HOME
*





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 exist in which one of the parties is imaginary, including God ( Peire de Vic), the poet's horse ( Gui de Cavalhon) or his cloak (Bertran Carbonel). Closely related, and sometimes overlapping, genres include: * the ''partimen'', in which more than two voices discuss a subject * the ''cobla esparsa'' or ''cobla exchange'', a tenso of two stanzas only * the ''contenson'', where the matter is eventually judged by a third party. Notable examples * Marcabru and Uc Catola''Amics Marchabrun, car digam'' possibly the earliest known example. * Cercamon and Guilhalmi''Car vei finir a tot dia'' another candidate for the earliest known example. * Raimbaut d'Aurenga and Giraut de Bornelh''Ara·m platz, Giraut de Borneill'' where major exponents of th ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Gui De Cavalhon
Gui de Cavalhon, Cavaillo, or Gavaillo (fl. 1200–1229) was a Provençal nobleman: a diplomat, warrior, and man of letters. He was probably also the Guionet who composed ''tensos'' and ''partimens'' with Cadenet, Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, Mainart Ros, Pomairol, and a certain Guillem. Knight and nobleman Gui was born at Cavaillon in the Valclusa, though there is no evidence of him residing there. He is first encountered at the court of Alfonso II of Provence in 1200–07. In 1204 he was present at the marriage of Alfonso's elder brother, Peter II of Aragon, and Maria of Montpellier. Beginning in 1209 he was in the service of Raymond VI of Toulouse fighting the Albigensian Crusade. In 1215 he accompanied Raymond to the Fourth Lateran Council. In 1216–17 he was fighting in Provence, where he was a counsellor of Raymond Berengar IV.Egan, 43 n1. In 1220 he was besieged in ''Castel-Nou'', now Castèlnòu d'Arri (Castelnaudary), by Amaury de Montfort. He later entered the Templar Or ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


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 concerned the nature of love. Uc argued that it was good and noble, while Marcabru railed against the decline of courtly standards. Uc employs the device of ''ironia'' (irony) to ridicule Marcabru's position, borrowing a page from Marcabru's own extensive work. Though the opinions of the poets were real, the composition arose out of friendly collaboration and the jongleuresque insults are playful. It has been suggested that the ''tenso'' is in fact the sole work of Marcabru, but more likely Uc is deliberately imitating the master's style. According to Meneghetti, the debating style may be influenced by Peter Abelard's ''Sic et Non''. Roncaglia identified Uc with the ''charissimo amico nostro domno Hugoni Catulae'', recipient of a letter from Pet ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

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 '' trobairitz''. The troubadour school or tradition began in the late 11th century in Occitania, but it subsequently spread to the Italian and Iberian Peninsulas. Under the influence of the troubadours, related movements sprang up throughout Europe: the Minnesang in Germany, '' trovadorismo'' in Galicia and Portugal, and that of the trouvères in northern France. Dante Alighieri in his '' De vulgari eloquentia'' defined the troubadour lyric as ''fictio rethorica musicaque poita'': rhetorical, musical, and poetical fiction. After the "classical" period around the turn of the 13th century and a mid-century resurgence, the art of the troubadours declined in the 14th century and around the time of the Black Death (1348) it died out. The texts of t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


