A
troubadour was a composer and performer of Occitan
lyric poetryLyric poetry usually refers nowadays to a short poem that expresses personal feelings. It need not be set to music. Aristotle, in Poetics 1447a, merely mentions lyric poetry along with drama, epic poetry, dancing, painting and other forms of mimesis...
during the
High Middle AgesThe High Middle Ages was the period of European history in 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
trobairitzThe 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 eleventh century in
OccitaniaOccitania , also called sometimes the Oc Country , is the territory where Occitan is the traditional language in use. This cultural area is roughly the southern half of France. It includes Monaco, spans parts of Italy and Spain...
, but it subsequently spread into
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
,
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
, and even
GreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula....
. Under the influence of the troubadours, related movements sprang up throughout Europe: the
MinnesangMinnesang 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
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
,
trovadorismo in Galicia and
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
, and that of the
trouvèreTrouvère , sometimes spelled trouveur, is the Northern French form of the word troubadour . 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
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
.
Dante AlighieriDurante degli Alighieri , commonly known as Dante, was an Italian poet of the Middle Ages. His central work, the Divina Commedia , is often considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.In...
in his
De vulgari eloquentiaDe 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 a "classical" period around the turn of the thirteenth century and a mid-century resurgence, the art of the troubadours declined in the fourteenth century and eventually died out around the time of the
Black DeathThe Black Death was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. It is widely thought to have been an outbreak of bubonic plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, but this view has recently been challenged...
(1348).
The texts of troubadour songs deal mainly with themes of
chivalryChivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood. It is usually associated with ideals of knightly virtues, honor and courtly love. The word is derived from the French word chevalier, indicating one who rides a horse Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of...
and
courtly loveCourtly 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 leuThe 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 ricThe 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 clusTrobar 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
genreA genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other form of art or utterance...
s, the most popular being the
cansoThe canso or canço 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...
, but
sirventesThe 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
tensoA tensó, tenson, or tençó 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
trobairitzThe 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 is a Romance language spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City...
,
trovador in
SpanishSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
,
trobador in
CatalanCatalan is a Romance language, the national and official language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencià , as well as in the city of Alghero on the Italian island of...
—are of disputed origin.
Latin
The English word "troubadour" comes by way of
Old FrenchOld French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories which span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 900 to 1300...
from the Occitan word
trobador, the
oblique caseAn 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 LatinLate 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
tropeThe term trope or tropus has a variety of different meanings 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
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
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
trouvèreTrouvère , sometimes spelled trouveur, is the Northern French form of the word troubadour . 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. A troubadour thus composed his own work, whereas a
joglar performed only that of others. This
etymologyEtymology is the study of the history of words 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 at earlier stages, and...
is supported by the French dictionaries
Académie FrançaiseL'Académie française, or 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, it was...
,
LarousseThe 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 RobertLe 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 DronkePeter Dronke 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....
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 is a scholar of medieval culture and history. Menocal earned a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining the Yale University faculty in 1986, she taught Romance philology at the University of Pennsylvania....
, in the camp which seeks the troubadours' origins in Arabic Andalusian musical practices. According to them, the
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
word
tarrab, "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
phonologicalPhonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system...
coincidence between
trobar and the triliteral Arabic root TRB when sacred
Sufi IslamicSufism or ' , also spelled as tasavvuf and tasavvof, is generally understood to be the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a ' , though some adherents of the tradition reserve this term only for those practitioners who have attained the goals...
musical forms with a love theme were first exported from
Al-AndalusAl-Andalus was the Arabic name given to the parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Arab and North African Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492....
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)
Ezra PoundEzra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet, critic and intellectual who was a major figure of the Modernist movement in the first half of the 20th century. He is generally considered the poet most responsible for defining and promoting a modernist aesthetic in poetry...
, in his Canto VIII, famously declared that William of Aquitaine "had brought the song up out of Spain / with the singers and viels..." referring to the troubadour song. In his study, Lévi-Provençal is said to have found four Arabo-Hispanic verses nearly or completely recopied in William's manuscript. According to historic sources, William VIIIWilliam 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 .Guy-Geoffroy was the youngest son of William V of Aquitaine by his third wife Agnes of Burgundy...
