by Tim Rayborn
Anyway, his songs were very critical of loose morals and poor behavior, and one of the vidas records that despite having generally poor musical skills, he became well-known enough to attract attention. He said harsh things about some of the lords in the Gascony area, and for this, they executed him (the manuscript does not record how). This may all be fanciful invention from a later time, but his words certainly were bristly and could have rubbed people the wrong way. In one song, addressed to a Sir Audric (Seigner n’Audric), he declares:
Marcabru knows all of your habits and all of your ideal ways of life:
Stuffing your face, and flouting and welcoming harlots.
When you, alone, are well fed,
Great bluster is certainly not far away from you
Sir Audric can’t have been happy about being immortalized like this.
In another song, Lo vers comens (“I start the verse”), Marcabru offers a more general condemnation of the lack of courtliness and virtue:
Cowardice carries the key and casts prowess into exile.
Hardly will you find that father and son are equals;
I do not hear, except in Poitou, that one cultivates prowess.
He prophesied right and wrong who said we will end up in reversal,
The lord being a serf and the serf a lord: they already do that.
The buzzards of Anjou have done so. What a fall!
He was an enthusiastic supporter of the Reconquista, the military efforts to retake southern Spain from Muslim control. He wrote a famous song (which survives with music) that begins with Pax in nomine Domini (“Peace in the name of the Lord”) and contains the usual propaganda that such songs do when supporting military campaigns. However, he also managed to get in a dig at the French:
The French are degenerates if they refuse to support God,
For I have exhorted them.
So yes, he was rather talented at offending people, which may well have been enough to do him in.
Bertran de Born (1140s–ca. 1215)
With his head in his hands
Bertran was a minor noble but a very important troubadour who lived in the Limousin (not limousine) region of what is now south-central France. Like William IX before him, he was a titled man who did more than a bit of dabbling in music and poetry and produced some rather splendid results (though only one of his poems survives with music, an all-too-common fate for these early works). Also like William, he was a rather reprehensible fellow, though he did end his life as a monk, probably trying to atone for his ways.
Having developed quite a taste for battle and war as a young man, he actively supported the conflict that raged between members of the greatest family of the time—that of Henry II, King of England, and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine. Indeed, he encouraged their oldest son, also named Henry, to revolt and fight against his father and younger brother Richard (the Lionhearted). When the young Henry was killed it created an awkward situation for Bertran, but he managed to get into Richard’s good graces with some kissing up and pledges of support. In this promise, however, he was a little mixed. When Richard delayed in leaving for his crusade (known to history as the Third Crusade, 1189–1192), Bertran rebuked both Richard (now King of England) and Philip, King of France. He composed a song praising the courage of those in the Holy Land fighting their Muslim enemies, essentially saying “get on with it” while he himself bravely stayed at home, of course.
Bertran reveled in describing fighting and scenes of bloody carnage. One of the best examples of this is his song Be.m plai lo gais temps de pascor, or “The joyful springtime pleases me.” Yes, that doesn’t exactly sound like the opening to a war epic, and that’s what makes it so strange. The first verse is given over to spring pleasantries like flowers, birds, and greenery, and it concludes with the joy of seeing pavilions and armored cavalry. Wait, what?
Bertran goes on to describe how cheerful spring is the perfect time to make peasants run for their lives, to besiege castles, beat down walls, and see lords leading the attack. It gets worse. The poet Ezra Pound provides a translation of the next part:
We shall see battle axes and swords, a-battering colored haumes and a-hacking through shields at entering melee; and many vassals smiting together, whence there run free the horses of the dead and wrecked. And when each man of prowess shall be come into the fray he thinks no more of (merely) breaking heads and arms, for a dead man is worth more than one taken alive.
I tell you that I find no such savor in eating butter and sleeping, as when I hear cried “On them!” and from both sides hear horses neighing through their head-guards, and hear shouted “To aid! To aid!” and see the dead with lance truncheons, the pennants still on them, piercing their sides.
After that he ends the work, complaining that there is too much peace about. One suspects that there is some tongue-in-cheek going on here, but this sort of war-mongering is also found in some of his other poems. Despite this approval of battle, he later became a peaceful monk. However, there was at least one writer who sought to punish him for his violent philosophy, not just with insults, but also with a literary eternal damnation of a rather nasty sort.
The great Italian poet Dante Alighieri (ca. 1265–1321) was repulsed by Bertran’s war lust and his seeming delight in stirring up trouble between kings and families. For the sin of encouraging this strife, Dante placed him in the Eighth Circle of Hell in his Inferno (Canto XXVIII, the “Sowers of Discord”), saying that Bertran’s soul walked about headless, holding his head by the hair like a lantern. In this sorry state, Bertran bemoans his condition and confesses his sins, saying his head is severed because he caused the ties between father and son, brother and brother to be severed, and that justice has been done. And there the narrator and his guide, Virgil, leave him, condemned to walk in that wretched state forever. Well, all right, then.
