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TROUBADOUR
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TROUBADOUR , the name given to the poets of See also:southern See also:France and of See also:northern See also:Spain and See also:Italy who wrote in the langue d'oc from the 12th to the 14th centuries. In Provencal the word is spelt trobaire or trovador, and is derived from the verb trobar, to find, or to invent (Fr. trouver). The troubadour was one who invented, and originally improvised, See also:poetry, who " found out " new and striking stanzaic forms for the elaborate lyrics he composed. In later times, the word has been used for romantic and sentimental persons, whit, See also:dress in what is supposed to be See also:medieval See also:fashion, and who indite trivial verses to the See also:sound of a See also:lute; but this significance does less than See also:justice to the serious See also:artistic aims of the See also:original and historic troubadours of See also:Provence.
The earliest troubadour of whom anything definite is known is Guilhem IX. (b. 1071), See also:count of See also:Poitiers and See also:duke of See also:Aquitaine, whose career was typical of that of his whole class, for, according to his Provencal biographer, " he knew well how to sing and make verses, and for a See also:long See also:time he roamed all through the See also:land to deceive the ladies." The high See also:rank of this founder of the tradition was typical of its continuation; by far the largest number of the troubadours belonged to the See also:noble class, while no fewer than twenty-three of their number were reigning princes. Among them is a See also: It was a See also:matter of jealous See also:attention to the troubadour to keep his name and fame clear of the claims of the joglar, who belonged to a See also:lower See also:caste; although it is true that some poets of very high See also:talent See also:rose from being joglars and attained the rank of troubadours. The latter were looked upon with deep admiration, and their deeds and sayings, as well as their verses, were preserved and were even embroidered with fiction. There were recognized about four See also:hundred troubadours, during the whole See also:period in which they flourished, from Guilhem de Poitiers down to Guiraut Riquier (c. 1230-1294). Several MS. collections of See also:biographies have been preserved, and from these we gain some See also:idea of the careers of no fewer than 111 of the poets. In this respect, the troubadours possess an immense See also:advantage over the trouveres of northern France, of whose private See also:life very little is any longer known. See also:Early in the living history of the troubadours their See also:personal adventures came to be thought worthy of See also:record. One of themselves, iJe of St Cyr (c. 1200-1240), interested himself in " the deeds and words of goodly men and See also:women," and in the collection of lives he seems to claim to be, in several instances, the biographer. At the beginning of the 14th See also:century it became the practice to See also:preface the MS. See also:works of each poet by a life of him, and even where the See also:text seems to be quite independent, it is noticeable that there is little variation in the See also:biography. One See also:late troubadour, See also:Rambaud of See also:Orange, left a commentary on his own poems, and Guiraut Riquier one on those of a See also:fellow troubadour, Guiraut of Calanson (128o). All this proves the poetry of Provence to have passed early into the See also:critical See also:stage, and to have been treated very seriously by those who were proficient in it. This is further shown by the respect with which the Provencal poets are mentioned by See also:Dante, See also:Petrarch and the authors of the Novelle Critiche.
The See also:principal source of the lives of the troubadours is a collection, evidently written by various hands, which was made to-wards the See also:middle of the 1z3th century. Of these we have said that Uc of See also:Saint Cyr was certainly one ofYthe authors. Another source of See also:information is the Vies See also:des plus celebres et anciens polies provencaux, published by Jehan de Notredame or See also:Nostradamus, in 1575. This See also:work professed to be founded on the See also:MSS. of a learned See also: The troubadours also employed the ballada, which was a song with a long refrain, not much like the formal See also:ballade of the See also:north of France; the pastourella; and the See also:alba. This last took its name from the circumstance that the word alba (See also:dawn) was repeated in each
See also:stanza. This was a See also:morning-song, as the See also:Serena, a later invention, was an evensong. The See also:plank was a funeral See also:elegy, composed by the troubadour for the See also:obsequies of his See also:protector, or for. those of the See also:lady of his devotion.' Most interesting of all, perhaps, was the tenson, which was a lyrical See also:dialogue between two persons, who discussed in it, as a See also:rule, some point of amorous See also:casuistry, but sometimes matters of a religious, metaphysical or satirical nature. The notion that the troubadours cultivated epic or dramatic poetry is now generally discarded; they were in their essence lyrical (see PROVENCAL LITERATURE).
