Paves or Pavese was a Lombard

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...

 troubadour

Troubadour

A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....

 of the first half of the 13th century, only a single cobla

Cobla (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...

of whose work survives. The work is preserved in one 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...

 of late 13th-century Italian provenance, now known as "troubadour manuscript H" or Latin 3207, kept in the 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...

. In the same manuscript are preserved two other works with the same rhyming scheme, one 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...

 and another by Aimeric de Peguilhan

Aimeric de Peguilhan

Aimeric or Aimery de Peguilhan, Peguillan, or Pégulhan was a troubadour , born in Peguilhan the son of a cloth merchant....

.

Paves' cobla is a humorous treatment of what was evidently a fight in a Florentine

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....

 tavern. There is reference to a blow struck with a piece of dried bread instead of any weapon of war. The combatants were two Italians, Capitanis (or Cattano/Cattaneo) and Guillem (Guglielmo il Noioso). It has been surmised that "Capitanis" may be an allusion to Sordello

Sordello

Sordello da Goito or Sordel de Goit was a 13th-century Lombard troubadour, born in the municipality of Goito in the province of Mantua...

, who is referred to as gentils catanis in two Occitan vidas

Vida (Occitan literary form)

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

. Paves' cobla is customarily dated between 1215, when Figueira entered Italy, and 1245, the death of Aimerid de Peguilhan.

Anc de Roland ni del pro n'Auliver No fo auzitz us colps tant engoissos Cum scels qe fez Capitanis l'autrer, A Florença, a'n Guillem l'enoios: E no fo ges d'espada ni de lanza: Anz fo d'un pan dur e sec sus en l'oill, Q'estop'e sal et ou, aital mesclanza L'i mes hom destenprad'ab orgoill!

Yet neither of Roland Roland Roland was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. Historically, Roland was military governor of the Breton March, with responsibility for defending the frontier of Francia against the Bretons...  nor the stalwart Oliver Olivier (The Song of Roland) Oliver , sometimes referred to as Olivier de Vienne or de Gennes, is a fictional knight in the Matter of France chansons de geste, especially the French epic The Song of Roland... was heard given so serious a blow like that which Capitanis gave yesterday, at Florence, to Sir William the boring. And not a blow of sword or lance. Rather it was of hard dry bread on the eye, that there was put an oakum of salt and egg, such a mixture that dissolved with pride!

Sources

• Bertoni, Giulio. I Trovatori d'Italia: Biografie, testi, tradizioni, note. Rome: Società Multigrafica Editrice Somu, 1967 [1915].