A ''razo'' (, literally "cause", "reason") was a short piece of

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 Occitan (; o ...

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

detailing the circumstances 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 ...

composition. A ''razo'' normally introduced an individual poem, acting as a prose preface and explanation; it might, however, share some of the characteristics of a ''

vida Vida means “life” in Spanish and Portuguese. It may refer to: Geography * Vida (Gradačac), village in Bosnia and Herzegovina * Lake Vida, Victoria Valley, Antarctica * U.S. settled places: ** Vida, Montana ** Vida, Oregon ** Vida, Missour ...

'' (a biography of a troubadour, describing his origins, his loves, and his works) and the boundary between the two genres was never sharp. In the ''

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'', the manuscript collections of medieval troubadour poetry, some poems are accompanied by a prose explanation whose purpose is to give the reason why the poem was composed. These texts are occasionally based on independent sources. To that extent, they supplement the ''vidas'' in the same manuscripts and are useful to modern literary and historical researchers. Often, however, it is clear that assertions in the ''razos'' are simply deduced from literal readings of details in the poems. Most of the surviving ''razo'' corpus is the work of

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 sever ...

, composed in Italy between 1227 and 1230. In one case, a manuscript from

Bergamo Bergamo (; lmo, Bèrghem ; from the proto- Germanic elements *''berg +*heim'', the "mountain home") is a city in the alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately northeast of Milan, and about from Switzerland, the alpine lakes Como ...

, there is an explanatory rubric preceding the Occitan

partimen The ''partimen'' (; ca, partiment ; also known as ''partia'' or ''joc partit'') is a cognate form of the French jeu-parti (plural ''jeux-partis''). It is a genre of Occitan lyric poetry composed between two troubadours, a subgenre of the ''tenso'' ...

''Si paradis et enfernz son aital'' by

Girard Cavalaz Girardo Cavallazzi or Cavallazzo ( oc, Girard or ; fl. 1225–1247) was an Italian troubadour from Lombardy. His only surviving work is four coblas of a ''partimen'' he exchanged with Aycart del Fossat concerning the nature of Heaven and Hel ...

and

Aycart del Fossat Aycart (or Aicart) del Fossat (fl. 1250–68) was a troubadour from Le Fossat in Ariège. To him are attributed one ''sirventes'' and a ''partimen'' with Girard Cavalaz. The ''sirventes'' is about the victory of Charles of Anjou over Conradin ...

is in

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 ...

Sources

* * Boutière, Jean; Schutz, Alexander Herman. ''Biographies des troubadours: textes provençaux des XIIIe et XIVe siècle''. Paris: A. G. Nizet, 1964. * Poe, Elizabeth W
"At the Boundary between ''Vida'' and ''Razo'': The Biography of Raimon Jordan."
''Neophilologus'', 72:2 (Apr., 1988) pp. 316–319. * Schutz, A. H
"Where Were the Provençal ''Vidas'' and ''Razos'' Written?"
''Modern Philology'', 35:3 (Feb., 1938), pp. 225–232. {{refend

Sources

See also