The biographies of the troubadours, which, in spite of their imperfection and conventionality of form, throw an unparalleled See also:light upon medieval See also:literary life, may perhaps be most conveniently treated in connexion with the courts at which each See also:group of them flourished. It is in See also:Poitou that we trace them first, where Guilhem, count of Poitiers, who reigned from 1087 to 1127, was both the earliest See also:patron and the earliest poet of the school. This See also:prince was the type of medieval gallantry, sudden and violent in arms, brilliant and impudent in wit, with women so seductive as to be esteemed irresistible. He led an See also:army of 300,000 men in the crusade of 11o1, being then See also:thirty years of See also:age; he returned in' See also:dismal disarray, supported in his defeat by the arts of love and song. His levity was the wonder and delight of his contemporaries; See also: His songs are highly personal and betray the author's variety, sensuality, wit and skill as a versifier.
The son of the earliest of the troubadours is known neither as a poet nor as a patron of poets, but the daughter of Guilhem IX. carried on her See also:father's tradition. This was Eleanor of See also:Guienne, at whose court Bernart of Ventadour rose to See also:eminence. This poet was an exception to the rule that the troubadours belonged to the princely class. He seems to have been the son of a See also:kitchen-scullion in the castle of Eble II., See also:viscount of Ventadour. Eble was himself a poet, valde gratiosus in cantilenis, but his compositions have wholly disappeared; he was early impressed, we know not how, by the talents of his serving-boy, and he trained him to be a poet. The wife of Eble, the viscountess See also:Agnes of Montlucon, who was extremely beautiful, encouraged the suit of the youthful Bernart; indeed, they had secretly loved one another from their childhood. The poems which this See also:passion inspired are among the most admirable lyrics which have come down to us from the middle ages. The See also:husband at last discovered the intrigue between his wife and the poet, and exiled Bernart from Ventadour, although, as it would seem, without violence. The troubadour took shelter with Eleanor of Guienne, who became in 1152 the See also:queen-See also:consort of See also: He must at that time have been a very old man. The son of Henry II., Henry Curtmantle, was the patron of another eminent troubadour. Bertran de See also:Born, viscount of Hautefort in See also:Perigord, had become a See also:vassal of England by the See also:marriage of Eleanor. He is the member of his class about whom we possess the most exact See also:historical information. Dante saw Bertran de Born in See also:hell, carrying his severed See also:head before him like a See also:lantern, and compared him with Achitophel, who excited the sons of See also:David against their father. This referred to the subtle intrigues by which the troubadour had worked on the See also:jealousy existing between. the three sons of the king of England. The death of Prince Henry (1183) produced from Bertran de Born two planhs, which are among the most sincere and beautifulworks in Provencal literature. The poet was immediately afterwards besieged in his castle of Hautefort by Richard Coeur de See also:Lion, to whom he became reconciled and whom he accompanied to See also:Palestine. He See also:grew devout in his old age, and died about 1205. As a soldier and a See also:condottiere, as the friend and enemy of See also:kings, and as an active See also:factor in the See also:European politics of his time, Bertran de Born occupies an exceptional position among the troubadours. There were poetesses in the highly refined society of Provence, and of these by far the most eminent was Beatrix, countess of See also:Die, whose career was inextricably interwoven with that of another eminent and noble troubadour, Rambaut III., count of Orange, who held his court at Courthezon, a few See also:miles See also:south of Orange. Rambaut said that since See also:Adam See also:ate the See also:apple no poet had been born who could compete in skill with himself, but his existing lyrics have neither the tenderness nor the ingenuity of those of his illustrious lady-love. The poems of Beatrix are remarkable for a simplicity of form rare among the poets of her age. One of the earliest troubadours, Cercamon, was at the court of Guilhem IX. of Poitiers, and was the See also:master of perhaps the