Engles ( fl. 1253), also spelled Englés, was a

Navarrese Navarre (; es, Navarra ; eu, Nafarroa ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre ( es, Comunidad Foral de Navarra, links=no ; eu, Nafarroako Foru Komunitatea, links=no ), is a foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, ...

jongleur A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. It originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer who ...

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 ''trobairi ...

of the mid 13th century. His lone ''

tenso A ''tenso'' (; french: tençon) is a style of troubadour song. It takes the form of a debate in which each voice defends a position; common topics relate to love or ethics. Usually, the tenso is written by two different poets, but several examples ...

'' survives only in fragments and is chiefly of interest to historians for its commentary on court life in

Pamplona Pamplona (; eu, Iruña or ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. It is also the third-largest city in the greater Basque cultural region. Lying at near above ...

under Theobald I. The jongleur with whom Engles is debating is anonymous. The poem has been dated to 1253. First, Engles accuses Theobald of avarice and thriftiness, to which the anonymous replies that Engles—whose name implies that he was

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

—is anti-French (since Theobald was a Frenchman). Engles finishes the poem by indicating that he is leaving Pamplona for the court of Aragon. Engles makes humorous use of a pun on the words ''cort'' (court) and ''corta'' (short): Peire Guilhem de Tolosa also attacked Theobald I of Navarres, who was a prolific

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 ...

and commissioner of the '' chansonnier du roi'', which includes many troubadour poems.

Sources

* Riquer, Martín de. ''Los trovadores: historia literaria y textos''. 3 vol. Barcelona: Planeta, 1975. 13th-century Spanish troubadours People from Navarre {{Spain-hist-stub