The Puy d'Arras, called in its own day the Puy Notre-Dame, was a medieval poetical society formed in Arras for holding contests between

trouvère ''Trouvère'' (, ), sometimes spelled ''trouveur'' (, ), is the Northern French ('' langue d'oïl'') form of the '' langue d'oc'' (Occitan) word ''trobador'', the precursor of the modern French word ''troubadour''. ''Trouvère'' refers to poet ...

s and ''pour maintenir amour et joie'' (for maintaining love and joy, i.e. the courtly love lyric). The term ''puy'' is

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 ...

for "place of eminence", from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

podium A podium (plural podiums or podia) is a platform used to raise something to a short distance above its surroundings. It derives from the Greek ''πόδι'' (foot). In architecture a building can rest on a large podium. Podiums can also be used ...

''. The president of the Puy, elected annually, was titled the ''Prince du Puy'', and he presided over the competitions, which were decided by panels of judges. The Puy was under the nominal patronage of the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

, referred to as "Notre Dame du Puy d'Arras". Other ''puys'' under her patronage were founded at

Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; pcd, Anmien, or ) is a city and commune in northern France, located north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in the region of Hauts-de-France. In 2021, the population of ...

Boulogne-sur-Mer Boulogne-sur-Mer (; pcd, Boulonne-su-Mér; nl, Bonen; la, Gesoriacum or ''Bononia''), often called just Boulogne (, ), is a coastal city in Northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department of Pas-de-Calais. Boulogne lies on the C ...

, Caen,

Évreux Évreux () is a commune in and the capital of the department of Eure, in the French region of Normandy. Geography The city is on the Iton river. Climate History In late Antiquity, the town, attested in the fourth century CE, was named ...

, and Rouen. The Puy is less well-documented than the contemporary Confrérie des jongleurs et bourgeois d'Arras, and the two are sometimes conflated. The statutes of the Puy d'Arras do not survive, only the later ones of the Puy d'Amiens from 1471 shed any light on the nature of laws of the ''puys''. The Puy d'Arras was, unlike the Confrérie, neither social nor religious in conception. It was the creation of the urban patriciate, the wealthy and noble, plus some others, possibly those excluded from the Confrérie, who determined to maintain the courtly tradition. The Puy was thus more conservative than the Confrérie. The poets Andrieu Contredit d'Arras and Jean de Renti (criticisingly) make mention of it and its contests.

Jean Bretel Jehan Bretel (''c''.1210 – 1272) was a trouvère. Of his known oeuvre of probably 97 songs, 96 have survived. Judging by his contacts with other trouvères he was famous and popular. Seven works by other trouvères ( Jehan de Grieviler, Jehan Era ...

mentions it in his works and he is recorded elsewhere as having served a term as Prince. Undoubtedly the highest personage to attend the Puy's festivals was

Theobald I of Navarre Theobald I (french: Thibaut, es, Teobaldo; 30 May 1201 – 8 July 1253), also called the Troubadour and the Posthumous, was Count of Champagne (as Theobald IV) from birth and King of Navarre from 1234. He initiated the Barons' Crusade, was famou ...

. The high standing of the Puy is evidenced in the thirteenth-century poem '' Dit artésien''. By the nature of its activities, one of the favoured verse forms of the Puy was the ''

jeu parti ''Jeu'' is a 2006 animated short by Georges Schwizgebel. Described as a film about the frenetic pace of modern life, ''Jeu'' is set to the scherzo of Prokofiev's Concerto for Piano No. 2, Opus 16. The film has received 12 international awards, in ...

''. Women could also participate in the Puy, both as contestants, audience members, and as judges. It has been suggested that the chansonnier known as trouvère manuscript ''R'', which contains no musical notation and is rather unornamented, was compiled from oral performance at the Puy d'Arras.O'Neill, citing Johan Schubert, 27.

Notes

{{reflist French literature Music organizations based in France