most original of all the school, namely the illustrious Marcabrun (c. 1120-1195), from whose See also:pen some See also:forty poems survive. He was a foundling, left on the See also:door-step of a See also:rich man in See also:Gascony, and no one knew anything about his descent. Marcabrun was an innovator and a reformer; to him the severity of classical Provencal See also:style is mainly due, and he was one of the first to make use of that complexity and obscurity of form which was known as the trobar clus. He was also original in his attitude to love; he posed as a violent misogynist—" I never loved and I was never loved "—and he expressed, in the accents of amorous poetry, an aversion to women. " See also:Famine, pestilence and See also:war do less evil upon See also:earth than the love of woman " is one of his aphorisms. He was in the service of Richard Coeur de Lion, and after 1167 in that of Alfonso II. of See also:Aragon. Marcabrun was the See also:object of much dislike and attack, and it is said that he was murdered by Castellane of Guian, whom he had satirized. This, however, is improbable, and it is rather believed that Marcabrun survived to a great age. For one of his contemporaries he mitigated the severities of his satiric pen; he expresses great See also:affection for " that sweet poet," Jaufre Rudel, prince of Blaye, whose See also:heart turned, like the disk of a See also:sunflower, towards the Lady of See also:Tripoli. Little else than that famous See also:adventure is known about the career of this ultra-romantic troubadour, except that, he went as a crusader to the See also:Holy Land, and that his surviving poems, which are few in number, have so mystical a See also:tone that Jaufre Rudel has been suspected of being a religious writer who used the amorous See also:language of his age for sanctified purposes, and whose " Princess Far-away " was really the See also: If so, the statement that he died in the arms of the Lady of Tripoli would merely mean that he passed away, perhaps at See also:Antioch, in the odour of sanctity. Peire d' Alveona (See also:Peter of See also:Auvergne), like Marcabrun, was of mean See also:birth, son of a tradesman in Clermont-See also:Ferrand, but he was handsome and engaging, and being the first troubadour who had appeared in the See also:mountain See also:district, " he was greatly honoured and feted by the valiant barons and noble ladies of Auvergne." . " He was very proud and despised the other troubadours." It is believed that Peire's poems were produced between 1158 and 1180. He flourished at the court of Sancho III., king of See also:Castile, and afterwards at that of Ermengarde, viscountess of See also:Narbonne.
It is doubtless owing to the vehement and repeated praise which was given by Dante, in the Inferno and elsewhere, to Arnaut See also:Daniel that this name remains the most famous among those of the troubadours. Yet not very much is known of the personal history of this poet. He was a See also:knight of Riberac, in Perigord, and he attached himself as a troubadour to the court of Richard Cceur de Lion. Dante had been made acquainted with the highly complicated and obscure verse of Arnaut Daniel by Guido Guinicelli, and thus to the historian of literature a most valuable See also:link is provided between medieval and modern poetry. Dante calls Daniel the " See also: Dante was curiously anxious to defend Arnaut Daniel as being a better artist than his immediate See also:rival, Giraut de Bornelh, whose " rectitude " Dante admits, in the sense that Giraut was a See also:singer of gnomic verses of a high morality, but prefers the poetry of Daniel; critical posterity, however, has reversed this See also:verdict. Giraut came from the neighbourhood of See also:Limoges, passed over into Spain about 1180, and became famous in the courts of Pedro II. of Aragon and other See also:Spanish monarchs. He disappears about 1230. There is a curious See also:anecdote of his having incurred the hatred or the cupidity of the viscount of Limoges, who robbed him of his library and then burned his house to the ground. Giraut laments, in his poems, the brutality of the age and the lawlessness of princes. A troubadour of the same district of south-western France was Arnaut de Mareuil, to whom is attributed the introduction into Provencal poetry of the amatory See also:epistle. He settled at the courts of Toulouse and See also:Beziers, where he sang, in mystical terms, his passion for the countess Adalasia, in whose affections he