, 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 ReconquistaThe Reconquista was a period of 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula succeeded in retaking the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims...
in Spain was also championed by Ramón Menéndez PidalRamón Menéndez Pidal was a Spanish philologist and historian. He worked extensively on the history of the Spanish language and Spanish folklore. His main topic was the legend of The Cid....
in the early twentieth-century, but its origins go back to the CinquecentoCinquecento is a term used to describe the Italian Renaissance of the sixteenth century, including the current styles of art, music, literature, and architecture.-Art:...
and Giammaria Barbieri (died 1575) and Juan AndrésJuan Andrés was a littérateur and historian . He entered the Society of Jesus in 1754. When the Jesuits were expelled from Spain in 1767, Andrés made his abode at Ferrara and taught philosophy there...
(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 Clairvaux, O.Cist was a French abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian monastic order. After the death of his mother, Bernard sought admission into the Cistercian order...
and the increasingly important MariologyRoman Catholic Mariology is theology concerned with the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ and developed by the Roman Catholic Church. "The Blessed Virgin, because she is the Mother of God, is believed to hold a certain infinite dignity from the infinite good which is God." Theologically,...
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 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 Hippo , Bishop of Hippo Regius, also known as St. Augustine or St. Austin, was an Algerian Berber philosopher and theologian....
" influence to it.
- Celtic or Chivalric-Matriarchal
The survival of pre-Christian sexual mores and warrior codes from matriarchal societies, be they CeltCelts is a modern term used to describe any of the European peoples who spoke, or speak, a Celtic language...
ic, GermanicThe Germanic peoples are a historical ethno-linguistic group, originating in Northern Europe and identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Common Germanic in the course of the Pre-Roman Iron Age...
, 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 OvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who wrote about love, seduction, and mythological transformation....
, especially his Amores and Ars amatoria, and the lyric of courtly love. The aetas ovidiana that predominated in the eleventh century in and around OrléansOrléans is a commune in north-central France, about southwest of Paris. It is the capital of the Loiret department and of the Centre region.The commune is located on the Loire River where the river curves south towards the Massif Central....
, the quasi-CiceroMarcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.Cicero is generally perceived to be one of the most versatile minds of ancient Rome...
nian ideology that held sway in the Imperial courtThe Holy Roman Empire was a union of territories in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period under a Holy Roman Emperor. The first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was Otto I, crowned in 962. The last was Francis II, who abdicated and dissolved the Empire in 1806 during...
, and the scraps of PlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world...
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 CatharCatharism 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. Catharism had its roots in the Paulician movement in Armenia and...
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 CrusadeThe Albigensian Crusade or Cathar Crusade was a 20-year military campaign initiated by the Catholic Church to eliminate the Cathar heresy in Languedoc...
(first half of the thirteenth 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 liturgyA liturgy is the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions. The word may refer to an elaborate formal ritual such as the Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy and Catholic Mass, or a daily activity such as the Muslim salat and Jewish services...
and hymnody. The influence of the Song of SongsSong of Songs 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*The Song of Songs , a play directed by Eimuntas Nekrošius in 2005...
has even been suggested. There is no preceding Latin poetryLatin poetry was a major part of Latin literature during the height of the Latin language. During Latin literature's Golden Age, most of the great literature was written in the form of poetry, including works by Virgil, Catullus, and Horace....
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 LimogesLimoges is a city and commune in France, the préfecture of the Haute-Vienne département, and the administrative capital of the Limousin région....
has been singled out in this regard. "Para-liturgical" tropes 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 twentieth 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 Köhler was a German politician. He was President of the Bundestag from 7 September 1949 to 18 October 1950.He was a member of the Christian Democratic Union....
, Marc BlochMarc Léopold Benjamin Bloch was a medieval historian, University Professor and French Army officer...
, and Georges DubyGeorges Duby was a French historian specializing in the social and economic history of the Middle Ages. He ranks among the most influential medieval historians of the twentieth century and was one of France's most prominent public intellectuals from the 1970s until his death in 1996.Born in 1919...
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 Menocal is a scholar of medieval culture and history. Menocal earned a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining the Yale University faculty in 1986, she taught Romance philology at the University of Pennsylvania....
, Alfred 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 folkloreFolklore is the body of expressive culture, including stories, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions of that culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which...
and oral traditionOral tradition, oral culture and oral lore are messages or testimony 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 ParisBruno Paulin Gaston Paris , known as Gaston Paris, was a French writer and scholar.-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 Valley is known as the Garden of France and the Cradle of the French Language. It is also noteworthy for the quality of its architectural heritage, in its historic towns such as Amboise, Angers, Blois, Chinon, Nantes, Orléans, Saumur, and Tours, but in particular for its world-famous...
. 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 eleventh century and earlier.
