The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe TroubadoursThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The TroubadoursAuthor: H. J. ChaytorRelease date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #12456]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Ted Garvin, Renald Levesque and the Online DistributedProofreading Team.*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TROUBADOURS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The TroubadoursAuthor: H. J. ChaytorRelease date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #12456]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Ted Garvin, Renald Levesque and the Online DistributedProofreading Team.
Title: The Troubadours
Author: H. J. Chaytor
Author: H. J. Chaytor
Release date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #12456]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Ted Garvin, Renald Levesque and the Online DistributedProofreading Team.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TROUBADOURS ***
With the exception of the coat of arms at the foot, the design on the title page is a reproduction of one used by the earliest known Cambridge printer, John Siberch, 1521
This book, it is hoped, may serve as an introduction to the literature of the Troubadours for readers who have no detailed or scientific knowledge of the subject. I have, therefore, chosen for treatment the Troubadours who are most famous or who display characteristics useful for the purpose of this book. Students who desire to pursue the subject will find further help in the works mentioned in the bibliography. The latter does not profess to be exhaustive, but I hope nothing of real importance has been omitted.
H.J. CHAYTOR.
THE COLLEGE, PLYMOUTH, March 1912.
PREFACE
CHAP.
I. INTRODUCTORY
II. THE THEORY OF COURTLY LOVE
III. TECHNIQUE
IV. THE EARLY TROUBADOURS
V. THE CLASSICAL PERIOD
VI. THE ALBIGEOIS CRUSADE
VII. THE TROUBADOURS IN ITALY
VIII. THE TROUBADOURS IN SPAIN
IX. PROVENCAL INFLUENCE IN GERMANY, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND NOTES
INDEX
INTRODUCTORY
Few literatures have exerted so profound an influence upon the literary history of other peoples as the poetry of the troubadours. Attaining the highest point of technical perfection in the last half of the twelfth and the early years of the thirteenth century, Provençal poetry was already popular in Italy and Spain when the Albigeois crusade devastated the south of France and scattered the troubadours abroad or forced them to seek other means of livelihood. The earliest lyric poetry of Italy is Provençal in all but language; almost as much may be said of Portugal and Galicia; Catalonian troubadours continued to write in Provençal until the fourteenth century. The lyric poetry of the "trouvères" in Northern France was deeply influenced both in form and spirit by troubadour poetry, and traces of this influence are perceptible even inearly middle-English lyrics. Finally, the German minnesingers knew and appreciated troubadour lyrics, and imitations or even translations of Provençal poems may be found in Heinrich von Morungen, Friedrich von Hausen, and many others. Hence the poetry of the troubadours is a subject of first-rate importance to the student of comparative literature.
The northern limit of the Provençal language formed a line starting from the Pointe de Grave at the mouth of the Gironde, passing through Lesparre, Bordeaux, Libourne, Périgueux, rising northward to Nontron, la Rochefoucauld, Confolens, Bellac, then turning eastward to Guéret and Montluçon; it then went south-east to Clermont-Ferrand, Boën, Saint Georges, Saint Sauveur near Annonay. The Dauphiné above Grenoble, most of the Franche-Comté, French Switzerland and Savoy, are regarded as a separate linguistic group known as Franco-Provençal, for the reason that the dialects of that district display characteristics common to both French and Provençal.1On the south-west, Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Isles must also be included in the Provençal region. As concerns the Northern limit, it must not be regarded as a definite line of demarcation between the langue d'oil or the Northern French dialects and the langue d'oc or Provençal. The boundary is, of course, determined by noting the points at which certain linguistic features peculiar to Provençal cease and are replaced by the characteristics of NorthernFrench. Such a characteristic, for instance, is the Latin tonicabefore a single consonant, and not preceded by a palatal consonant, which remains in Provençal but becomesein French; Latin cantare becomes chantar in Provençal but chanter in French. But north and south of the boundary thus determined there was, in the absence of any great mountain range or definite geographical line of demarcation, an indeterminate zone, in which one dialect probably shaded off by easy gradations into the other.
Within the region thus described as Provençal, several separate dialects existed, as at the present day. Apart from the Franco-Provençal on the north-east, which we have excluded, there was Gascon in the south-west and the moderndépartementsof the Basses and Hautes Pyrénées; Catalonian, the dialect of Roussillon, which was brought into Spain in the seventh century and still survives in Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands. The rest of the country may be subdivided by a line to the north of whichcbeforeabecomeschas in French, cantare producing chantar, while southwards we findc(k)remaining. The Southern dialects are those of Languedoc and Provence; north of the line were the Limousin and Auvergne dialects. At the present day these dialects have diverged very widely. In the early middle ages the difference between them was by no means so great. Moreover, a literarylanguage grew up by degrees, owing to the wide circulation of poems and the necessity of using a dialect which could be universally intelligible. It was the Limousin dialect which became, so to speak, the backbone of this literary language, now generally known as Provençal, just as the Tuscan became predominant for literary purposes among the Italian dialects. It was in Limousin that the earliest troubadour lyrics known to us were composed, and this district with the adjacent Poitou and Saintonge may therefore be reasonably regarded as the birthplace of Provençal lyric poetry.