had a dangerous rival in the See also:person of Alfonso II., king of Aragon. Arnaut de Mareuil fled for his life to See also:Montpellier, where he found a protector in Count William VIII., but he continued to address his sirventes to. Adalasia. As that princess died in 1199, and as no planh to her memory is found among the works of Arnaut de Mareuil, it is conjectured that by that time he was already dead. Peire Vidal of Toulouse was the type of the reckless and scatterbrained troubadour. His biographer says that he was " the maddest man in all the See also:world." His early life was a See also:series of bewildering excursions through France and Spain, but he settled down at last at See also:Marseilles, where he made a mortal enemy of Azalais, the wife of Viscount Barral de Baux, from whom he See also:stole a See also:kiss (1r8o). Vidal fled to See also:Genoa, but he continued to address the viscountess in his songs. At the entreaty of her husband, Azalais forgave the poet, and Peire Vidal returned to Marseilles. He committed a thousand follies; among others, being in love with a lady called Louve (she-See also:wolf), the poet dressed himself as a wolf, and was hunted by a See also:pack of hounds in front of the lady's castle. Starting on a crusade, he stopped at See also:Cyprus, where a See also:Greek girl was presented to him as being of the imperial See also:family. He married her, assumed the See also:title of See also:emperor, and carried a See also:throne about with him from See also:camp to camp. According to a late poem, his See also:eccentric adventures closed in See also:Hungary about the See also:year 1215. Folquet of See also:Mar- . seilles was a troubadour of Italian See also:race, the son of a See also:merchant of Genoa; Dante met Folquet in See also:paradise, and gives an interesting See also:notice of him. He was a rival with Peire Vidal for the favours of the beautiful Azalais; and he was one of the troubadours who gathered around the unfortunate Eudoxia, empress of Montpellier, until the See also:close of her singular and romantic adventure (1187). He wrote a very touching plank on the death of the viscount Barral de Baux in 1192. Soon after this, disgusted with love, Folquet took holy orders, became the See also: Gaucelm Faidit came from Uzerche, in the See also:Limousin. Heseems to have been a wandering See also:minstrel of See also:gay and reckless habits, and to have been accompanied by a light-o'-love, Guillelma Monja, who was the object of much See also:satire and ridicule. In Gaucelm we probably see, if we can See also:credit his See also:story, the troubadour at his lowest social level. He made, however, Maria of Ventadour, who was probably a See also:scion of the princely and neighbouring house of that name, the object of his songs, and he addresses her in strains of unusual pathos and delicacy. Gaucelm Faidit ultimately proceeded to Italy, to the court of the See also:marquis See also:Boniface of See also:Montferrat, a prince who greatly encouraged the troubadours and who in 1201 undertook the conduct of a crusade. Gaucelm, who was still celebrating the perfections of Maria of Ventadour, accompanied him to the See also:East. He wrote several canzones in the Holy Land and See also:Syria, returned safely to Uzerche, and disappears about 1240. We possess sixty of his poems. Another troubadour, Raimbaut of Vaquieres, passed the greater See also:part of his life at the same court of Montferrat; he devoted himself to the Lady Beatrix, See also:sister of the marquis. It is believed that he died in the Holy Land in 1207. The most celebrated of the Italian troubadours was Sordello, born at See also:Mantua, at the beginning of the 13th century, who owes his fame rather to the benevolence of later poets, from Dante to See also:Robert See also:Browning, than to the originality of his adventures or the excellence of his verse. We have now mentioned the troubadours who were most famous in their own time, and on the whole modern criticism has been in unison with contemporary See also:opinion. There are, however, still one or two names to be recorded. The See also:English historian of the troubadours, Dr Hueffer, gave great prominence to the writings of a poet who had previously been chiefly heard of in connexion with a romantic adventure, Guillem de Cabestanh (or Capestang). This was a knight of See also:Roussillon, who made love to Seremonda, countess of See also:Castel-Roussillon. The lady's husband, See also:meeting the poet out See also:hunting, slew