.f. 795 | ||
| Z | Occitania Occitania Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language... , 13th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de France Bibliothèque nationale de France The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:... , Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... |
BN f.f. 1745 |
External links
- Literary Encyclopedia: Troubadour.
- Said I. Abdelwahed. Troubadour Poetry: An Intercultural Experience.