Hence the term "Provençal" is not entirely appropriate to describe the literary language of the troubadours, as it may also be restricted to denote the dialects spoken in the "Provincia". This difficulty was felt at an early date. The first troubadours spoke of their language asromanorlingua romana,a term equally applicable to any other romance language.Lemosinwas also used, which was too restricted a term, and was also appropriated by the Catalonians to denote their own dialect. A third term in use was thelingua d'oc,which has the authority of Dante2and was used by some of the later troubadours; however, the term "Provençal" has been generally accepted, and must henceforward be understood to denote the literary language common to thesouth of France and not the dialect of Provence properly so-called.
For obvious reasons Southern France during the early middle ages had far outstripped the Northern provinces in art, learning, and the refinements of civilisation. Roman culture had made its way into Southern Gaul at an early date and had been readily accepted by the inhabitants, while Marseilles and Narbonne had also known something of Greek civilisation. Bordeaux, Toulouse, Arles, Lyons and other towns were flourishing and brilliant centres of civilisation at a time when Northern France was struggling with foreign invaders. It was in Southern Gaul, again, that Christianity first obtained a footing; here the barbarian invasions of the fifth and sixth centuries proved less destructive to civilisation than in Northern France, and the Visigoths seem to have been more amenable to the influences of culture than the Northern Franks. Thus the towns of Southern Gaul apparently remained centres in which artistic and literary traditions were preserved more or less successfully until the revival of classical studies during the age of Charlemagne. The climate, again, of Southern France is milder and warmer than that of the North, and these influences produced a difference which may almost be termed racial. It is a difference visible even to-day and is well expressed bythe chronicler Raoul de Caen, who speaks of the Provençal Crusaders, saying that the French were prouder in bearing and more war-like in action than the Provençals, who especially contrasted with them by their skill in procuring food in times of famine: "inde est, quod adhuc puerorum decantat naenia, Franci ad bella, Provinciales ad victualia".3Only a century and a half later than Charlemagne appeared the first poetical productions in Provençal which are known to us, a fragment of a commentary upon the De Consolatione of Boethius4and a poem upon St Foy of Agen. The first troubadour, William, Count of Poitiers, belongs to the close of the eleventh century.
Though the Count of Poitiers is the first troubadour known to us, the relatively high excellence of his technique, as regards stanza construction and rime, and the capacity of his language for expressing lofty and refined ideas in poetical form (in spite of his occasional lapses into coarseness), entirely preclude the supposition that he was the first troubadour in point of time. The artistic conventions apparent in his poetry and his obviously careful respect for fixed rules oblige us to regard his poetry as the outcome of a considerable stage of previous development. At what point this development began and what influences stimulated its progress are questions which still remain indispute. Three theories have been proposed. It is, in the first place, obviously tempting to explain the origin of Provençal poetry as being a continuation of Latin poetry in its decadence. When the Romans settled in Gaul they brought with them their amusements as well as their laws and institutions. Theirscurrae,thymeliciandjoculatores, the tumblers, clowns and mountebanks, who amused the common people by day and the nobles after their banquets by night and travelled from town to town in pursuit of their livelihood, were accustomed to accompany their performances by some sort of rude song and music. In the uncivilised North they remained buffoons; but in the South, where the greater refinement of life demanded more artistic performance, the musical part of their entertainment became predominant and thejoculatorbecame thejoglar(Northern French,jongleur), a wandering musician and eventually a troubadour, a composer of his own poems. These latter were no longer the gross and coarse songs of the earlier mountebank age, which Alcuin characterised asturpissimaandvanissima, but the grave and artificially wrought stanzas of the troubadourchanso.
Secondly, it has been felt that some explanation is required to account for the extreme complexity and artificiality of troubadour poetry in its most highly developed stage. Some nine hundred different forms of stanzaconstruction are to be found in the body of troubadour poetry,5and few, if any schools of lyric poetry in the world, can show a higher degree of technical perfection in point of metrical diversity, complex stanza construction and accuracy in the use of rime. This result has been ascribed to Arabic influence during the eighth century; but no sufficient proof has ever been produced that the complexities of Arabic and Provençal poetry have sufficient in common to make this hypothesis anything more than an ingenious conjecture.
