Occitan literature (referred to in older texts as Provençal literature) is a body of texts written in Occitan, mostly in the south of France. It was the first literature written in a Romance language and inspired the rise of vernacular literature throughout medieval Europe. Occitan literature's Golden Age was in the 12th century, when a rich and complex body of lyrical poetry was produced by troubadours writing in Old Occitan, which still survives to this day. Although Catalan is considered by some a variety of Occitan, this article will not deal with Catalan literature, which started diverging from its Southern French counterpart in the late 13th century.
Introduction Occitan literature started in the 11th century in several centres. It gradually spread first over the greater portion (though not the whole) of southern France, into what is now the north of Italy and into Spain (Catalonia, Galicia, Castile), and Portugal.
In its rise, Occitan literature stands completely by itself, and in its development, it long continued to be highly original. It presents at several points, analogies with French literature; but these analogies are due principally to certain primary elements common to both and only in a slight degree to mutual reaction.
Origin
Occitan poetry first appeared in the 11th century. The oldest surviving text is the Provençal burden (Fr. refrain) attached to a 10th-century Latin poem. cites Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, 1881, p. 335 The text has not yet been satisfactorily interpreted. The quality of the earliest remaining works suggest earlier work was lost.
The earliest Occitan poem is a 10th-century, seventeen-line charm Tomida femina probably for dispersing the pain of childbirth. Much longer is an 11th-century fragment of two hundred and fifty-seven decasyllabic verses preserved in an Orléans manuscript, first printed by Raynouard.Choix des poesies originales des troubadours, 1817 The linguistic features of the poem suggest it originated in Limousin or Marche in the north of the Occitan region. The unknown author takes Boethius's treatise as the groundwork of his composition. The poem is a didactic piece composed by a clerk. The Cançó de Santa Fe dates from 1054–1076, but probably represents a Catalan dialect that evolved into a distinct language from Occitan. From the same century there is Las, qu'i non sun sparvir, astur, a secular love poem.
From the close of the same century are the poems of William (Guilhem) IX, the grandfather of Eleanor of Aquitaine. They consist of eleven diverse strophic pieces, and were consequently meant to be sung. Several are love songs. The only one which can be approximately dated was composed around 1119, when William was setting out for Spain to fight the Saracens. It expresses the writer's regret for the frivolity of his past life and his apprehensions as he bade farewell to his country and his young son. We also know from Ordericus Vitalis that William had composed various poems on the incidents of his ill-fated Crusade of 1101. In one of his pieces Ben voil que sapchon ii plusor he makes an allusion to the partimen.
The origins of this poetry are uncertain. It bears no relation to Latin poetry, nor to folklore. Vernacular compositions seem to have been at first produced for the amusement, or in the case of religious poetry, for the edification, of that part of lay society which had leisure and lands, and reckoned intellectual pastime among the good things of life.
In the 11th century, vernacular poetry served mainly the amusement and edification of the upper class. By the 12th and 13th centuries, historical works and popular treatises on contemporary science were composed in the vernacular.
Occitan poetry may have originated amongst the jesters. Some, leaving buffoonery to the ruder and less intelligent members of the profession, devoted themselves to the composition of pieces intended for singing. In the north, the jesters produced chansons de geste full of tales of battle and combat. In the courts of the southern nobles they produced love songs.
Age of the troubadours Starting in the early 12th century, the best-known body of Occitan literature originated with the group of poets who would later become known as troubadours, from the verb "trobar", meaning "to invent". The troubadours used a standardized form of Old Occitan (one probably based on the dialect of Limoges), sang their pieces to music and generally used complex and elaborate meters. Their poetry was usually lyrical, with a minority of pieces of satirical, political, moralistic, religious or erotic nature.
Early period The first known troubadour was William IX, Duke of Aquitaine whose works gave the movement a position of honor, and indirectly contributed in a very powerful degree to ensure its development and preservation.
Shortly after him, centres of poetic activity made their appearance in various places, first in Limousin and Gascony. In the former province lived Ebolus cantator (a singer named Eble), who during the second part of William of Poitiers' life seems to have been brought into relation with him, and according to a contemporary historian, Geoffroy, prior of Vigeois, erat valde gratiosus in cantilenis ("gave a great deal of pleasure by his songs"). None of his compositions survive; but under his influence Bernart of Ventadour was trained to poetry, who, though only the son of one of the serving-men of the castle, managed to gain the love of the lady of Ventadour, and when on the discovery of their amour he had to depart elsewhere, received a gracious welcome from Eleanor of Aquitaine, consort (from 1152) of Henry II of England. Of Bernart's compositions we possess about fifty songs of elegant simplicity, some of which may be taken as the most perfect specimens of love poetry Occitan literature has ever produced. Bernart must therefore have been in repute before the middle of the 12th century; and his poetic career extended well on towards its close.