him in a See also:paroxysm of jealousy and, having cut out his heart, had it delicately cooked and served to his wife's See also:dinner. When Seremonda had eaten her See also:lover's heart, her husband told her what she had done, and she fainted away. Coming to her senses she said: " My See also:Lord, you have served to me so excellent a dish that I will never eat of another," and she threw herself out of window and was killed. The importance of this story lies in the fact that the See also:cruelty of the count of Castel-Roussillon was the cause of universal See also:scandal in all See also:good society. Feeling grew so strong that the surrounding nobles rose against the murderer, with Alfonso, king of Spain, at their head, hunted him down and killed him. The bodies of the lady and the troubadour were buried See also:side by side, with great pomp, in the See also:cathedral of See also:Perpignan, and became the See also:objects of See also:pilgrimage. Doubt has, of course, been thrown on the veracity of this romantic story, but at all events it testifies to the fact that the troubadour enjoyed, or was expected to enjoy, all the privileges of See also:toleration and exemption. A See also:burlesque or satiric troubadour, who disregarded the See also:laws of gallantry and wrote satires of great virulence against the ladies and their lovers, remains See also:anonymous, and is spoken of as the monk or See also:prior of Montaudon. The classic period of the troubadours lasted until about 1210, and was contemporaneous with the magnificence of the nobles of the south of France. The wealth and cultivated tastes of the seigneurs, and the See also:peace which had long surrounded them, led them into voluptuous extravagances and sometimes into a madness of See also:expenditure. From this the troubadours reaped an immediate advantage, but when the inevitable reaction came they were the first to suffer. The great cause, however, of the decadence and ruin of the troubadours was. the struggle between Rome and the heretics. This See also:broke out into actual war in See also:June 1209, when the northern barons, called to a crusade by See also:Pope See also:Innocent III., See also:fell upon the Albigenses and pillaged Beziers and See also:Carcassonne. Most of the protectors of the troubadours were, if not heretics, indulgent to the heretical party, and shared in their downfall. The poets, themselves, were not immediately injured, and no doubt their habits and their art kept them immune from the instant religious See also:catastrophe, but the darkness began to gather See also:round them as the ruin of See also:Languedoc became more and more See also:complete, culminating with the See also:siege of Toulouse in 1218. The greatest name of this period, which was the beginning of the end, is that of Peire Cardenal, of Le See also:Puy. He was protected by Jacme I., king of Aragon, having apparently fled from Narbonne and then from Toulouse in See also:order to See also:escape from the armies of Simon de Montfort. He was the inventor and the principal See also:cultivator of the moral or ethical sirventes; and he was the author of singularly out-spoken satires against the See also:clergy, continuing the tradition of Marcabrun. The biographer of Cardenal certifies that he lived to be nearly one hundred years of age. Another and a still more violent troubadour of this transitional time was Guillem Figueira, the son of a Toulouse tailor, an open heretic who attacked the papacy with extraordinary vigour, supported and protected by Raimon II. Figueira was answered, See also:strophe by strophe, by a See also:female troubadour, Gormonda of Montpellier. The ruin of the southern courts, most of which belonged to the conquered Albigensi party, continued to depress and to exasperate the troubadours, whose See also:system was further disintegrated by the See also:establishment of the See also:Inquisition and by the creation of the religious orders. The genial and cultured society of Provence and Languedoc sank rapidly into barbarism again, and there was no welcome anywhere for See also:secular poets.
The last of the See also:French troubadours was Guiraut Riquier (c. 1230-1294), who was born at Narbonne, and addressed his earliest poems to Phillippa of Anduza, the viscountess of that See also:city. She does not seem to have encouraged poetry, and Guiraut Riquier left Narbonne, first appealing to St See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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