One important fact stands in contradiction to these theories. All indications go to prove that the origin of troubadour poetry can be definitely localised in a particular part of Southern France. We have seen that the Limousin dialect became the basis of the literary language, and that the first troubadour known to us belonged to Poitou. It is also apparent that in the Poitou district, upon the border line of the French and Provençal languages, popular songs existed and were current among the country people; these were songs in honour of spring, pastorals or dialogues between a knight and a shepherdess (our "Where are you going, my pretty maid?" is of the same type),albasor dawn songs which represent a friend as watching near the meeting-place of a lover and his lady and giving him due warning of the approach of dawn orof any other danger; there are alsoballatasor dance songs of an obviously popular type.6Whatever influence may have been exercised by the Latin poetry of the decadence or by Arab poetry, it is in these popular and native productions that we must look for the origins of the troubadour lyrics. This popular poetry with its simple themes and homely treatment of them is to be found in many countries, and diversity of race is often no bar to strange coincidence in the matter of this poetry. It is thus useless to attempt to fix any date for the beginnings of troubadour poetry; its primitive form doubtless existed as soon as the language was sufficiently advanced to become a medium of poetical expression.
Some of these popular themes were retained by the troubadours, thealbaandpastorelafor instance, and were often treated by them in a direct and simple manner. The Gascon troubadour Cercamon is said to have composed pastorals in "the old style." But in general, between troubadour poetry and the popular poetry of folk-lore, a great gulf is fixed, the gulf of artificiality. The very name "troubadour" points to this characteristic.Trobadoris the oblique case of the nominativetrobaire, a substantive from the verbtrobar, in modern Frenchtrouver. The Northern Frenchtrouvèreis a nominative form, andtrouveorshould more properly correspond withtrobador. The accusative form, which should have persisted, was superseded by thenominativetrouvère, which grammarians brought into fashion at the end of the eighteenth century. The verbtrobaris said to be derived from the low Latintropus[Greek: tropus], an air or melody: hence the primitive meaning oftrobadoris the "composer" or "inventor," in the first instance, of new melodies. As such, he differs from thevates, the inspired bard of the Romans and the [Greek: poeta], poeta, the creative poet of the Greeks, the "maker" of Germanic literature. Skilful variation upon a given theme, rather than inspired or creative power, is generally characteristic of the troubadour.
Thus, whatever may have been the origin of troubadour poetry, it appears at the outset of the twelfth century as a poetry essentially aristocratic, intended for nobles and for courts, appealing but rarely to the middle classes and to the common people not at all. The environment which enabled this poetry to exist was provided by the feudal society of Southern France. Kings, princes and nobles themselves pursued the art and also became the patrons of troubadours who had risen from the lower classes. Occasionally troubadours existed with sufficient resources of their own to remain independent; Folquet of Marseilles seems to have been a merchant of wealth, above the necessity of seeking patronage. But troubadours such as Bernart de Ventadour, the son of thestoker in the castle of Ventadour, Perdigon the son of a fisherman, and many others of like origin depended for their livelihood and advancement upon the favour of patrons. Thus the troubadour ranks included all sorts and conditions of men; monks and churchmen were to be found among them, such as the monk of Montaudon and Peire Cardenal, though the Church looked somewhat askance upon the profession. Women are also numbered among the troubadours; Beatrice, the Countess of Die, is the most famous of these.
A famous troubadour usually circulated his poems by the mouth of ajoglar(Northern French,jongleur), who recited them at different courts and was often sent long distances by his master for this purpose. A joglar of originality might rise to the position of a troubadour, and a troubadour who fell upon evil days might sink to the profession of joglar. Hence there was naturally some confusion between the troubadour and the joglar, and poets sometimes combined the two functions. In course of time the joglar was regarded with some contempt, and like his forbear, the Roman joculator, was classed with the jugglers, acrobats, animal tamers and clowns who amused the nobles after their feasts. Nor, under certain conditions, was the troubadour's position one of dignity;when he was dependent upon his patron's bounty, he would stoop to threats or to adulation in order to obtain the horse or the garments or the money of his desire; such largesse, in fact, came to be denoted by a special term,messio. Jealousy between rival troubadours, accusations of slander in their poems and quarrels with their patrons were of constant occurrence. These naturally affected the joglars in their service, who received a share of any gifts that the troubadour might obtain.