- Medieval Latin or Mediolatin (Goliardic)
Hans Spanke analysed the intertextual connexion between vernacular and medieval 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. metaphorA metaphor is a figure of speech concisely comparing two things, saying that one is the other. The English metaphor derives from the 16th c...
and metonymyMetonymy 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. It comes from the , , "a change of name", from , , "after, beyond" and , , a suffix used to name figures of...
. 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 Avicenna, known as Abū Alī Sīnā or Ibn Sīnā , and commonly known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna , was a Persian polymath and the foremost physician and philosopher of his time...
) and the Cathar (through John Scotus Eriugena).
History
Early period
The earliest troubadour whose work survives is
Guilhem de PeitieusWilliam IX , called the Troubador, was the Duke of Aquitaine and Gascony and Count of Poitou between 1086 and his death...
(1071–1127). 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 AquitaineThe Duke of Aquitaine ruled the historical region of Aquitaine under the supremacy of the Frankish, The English King and later the French kings....
, but his work plays with already established structures;
Eble II of VentadornEble 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 VitalisOrderic Vitalis was an English chronicler who wrote one of the great contemporary chronicles of 11th and 12th century Normandy and England.-Background:...
referred to Guilhem composing songs about his experiences on his return from the
Crusade of 1101The 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 what may be the first description of a troubadour performance: an eyewitness account of William of Aquitaine in 1135.
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 twelfth 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.
The troubadour tradition seems to have begun in western Aquitaine (
PoitouPoitou was a province of west-central France whose capital city was Poitiers.The region of Poitou was called Thifalia in the sixth century....
and
SaintongeSaintonge 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
GasconyGascony 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 (
LimousinLimousin is a former province of France around the city of Limoges in central France. The province of Limousin lies in the foothills of the Massif Central, with cold weather in the winter...
and
AuvergneAuvergne was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne...
) and
ProvenceProvence is a region of southeastern 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
LanguedocLanguedoc 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 Languedoc is a former...
and the regions of
RouergueRouergue 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. Its capital is Rodez....
,
ToulouseToulouse is a city in southwest France on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. With 1,102,882 inhabitants as of Jan...
, and
QuercyQuercy is a former province of France located in the southwest of France, 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.Today, Quercy is divided between the département of Lot and the...
(c. 1200). Finally, in the early thirteenth century it began to spread into first Italy and then
CataloniaCatalonia is an Autonomous Community in northeast Spain. The capital city is Barcelona.Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an official population of 7,364,078. It borders France and Andorra to the north, Aragon to the west, the Valencian Community to the south, and the...
, whence to the rest of Spain. This development has been called the
rayonnement des troubadours.
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
cansoThe canso or canço 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...
, or love song, became distinguishable as a genre. The master of the
canso and the troubadour who epitomises the classical period is
Bernart de VentadornBernart de Ventadorn , also known as Bernard de Ventadour or Bernat del Ventadorn, was a prominent troubador of the classical age of troubadour poetry...
. He was highly regarded by his contemporaries, as were
Giraut de BornelhGiraut de Bornelh , whose first name is also spelled Guiraut and whose nickname 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 BornBertran 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
sirventesThe 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 fifteenth 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 , whose real name, as well as any actual biographical datum, 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
MarcabruMarcabru 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 RudelJaufre 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 PalazolBerenguier 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 AmielGau'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 AdemarGuilhem 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 RosGuiraudo 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...
,
MarcabruMarcabru 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 MaensacPeire 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...
,
PeirolPeirol or Peiròl[In 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 MiravalRaimon 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 [Mireval]." Favoured by Raymond VI of Toulouse, he was also later associated with Peter II of Aragon and Alfonso VIII of Castile...
,
Rigaut de BerbezilhRigaut 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 PenaUc, 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 SestaroAlbertet de Sestaro, Sestairo, 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'EscolaSalh, 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 BarjolsElias 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 FonsaladaElias Fonsalada was a troubadour from Bergerac in the Périgord . Only two cansos of his survive....
was the son of a burger and jongleur.
PerdigonPerdigon 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 CairelElias 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 MareuilArnaut 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 BelenoiAimeric 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 MarselhaFolquet 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'UsselGui 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 GironellaGuillem Ramon de Gironella was a late thirteenth-century Catalan troubadour. His poetry, while difficult, is highly original and praised for its beauty....
,
Jofre de FoixàJofre de Foixà or Jaufre de Foixa 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 BussignacPeire 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 RogierPeire 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 CornetRaimon de Cornet or Ramon 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...
,
Uc BrunetUc Brunet, Brunec, or Brunenc was a nobleman and troubadour from Rodez in the Rouergue. Six of his works survive....
