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TROUVERE

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Originally appearing in Volume V27, Page 313 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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TROUVERE , the name given to the See also:

medieval poets of See also:northern and central See also:France, who wrote in the langue d'oil or langue d'oui. The word is derived from the See also:French verb trouver, to find or invent. The trouveres flourished abundantly in the 12th and 13th centuries. They were See also:court-poets who devoted themselves almost exclusively to the See also:composition and recitation of a particular See also:kind of See also:song, for which the highest society cf that See also:day in France had an inordinate fondness. This See also:poetry, the usual subject of which was some refinement of the See also:passion of love, was dialectical rather than emotional. As Jeanroy has said, the best trouveres were those who " into the smallest number of lines could put the largest number of ideas, or at least of those commonplaces which envelop thought in its most impersonal and coldest See also:form." The trouveres were not, as used to be supposed, lovers singing to their sweethearts, but they were the pedants and attorneys of a fantastic tribunal of sentiment. This was more monotonous in the hands of the trouveres than it had been in those of the troubadours, for the latter often employed their See also:art for purposes of See also:satire, See also:religion, See also:humour and politics, which were scarcely known to the poets of the northern See also:language. 1 The established See also:idea that the poetry of the trouveres was entirely founded upon See also:imitation of that of the troubadours, has been ably combated by See also:Paul See also:Meyer, who comes to the conclusion that the poetry of the See also:north of France was essentially I no less See also:original than that of the See also:south. The passage of Raoul Glaber, in which he says that about the See also:year l000 See also:southern men began to appear in France and in See also:Burgundy, " as See also:odd in their ways as in their See also:dress, and having the See also:appearance of jongleurs," is usually quoted, but although this is valuable contemporary See also:evidence, it proves neither what these " jongleurs " brought from the south nor what the poets of the north could See also:borrow from them. The first appearance of trouveres seems to be much later than this, and to date from 1137, when Eleonore of See also:Aquitaine, who was herself the granddaughter of an illustrious See also:troubadour, arrived in the court of France as the See also:queen of See also:Louis VII. It is recorded that she continued to speak her native language, which would be the See also:Poitiers See also:dialect of the langue d'oc. She was queen for fifteen years (1137-1152), and this, no doubt, was the See also:period during which the southern See also:influence was strongest in the literature of northern France.

There is not any question that the success: ee See also:

crusades tended to produce relations between the two sections of poetical literature. The See also:great See also:mass of the existing writings of the trouveres deals elaborately and artificially with the passion of love, as it had already been analysed in the langue d'oc. But those who are most inclined to favour the northern poets are obliged to confess that the latter rarely approach the See also:grace and delicacy of the troubadours, while their See also:verse shows less ingenuity and less variety. The earliest trouveres, like Cuene de See also:Bethune and Huges de Berze, in See also:writing their amatory lyrics, were certainly influenced by what troubadours had written, especially when, like See also:Bertrand de See also:Born, these troubadours were men who wandered far and wide, under the See also:glory of a great social See also:prestige. We should know more exactly what the nature of the Provencal influence was if the songs of all the trouveres who flourished before the See also:middle of the 12th See also:century had not practically disappeared. When we become conscious of the existence of the trouveres, we find Cuene de Bethune in See also:possession of the See also:field, a poet of too much originality to be swept away as a See also:mere imitator. At the same See also:time, even Paul Meyer, who has been the great asserter of the See also:independence of the poetry of northern France, is obliged to admit that if, at the end of the 12th century and throughout the 13th, several See also:literary centres were formed where an amatory poetry, full of conventional grace, was held in high See also:honour, it was because several princely courts in the south had set the example. In this sense it cannot be denied that the whole art of the trouveres was secondary and subsidiary to the art of the troubadours. The poetical forms adopted by the trouveres See also:bore curious and obscure names, the signification of which is still in some cases dubious. As a See also:rule each poem belonged to one of three classes, and was either a rotruenge, or a serventois, or an estrabot. The rotruenge was a song with a refrain; the serventois was, in spite of its name, quite unlike the sirventes of the troubadours and had a more See also:ribald See also:character; the estrabot was allied to the strambotto of the Italians, and was a strophaic form " composed of a front See also:part which was symmetrical, and of a tail which could be varied at will " (Gaston See also:Paris). But scholars are still uncertain as to the See also:positive meaning of these expressions, and as to the theory of the verse-forms themselves.

The court poetry of the trouveres particularly flourished under the See also:

