The ''Cançoner Gil'' (, ) is an

Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...

chansonnier produced in

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the nort ...

in the middle of the 14th century. In the systematic nomenclature of Occitanists, it is typically named MS ''Sg'', but as ''Z'' in the reassignment of letter names by François Zufferey. It is numbered MS 146 in the

Biblioteca de Catalunya The Library of Catalonia ( ca, Biblioteca de Catalunya, ) is the Catalan national library, located in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The primary mission of the Library of Catalonia is to collect, preserve, and spread Catalan bibliographic producti ...

in Barcelona where it now resides. The name of the chansonnier is not medieval. It is so-called after its last possessor before it was donated to the Biblioteca, Pablo Gil y Gil, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the

University of Zaragoza The University of Zaragoza, sometimes referred to as Saragossa University () is a public university with teaching campuses and research centres spread over the three provinces of Aragon, Spain. Founded in 1542, it is one of the oldest universiti ...

(c. 1910), owner of a valuable collection of ancient manuscripts.Gil y Gil, Pablo: "Los manuscritos aljamiados de mi colección." Zaragoza, Escar, 1904
/ref> It was donated at the request of a group of ten of the library's patrons: Isidre Bonsoms, Pere Grau Maristany, Eduard Sevilla, the Marquès de Maury, Josep Mansana, Jacinte Serra, Manuel Girona, Hug Herberg, Teresa Ametller, and

Archer Milton Huntington Archer Milton Huntington (March 10, 1870 – December 11, 1955) was a philanthropist and scholar, primarily known for his contributions to the field of Hispanic Studies. He founded The Hispanic Society of America in New York City, and made ...

. Part of the motive for donating the chansonnier was to have it rebound. It was given new red leather binding decorated with the arms of the provincial government (''diputació'') and the

Cross of Saint James The Cross of Saint James, also known as the Santiago cross, ''cruz espada,'' or Saint James' Cross, is a heraldic badge that is cruciform in design. The cross, shaped as a Crosses in heraldry, cross fitchy, combines with either a cross fleury or ...

. Ramon Miquel i Planes, with the advice of Ernest Molinés i Brasés of the Escola de les Arts del Llibre, and the technical skill of J. Figuerola, restored the chansonnier with the new binding at the behest of the provincial government. The chansonnier is well preserved, made of high-quality

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins o ...

with clear, well-formed letters. The first third of it is decorated with initials and marginalia, but the latter folios are unfinished; the spaces left for ornamentation are unfilled. Also, no space is left for musical notation, and since some of the poems are known to have melodies, the chansonnier must have been produced to be read, not used (for musical performance). The chansonnier contains 285 poems. In the first section it contains almost all the lyric compositions of

Cerverí de Girona Cerverí de Girona (; fl. 1259 – 1285) was a Catalan troubadour born Guillem de Cervera in Girona. He was the most prolific troubadour, leaving behind some 114 lyric poems among other works, including an ''ensenhamen'' of proverbs for his s ...

, a late thirteenth-century Catalan troubadour and one of the most prolific. The second section contains the work of several twelfth-century

troubadours 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 ''trobairi ...

from the classical era of their lyric art, namely

Raimbaut de Vaqueiras __NOTOC__ Raimbaut de Vaqueiras or Vaqueyras (fl. 1180 – 1207) was a Provençal troubadour and, later in his life, knight. His life was spent mainly in Italian courtsAmelia E. Van Vleck, ''The Lyric Texts'' p. 33, in ''Handbook of the Troub ...

, Bertran de Born,

Guiraut de Bornelh Giraut de Bornelh (; c. 1138 – 1215), whose first name is also spelled Guiraut and whose toponym is de Borneil or de Borneyll, was a troubadour connected to the castle of the viscount of Limoges. He is credited with the formalisation, if not the ...

Arnaut Daniel Arnaut Daniel (; fl. 1180–1200) was an Occitan troubadour of the 12th century, praised by Dante as "the best smith" (''miglior fabbro'') and called a "grand master of love" (''gran maestro d'amore'') by Petrarch. In the 20th century he was la ...

