''Aigar e Maurin'' is an anonymous

Old Occitan Old Occitan ( oc, occitan ancian, label=Occitan language, Modern Occitan, ca, occità antic), also called Old Provençal, was the earliest form of the Occitano-Romance languages, as attested in writings dating from the eighth through the fourteen ...

epic poem of the twelfth century. The complete work does not survive, but 1,437 lines are known from two damaged fragments.Linda Paterson (1981), "Knights and the Concept of Knighthood in the Twelfth-Century Occitan Epic", ''Forum for Modern Language Studies'', 17 (2), 115–130. The lines are decasyllabic and divided into 44 rhyming '' laisses''.Robert A Taylor (2015), ''A Bibliographical Guide to the Study of Troubadours and Old Occitan Literature'' (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications), p. 182.Carol Sweetenham and Linda M. Paterson (2017)
''The Canso d'Antioca: An Occitan Epic Chronicle of the First Crusade''
(Routledge). The fragments—two single folios—were bound in a legal manuscript of the sixteenth century. The place of origin of ''Aigar e Maurin'' is uncertain. It is usually thought to come from Poitou. The date of composition is also uncertain. It is usually dated to the second half of the twelfth century, but there is evidence that it may have been composed before 1159. The troubadour

Giraut de Cabreira Guerau III de Cabrera (died 1160/61), also called Guiraut (or Giraut) de Cabreira, was a Catalan nobleman and Occitan troubadour. He was the viscount of Àger and Cabrera from 1145. He was the son of Ponç II de Cabrera and Sancha. Guerau is toda ...

shows knowledge of a version of the story in a poem that may date to before 1159, but perhaps as late as 1165. If the conflict between Aigar and Maurin is based on that between Henry II of England and

Louis VII of France Louis VII (1120 – 18 September 1180), called the Younger, or the Young (french: link=no, le Jeune), was King of the Franks from 1137 to 1180. He was the son and successor of King Louis VI (hence the epithet "the Young") and married Duchess ...

, then the date of composition can be narrowed further, for it must have been composed after Henry II's accession in 1154. Hans-Erich Keller, however, thought it was based on the revolt of the Young King in 1173. Linguistically, ''Aigar'' is similar to '' Girart de Roussillon'', but it is not clear in which direction the influence went. It contains signs of

Anglo-Norman Anglo-Norman may refer to: *Anglo-Normans, the medieval ruling class in England following the Norman conquest of 1066 *Anglo-Norman language **Anglo-Norman literature *Anglo-Norman England, or Norman England, the period in English history from 1066 ...

influence, and may even be a reworking of an originally Anglo-Norman poem. Olivier Naudeau went so far as to call its language a composite of Occitan and Norman French. Linda Paterson describes its tone as "primitive". In writing an essentially military tale, the poet displays some familiarity with military camps. Its subject matter and point of view are unique among Occitan works, since it recounts the Capetian–Plantagenet rivalry from an

perspective. Maurin, a Frenchman, is the vassal of the English king, Aigar, just as Henry II was a vassal of King

References

{{Reflist Epic poems 12th-century poems Old Occitan literature