protection of three royal ladies. See also:Marie, the See also:regent of See also:Champagne, was the See also:practical ruler of that See also:country from 1181 to 1197, and she encouraged the minstrels in the highest degree. She invited Ricaut de Barbezieux to her court, rewarded the earliest songs of See also:Gace Blade, and discussed the art of verse with Chretien of See also:Troyes. Her See also:sister, Aelis or Alice, welcomed the trouveres to See also:Blois; she was the See also:protector of See also:Gautier d'See also:Arras and of Le See also:Chatelain de Couci. A sister of the husbands of these ladies, another Aelis, who became the second queen of Louis VII. in 116o, received Cuene de Bethune in Paris, and reproved him for the See also:Picard See also:accent with which he recited his poetry. At the end of the 12th century we see that the refinement and elegance of the court-poets was recognized in the north of France by those who were responsible for the See also:education of princes. A trouvere, Gui de Ponthieu, was appointed See also:tutor to See also:William III. of See also:Macon, and another, Philippe of See also:Flanders, to Philippe Auguste. The See also:vogue of the trouveres began during the third crusade; it See also:rose to its greatest height during the See also:fourth crusade and the attack upon the Albigenses. The first See also:forty years of the 13th century was the period during which the courtly lyrical poetry was cultivated with most assiduity. At first it was a purely aristocratic pastime, and among the See also:principal trouveres were princes such as See also:Thibaut IV. of See also:Navarre, Louis of Blois and See also:John, See also:king of See also:Jerusalem. About 1230 the See also:taste for court poetry spread to the wealthy bourgeoisie, especially in See also:Picardy, See also:Artois and Flanders. Before its final decline, and after the courts of Paris and Blois had ceased to be its patrons, the poetry of the trouveres found its centre and enjoyed its latest successes at Arras.

It was here that some of the most original and the most skilful of. all the trouveres, such as Jacques Bretel and See also:

Adam de la See also:Halle, exercised their art. Another and perhaps still later school flourished at See also:Reims. About 1280, having existed for a century and a See also:half, the poetical See also:system suddenly decayed and disappeared; the very names of the court-poets were forgotten. During this time the song, chanson, had been treated as the most dignified and See also:honourable form of literature, as See also:Dante explains in his De vulgari eloquentia. But the song, as the trouveres under-stood it, was not an unstudied or emotional burst of verbal See also:melody; it was, on the contrary, an effort of the intelligence, a piece of wilful and elaborate See also:casuistry. The poet wasinvariably a See also:lover, devoted to a married See also:lady who was not his wife, and to whose caprices he was See also:bound to submit blindly and patiently., in an endless and resigned humility. • The progress of this conventional courtship was laid down according to certain strict rules of ceremonial; love became a See also:science and a religion, and was practised by the See also:laws of precise See also:etiquette. The curious See also:interest of the trouveres, for us, lies in the fact that during an See also:age when the northern See also:world was ignorant and brutal, sunken in a See also:rude sensuality, the trouveres advanced a theory of morals which had its absurd and immoral See also:side, but which demanded a devotion to refinement and a See also:close See also:attention to what is reserved, delicate and subtle in See also:personal conduct. They were, moreover, when the worst has been admitted about their frigidity and triviality, refiners of the See also:race, and they did much to See also:lay the See also:foundation of French wit and French intelligence. The trouveres have not enjoyed the See also:advantage of the troubadours, whose feats and adventures attracted the See also:notice of contemporary biographers. Little is known about their lives, and they pass across the field of literary See also:history like a See also:troop of phantoms. Close students of this See also:body of somewhat monotonous poetry have fancied that they detected a personal See also:note in some of the leaders of the See also:movement.

It is certainly obvious that Cuene (or See also:

Conon) de Bethune had a violence of expression which gives See also:life to his chansons. The delicate grace of Thibaut of Champagne, the apparent sincerity of Le Chatelain de Couci, the descriptive See also:charm of Moniot of Arras, the See also:irony of See also:Richard of Fournival, have been celebrated by critics who have perhaps discovered See also:differences where none exist. It is more certain that Adam de la Halle, the hunchback of Arras, had a superb See also:gift of versification. The See also:rondel (published in E. de Coussemaker's edition, 1872) beginning " A Dieu courant amouretes, See also:Car je m'en vois Souspirant en terre estrange ! " marks perhaps the highest point to which the delicate, frosty art of the trouveres attained. See also:Music took a prominent See also:place in all the performances of the trouveres, but in spite of the erudition of de Coussemaker, who devoted himself to the subject, comparatively little is known of the melodies which. they used. But enough has been discovered to justify the See also:general statement of Tiersot that " we may conclude that the musical movement of the age of the trouveres was derived directly from the most See also:ancient form of popular French melody." A See also:precious MS. in the See also:Faculty of See also:Medicine of See also:Montpellier contains the music of no fewer than 345 part-songs attributed to trouveres, and an examination of these enables a " pitiless arranger " to divine the See also:air, the See also:primitive, See also:simple and popular melody. The principal authorities on the poetry and music of the trouveres are : H.'Binet, Le See also:Style de in lyrique courtoise en France aux xii*ie et xiii 4e sieeles (Paris, 1891) ; Gaston Paris, See also:Les Origins de la poesie lyrique en France an moyen age (Paris, 1892) ; A. Jeanroy, Les Origins de la poesie lyrique en France an moyen age (Paris, 1889); See also:Julian Tiersot, Histoire de la chanson populaire en France; E. de Coussemaker, Art harmonique aux xiime et xiii" siecles (Paris, 1865). The See also:works of the principal trouveres have been edited: those of Le Chatelain de See also:Coucy by F. See also:Michel (183o); of Adam de la Halle by E. de Coussemaker (1872) ; of Conon de Bethune by Wallenskold (See also:Helsingfors, 1891); of Thibaut IV., king of Navarre, by P. Tarbe (1851).

(E.

End of Article: TROUVERE

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