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The Jongleur Troubadours of Provence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

W. Powell Jones
W. Powell Jones*
Affiliation:
Western Reserve University
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Extract

The general history of minstrel life in the Middle Ages has been several times very adequately treated, but the relation of the jongleurs to the classes outside the courts has, owing to a natural scarcity of documentation, been more or less neglected. The so-called “biographies” of the troubadours seem to me, however, to throw considerable light on this subject and on the relation between the jongleur, who was professionally an entertainer, and the troubadour, who was technically an inventor or composer of poetry and song. It was not until about the middle of the twelfth century that the new idea of trobar, of individual composition with the copyright of one's name attached to it, came to Provence. The new troubadour craft came to demand certain fine qualities; its honor and its promise of high patronage attracted numbers of the more gifted jongleurs, some of the best of whom, we learn, were of the lower classes.

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Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , June 1931, pp. 307 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1931

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References

page 307 note 1 L. Gautier, Les épopées françaises (2nd. ed. rev.; Paris, 1892), ii, 3–416; E. K. Chambers The Medieval Stage (Oxford, 1903), i, 1–86; Edmond Farai, Les jongleurs en France au moyen-âge (Paris, 1910); and Rámon Menéndez Pidal, Poesia juglaresca y juglares (Madrid, 1924).

page 307 note 2 These biographies have been preserved in a number of MS. chansonniers, five important ones from the 13th century, six from the 14th, and three from the 16th, besides a number of details from lost MSS. which have been saved and utilized by later Italian scholars. The best edition, with ample descriptive notes, is that of Camille Chabaneau, in the Histoire générale de Languedoc, ed. Devic et Vaissete (Toulouse, 1885), x, 209–323, to which he has appended, pp. 324–386, a valuable list of all the Provençal poets and authors whose names have come down to us from the beginnings of the language to the end of the 15th century. All quotations are from this edition, viz. Chabaneau. For the extremes of inventive fancy along this line in the 16th century, see Jehan de Nostredame, Les vies des plus célèbres poètes provençaux, ed. Chabaneau et Anglade, Paris, 1913.

page 308 note 3 The first scholars to question the validity of the biographies were Diez, Leben und Werke der Troubadours (2nd. ed.; Leipzig, 1882), p. 495, and Stengel, Li romans de Durmart le Galois (Tübingen, 1873), p. 504. For research on the subject, see E. Beschnidt, Die Biographie des Trobadors Guillem de Capestaing und ihr historischen Werth (Marburg, 1879), esp. pp. 30–31; Gaston Paris, Romania, viii (1879), 333 ff., xii (1883), 359 ff., and Revue historique, liii (1893), 225–260; F. Novati, Romania, xxi (1892), 78–81; N. Zingarelli, Studi medievali, i (1904), 309–393; S. Stronski, Le troubadour Folquet de Marseille (Cracow, 1910), pp. 1–45; Stronski, La légende amoureuse de Bertran de Born (Paris, 1914); A. Langfors, Annales du midi, xxvi (1914), 199 ff., 349 ff.; J. Anglade, Poésies du troubadour Peire Ramon de Toulouse (Toulouse, 1920), pp. 4 ff.; P. Boissonade, Romania, xlvii(1922), 207–242. For a general evaluation of the entire material, see A. Jeanroy, Archivium Romanicum, i (1917), 289–306.

page 308 note 4 Chabaneau, p. 216. A miniature in one of the Paris manuscripts (reproduced in Menéndez Pidal, Poesia juglaresca, p. 116) shows Cercamon as a jongleur, carrying on his shoulder a rather meager bundle at the end of a stick. For this and other representations of the iconography of the subject, see Anglade, Romania, l (1924), 593–604.

page 308 note 5 For other indications of the jongleur life, see F. Witthoeft, “Sirventes joglaresc,” in Stengel's Ausgaben und Abhandlungen, lxxxviii (1891), esp. pp. 8–12.

page 308 note 6 Chabaneau, pp. 216–217.

page 308 note 7 Chabaneau, pp. 218–219: “Hom fo de paubra generatio, filhs d'un sirven del castel que era forniers' qu' escaudava lo forn a coser lo pa. Bels hom era e adregz e saup ben cantar e trobar e era cortes e ensenhatz. …” Bernart is represented as a jongleur in blue in MS. A (Vatican Lat. 5,232), fol. 86. Cf. Romania, l (1924), 593–604.

page 309 note 8 Chabaneau, pp. 219–220: “… fon clergues de paubra generacio. E car no podio viure per la suas letras, el s'en anet per lo mon: e sabia ben trobar e s'entendia ben … Aquest Arnautz cantava be e legia be romans …”

page 309 note 9 Chabaneau, pp. 222–224: “Girautz de Borneill si fo de Lemozi … e fo hom de bas afar, mas savis hom de letras e de sen natural …”

page 309 note 10 Chabaneau, pp. 278–279: “Perdigos fo joglars e saub trop ben violar e trobar e cantar … E fo filhs d'un pescador. …”

page 309 note 11 Chabaneau, pp. 243–247: “E fetz se joglar per ochaison qu'el perdet tot son aver a joc de datz.”

page 310 note 12 All three of these are to be found in Chabaneau, p. 257.

page 310 note 13 Chabaneau, pp. 282–283.

page 310 note 14 Chabaneau, pp. 289–292.

page 310 note 15 Chabaneau, p. 283: “Guillems Figueira si fo de Tolosa, fils d'un sartor, e el fo sartres … E saup ben trobar e cantar, e fez se joglar entre los ciutadins…”

page 310 note 16 Chabaneau, pp. 220–221.

page 310 note 17 Chabaneau, p. 259: “… e volgron lo far clerc e manderon lo a scola a Monpeslier. E quant ill cuideron que ampares letras, el amparet cansos … e com aquel saber s'ajoglari … Et estet lonc temps en Gascoingna paubres, cora a pe, cora a caval.”

page 310 note 18 Chabaneau, pp. 269–270.

page 310 note 19 Chabaneau, pp. 265–266.

page 311 note 20 For example, Peire da Valeira, a contemporary and countryman of Marcabrun, Chabaneau, p. 217; Hugo de la Bachellerie, from Limousin, Chab., p. 251; Aimeric de Sarlat and Giraut de Salignac, of Périgord, Chab., pp., 242–43; Guilhelm de la Tour, who was said to have made his razos, or explanations, longer than the songs themselves, Chab., p. 258; Albertet Cailla, who was not a good composer but was loved by his neighbors, Chab., p. 283; Pistoleta, who sang for Arnaut de Mareuil and who later settled down in Marseilles and became a rich merchant, Chab., p. 289; Ozier, a jongleur who spent most of his time in Lombardy, Chab., p. 296; Guilhelm Magret, who was a very good performer but lost all he made at dice and in evil company at taverns, Chab., p. 296; Folquet de Romans and Albertet, both well known as jongleurs,' Chab., p. 301; and finally two Provençal jongleurs in Italy, Peire de la Mula at Montferrato, Chab., p. 312, and Maistre Ferrari of Ferrara, Chab., p. 318.