The troubadours who were established more or less permanently as court poets under a patron lord were few; a wandering life and a desire for change of scene is characteristic of the class. They travelled far and wide, not only to France, Spain and Italy, but to the Balkan peninsula, Hungary, Cyprus, Malta and England; Elias Cairel is said to have visited most of the then known world, and the biographer of Albertet Calha relates, as an unusual fact, that this troubadour never left his native district. Not only love, but all social and political questions of the age attracted their attention. They satirised political and religious opponents, preached crusades, sang funeral laments upon the death of famous patrons, and the support of their poetical powers was often in demand by princes and nobles involved in a struggle. Noteworthy also is the fact that a considerable number retired to some monastery orreligious house to end their days (se rendet, was the technical phrase). So Bertran of Born, Bernart of Ventadour, Peire Rogier, Cadenet and many others retired from the disappointments of the world to end their days in peace; Folquet of Marseilles, who similarly entered the Cistercian order, became abbot of his monastery of Torondet, Bishop of Toulouse, a leader of the Albigeois crusade and a founder of the Inquisition.
Troubador poetry dealt with war, politics, personal satire and other subjects: but the theme which is predominant and in which real originality was shown, is love. The troubadours were the first lyric poets in mediaeval Europe to deal exhaustively with this subject, and as their attitude was imitated with certain modifications by French, Italian, Portuguese and German poets, the nature of its treatment is a matter of considerable importance.
Of the many ladies whose praises were sung or whose favours were desired by troubadours, the majority were married. Troubadours who made their songs to a maiden, as did Gui d'Ussel or Gausbert de Puegsibot, are quite exceptional. Love in troubadour poetry was essentially a conventional relationship, and marriage was not its object. This conventional character was derived from the fact that troubadour love was constituted upon the analogy of feudal relationship. If chivalry was the outcome of the Germanic theory of knighthood as modified by the influence of Christianity, it may be said that troubadour love is theoutcome of the same theory under the influence of mariolatry. In the eleventh century the worship of the Virgin Mary became widely popular; the reverence bestowed upon the Virgin was extended to the female sex in general, and as a vassal owed obedience to his feudal overlord, so did he owe service and devotion to his lady. Moreover, under the feudal system, the lady might often be called upon to represent her husband's suzerainty to his vassals, when she was left in charge of affairs during his absence in time of war. Unmarried women were inconspicuous figures in the society of the age.
Thus there was a service of love as there was a service of vassalage, and the lover stood to his lady in a position analogous to that of the vassal to his overlord. He attained this position only by stages; "there are four stages in love: the first is that of aspirant (fegnedor), the second that of suppliant (precador), the third that of recognised suitor (entendedor) and the fourth that of accepted lover (drut)." The lover was formally installed as such by the lady, took an oath of fidelity to her and received a kiss to seal it, a ring or some other personal possession. For practical purposes the contract merely implied that the lady was prepared to receive the troubadour's homage in poetry and to be the subject of his song. As secrecy was a duty incumbent uponthe troubadour, he usually referred to the lady by a pseudonym (senhal); naturally, the lady's reputation was increased if her attraction for a famous troubadour was known, and thesenhalwas no doubt an open secret at times. How far or how often the bounds of his formal and conventional relationship were transgressed is impossible to say; "en somme, assez immoral" is the judgment of Gaston Paris upon the society of the age, and is confirmed by expressions of desire occurring from time to time in various troubadours, which cannot be interpreted as the outcome of a merely conventional or "platonic" devotion. In the troubadour biographies the substratum of historical truth is so overlaid by fiction, that little reliable evidence upon the point can be drawn from this source.
However, transgression was probably exceptional. The idea of troubadour love was intellectual rather than emotional; love was an art, restricted, like poetry, by formal rules; the terms "love" and "poetry" were identified, and the fourteenth century treatise which summarises the principles of grammar and metre bore the titleLeys d'Amors, the Laws of Love. The pathology of the emotion was studied; it was treated from a psychological standpoint and a technical vocabulary came into use, for which it is often impossible to find English equivalents. The first effect of love is to produce a mental exaltation, a desire to livea life worthy of the beloved lady and redounding to her praise, an inspiring stimulus known asjoiorjoi d'amor(amorin Provençal is usually feminine).7Other virtues are produced by the influence of this affection: the lover must havevalor, that is, he must be worthy of his lady; this worth implies the possession ofcortesia, pleasure in the pleasure of another and the desire to please; this quality is acquired by the observance ofmesura, wisdom and self-restraint in word and deed.
