genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...

of the

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 ...

s, the or (; "lament") is a funeral lament for "a great personage, a protector, a friend or relative, or a lady."Elisabeth Schulze-Busacker, "Topoi", in F. R. P. Akehurst and Judith M. Davis, eds., ''A Handbook of the Troubadours'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 421–440. Its main elements are expression of grief, praise of the deceased (eulogy) and prayer for his or her soul.Patricia Harris Stäblein, "New Views on an Old Problem: The Dynamics of Death in the ", ''Romance Philology'' 35, 1 (1981): 223–234. It is descended from the medieval

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 ...

.William D. Paden, "Planh/Complainte", in W. W. Kibler and G. A. Zinn, eds., ''Medieval France: An Encyclopedia'' (New York: Garland, 1995), pp. 1400–1401. The is similar to the in that both were typically

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 ...

. They made use of existing melodies, often imitating the original song even down to the rhymes. The most famous of all, however, Gaucelm Faidit's lament on the death of King

Richard the Lionheart Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was overl ...

in 1199, was set to original music. Elisabeth Schulze-Busacker identifies three types of : "the moralizing ", in which the expression of grief is a point of departure for social criticism; "the true lament", in which personal grief is central; and "the courtly ", in which the impact of the death on the court is emphasised.

Alfred Jeanroy Alfred Jeanroy (5 July 1859 – 13 March 1953) was a French linguist. Jeanroy was a leading scholar studying troubadour A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Age ...

considered that the common denunciation of the evils of the present age was a feature that distinguished the from the .Stephen Manning, "Chaucer's Good Fair White: Woman and Symbol", ''Comparative Literature'' 10, 2 (1958): 97–105. In the conventions of the genre, the subject's death is announced by the simple words ("is dead"). By the 13th century, the placement of these words within the poem was fixed: it occurred in the seventh or eighth line of the first stanza. It is perhaps an indication of the sincerity of their grief that the troubadours rarely praised the successors of their patrons in the . There are forty-four surviving . The earliest is that by

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 perha ...

on the death of Duke

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, ...

in 1137. The latest is an anonymous lament on the death of King

Robert of Naples Robert of Anjou ( it, Roberto d'Angiò), known as Robert the Wise ( it, Roberto il Saggio; 1276 – 20 January 1343), was King of Naples, titular King of Jerusalem and Count of Provence and Forcalquier from 1309 to 1343, the central figure of I ...

in 1343. The was regarded by contemporaries as a distinct genre and is mentioned in the (1290s) and the (1341).

Chronological table of

The following table lists 42 .

Chronological table of

References

Further reading