, and
Uc de Saint CircUc 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 twelfth 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
minstrelA minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories about distant places or about real or imaginary historical events. Though 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 BornBertran 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 thirteenth century
Guiraut RiquierGuiraut 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 CastileAlfonso 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 BelenoiAimeric 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 SarlatAimeric 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 CaillaAlbert 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 MareuilArnaut 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 BarjolsElias 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 FonsaladaElias Fonsalada was a troubadour from Bergerac in the Périgord . Only two cansos of his survive....
,
Falquet de RomansFalquet 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 MagretGuillem 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 CalansoGiraut 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 TorinoNicoletto 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 TolosaPeire 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 RogierPeire 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 ValeiraPeire 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...
,
PeirolPeirol or Peiròl[In 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...]
,
PistoletaPistoleta was a Provençal troubadour. His name means "little letter " in Occitan. He left behind eleven songs, comprising nine cansos and two tensos...
,
PerdigonPerdigon 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'EscolaSalh, 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 BacalariaUc 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 BrunetUc Brunet, Brunec, or Brunenc was a nobleman and troubadour from Rodez in the Rouergue. Six of his works survive....
, and
Uc de Saint CircUc 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
chansonnierA 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...
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 CircUc 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 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 GhibellineThe Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting, respectively, the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor in central and northern Italy during the 12th and 13th centuries...
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 BuvalelliRambertino 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...
, possible the first native Italian troubadour, who was
podestà of
GenoaGenoa is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria. The city has a population of about 610,000 and the urban area has a population of about 900,000...
between 1218 and 1221. Rambertino, a Guelph, served at one time or another as
podestà of
BresciaBrescia is a city 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 191,000. It is the second largest city in Lombardy, after the capital, Milan...
,
MilanMilan in Italy, is the capital of the region of Lombardia and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while the urban area is the fifth largest in the E.U. with an estimated population of 4.3 million...
,
ParmaParma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its architecture and the fine countryside around it. It is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....
,
MantuaMantua is a city in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name.Mantua is surrounded on three sides by artificial lakes created during the 12th century. These receive the waters from the Mincio, which descend from Lake Garda...
, and
VeronaVerona is a city in Veneto, northern Italy, one of the seven provincial capitals in the region. It is one of the main tourist destinations in north-eastern Italy, thanks to its artistic heritage, several annual fairs, shows and operas, such as the lyrical season in the Arena, the ancient...
. 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 GrimaldiLuca 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
FlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence...
,
MilanMilan in Italy, is the capital of the region of Lombardia and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while the urban area is the fifth largest in the E.U. with an estimated population of 4.3 million...
, and
VentimigliaVentimiglia is a town in Liguria, northern Italy, in the province of Imperia. It is located 130 km southwest of Genoa by rail, and 7 km from the Franco-Italian frontier, on the Gulf of Genoa, having a small harbour at the mouth of the Roia River, which divides the town into two...
, and
Luchetto GattilusioLuchetto 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 poetic descriptions of his time....
, who served in Milan,
CremonaCremona is a city in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana...
, and
BolognaBologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of northern Italy...
, and the Ghibellines
Perceval DoriaPerceval 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
ArlesArles is a city in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence.-Geography:...
,
AvignonAvignon is a commune in the Vaucluse department in south-eastern France with an estimated mid-2004 population of 89,300 in the city itself and a population of 290,466 in the metropolitan area at the 1999 census.The city is well known for its Palais des Papes , where several popes...
,
AstiAsti is a city and comune of c. 75,000 inhabitants located in the Piedmont region of north-western Italy, about 55 kilometres east of Turin in the plain of the Tanaro River. It is the capital of the province of Asti and it is deemed to be the modern capital of Monferrato.-Ancient times and early...
, and
ParmaParma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its architecture and the fine countryside around it. It is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....
, and
Simon DoriaSimon 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
SavonaSavona 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
AlbengaAlbenga is a city 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 RomanoAlberico 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
VicenzaVicenza, a city in northern Italy, is the capital of the eponymous province in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, straddling the Bacchiglione. Vicenza is approximately 60 km west of Venice and 200 km east of Milan....
and
TrevisoTreviso is a city in Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 82,206 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 hinterland...
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'EntrevenasIsnart 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 is non-sacred music that developed in the Medieval period and was used in the renaissance . Renaissance musicians wrote a lot of secular music. Swaying authority from the church that focused more on Common Law influenced all aspects of Medieval life, including music. Secular music in...
in the Western tradition. The word
trobairitz was first used in the thirteenth-century
Romance of FlamencaThe 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 (
BecPierre Bec , is an Occitan poet and linguist. Born in Paris, 1921, he spent his childhood in Comenge, where he learnt Occitan. He has been deported to Germany from 1943 al 1945. After coming back, 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 DiaBeatritz 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.
