''Vida'' () is the usual term for a brief prose biography, written in

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 ...

, of a

troubadour A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) 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 ''trobairit ...

trobairitz The ''trobairitz'' () were Occitan female troubadours of the 12th and 13th centuries, active from around 1170 to approximately 1260. ''Trobairitz'' is both singular and plural. The word ''trobairitz'' is first attested in the 13th-century roma ...

. The word ''vida'' means "life" in

Occitan languages Occitan (; oc, occitan, link=no ), also known as ''lenga d'òc'' (; french: langue d'oc) by its native speakers, and sometimes also referred to as ''Provençal'', is a Romance language spoken in Southern France, Monaco, Italy's Occitan Valley ...

; they are short prose biographies of the

s, and they are found in some

chansonnier A chansonnier ( ca, cançoner, oc, cançonièr, Galician and pt, cancioneiro, it, canzoniere or ''canzoniéro'', es, cancionero) is a manuscript or printed book which contains a collection of chansons, or polyphonic and monophonic settings o ...

s, along with the works of the author they describe. Vidas are notoriously unreliable: Mouzat, while complaining that some scholars still believe them, says they represent the authors as "ridiculous bohemians, and picaresque heroes";

Alfred Jeanroy Alfred Jeanroy (5 July 1859 – 13 March 1953) was a French linguist. Jeanroy was a leading scholar studying troubadour A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Age ...

calls them "the ancestors of modern novels". Most often, they are not based on independent sources, and their information is deduced from literal readings of details of the poems. Most of the ''vidas'' were composed in Italy, many by

Uc de Saint Circ Uc de Saint Circ (San Sir) or Hugues (Hugh) de Saint Circq ( fl. 1217–1253Aubrey, ''The Music of the Troubadours'', 22–23.) was a troubadour from Quercy. Uc is perhaps most significant to modern historians as the probable author of seve ...

. Additionally, some individual poems are accompanied by ''

razo A ''razo'' (, literally "cause", "reason") was a short piece of Occitan prose detailing the circumstances of a troubadour composition. A ''razo'' normally introduced an individual poem, acting as a prose preface and explanation; it might, however ...

s'', explanations of the circumstances in which the poem was composed.

Troubadours with ''vidas''

Sources

There is a complete collection of ''vidas'', with French translation and commentary, by Boutière and Schutz. *''Biographies des troubadours'', edd. and trans. J. Boutière and A.-H. Schutz. Paris: Nizet, 1964. There is a complete collection of English translations available as part of the Garland Library of Medieval Literature, Series B, translated by Margarita Egan. *''The Vidas of the Troubadours'', ed. and trans. Margarita Egan. New York: Garland, 1984. .

References

{{reflist Occitan literary genres