Marcoat

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Marcoat was a minor Gascon troubadour and joglar who flourished in the mid twelfth century. He is often cited in connexion with Eleanor of Aquitaine and is placed in a hypothetical "school" of poetry which includes Bernart de Ventadorn, Marcabru, Cercamon, Jaufre Rudel, Peire Rogier, and Peire de Valeria among others. [1] Of all his works, only two sirventes survive: Mentre m'obri eis huisel and Una re.us dirai, en Serra. [2]

Marcoat was an innovator building off the work of the contemporary Gascon Marcabru, [3] whose death he recalls in one of his works c. 1150. [4] Nonetheless, his works are very simple, the stanzas being composed of three heptasyllables rhyming in the form AAB. [2] It was he who first used the term sirventes to describe his poems; [2] the word appears in both of his surviving works, twice in one:

Mentre m'obri eis huisel,
un sirventes escubel
en giteira inz s'arena
. . .
Mon serventes no val plus,
que faitz es de bos moz clus
apren lo, Domeing Sarena. [5]

The meaning of these verses is obscure, as he was an early practitioner of the trobar clus style. [3] [6] According to himself, he wrote vers contradizentz (contradictory verses). [6] He was a model for the later troubadour Raimbaut d'Aurenga. [3]

Sources

Notes

  1. Harvey, 102.
  2. 1 2 3 Chambers, 90.
  3. 1 2 3 Thiolier-Méjean, 114123.
  4. Léglu, 48.
  5. Chambers, 91, from the poem Mentre m'obri eis huisel.
  6. 1 2 Bloch, 114.

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