Olivier lo Templier (; fl. 1269) was a

Knight Templar , colors = White mantle with a red cross , colors_label = Attire , march = , mascot = Two knights riding a single horse , equipment ...

and

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 ...

probably from

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 north ...

. He appears as ''lo templier En'Olivier'' in one

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 ...

, in which is preserved his only known work, ''Estat aurai lonc temps en pessamen'' ("I have been worrying for a long time"). He may be identical with Ramon Oliver who appears as

commander Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain. ...

of the Templar house of Gardeny near

Lleida Lleida (, ; Spanish: Lérida ) is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Lleida. Geographically, it is located in the Catalan Central Depression. It is also the capital city of the Segrià comarca, as ...

in 1295. He should not be confused with another troubadour Templar, Ricaut Bonomel, whose style was very different and who wrote from the

Holy Land The Holy Land; Arabic: or is an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine. The term "Holy ...

Martín de Riquer Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austral ...

. ''Los trovadores: historia literaria y textos'' (Barcelona: Planeta, 1975), vol 3, no. 309. Olivier's '' canso de crozada'' (crusade song) can be dated precisely because of its reference to the

Crusade The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were i ...

r fleet which left

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

with King

James I of Aragon James I the Conqueror ( es, Jaime el Conquistador, ca, Jaume el Conqueridor; 2 February 1208 – 27 July 1276) was King of Aragon and Lord of Montpellier from 1213 to 1276; King of Majorca from 1231 to 1276; and Valencia from 1238 to 1276 ...

at its head in 1269. Olivier wrote the song to James, of whom he was hearty supporter, and the barons of Catalonia praising their courage even after they were forced to abort their expedition. His goal was to convince James to set out once again to recover the

Church of the Holy Sepulchre The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, hy, Սուրբ Հարության տաճար, la, Ecclesia Sancti Sepulchri, am, የቅዱስ መቃብር ቤተክርስቲያን, he, כנסיית הקבר, ar, كنيسة القيامة is a church i ...

. Linda Paterson translates lines 17–24:Linda Paterson (2016), "Troubadour Responses to the Reconquista", ''Romance Philology'', 70(1), 181–201. Olivier's Catalan identity can only be posited on the internal evidence of his ''canso'', the last line of which mentions the lord of

Gelida Gelida is a town and municipality in the ''comarca'' of Alt Penedès, Barcelona, Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationality'' ...

, Guerau de Cervelló, with whom Olivier may have had links. There is also evidence of Catalanism in his

declension In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ar ...

, but this may be attributable to the copyist(s) and not Olivier. His affection for James, too, cannot be taken as evidence of Catalan identity in and of itself.

Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Olivier Lo Templier 13th-century people from the Kingdom of Aragon 13th-century Spanish troubadours Medieval Knights Templar members Crusade literature Year of death unknown Year of birth unknown