Marcabru
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Marcabru (;
fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...
1130–1150) is one of the earliest
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 ...
s whose poems are known. There is no certain information about him; the two ''
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 ...
s'' attached to his poems tell different stories, and both are evidently built on hints in the poems; not on independent information. According to the brief life in BnF ms. 12473, ''Marcabrun'' was from
Gascony Gascony (; french: Gascogne ; oc, Gasconha ; eu, Gaskoinia) was a province of the southwestern Kingdom of France that succeeded the Duchy of Gascony (602–1453). From the 17th century until the French Revolution (1789–1799), it was part o ...
(details of the dialect of his poems support this) and was the son of a poor woman named Marcabrunela. This evidently comes from a reading of poem 293,18. According to the longer biography in MS. Vat. Lat. 5232 ''Marcabru'' was abandoned at a rich man's door, and no one knew his origin. He was brought up by
Aldric del Vilar Aldric or Audric del VilarVariants of his name include Anric, Enric, Oldric, Alric, Audrics, Andrics, Audricx, and Ardis. "Nandricx" is a contraction of "En Audric" (N'Andricx): see Gaunt, Harvey, et al., 534, n1. was the twelfth-century lord of Auv ...
, learned to make poetry from
Cercamon Cercamon (, fl. 1135-1145) was one of the earliest troubadours. His true name and other biographical data are unknown. He was apparently a Gascony-born jester of sorts who spent most of his career in the courts of William X of Aquitaine and perh ...
, was at first nicknamed ''Pan-perdut'' and later ''Marcabru''. He became famous, and the lords of Gascony, about whom he had said many bad things, eventually put him to death. This appears to be based on poems 16b,1 and 293,43 (an exchange between Aldric del Vilar and Marcabru) and guesswork; the link with Cercamon is doubted by modern scholars. Forty-four poems are attributed to Marcabru, learned, often difficult, sometimes obscene, relentlessly critical of the morality of lords and ladies. He experimented with the ''
pastorela The ''pastorela'' (, "little/young shepherdess") was an Occitan lyric genre used by the troubadours. It gave rise to the Old French ''pastourelle''. The central topic was always the meeting of a knight with a shepherdess, which could lead to any ...
'', which he uses to point out the futility of lust. One tells of how the speaker's advances are reviled by a shepherdess on the basis of class. Another tells of how a man's attempt to seduce a woman whose husband was at the
crusades 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 in ...
is firmly rebuffed. He may also have originated the ''
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 ...
'' in a debate with
Uc Catola Uc (or Ugo) Catola was a knight and early troubadour, possibly a participant in the Second Crusade and perhaps later a monk. Uc composed what is possibly the first ''tenso'' with his famous contemporary Marcabru: ''Amics Marchabrun'', which concern ...
(as early as 1133) on the nature of love and the decline of courtly behaviour. Marcabru was a powerful influence on later poets who adopted the obscure ''
trobar clus ''Trobar clus'' (), or closed form, was a complex and obscure style of poetry used by troubadours for their more discerning audiences, and it was only truly appreciated by an elite few. It was developed extensively by Marcabru and Arnaut Daniel, bu ...
'' style. Among his patrons were
William X of Aquitaine William X (Occitan: ''Guillém X''; 1099 – 9 April 1137), called the Saint, was Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, and Count of Poitou (as William VIII) from 1126 to 1137. Early life William was the son of William IX by his second wife, P ...
and, probably,
Alfonso VII of León Alphons (Latinized ''Alphonsus'', ''Adelphonsus'', or ''Adefonsus'') is a male given name recorded from the 8th century (Alfonso I of Asturias, r. 739–757) in the Christian successor states of the Visigothic kingdom in the Iberian peninsula. ...
. Marcabru may have travelled to Spain in the entourage of
Alfonso Jordan Alfonso Jordan, also spelled Alfons Jordan or Alphonse Jourdain (1103–1148), was the Count of Tripoli (1105–09), Count of Rouergue (1109–48) and Count of Toulouse, Margrave of Provence and Duke of Narbonne (1112–48). Life Alfonso was the ...
,
Count of Toulouse The count of Toulouse ( oc, comte de Tolosa, french: comte de Toulouse) was the ruler of county of Toulouse, Toulouse during the 8th to 13th centuries. Originating as vassals of the kingdom of the Franks, Frankish kings, the hereditary counts ru ...
, in the 1130s. In the 1140s he was a propagandist for the
Reconquista The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid ...
and in his famous poem with the Latin beginning ''Pax in nomine Domini!'' he called Spain a ''lavador'' (washer) where knights could go to have their souls cleansed fighting the infidel. Four
monophonic Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduc ...
melodies to accompany Marcabru's poetry survive; additionally, three melodies of poems that may be
contrafacta In vocal music, contrafactum (or contrafact, pl. contrafacta) is "the substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music". The earliest known examples of this procedure (sometimes referred to as ''adaptation''), date back ...
of Marcabru's work may be attributed to him. __NOTOC__


Notes


References


Sources

* * * *


External links


Selected works, some with Italian translations, and vida
at RIALTO
Complete works with English translation
at trobar.org

at University of Washington faculty page {{Authority control 12th-century deaths Gascons 12th-century French troubadours Crusade literature Christians of the Second Crusade People of the Reconquista Year of birth unknown