The poetry which expresses such a state of mind is usually idealised and pictures the relationship rather as it might have been than as it was. The troubadour who knew his business would begin with praises of his beloved; she is physically and morally perfect, her beauty illuminates the night, her presence heals the sick, cheers the sad, makes the boor courteous and so forth. For her the singer's love and devotion is infinite: separation from her would be worse than death; her death would leave the world cheerless, and to her he owes any thoughts of good or beauty that he may have. It is only because he loves her that he can sing. Hence he would rather suffer any pain or punishment at her hands than receive the highest favours from another. The effects of this love are obvious in his person. His voice quavers with supreme delight orbreaks in dark despair; he sighs and weeps and wakes at night to think of the one subject of contemplation. Waves of heat and cold pass over him, and even when he prays, her image is before his eyes. This passion has transformed his nature: he is a better and stronger man than ever before, ready to forgive his enemies and to undergo any physical privations; winter is to him as the cheerful spring, ice and snow as soft lawns and flowery meads. Yet, if unrequited, his passion may destroy him; he loses his self-control, does not hear when he is addressed, cannot eat or sleep, grows thin and feeble, and is sinking slowly to an early tomb. Even so, he does not regret his love, though it lead to suffering and death; his passion grows ever stronger, for it is ever supported by hope. But if his hopes are realised, he will owe everything to the gracious favour of his lady, for his own merits can avail nothing. Sometimes he is not prepared for such complete self-renunciation; he reproaches his lady for her coldness, complains that she has led him on by a show of kindness, has deceived him and will be the cause of his death; or his patience is at an end, he will live in spite of her and try his fortune elsewhere.8
Such, in very general terms, is the course that might be followed in developing a well-worn theme, on which many variations are possible. Themost common form of introduction is a reference to the spring or winter, and to the influence of the seasons upon the poet's frame of mind or the desire of the lady or of his patron for a song. In song the poet seeks consolation for his miseries or hopes to increase the renown of his lady. As will be seen in the following chapter, manner was even more important than matter in troubadour lyrics, and commonplaces were revivified by intricate rime-schemes and stanza construction accompanied by new melodies. The conventional nature of the whole business may be partly attested by the fact that no undoubted instance of death or suicide for love has been handed down to us.
Reference should here be made to a legendary institution which seems to have gripped the imagination of almost every tourist who writes a book of travels in Southern France, the so-calledCourts of Love.9In modern times the famous Provençal scholar, Raynouard, attempted to demonstrate the existence of these institutions, relying upon the evidence of theArt d'Aimerby André le Chapelain, a work written in the thirteenth century and upon the statements of Nostradamus (Vies des plus célèbres et anciens poètes provençaux, Lyons 1575). The latter writer, the younger brother of the famous prophet, was obviously well acquainted with Provençal literature and had access to sources ofinformation which are now lost to us. But instead of attempting to write history, he embellished the lives of the troubadours by drawing upon his own extremely fertile imagination when the actual facts seemed too dull or prosaic to arouse interest. He professed to have derived his information from a manuscript left by a learned monk, theMoine des Iles d'Or, of the monastery of St Honorat in the Ile de Lerins. The late M. Camille Chabaneau has shown that the story is a pure fiction, and that the monk's pretended name was an anagram upon the name of a friend of Nostradamus.10Hence it is almost impossible to separate the truth from the fiction in this book and any statements made by Nostradamus must be received with the utmost caution. André le Chapelain seems to have had no intention to deceive, but his knowledge of Provençal society was entirely second-hand, and his statements concerning the Courts of Love are no more worthy of credence than those of Nostradamus. According to these two unreliable authorities, courts for the decision of lovers' perplexities existed in Gascony, Provence, Avignon and elsewhere; the seat of justice was held by some famous lady, and the courts decided such questions as whether a lover could love two ladies at the same time, whether lovers or married couples were the more affectionate, whether love was compatible with avarice, and the like.
A special poetical form which was popular among the troubadours may have given rise to the legend. This was thetenso,11in which one troubadour propounded a problem of love in an opening stanza and his opponent or interlocutor gave his view in a second stanza, which preserved the metre and rime-scheme of the first. The propounder then replied, and if, as generally, neither would give way, a proposal was made to send the problem to a troubadour-patron or to a lady for settlement, a proposal which came to be a regular formula for concluding the contest. Raynouard quotes the conclusion of atensogiven by Nostradamus in which one of the interlocutors says, "I shall overcome you if the court is loyal: I will send thetensoto Pierrefeu, where the fair lady holds her court of instruction." The "court" here in question was a social and not a judicial court. Had any such institution as a judicial "court of love" ever been an integral part of Provençal custom, it is scarcely conceivable that we should be informed of its existence only by a few vague and scattered allusions in the large body of Provençal literature. For these reasons the theory that such an institution existed has been generally rejected by all scholars of repute.
Provençal literature contains examples of almost every poeticalgenre. Epic poetry is represented by Girart of Roussillon,12a story of long struggles between Charles Martel and one of his barons, by the Roman de Jaufre, the adventures of a knight of the Round Table, by Flamenca, a love story which provides an admirable picture of the manners and customs of the time, and by other fragments andnovelasor shorter stories in the same style. Didactic poetry includes historical works such as the poem of the Albigeois crusade, ethical or moralisingensenhamensand religious poetry. But the dominating element in Provençal literature is lyrical, and during the short classical age of this literature lyric poetry was supreme. Nearly five hundred different troubadours are known to us at least by name and almost a thousand different stanza forms have been enumerated. While examples of the fine careless rapture of inspiration are by no means wanting, artificiality reigns supreme in the majority of cases. Questions of technique receive the most sedulous attention, and the principles of stanza construction, rime correspondence and rime distribution, as evolved by thetroubadours, exerted so wide an influence upon other European literature that they deserve a chapter to themselves.