The trobairitz were in most respects as varied a lot as their male counterparts, with the general exceptions of their poetic style and their provenance. They wrote predominantly
cansos and
tensoA tensó, tenson, or tençó 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 MonpeslierNa 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'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...
, by a woman (
Azalais d'AltierAzalais 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'AnduzaClara d'Anduza was a trobairitz from the first third of the thirteenth 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...
) is also extant and one anonymous
planhThe 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 leuThe 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
LombardaLombarda 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 CarenzaAlais 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 clusTrobar 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
CastellozaNa 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
OccitaniaOccitania , also called sometimes the Oc Country , is the territory where Occitan is the traditional language in use. This cultural area is roughly the southern half of France. It includes Monaco, spans parts of Italy and Spain...
. There are representatives from the
AuvergneAuvergne was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne...
,
ProvenceProvence is a region of southeastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
,
LanguedocLanguedoc 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 Languedoc is a former...
, the
DauphinéThe Dauphiné or Dauphiné Viennois is a former province in southeastern France, roughly corresponding to the present departments of the Isère, Drôme, and Hautes-Alpes....
, Toulousain, and the
LimousinLimousin is a former province of France around the city of Limoges in central France. The province of Limousin lies in the foothills of the Massif Central, with cold weather in the winter...
. One trobairitz,
YsabellaYsabel 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
PérigordThe 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 ItalyNorthern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative worth, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian nation...
,
GreeceThe 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
PalestineThe Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Christian kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. It lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks....
. 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 twelfth century and the early thirteenth (c. 1170 – c. 1260). The earliest was probably
Tibors de SarenomTibors 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 ForcalquierGarsenda 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 CigalaLanfranc Cigala or Cicala 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...
, known between 1235 and 1257. There exist brief prose biographies—
vidas—for eight trobairitz:
Almucs de CastelnauAlmucs 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
razoRaso is an islet of 7 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.It is uninhabited and is now the only home of the Raso Lark...
),
Azalais de PorcairaguesAzalais de Porcairagues or Alasais de Porcaragues was a trobairitz , composing in Occitan in the late 12th century....
, the Comtessa de Dia, Castelloza,
Iseut de CapioNIseut 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 VentadornMaria de Ventadorn or Ventedorn 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...
, and Tibors de Sarenom.
Academics and city-dwellers: the Gay Science
Schools and styles
There have been three main styles of Occitan lyric poetry identified: the
trobar leuThe 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 ricThe 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 clusTrobar 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,
hermeticHermeticism is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the Hellenistic Egyptian pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus who is the representation of the congruence of the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek Hermes...
). 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 VentadornBernart de Ventadorn , also known as Bernard de Ventadour or Bernat del Ventadorn, was a prominent troubador of the classical age of troubadour poetry...
. 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
MarcabruMarcabru 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 reocgnise several "schools" in the troubadour tradition. Among the early is a school of followers of Marcabru, sometimes called the "Marcabrunian school":
Bernart MartiBernart 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 VenzacBernart 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...
,
GavaudanGavaudan 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'AlvernhePeire d'Alvernhe or d'Alvernha was an Auvergnat troubadour , twenty-one or twenty-four of whose works survive...
. 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
CercamonCercamon , whose real name, as well as any actual biographical datum, 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 ValeiraPeire 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 CalansoGiraut 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
GasconyGascony 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
ProvenceProvence is a region of southeastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
in the early thirteenth century, harming the reputation of the poets associated with it.
In the late thirteenth century a school arose at
BéziersBéziers is a town in Languedoc in the southwest of France. It is a commune and a sub-prefecture of the Hérault department. Béziers hosts the famous Feria de Béziers, centred around bullfighting, every August...
, once the centre of pre-Albigensian Languedoc and of the Trencavel lordships, in the 1260s–80s. Three poets epitomise this "school":
Bernart d'AuriacBernat 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 MiralhasJoan 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 IXLouis 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 a member of the House of Capet, the son of Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile...
and the French aristocracy against the native Occitan nobility. They have been described as "Gallicised". Raimon Gaucelm supported the
Eighth CrusadeThe 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 CrusadeThe Aragonese Crusade or Crusade of Aragón, a part of the larger War of the Sicilian Vespers, was declared by Pope Martin IV against the King of Aragón, 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-fourteenth 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:
- Alba
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
- Arlabecca
The 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 term...
