THE EARLY TROUBADOURS
The earliest troubadour known to us is William IX, Count of Poitiers
(1071-1127) who led an army of thirty thousand men to the unfortunate
crusade of 1101. He lived an adventurous and often an unedifying life,
and seems to have been a jovial sensualist caring little what kind of
reputation he might obtain in the eyes of the world about him. William
of Malmesbury gives an account of him which is the reverse of
respectable. His poems, of which twelve survive, are, to some extent, a
reflection of this character, and present a mixture of coarseness and
delicate sentiment which are in strangely discordant contrast. His
versification is of an early type; the principle of tripartition, which
became predominant in troubadour poetry at a later date, is hardly
perceptible in his poems. The chief point of interest in them is the
fact that their comparative perfection of form implies a long anterior
course of development for troubadour poetry, while we also find him
employing, though in undeveloped form, the chief ideas which afterwards
became commonplaces among the troubadours. The half mystical exaltation
inspired by love is already known to William IX. as _joi_, and he is [42]
acquainted with the service of love under feudal conditions. The
conventional attitudes of the lady and the lover are also taken for
granted, the lady disdainful and unbending, the lover timid and relying
upon his patience. The lady is praised for her outward qualities, her
"kindly welcome, her gracious and pleasing look" and love for her is
considered to be the inspiration of nobility in the lover. But these
ideas are not carried to the extravagant lengths to which later poets
pushed them; William's sensual leanings are enough to counterbalance any
tendency to such exaggeration. The conventional opening of a love poem
by a description of spring is also in evidence; in short, the
commonplaces, the technical language and formulae of later Provençal
lyrics were in existence during the age of this first troubadour.
Next in point of time is the troubadour Cercamon, of whom we know very
little; his poems, as we have them, seem to fall between the years 1137
and 1152; one of them is a lament upon the death of William X. of
Aquitaine, the son of the notorious Count of Poitiers, and another
alludes to the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the daughter of William
X. According to the Provençal biography he was the instructor of a more
interesting and original troubadour Marcabrun, whose active life [43]
extended from 1150 to 1195. Many of his poems are extremely obscure; he
was one of the first to affect the _trobar clus_. He was also the author
of violent invectives against the passion of love--
Que anc non amet neguna
Ni d'autra no fon amatz--
"Who never loved any woman nor was loved of any." This aversion to the
main theme of troubadour poetry is Marcabrun's most striking
characteristic.
Amors es mout de mal avi;
Mil homes a mortz ses glavi;
Dieus non fetz tant fort gramavi.
"Love is of a detestable lineage; he has killed thousands of men without
a sword. God has created no more terrible enchanter." These invectives
may have been the outcome of personal disappointment; the theory has
also been advanced that the troubadour idea of love had not yet secured
universal recognition, and that Marcabrun is one who strove to prevent
it from becoming the dominant theme of lyric poetry. His best known poem
was the "Starling," which consists of two parts, an unusual form of
composition. In the first part the troubadour sends the starling to his
love to reproach her for unfaithfulness, and to recommend himself to her
favour; the bird returns, and in the second part offers excuses from the [44]
lady and brings an invitation from her to a meeting the next day.
Marcabrun knows the technical terms _cortesia_ and _mesura_, which he
defines: _mesura_, self-control or moderation, "consists in nicety of
speech, courtesy in loving. He may boast of courtesy who can maintain
moderation." The poem concludes with a dedication to Jaufre Rudel--
Lo vers e·l son vueill envier
A'n Jaufre Rudel outra mar.
"The words and the tune I wish to send to Jaufre Rudel beyond the sea."
This was the troubadour whom Petrarch has made famous--
Jaufre Rudel che usò la vela e'l remo
A cercar la sua morte.
His romantic story is as follows in the words of the Provençal
biography: "Jaufre Rudel of Blaya was a very noble man, the Prince of
Blaya; he fell in love with the Countess of Tripoli, though he had never
seen her, for the good report that he had of her from the pilgrims who
came from Antioch, and he made many poems concerning her with good tunes
but poor words.[18] And from desire to see her, he took the cross and
went to sea. And in the ship great illness came upon him so that those
who were with him thought that he was dead in the ship; but they [45]
succeeded in bringing him to Tripoli, to an inn, as one dead. And it was
told to the countess, and she came to him, to his bed, and took him in
her arms; and he knew that she was the countess, and recovering his
senses, he praised God and gave thanks that his life had been sustained
until he had seen her; and then he died in the lady's arms. And she gave
him honourable burial in the house of the Temple, and then, on that day,
she took the veil for the grief that she had for him and for his death."