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'' or ''cobla'' exchange in which one poet presents a dilemma A dilemma ( grc-gre, δίλημμα "double proposition") is a problem offering two possibilities, neither of which is unambiguously acceptable or preferable. The possibilities are termed the ''horns'' of the dilemma, a clichéd usage, but dis ... in the form of a question and the two debate the answer, each taking up a different side. Of the nearly 200 surviving Occitan debate songs, 120 are ''partimens'' and 75 are open ''tensos''. The ''partimen'' was especially popular in poetic contests. See also Torneyamen. References Further reading * Alfred Jeanroy, ''Les origines de la poésie lyrique en France au Moyen-Age'' (Paris, 1899, 3/1925) *Alfred Jeanroy: ''La poés ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Cobla Esparsa
A ''cobla esparsa'' ( literally meaning "scattered stanza") in Old Occitan is the name used for a single-stanza poem in troubadour poetry. They constitute about 15% of the troubadour output, and they are the dominant form among late (after 1220) authors like Bertran Carbonel and Guillem de l'Olivier.Simon Gaunt and Sarah Kay, edd. (1999), ''The Troubadours: An Introduction'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ). The term ''cobla triada'' is used by modern scholars to indicate a ''cobla'' taken from a longer poem and let stand on its own, but its original medieval meaning was a ''cobla esparsa'' taken from a larger collection of such poems, since ''coblas esparsas'' were usually presented in large groupings. Sometimes, two authors would write a cobla esparsa each, in a ''cobla'' exchange; this corresponds, in a shorter form, to the earlier ''tenso'' or ''partimen''.Martín de Riquer (1964), Història de la Literatura Catalana, vol. 1 (Barcelona: Ariel), 509ff. Whether such exc ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Cobla Exchange
A ''cobla esparsa'' ( literally meaning "scattered stanza") in Old Occitan is the name used for a single-stanza poem in troubadour poetry. They constitute about 15% of the troubadour output, and they are the dominant form among late (after 1220) authors like Bertran Carbonel and Guillem de l'Olivier.Simon Gaunt and Sarah Kay, edd. (1999), ''The Troubadours: An Introduction'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ). The term ''cobla triada'' is used by modern scholars to indicate a ''cobla'' taken from a longer poem and let stand on its own, but its original medieval meaning was a ''cobla esparsa'' taken from a larger collection of such poems, since ''coblas esparsas'' were usually presented in large groupings. Sometimes, two authors would write a cobla esparsa each, in a ''cobla'' exchange; this corresponds, in a shorter form, to the earlier ''tenso'' or ''partimen''.Martín de Riquer (1964), Història de la Literatura Catalana, vol. 1 (Barcelona: Ariel), 509ff. Whether such excha ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Giraut De Bornelh
Giraut de Bornelh (; c. 1138 – 1215), whose first name is also spelled Guiraut and whose toponym is de Borneil or de Borneyll, was a troubadour connected to the castle of the viscount of Limoges. He is credited with the formalisation, if not the invention, of the "light" style, or ''trobar leu''. Biography Giraut was born to a lower-class family in the Limousin, probably in Bourney, near Excideuil in modern-day France. Guiraut might have accompanied Richard I of England and Aimar V of Limoges on the Third Crusade and stayed a while with the "good prince of Antioch", Bohemond III. He certainly made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but perhaps before the Crusade. Works About ninety of Giraut's poems and four of his melodies survive; these were held in high esteem in the 13th century: Petrarch called him "master of the troubadours", while Dante, who preferred Arnaut Daniel, mentions that many considered him superior. Notable pieces include: * S'anc jorn aqui joi e solaz', a ''planh ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Montan (troubadour)
Montan (fl. c. 1250) was a Provençal troubadour whose real name, as well as any biographical detail, is unknown: his sobriquet means "the mounter", which is sexually suggestive, evidenced in his piece , which is considered the most obscene ever produced by a troubadour. Other than this, three pieces are extant, a single stanza in a tenso with Sordello Sordello da Goito or Sordel de Goit (sometimes ''Sordell'') was a 13th-century Italian troubadour. His life and work have inspired several authors including Dante Alighieri, Robert Browning, and Samuel Beckett. Life Sordello was born in the ... and two coblas esparsas. Montan is also mentioned in a poem by Ramon de Rosselló, a sign that his peculiar nickname was customarily used in his time. References External links Complete works en, oc {{authority control 13th-century French troubadours People from Provence ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Peire De Vic
The (Lo) Monge de Montaudon (meaning "monk of Montaudon") (floruit, fl. 1193–1210Gaunt and Kay, Appendix I, 287.), born Pèire de Vic, was a nobleman, monk, and troubadour from the Auvergne (province), Auvergne, born at the castle of Vic-sur-Cère near Aurillac, where he became a Benedictine monk around 1180.Aubrey, 17. According to his ''Vida (Occitan literary form), vida'', he composed "couplets while he was in the monastery and ''sirventes'' on subjects that were popular in the region."Egan, 70. Life The Monge requested and received the priory of Montaudon from the abbot of Aurillac. Montaudon may be identified with Montauban or perhaps with a ''Mons Odonis'' southeast of Clermont-Ferrand, Clermont. He became so popular with local nobility that he was taken from his monastery to serve them, receiving honours and gifts in return. In this way he greatly improved the state of his priorate and, upon his request, was released from his monastic vocation by his abbot to follow Alf ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Bertran Carbonel
Bertran Carbonel (fl. 1252–1265) was a Provençal troubadour from Marseille. He is a polarising figure among scholars and his reputation varies between authorities. Eighteen of his lyric works survive, as well as seventy-two (Gaunt and Kay) or ninety-four (Riquer) single '' coblas triadas esparsas'' on "edifying" themes. He was patronised at the court of Hugh IV and Henry II of Rodez. There were many individuals of Bertran's name in Marseille in his time, so identifying the troubadour among them has been impossible. Bertran's poetry is among the earliest Occitan literature to be written ''as literature'', or, in contemporary Latin, ''juxta propria principia''. He was also educated, as his references to Ovid, Terence, and other Classical figures reveals. Bertran was a devotee of the minor(-sounding) style of Peire Cardenal, whom he imitated in tone. His moralising is, however, as advice, generally mediocre and unexciting. His '' cansos''—for he wrote mostly those and ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Marcabru
Marcabru (; fl. 1130–1150) is one of the earliest troubadours whose poems are known. There is no certain information about him; the two '' vidas'' 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 (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, learned to make poetry from Cercamon, 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 Marc ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

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 perhaps of Eble III of Ventadorn. He was the inventor of the ''planh'' (the Provençal dirge), of the ''tenso'' (a sort of rhymed debate in which two poets write one stanza each) and perhaps of the ''sirventes''. Most of the information about Cercamon's life is nothing but rumour and conjecture; some of his contemporaries credit him as Marcabru's mentor, and some circumstantial evidence points to his dying on crusade as a follower of Louis VII of France. About seven of his lyrics survive, but not a single melody; the works that most contributed to his fame among his contemporaries, his '' pastorelas'' or pastourelles, are lost. ''Cercamon'' means "world searcher" in medieval Occitan. The fossil primate ''Cercamonius'' was named after him. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]