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A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word troubadour is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz.
A tenso is a style of troubadour song. It takes the form of a debate in which each voice defends a position; common topics relate to love or ethics. Usually, the tenso is written by two different poets, but several examples exist in which one of the parties is imaginary, including God, the poet's horse or his cloak. Closely related, and sometimes overlapping, genres include:
Bertolome Zorzi was a Venetian nobleman, merchant, and troubadour. Like all Lombard troubadours, he composed in the Occitan language. Eighteen of his works survive.
Uc de Saint Circ or Hugues (Hugh) de Saint Circq was a troubadour from Quercy. Uc is perhaps most significant to modern historians as the probable author of several vidas and razos of other troubadours, though only one of Bernart de Ventadorn exists under his name. Forty-four of his songs, including fifteen cansos and only three canso melodies, have survived, along with a didactic manual entitled Ensenhamen d'onor. According to William E. Burgwinkle, as "poet, biographer, literary historian, and mythographer, Uc must be accorded his rightful place as the 'inventor' (trobador) of 'troubadour poetry' and the idealogical trappings with which it came to be associated."
A cobla esparsa in Old Occitan is the name used for a single-stanza poem in troubadour poetry. They constitute about 15% of the troubadour output, and they are the dominant form among late authors like Bertran Carbonel and Guillem de l'Olivier. The term cobla triada is used by modern scholars to indicate a cobla taken from a longer poem and let stand on its own, but its original medieval meaning was a cobla esparsa taken from a larger collection of such poems, since coblas esparsas were usually presented in large groupings.
Albertet de Sestaro, sometimes called Albertet de Terascon, was a Provençal jongleur and troubadour from the Gapençais. Of his total oeuvre, twenty three poems survive. "Albertet" or "Albertetz" is the Occitan diminutive of Albert. Unqualified it usually refers to Albertet de Sestaro, but there was an Albertet Cailla.
Nicoletto da Torino was a Piedmontese jongleur and troubadour of the first half of the thirteenth century, probably from Turin, though some believe that to be his father's name. He produced three surviving tensos with Joan d'Albusson, Falquet de Romans, and Uc de Saint Circ.
Simon Doria was a Genoese statesman and man of letters, of the important Doria family. As a troubadour he wrote six surviving tensos, four with Lanfranc Cigala, one incomplete with Jacme Grils, and another with a certain Alberto. He was the son of a Perceval Doria, but not the Perceval Doria who was also a troubadour and probably his cousin.
Pere Salvatge or Peire/Peyre Salvagge was a Catalan troubadour of the late thirteenth century. He is most notable as a constant attendant at the court of Peter III and Alfonso III of Aragon. He may be the same person as the Peironet who composed poems with Peter III.
Englés was a Navarrese jongleur and troubadour of the mid 13th century. His lone tenso survives only in fragments and is chiefly of interest to historians for its commentary on court life in Pamplona under Theobald I.
Uc de la Bacalaria was a Limousin troubadour from La Bachellerie near Uzerche, the home town of Gaucelm Faidit. According to his vida, he was a jongleur who travelled infrequently and was hardly known. He composed cansos, tensos, one alba, and one descort. Six songs are surviving: one canso, one alba, and four tensos. According to the vida, he was courtly, capable, and learned.
Guillem or Guilhem Magret was a troubadour and jongleur from the Viennois. He left behind eight poems, of which survive a sirventes and a canso with melodies.
Paulet de Marselha was a Provençal troubadour from Marseille. Three of his eight surviving works are dedicated to Barral dels Baus, the viscount of Marseille. Three were love songs composed in Marseille during an era of peace. While his patron Barral eventually came to support Charles of Anjou as Count of Provence and followed him into wars in Italy, where he died, Paulet was opposed Angevin dominance of Provence and was deprived of his possessions and forced to flee, becoming a faidit in Catalonia.
Falquetde Romans was the most famous troubadour attached to the court of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, where he garnered a high reputation despite the fact that his career began as a jongleur. His surviving work consists of fourteen or fifteen pieces: seven sirventes, three tensos, two or three cansos on courtly love, a salut d'amor of 254 lines, and a religious alba. His poetry is, in general, clear and elegant, and he was apparently very religious.
Pistoleta was a Provençal troubadour. His name means "little letter (epistle)" in Occitan. He left behind eleven songs, comprising nine cansos and two tensos. Some of his pieces are assigned to an otherwise unknown Jordan de Born in the table of contents of chansonnier C, a fourteenth-century Occitan manuscript.
Alais and Yselda were two young noble trobairitz, probably sisters or nuns, who wrote an Occitan tenso with an elderly woman named Carenza. Their poem begins Na Carenza al bel cors avinen, and the first two stanzas were composed by Alais and Yselda. It is the last two stanzas, composed by Carenza, that are the most difficult to interpret. Magda Bogin and Peter Dronke have read the opening line of both her stanzas as beginning with the address N'Alais i na Iselda. There is, however, an alternative interpretation that sees the address as to a "N'Alaisina Iselda". Under this interpretation, there are two, not three, interlocutors in the poem: Carenza and Alaisina Yselda. Within the poem, in favour of the multiplicity of younger women is the phrase nos doas serors, but against it is the continuous use of the first person singular. The poem is preserved amidst a collection of coblas esparsas in only one Italian chansonnier.
Joan d'Aubusson or d'Albusson, known as Johan or Johanet to Occitan contemporaries, was an Auvergnat troubadour and a Ghibelline. Only three of his works survive: two tensos and a cobla.
Ysabel or Ysabella was a 13th-century trobairitz. Almost nothing is known about her with certainty, but many conjectures have been put forward. She has been identified with:
Peyre de Rius (fl.1344–86) was an Occitan troubadour from Foix. He wrote under the patronage of Gaston Phoebus, Count of Foix, and Peter the Ceremonious, King of Aragon. He is one of the few troubadours known by name who lived for a time at Peter's court in Barcelona. His name in standardised Occitan is Peire or Pèire, in Catalan it is Pere, and in modern French Pierre.
References
- Riquer, Martí de (1964). Història de la Literatura Catalana, vol. 1. Barcelona: Edicions Ariel.