Jaufre's poems contain many references to a "distant love" which he will
never see, "for his destiny is to love without being loved." Those
critics who accept the truth of the story regard Melisanda, daughter of
Raimon I., Count of Tripoli, as the heroine; but the biography must be
used with great caution as a historical source, and the mention of the
house of the order of Templars in which Jaufre is said to have been
buried raises a difficulty; it was erected in 1118, and in the year 1200
the County of Tripoli was merged in that of Antioch; of the Rudels of
Blaya, historically known to us, there is none who falls reasonably
within these dates. The probability is that the constant references in
Jaufre's poems to an unknown distant love, and the fact of his crusading
expedition to the Holy Land, formed in conjunction the nucleus of the [46]
legend which grew round his name, and which is known to all readers of
Carducci, Uhland and Heine.
Contemporary with Jaufre Rudel was Bernard de Ventadour, one of the
greatest names in Provençal poetry. According to the biography, which
betrays its untrustworthiness by contradicting the facts of history,
Bernard was the son of the furnace stoker at the castle of Ventadour,
under the Viscount Ebles II., himself a troubadour and a patron of
troubadours. It was from the viscount that Bernard received instruction
in the troubadours' art, and to his patron's interest in his talents he
doubtless owed the opportunities which he enjoyed of learning to read
and write, and of making acquaintance with such Latin authors as were
currently read, or with the anthologies and books of "sentences" then
used for instruction in Latin. He soon outstripped his patron, to whose
wife, Agnes de Montluçon, his early poems were addressed. His relations
with the lady and with his patron were disturbed by the _lauzengiers_,
the slanderers, the envious, and the backbiters of whom troubadours
constantly complain, and he was obliged to leave Ventadour. He went to
the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the granddaughter of the first
troubadour, Guillaume IX. of Poitiers, who by tradition and temperament
was a patroness of troubadours, many of whom sang her praises. She had [47]
been divorced from Louis VII. of France in 1152, and married Henry, Duke
of Normandy, afterwards King of England in the same year. There Bernard
may have remained until 1154, in which year Eleanor went to England as
Queen. Whether Bernard followed her to England is uncertain; the
personal allusions in his poems are generally scanty, and the details of
his life are correspondingly obscure. But one poem seems to indicate
that he may have crossed the Channel. He says that he has kept silence
for two years, but that the autumn season impels him to sing; in spite
of his love, his lady will not deign to reply to him: but his devotion
is unchanged and she may sell him or give him away if she pleases. She
does him wrong in failing to call him to her chamber that he may remove
her shoes humbly upon his knees, when she deigns to stretch forth her
foot. He then continues[19]
Faitz es lo vers totz a randa,
Si que motz no y descapduelha.
outra la terra normanda
part la fera mar prionda;
e si·m suy de midons lunhans.
ves si·m tira cum diamans,
la belha cui dieus defenda.
Si·l reys engles el dux normans
o vol, ieu la veirai, abans
que l'iverns nos sobreprenda.
[48]
"The _vers_ has been composed fully so that not a word is wanting,
beyond the Norman land and the deep wild sea; and though I am far from
my lady, she attracts me like a magnet, the fair one whom may God
protect. If the English king and Norman duke will, I shall see her
before the winter surprise us."
How long Bernard remained in Normandy, we cannot conjecture. He is said
to have gone to the court of Raimon V., Count of Toulouse, a well-known
patron of the troubadours. On Raimon's death in 1194, Bernard, who must
himself have been growing old, retired to the abbey of Dalon in his
native province of Limousin, where he died. He is perhaps more deeply
inspired by the true spirit of lyric poetry than any other troubadour;
he insists that love is the only source of song; poetry to be real, must
be lived.
Non es meravelha s'ieu chan
mielhs de nulh autre chantador;
que plus mi tra·l cors ves amor
e mielhs sui faitz a son coman.
"It is no wonder if I sing better than any other singer; for my heart
draws me more than others towards love, and I am better made for his
commandments." Hence Bernard gave fuller expression than any other
troubadour to the ennobling power of love, as the only source of real
worth and nobility.