— a song defined by poetic metre, but perhaps once related to the rebecThe rebec is a bowed string musical instrument. In its most common form, it has narrowboat shaped body, three strings and is played on the arm or under the chin, like a violin.- Origins :...
- Canso
The canso or canço 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...
, originally vers, also chanso or canço— the love song, usually consisting of five or six stanzaIn 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 envoiIn 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 esparsa
A cobla is a stanza in Occitan lyric poetry, the artform 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 song
A 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 CrusadesThe Crusades were a series of religiously-sanctioned military campaigns waged by much of Latin Christian Europe, particularly the Franks of France and the Holy Roman Empire. The specific crusades to restore Christian control of the Holy Land were fought over a period of nearly 200 years, between...
, usually encouraging them
- Dansa
A dansa or dança 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...
or balada— a lively dance song with a refrainA refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...
- Descort
The descort or descortz 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
- Ensenhamen
An 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
- Enuig
The 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
- Partimen
The partimen, partiment, partia, or joc partit 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...
— a poetical exchange between two or more poets in which one is presented with a dilemma by another and responds
- Pastorela
The 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 knightA knight was a "gentleman soldier" or member of the warrior class of the Middle Ages in Europe. In other Indo-European languages, cognates of cavalier or rider are more prevalent suggesting a connection to the knight's mode of transport...
to a shepherdess
- 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...
— a lament, especially on the death of some important figure
- Plazer— a poem expressing pleasure
- 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...
— 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
A sestina is a highly structured poem consisting of six six-line stanzas followed by a tercet , for a total of thirty-nine lines...
— highly-structure verse form
- 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...
— a political poem or satireSatire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form; although in practice it is also found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods,...
, originally put in the mouth of a paid soldier (sirvens)
- Sonnet
The sonnet is one of the poetic forms that can be found in lyric poetry from Europe.The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song". By the thirteenth century, it had come to signify a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme...
(sonet)— an Italian genre imported into Occitan verse in the thirteenth century
- Tenso
A tensó, tenson, or tençó 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
- Torneyamen
A 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)
- Viadeyra
The viadeyra, viadera, or viandela 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 NovasPeire 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 GironaCerverí 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 (
flageoletA 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. It had 4 holes on the front and 2 on the back. The English instrument maker William Bainbridge developed it further and patented the "improved...
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
FrenchFrench 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 other traditional non-French languages. Literature written by citizens of other nations such as...
, the
alba became the
aubadeAn aubade is a poem or song of or about lovers separating at dawn.Aubade has also been defined as "a song or instrumental composition concerning, accompanying, or evoking daybreak."...
, the
pastorela the
pastourelleThe 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 partiJeu parti [Fr.; Provençal 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:...
. The
sestina became popular in
Italian literatureItalian 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
planctusA planctus is a lament, or song or poem which expresses grief or mourning. It became a popular form in the Middle Ages, when they were written both in Latin and the vernacular. A number of varieties have been identified by Peter Dronke...
and the sonnet was stolen from the
Sicilian SchoolThe 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 danseThe basse danse, or "low dance", was the most popular court dance in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, especially at the Burgundian court, often in a combination of 6/4 and 3/2 time allowing for use of hemiola. When danced, couples moved quietly and gracefully in a slow gliding or...
(
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
chansonnierA 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...
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
PistoletaPistoleta 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 MontaudonThe Monge de Montaudo , 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 AragonAlfonso II or Alfons I , called the Chaste or the Troubadour, was the King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona from 1162 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 also Count of Barcelona...
. The most famous contests were held in the twilight of the troubadours in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The
jocs florals held by the
Consistori del Gay SaberThe 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:The Consistori was founded by seven literary men of the bourgeoisie, who composed a manifesto, in...
at
ToulouseToulouse is a city in southwest France on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. With 1,102,882 inhabitants as of Jan...
, by
Peter IV of AragonPeter IV, also known as Pedro or Pere , called the Ceremonious or El del Punyalet , was the King of Aragon, King of Sardinia and Corsica , King of Valencia , and Count of Barcelona Peter IV, also known as Pedro or Pere (Balaguer5 September 1319 – 6 January 1387), called the Ceremonious (el...
at Lérida, and the
Consistori de la Gaya SciènciaThe 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
BarcelonaBarcelona is the capital, most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, with a population of 1,615,908 in 2008. It is the 11th-most populous municipality in the European Union and sixth-most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris,...