There was no formal school for poetical training during the best period of Provençal lyric. When, for instance, Giraut de Bornelli is said to have gone to "school" during the winter seasons, nothing more is meant than the pursuit of the trivium and quadrivium, the seven arts, which formed the usual subjects of instruction. A troubadour learned the principles of his art from other poets who were well acquainted with the conventions that had been formulated in course of time, conventions which were collected and systematised in such treatises as the Leys d'Amors during the period of the decadence.
The love song orchansowas composed of five, six or seven stanzas (coblas) with, one or twotornadasorenvois. The stanza varied in length from two to forty-two lines, though these limits are, of course, exceptional. An earlier form of thechansowas known as thevers; it seems to have been in closer relation to the popular poetry than the more artificialchanso, and to have had shorter stanzas and lines; but the distinction is not clear. As all poems were intended to be sung, the poet was also a composer; the biography of Jaufre Rudel, for instance, says that this troubadour "made many poems with good tunes but poorwords." The tune known asson(diminutive sonnet) was as much the property of a troubadour as his poem, for it implied and would only suit a special form of stanza; hence if another poet borrowed it, acknowledgment was generally made. Dante, in hisDe Vulgari Eloquentia, informs us concerning the structure of this musical setting: it might be continuous without repetition or division; or it might be in two parts, one repeating the other, in which case the stanza was also divided into two parts, the division being termed by Dante thediesisorvolta; of these two parts one might be subdivided into two or even more parts, which parts, in the stanza, corresponded both in rimes and in the arrangement of the lines. If the first part of the stanza was thus divisible, the parts were calledpedes, and the musical theme orodaof the firstpeswas repeated for the second; the rest of the stanza was known as thesyrmaorcoda, and had a musical theme of its own. Again the first part of the stanza might be indivisible, when it was called thefrons, the divided parts of the second half being theversus; in this case thefronshad its own musical theme, as did the firstversus, the theme of the firstversusbeing repeated for the second. Or, lastly, a stanza mightconsist ofpedesandversus, one theme being used for the firstpesand repeated for the second and similarly with theversus. Thus the general principle upon which the stanza was constructed was that of tripartition in the following three forms:—
These forms were rather typical than stringently binding as Dante himself notes (De Vulg. El., ii, 11); many variations werepossible. The first seems to have been the most popular type. The poem might also conclude with a half stanza ortornada, (Frenchenvoi). Here, as in the last couplet of the Arabicgazul, were placed the personal allusions, and when these were unintelligible to the audience thejoglarusually explained the poem before singing it; the explanations, which in some cases remain prefixed to the poem, were known as therazos.
Troubadour poems were composed for singing, not for recitation, and the music of a poem was an element of no less importance than the words. Troubadours are described as composing "good" tunes and "poor" words, or vice versa; the tune was a piece of literary property, and, as we have said, if a troubadour borrowed a tune he was expected to acknowledge its origin. Consequently music and words were regarded as forming a unity, and the structure of the one should be a guide to the structure of the other. Troubadour music is a subject still beset with difficulties13: we possess 244 tunes written in Gregorian notation, and as in certain cases the same poem appears in different MSS. with the tune in substantial agreement in each one, we may reasonably assume that we have an authentic record, as far as this could be expressed in Gregorian notation. The chief difference between Troubadour and Gregorian music lies in the fact that the former was syllabic in character; in otherwords, one note was not held over several syllables, though several notes might be sung upon one syllable. The system of musical time in the age of the troubadours was based upon the so-called "modes," rhythmical formulae combining short and long notes in various sequences. Three of these concern us here. The first mode consists of a long followed by a short note, the long being equivalent to two short, or intime. The second mode is the reverse of the first. The third mode in moderntime appears as. The principle of sub-division is thus ternary; "common" time ortime is a later modification. So much being admitted, the problem of transposing a tune written in Gregorian notation without bars, time signature, marks of expression or other modern devices is obviously a difficult matter. J. Beck, who has written most recently upon the subject, formulates the following rules; the musical accent falls upon the tonic syllables of the words; should the accent fall upon an atonic syllable, the duration of the note to which the tonic syllable is sung may be increased, to avoid the apparent discordance between the musical accent and the tonic syllable. The musical accent must fall upon the rime and the rhythmadopted at the outset will persist throughout the poem.