The subject speedily became exhausted, and ingenuity did but increase [49]
the conventionality of its treatment. But in Bernard's hands it retains
its early freshness and sincerity. The description of the seasons of the
year as impelling the troubadour to song was, or became, an entirely
conventional and expected opening to a _chanso_; but in Bernard's case
these descriptions were marked by the observation and feeling of one who
had a real love for the country and for nature, and the contrast or
comparison between the season of the year and his own feelings is of
real lyrical value. The opening with the description of the lark is
famous--
Quant vey la lauzeta mover
De joi sas alas contral rai,
que s'oblida e·s laissa cazer
per la doussor qu'al cor li vai,
ai! tan grans enveia m'en ve
de cui qu'eu veya jauzion!
meravilhas ai, quar desse
lo cor de dezirier no·m fon.
"When I see the lark flutter with joy towards the sun, and forget
himself and sing for the sweetness that comes to his heart; alas, such
envy comes upon me of all that I see rejoicing, I wonder that my heart
does not melt forthwith with desire".[20]
At the same time Bernard's style is simple and clear, though he shows
full mastery of the complex stanza form; to call him the Wordsworth of
the troubadour world is to exaggerate a single point of coincidence; but
he remains the greatest of troubadour poets, as modern taste regards [50]
poetry.
Arnaut de Mareuil (1170-1200 _circa_) displays many of the
characteristics which distinguished the poetry of Bernard of Ventadour;
there is the same simplicity of style and often no less reality of
feeling: conventionalism had not yet become typical. Arnaut was born in
Périgord of poor parents, and was brought up to the profession of a
scribe or notary. This profession he soon abandoned, and his "good
star," to quote the Provençal biography, led him to the court of
Adelaide, daughter of Raimon V. of Toulouse, who had married in 1171
Roger II., Viscount of Béziers. There he soon rose into high repute: at
first he is said to have denied his authorship of the songs which he
composed in honour of his mistress, but eventually he betrayed himself
and was recognised as a troubadour of high merit, and definitely
installed as the singer of Adelaide. The story is improbable, as the
troubadour's rewards naturally depended upon the favour of his patrons
to him personally; it is probably an instance of the manner in which the
biographies founded fictions upon a very meagre substratum of fact, the
fact in this instance being a passage in which Arnaut declares his
timidity in singing the praise of so great a beauty as Adelaide.
Mas grans paors m'o tol e grans temensa, [51]
Qu'ieu non aus dir, dona, qu'ieu chant de vos.
"But great fear and great apprehension comes upon me, so that I dare not
tell you, lady, that it is I who sing of you."
Arnaut seems to have introduced a new poetical _genre_ into Provençal
literature, the love-letter. He says that the difficulty of finding a
trustworthy messenger induced him to send a letter sealed with his own
ring; the letter is interesting for the description of feminine beauty
which it contains: "my heart, that is your constant companion, comes to
me as your messenger and portrays for me your noble, graceful form, your
fair light-brown hair, your brow whiter than the lily, your gay laughing
eyes, your straight well-formed nose, your fresh complexion, whiter and
redder than any flower, your little mouth, your fair teeth, whiter than
pure silver,... your fair white hands with the smooth and slender
fingers"; in short, a picture which shows that troubadour ideas of
beauty were much the same as those of any other age. Arnaut was
eventually obliged to leave Béziers, owing, it is said, to the rivalry
of Alfonso II. of Aragon, who may have come forward as a suitor for
Adelaide after Roger's death in 1194. The troubadour betook himself to
the court of William VIII., Count of Montpelier, where he probably spent
the rest of his life. The various allusions in his poems cannot always [52]
be identified, and his career is only known to us in vague outline.
Apart from the love-letter, he was, if not the initiator, one of the
earliest writers of the type of didactic poem known as _ensenhamen_, an
"instruction" containing observations upon the manners and customs of
his age, with precepts for the observance of morality and right conduct
such as should be practised by the ideal character. Arnaut, after a
lengthy and would-be learned introduction, explains that each of the
three estates, the knights, the clergy and the citizens, have their
special and appropriate virtues. The emphasis with which he describes
the good qualities of the citizen class, a compliment unusual in the
aristocratic poetry of the troubadours, may be taken as confirmation of
the statement concerning his own parentage which we find in his
biography.
[53]