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
monophonicIn 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
MontferratMontferrat 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 thirteenth century, the spread of Occitan verse demanded grammars and dictionaries, especially for he 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 fourteenth century.
| Title |
Translation of title |
Author |
Date, place |
Character |
| Razos de trobar |
"Explanations of composition" |
Raimon Vidal |
c.1210 |
Prose guide to poetic composition that defends the superiority of Occitan over other vernaculars. Occitan–Italian dictionary. |
| Donatz proensals |
"Provençal Donatus" |
Uc Faidit |
c.1243 |
An Occitan imitation of Latin grammar The grammar of Latin, like that of other ancient Indo-European languages, is highly inflected, which allows for a large degree of flexibility when choosing word order. In Latin, there are five declensions of nouns and four conjugations of verbs...
ian Aelius DonatusAelius 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 was a Franciscan friar, legist, and troubadour from Béziers. He had a master of laws degree....
|
begun 1288 |
A pious encyclopediaAn encyclopedia is a comprehensive written compendium that holds information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge. Encyclopedias are divided into articles with one article on each subject covered...
, 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 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 |
Contains many examples of troubadour verse, designed to augment the Razos de trobar. |
| Mirall de trobar |
"Mirror of composition" |
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 |
Mainly covers rhetoric and errors, and is littered with examples of troubadour verse. |
| 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 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...
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 |
First commissioned in 1323. Prose rules governing the 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:The Consistori was founded by seven literary men of the bourgeoisie, who composed a manifesto, in...
and the Consistori de BarcelonaThe 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 Castelnou or 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 or Ramon 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...
|
c.1324
(before 1341) |
Dedicated to Peter IV of Aragon Peter IV, also known as Pedro or Pere , called the Ceremonious or El del Punyalet , was the King of Aragon, King of Sardinia and Corsica , King of Valencia , and Count of Barcelona Peter IV, also known as Pedro or Pere (Balaguer5 September 1319 – 6 January 1387), called the Ceremonious (el...
, identical in structure to the Leys of Guilhem Molinier. |
| Glosari |
"Glossary" |
Joan de Castellnou Joan de Castelnou or 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 Castelnou or 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 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 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
chansonnierA 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...
s made for wealthy patrons.
Troubadour songs are generally referred to by their
incipitThe incipit of a text, such as a poem, song, or book, is its first few words or 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. Incipit comes from the Latin for "it begins"...
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 FigueiraGuillem 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 desinted 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 |
LombardyLombardy 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...
,
13th century |
Biblioteca Vaticana,
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
|
Latin 5232 |
|
|
B |
Occitania Occitania , also called sometimes the Oc Country , is the territory where Occitan is the traditional language in use. This cultural area is roughly the southern half of France. It includes Monaco, spans parts of Italy and Spain...
,
13th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de FranceThe Bibliothèque nationale de France 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:...
,
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
|
BN f.f. 1592 |
|
 |
C |
Occitania Occitania , also called sometimes the Oc Country , is the territory where Occitan is the traditional language in use. This cultural area is roughly the southern half of France. It includes Monaco, spans parts of Italy and Spain...
,
14th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de FranceThe Bibliothèque nationale de France 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:...
,
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
|
BN f.f. 856 |
|
 |
D |
LombardyLombardy 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...
,
12 August 1254 |
Biblioteca Estense The Biblioteca Estense , established in Modena in the fourteenth 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 :...
,
ModenaModena is a city and a 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 , also called sometimes the Oc Country , is the territory where Occitan is the traditional language in use. This cultural area is roughly the southern half of France. It includes Monaco, spans parts of Italy and Spain...
,
14th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de FranceThe Bibliothèque nationale de France 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:...
,
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
|
BN f.f. 1749 |
|
|
F |
LombardyLombardy 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...
,
14th century |
Biblioteca Vaticana,
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
|
Chigi L.IV.106 |
|
 |
G |
LombardyLombardy 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...
or VenetiaVenetia is a name used mostly in a historical context for the area of Northeast Italy, corresponding approximately to the present-day Italian administrative regions of the Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia....
,
late 13th century |
Biblioteca Ambrosiana The Biblioteca Ambrosiana is a historic library in Milan, 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 and...
,
MilanMilan in Italy, is the capital of the region of Lombardia and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while the urban area is the fifth largest in the E.U. with an estimated population of 4.3 million...
|
R 71 sup. |
Contains troubadour music. |
|
H |
LombardyLombardy 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...
,
late 13th century |
Biblioteca Vaticana,
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
|
Latin 3207 |
|
 |
I |
LombardyLombardy 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...