, Guilhem de Saint Leidier, Bernart de Ventadorn,

Pons de Capduelh Pons de Capduelh (fl. 1160–1220Chambers 1978, 140. or 1190–1237Aubrey 1996, 19–20.) was a troubadour from the Auvergne, probably from Chapteuil. His songs were known for their great gaiety. He was a popular poet and 27 of his songs are prese ...

Jaufre Rudel Jaufre Rudel (Jaufré in modern Occitan) was the Prince of Blaye (''Princes de Blaia'') and a troubadour of the early- to mid-12th century, who probably died during the Second Crusade, in or after 1147. He is noted for developing the theme of "lo ...

, and

Guilhem de Berguedan Guillem de Berguedà (''c''.1130–1195/6; ''fl''.1138–1192), or Guilhem de Berguedan in Occitan, was a Catalan troubadour and viscount of Berguedà. He was the most prolific Catalan poet of the twelfth century, though he composed in Oc ...

. The final segment of the manuscript, completely without decoration, is devoted to the troubadours (many probably contemporary) of the "school of

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Pa ...

", associated with the later

Consistori del Gay Saber The Consistori del Gay Saber (; "Consistory of the Gay Science") was a poetic academy founded at Toulouse in 1323 to revive and perpetuate the lyric poetry of the troubadours. Also known as the Acadèmia dels Jòcs Florals or Académie des Jeu ...

. These include

Joan de Castellnou Joan de Castellnou (; floruit, fl. 1341–1355) was a troubadour of the Consistori del Gay Saber active in Toulouse. He left behind five or six ''Canso (song), cansos'', three ''Verse (poetry), vers'', a ''dansa'', a ''conselh'', and a ''sirven ...

Raimon de Cornet Raimon de Cornet (, also spelled ''Ramon de Cornet''; fl. 1324–1340) was a fourteenth-century Toulousain priest, friar, grammarian, poet, and troubadour. He was a prolific author of verse; more than forty of his poems survive, most in Occ ...

, and

Gaston III of Foix-Béarn Gaston Fébus (also spelt Phoebus) (30 April 1331 – 1391) was the eleventh count of Foix (as Gaston III) and twenty-fourth viscount of Béarn (as Gaston X) from 1343 until his death. Early life Gaston was born either in Orthez or Foix, the e ...

. Included towards the end of the manuscript is one

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intellig ...

work: an excerpt of the ''

Roman de Troie (''The Romance of Troy'') by Benoît de Sainte-Maure, probably written between 1155 and 1160,Roberto Antonelli "The Birth of Criseyde - An Exemplary Triangle: 'Classical' Troilus and the Question of Love at the Anglo-Norman Court" in Boitani, P. ...

'' by

Benoît de Sainte-Maure Benoît de Sainte-Maure (; died 1173) was a 12th-century French poet, most probably from Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine near Tours, France. The Plantagenets' administrative center was located in Chinon, west of Tours. ''Le Roman de Troie'' His 40,000 ...

. The Gil is the only source for a number of Cerverí de Girona's poems. It offers a large number of variants of the well-known classical poems, perhaps because it is based on oral traditions and not on other texts. It is for this that it was lettered ''Sg'' and ''Z'', towards the end of the alphabet and among the (traditionally) less reliable chansonniers, though this system of classification is no longer considered a good guide to accuracy or reliability.

Sources

* Riquer, Martín de. ''Historia de la literatura catalana'', Vol. 1. Barcelona: Ariel, 1964. *Miriam Cabré et Sadurní Martí, "Le Chansonnier Sg au carrefour Occitano-Catalan", ''Romania'', vol. 128 (2010), pp. 92–134.

External links

Cançoner provençal (Cançoner Gil)
at the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
Cançoner Gil (ms. 146): un cançoner provençal d’origen català
at the

La Biblioteca de Catalunya (English)

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Canconer Gil Chansonniers (books) 14th-century books Occitan literature Catalan-language literature Music illuminated manuscripts 14th-century illuminated manuscripts