Hence a study of the words will give the key to the interpretation of the tune. If, for instance, the poem shows accented followed by unaccented syllables or trochees as the prevalent foot, the first "mode" is indicated as providing the principle to be followed in transposing the Gregorian to modern notation. When these conditions are reversed the iambic foot will prevail and the melody will be in the second mode. It is not possible here to treat this complicated question in full detail for which reference must be made to the works of J. Beck. But it is clear that the system above outlined is an improvement upon that proposed by such earlier students of the subject as Riemann, who assumed that each syllable was sung to a note or group of notes of equal time value. There is no evidence that such a rhythm was ever employed in the middle ages, and the fact that words and music were inseparable in Provençal lyrics shows that to infer the nature of the musical rhythm from the rhythm of the words is a perfectly legitimate method of inquiry.
A further question arises: how far do the tunes correspond with the structure of the stanza as given by Dante? In some cases both tune and stanza correspond in symmetrical form; but in others we find stanzaswhich may be divided according to rule conjoined with tunes which present no melodic repetition of any kind; similarly, tunes which may be divided into pedes and coda are written upon stanzas which have no relation to that form. On the whole, it seems that the number of tunes known to us are too few, in comparison with the large body of lyric poetry existing, to permit any generalisation upon the question. The singer accompanied himself upon a stringed instrument (viula) or was accompanied by other performers; various forms of wind instruments were also in use. Apparently the accompaniment was in unison with the singer; part writing or contrapuntal music was unknown at the troubadour period.
As has been said, the stanza (cobla) might vary in length. No poetical literature has made more use of rime than Provençal lyric poetry. There were three typical methods of rime disposition: firstly, the rimes might all find their answer within the stanza, which was thus a self-contained whole; secondly, the rimes might find their answer within the stanza and be again repeated in the same order in all following stanzas; and thirdly, the rimes might find no answer within the stanza, but be repeated in following stanzas. In this case the rimes were known asdissolutas, and the stanza as acobla estrampa. This last arrangement tended to make the poem a more organic whole than was possible in the first two cases; in these, stanzas might be omitted without necessarily impairing the general effect, but, whencoblas estrampaswere employed, the ear of the auditor, attentive for theanswering rimes, would not be satisfied before the conclusion of the second stanza. A further step towards the provision of closer unity between the separate stanzas was thechanso redonda, which was composed ofcoblas estrampas, the rime order of the second stanza being an inversion of the rime order of the first; the tendency reaches its highest point in thesestina, which retained the characteristic of thechanso redonda, namely, that the last rime of one stanza should correspond with the first rime of the following stanza, but with the additional improvement that every rime started a stanza in turn, whereas, in thechanso redondathe same rime continually recurred at the beginning of every other stanza.
Reference has already been made to thechanso. A poetical form of much importance was thesirventes, which outwardly was indistinguishable from thechanso. The meaning of the term is unknown; some say that it originally implied a poem composed by "servants," poets in the service of an overlord; others, that it was a poem composed to the tune of achansowhich it thus imitated in a "servile" manner. From thechansothesirventesis distinguished by its subject matter; it was the vehicle for satire, moral reproof or political lampooning. The troubadours were often keenly interested in the political events of their time; they filled, to some extent, the place of the modern journalist and were naturally the partisans of the overlord in whose service or pay they happened to be. They were ready to foment a war, to lampoon a stingy patron, to ridicule one another, to abuse the morality of the age as circumstances might dictate. The crusadesirventes14are important in this connection, and there were often eloquent exhortations to the leaders of Christianity to come to the rescue of Palestine and the Holy Sepulchre. Under this heading also falls theplanh, a funeral song lamenting the death of a patron, and here again, beneath the mask of conventionality, real emotion is often apparent, as in the famous lament upon Richard Coeur de Lion composed by Gaucelm Faidit.
Reference has been already made to thetenso, one of the most characteristic of Provençal lyric forms. The name (Lat.tentionem) implies a contention or strife, which was conducted in the form of a dialogue and possibly owed its origin to the custom in early vogue among many different peoples of holding poetical tournaments, in which onepoet challenged another by uttering a poetical phrase to which the opponent replied in similar metrical form. Such, at any rate, is the form of thetenso; a poet propounds a theme in the first stanza and his interlocutor replies in a stanza of identical metrical form; the dispute usually continues for some half dozen stanzas. One class of tenso was obviously fictitious, as the dialogue is carried on with animals or even lifeless objects, such as a lady's cloak, and it is possible that some at least of the discussions ostensibly conducted between two poets may have emanated from the brain of one sole author. Sometimes three or four interlocutors take part; the subject of discussion was then known as ajoc partit, a divided game, orpartimen, a title eventually transferred to the poem itself. The most varied questions were discussed in thetenso, but casuistical problems concerning love are the most frequent: Is the death or the treachery of a loved one easier to bear? Is a lover's feeling for his lady stronger before she has accepted him or afterwards? Is a bad noble or a poor but upright man more worthy to find favour? The discussion of such questions provided an opportunity of displaying both poetical dexterity and also dialectical acumen. But rarely did either of the disputants declare himself convinced or vanquished by his opponents' arguments the questionwas left undecided or was referred by agreement to an arbitrator.