,
13th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de FranceThe Bibliothèque nationale de France 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:...
,
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
|
BN f.f. 854 |
|
|
J |
Occitania Occitania , also called sometimes the Oc Country , is the territory where Occitan is the traditional language in use. This cultural area is roughly the southern half of France. It includes Monaco, spans parts of Italy and Spain...
,
14th century |
Biblioteca Nazionale,
FlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence...
|
Conventi Soppressi F.IV.776 |
|
 |
K |
LombardyLombardy 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...
,
13th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de FranceThe Bibliothèque nationale de France 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:...
,
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
|
BN f.f. 12473 |
|
|
L |
LombardyLombardy 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...
,
14th century |
Biblioteca Vaticana,
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
|
Latin 3206 |
|
|
M |
LombardyLombardy 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...
,
14th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de FranceThe Bibliothèque nationale de France 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:...
,
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
|
BN f.f. 12474 |
|
|
N |
LombardyLombardy 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...
,
14th century |
Pierpont Morgan,
New YorkNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
|
819 |
The Philipps Manuscript. |
|
O |
LombardyLombardy 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...
,
14th century |
Biblioteca Vaticana,
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
|
Latin 3208 |
|
 |
P |
LombardyLombardy 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...
,
1310 |
Biblioteca Laurenziana,
FlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence...
|
XLI.42 |
|
|
Q |
LombardyLombardy 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...
,
14th century |
Biblioteca Riccardiana The Biblioteca Riccardiana is a library in Florence, Italy. The library is located in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi.- History :...
,
FlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence...
|
2909 |
|
 |
R |
Toulousain Toulouse is a city in southwest France on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. With 1,102,882 inhabitants as of Jan...
or RouergueRouergue 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. Its capital is Rodez....
,
14th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de FranceThe Bibliothèque nationale de France 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:...
,
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is 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 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....
. |
 |
S |
LombardyLombardy 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...
,
13th century |
Bodleian LibraryThe 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...
,
OxfordOxford is a city, and the county town of Oxfordshire, in South East England. The city has a population of just under 165,000, with 151,000 living within the district boundary. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre...
|
Douce 269 |
|
 |
Sg |
CataloniaCatalonia is an Autonomous Community in northeast Spain. The capital city is Barcelona.Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an official population of 7,364,078. It borders France and Andorra to the north, Aragon to the west, the Valencian Community to the south, and the...
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14th century |
Biblioteca de Catalunya The Biblioteca de Catalunya in Barcelona is the national library of Catalonia. It currently occupies 8,820 m² and has about three million items.-History:...
,
BarcelonaBarcelona is the capital, most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, with a population of 1,615,908 in 2008. It is the 11th-most populous municipality in the European Union and sixth-most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris,...
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146 |
The famous Cançoner Gil The Cançoner Gil is an Occitan chansonnier produced in Barcelona 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. |
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T |
LombardyLombardy 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...
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late 13th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de FranceThe Bibliothèque nationale de France 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:...
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ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
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BN f.f. 15211 |
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U |
LombardyLombardy 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...
,
14th century |
Biblioteca Laurenziana,
FlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence...
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XLI.43 |
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V |
CataloniaCatalonia is an Autonomous Community in northeast Spain. The capital city is Barcelona.Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an official population of 7,364,078. It borders France and Andorra to the north, Aragon to the west, the Valencian Community to the south, and the...
,
1268 |
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...
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VeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy, the capital of the region Veneto, a population of 271,367 . Together with Padua, the city is included in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area . The city historically was an independent nation...
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fr. App. cod. XI |
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W |
perhaps ArtoisArtois 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:...
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1254–c.1280 |
Bibliothèque nationale de FranceThe Bibliothèque nationale de France 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:...
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ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
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BN f.f. 844 |
Also trouvère manuscript M. Contains the chansonnier du roi of 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 FranceThe Bibliothèque nationale de France 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:...
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ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
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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-PrésSaint-Germain-des-Prés is an area of the 6 th arrondissement of Paris, France, located around the church of the former Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés....
in 18th century. |
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Y |
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
/LombardyLombardy 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...
,
13th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de FranceThe Bibliothèque nationale de France 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:...
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ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
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BN f.f. 795 |
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Z |
Occitania Occitania , also called sometimes the Oc Country , is the territory where Occitan is the traditional language in use. This cultural area is roughly the southern half of France. It includes Monaco, spans parts of Italy and Spain...
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13th century |
Bibliothèque nationale de FranceThe Bibliothèque nationale de France 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:...
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ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
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BN f.f. 1745 |
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External links