At the same period, or probably a little earlier, flourished Cercamon, of genuine importance among the troubadours both because of his early date and because definite information regarding him has been preserved. He was a Gascon, and composed, says his old biographer, pastorals according to the ancient custom (pastorelas a la uzansa antiga). This is the record of the appearance in the south of France of a poetic form which ultimately acquired large development. The period at which Cercamon lived is determined by a piece where he alludes very clearly to the approaching marriage of the king of France, Louis VII, with Eleanor of Aquitaine (1137). Among the earliest troubadours may also be reckoned Marcabru, a pupil of Cercamon, from whose pen we have about forty pieces, those which can be approximately dated ranging from 1135 to 1148 or thereabout. This poet has great originality of thought and style. His songs, several of which are historical, are free from the commonplaces of their class, and contain curious strictures on the corruptions of the time.
Golden age: trobar leu, troubar clus, and trobar ric This article cannot do more than enumerate the leading troubadours and briefly indicate in what conditions their poetry was developed and through what circumstances it fell into decay and finally disappeared: Peire d'Alvernha, who in certain respects must be classed with Marcabru; Arnaut Daniel, remarkable for his complicated versification, the inventor of the sestina, a poetic form for which Dante and Petrarch express an admiration difficult for us to understand; Arnaut de Mareuil; Bertran de Born, now the most generally known of all the troubadours on account of the part he is said to have played both by his sword and his sirveniescs in the struggle between Henry II of England and his rebel sons, though the importance of his part in the events of the time seems to have been greatly exaggerated; Peire Vidal of Toulouse, a poet of varied inspiration who grew rich with gifts bestowed on him by the greatest nobles of his time; Guiraut de Borneil, lo macsire dels trobadors, and at any rate master in the art of the so-called close style (trebar clus), though he has also left us some songs of charming simplicity; Gaucelm Faidit, from whom we have a touching lament (plaint) on the death of Richard Cœur de Lion; Folquet of Marseille, the most powerful thinker among the poets of the south, who from being a merchant and troubadour became an abbot, and finally bishop of Toulouse (died 1231).
Later troubadours, and foreign ones As the troubadours started scattering from Southern France after the Albigensian crusade, the quality of their poetry decayed sharply: Dante, in his De vulgari eloquentia mentions only authors of the previous generation (Peire d'Alvernha, Giraut de Bornelh, Bertran de Born and Arnaut Daniel) as models of vernacular literature. However, the presence of troubadours in foreign courts engendered a number of imitators in Catalonia (for example Cerverì de Girona) and Italy (Sordello, Lanfranc Cigala, Rambertino Buvalelli).
Troubadours and society It is not without interest to discover to what social classes the troubadours belonged. Many of them, there is no doubt, had a very humble origin. Bernart of Ventadour's father was a servant, Peire Vidal's a maker of furred garments, Perdigon's a fisher. Others belonged to the bourgeoisie, Peire d'Alvernha, for example, Peire Raimon of Toulouse, and Elias Fonsalada. Likewise we see merchants' sons as troubadours; this was the case with Folquet of Marseille and Aimeric de Peguilhan. A great many were clerics, or at least studied for the Church, for instance, Arnaut de Mareuil, Uc de Saint Circ, Aimeric de Belenoi, Hugh Brunet, Peire Cardenal; some had even taken orders: the monk of Montaudon and Gaubert de Puicibot. Ecclesiastical authority did not always tolerate this breach of discipline. Gui d'Ussel, canon and troubadour, was obliged by the injunction of the pontifical legate to give up his song-making; Folquet, too, renounced it when he took orders. One point is particularly striking, the number of monarchs and nobles who were troubadours: Raimon de Miraval, Pons de Capdoill, Guilhem Ademar, Cadenet, Peirol, Raimbaut de Vacqueiras, and many more. Some of this group were poor knights whose incomes were insufficient to support their rank, and took up poetry not merely for their own pleasure, but for the sake of the gifts to be obtained from the rich whose courts they frequented. A very different position was occupied by such wealthy and powerful people as William of Poitiers, Raimbaut d'Aurenga, the viscount of Saint Antonin, Guillem de Berguedà and Blacatz.
The profession was entirely dependent on the existence and prosperity of the feudal courts. The troubadours could hardly expect to obtain a livelihood from any other quarter than the generosity of the great. It will consequently be well to mention the more important at least of those princes who are known to have been patrons and some of them practisers of the poetic art. They are arranged approximately in geographical order, and after each are inserted the names of those troubadours with whom they were connected.
Patronage