A poetical form which preserves some trace of its popular origin is thepastorela15or pastoral which takes its name from the fact that the heroine of the piece was always a shepherdess. The conventional opening is a description by a knight of his meeting with a shepherdess, "the other day" (l'autrier, the word with which the poem usually begins). A dialogue then follows between the knight and the shepherdess, in which the former sues for her favours successfully or otherwise. The irony or sarcasm which enables the shepherdess to hold her own in the encounter is far removed from the simplicity of popular poetry. TheLeys d'Amorsmentions other forms of the same genre such asvaqueira(cowherd),auqueira(goose girl), of which a specimen of the first-named alone has survived. Of equal interest is thealbaor dawn-song, in which the wordalbareappeared as a refrain in each verse; the subject of the poem is the parting of the lovers at the dawn, the approach of which is announced by a watchman or by some faithful friend who has undertaken to guard their meeting-place throughout the night. The counterpart of this form, theserena, does not appear until late in the history of Provençal lyric poetry; in theserenathe lover longs for theapproach of evening, which is to unite him with his beloved.
Other forms of minor importance were thecomjatin which a troubadour bids a lady a final farewell, and theescondigor justification in which the lover attempts to excuse his behaviour to a lady whose anger he had aroused. The troubled state of his feelings might find expression in thedescort(discord), in which each stanza showed a change of metre and melody. Thedescortof Raimbaut de Vaqueiras is written in five dialects, one for each stanza, and the last and sixth stanza of the poem gives two lines to each dialect, which Babel of strange sounds is intended, he says, to show how entirely his lady's heart has changed towards him. Theballataand theestampidawere dance-songs, but very few examples survive. Certain love letters also remain to us, but as these are written in rimed couplets and in narrative style, they can hardly be classified as lyric poetry.
In conclusion, a word must be said concerning the dispute between two schools of stylists, which is one of the most interesting points in the literary history of the troubadours.16From the earliest times we find two poetical schools in opposition, thetrobar clus(also known ascar, ric, oscur, sotil, cobert), the obscure, or close, subtle style of composition, and thetrobar clar(leu, leugier, plan), the clear, light, easy, straightforward style. Two or three causes may havecombined to favour the development of obscure writing. The theme of love with which thechansodealt is a subject by no means inexhaustible; there was a continual struggle to revivify the well-worn tale by means of strange turns of expression, by the use of unusual adjectives and forced metaphor, by the discovery of difficult rimes (rimes cars) and stanza schemes of extraordinary complexity. Marcabrun asserts, possibly in jest, that he could not always understand his own poems. A further and possibly an earlier cause of obscurity in expression was the fact that thechansowas a love song addressed to a married lady; and though in many cases it was the fact that the poem embodied compliments purely conventional, however exaggerated to our ideas, yet the further fact remains that the sentiments expressed might as easily be those of veritable passion, and, in view of a husband's existence, obscurity had a utility of its own. This point Guiraut de Bornelh advances as an objection to the use of the easy style: "I should like to send my song to my lady, if I should find a messenger; but if I made another my spokesman, I fear she would blame me. For there is no sense in making another speak out what one wishes to conceal and keep to oneself." Thehabit of alluding to the lady addressed under asenhal, or pseudonym, in the course of the poem, is evidence for a need of privacy, though this custom was also conventionalised, and we find men as well as women alluded to under asenhal. It was not always the fact that thesenhalwas an open secret, although in many cases, where a high-born dame desired to boast of the accomplished troubadour in her service, his poems would naturally secure the widest publication which she could procure. A further reason for complexity of composition is given by the troubadour Peire d'Auvergne: "He is pleasing and agreeable to me who proceeds to sing with words shut up and obscure, to which a man is afraid to do violence." The "violence" apprehended is that of thejoglar, who might garble a song in the performance of it, if he had not the memory or industry to learn it perfectly, and Peire d'Alvernhe (1158-80) commends compositions so constructed that the disposition of the rimes will prevent the interpolation of topical allusions or careless altercation. The similar safeguard of Dante'sterza rimawill occur to every student.
The social conditions again under which troubadour poetry was produced, apart from the limitations of its subject matter, tended to foster an obscure and highly artificial diction. This obscurity was attained, as we have said, by elevation and preciosity of style, and was not the result of confusion of thought. Guiraut de Bornelh tells us his methodin a passage worth quoting in the original—