Richard I (1157–1199)
A lion undone by an ant
Richard the Lionhearted, the very essence of chivalry! The brave king of England went on crusade, fought his noble opponent Saladin to a draw in the Holy Land, and while he was away, managed to have his kingdom nearly stolen by his brother, the vile Prince John. Only Robin Hood and his Merry Men stood between John and his evil plans. Richard ultimately returned to claim his throne, pardon Robin and the outlaws of Sherwood Forest, and set things right in England.
It’s the stuff of legends, then and now. The Robin Hood stories and Richard’s place in them are a part of the collective myth of Western Civilization, popular for centuries. There is even a statue of Richard on horseback, with sword drawn as if leading an army, outside of the Houses of Parliament in London. Richard’s deeds were spoken and sung of in his own time, so they must be true, right?
Well yes, somewhat, but with some very big qualifications. In addition to being King of England, Richard was the Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Anjou, Count of Nantes, Overlord of Brittany, and Lord of Ireland. That’s a lot of titles! How would that all fit on a check? But the presence of all those non-English honors says something very important: being the great-grandson of that jerk, William IX, Richard’s heart belonged to Aquitaine, and he really wasn’t interested in England at all, except as his personal twelfth-century ATM. He used its considerable resources to finance his many war campaigns against various foes in France (a separate country from its modern western regions back then). Though he was born in Oxford, he spent only about ten months of his ten-year reign (1189–1199) in England, finding the place to be damp and dreary—some folks might say that not much has changed. He didn’t even speak English. Actually, none of the monarchs in England spoke English as their native language, from William the Conqueror in 1066 until Henry IV, who usurped the throne in 1399, but that’s a whole different story.
Richard had a bad temper and a reckless fearlessness in battle (hence his nickname); he loved a good fight and was a warrior king through and through—it was ultimately his undoing. So why is he listed here? Because he was
also passionate about music and was a gifted songwriter himself. One of his pieces survives with music, and it’s a real beauty.
He went on crusade in the year 1190 (having vowed to do so in 1187) and had a number of adventures along the way. His success in the Holy Land was limited. The goal was to retake Jerusalem, which had fallen to Saladin’s forces in 1187, but Richard never achieved that. After a stalemate with Saladin he left the Middle East, vowing that he would never set foot in Jerusalem unless it was as its conqueror. However, he had made a number of enemies along the way back to his own continent. In order to get home safely, he had to sneak into Europe via the back door. Unfortunately for him, he was caught in Germany, imprisoned, and held for a huge ransom that his mother and family were obliged to pay to secure his release. This money was raised from, you guessed it, the taxpayers of England. Good King Richard wasn’t so popular with the English in the 1190s.
It was during this time that he is said to have written the song Je nuns hon pris that survives with music. It has a beautiful melancholy quality, despite the less-than-humble content. The song begins:
No prisoner will ever speak his mind fittingly
Unless he speaks in grief
But, for consolation, he can make a song.
I have many friends, but their gifts are poor.
It will be their shame if, for want of ransom,
I stay a prisoner for these two winters.
A legend appeared in the thirteenth century (and has persisted into modern times) that Richard’s trusty minstrel, Blondel, went in search of his master’s place of imprisonment. He heard of one castle where an important man was held, but though Blondel stayed there for the whole winter, he could not learn this man’s identity. At last he passed by Richard’s dungeon (other stories place Richard in a tower), and Richard, seeing him through a window, sang a verse from a song they had co-written. Hearing this song, Blondel knew he had found Richard, so he sent news back to Eleanor.
It’s a popular story with little basis in fact. There was a trouvère (the northern French equivalent of a troubadour) living at about that time named Blondel de Nesle, whom many would love to connect with this story, but the evidence is scant.
In any case, Eleanor paid the ransom and Richard did go back to England in 1194 for a short time to set in order some of John’s screw-ups—and this is possibly one source for some of the Robin Hood legends. However, he happily returned to the continent soon after to begin waging wars again. He continued this life for another five years before meeting his end in a rather ridiculous way.
He was besieging a poorly defended castle called Chalûs-Chabrol. On the evening of March 25, 1199, Richard was walking the castle perimeter, without his armor, to see how preparations were going for the siege. He noticed a young man standing on one of the walls and holding a frying pan as a makeshift shield, which gives you a good idea of how well the place was being defended. Just then, a crossbow bolt struck him on the left shoulder. A surgeon was brought in to remove it, but he did a poor job and tore up Richard’s wound badly. It quickly became gangrenous, and Richard knew he would die. There are different versions of what happened next. In one, Richard asked that the one who fired the shot be brought to him. He was a boy claiming that Richard had killed his father and brothers, and that he wanted revenge. Richard showed mercy, forgave him, and insisted that he be let go and given money for his suffering.
Richard died on April 6, 1199, in the arms of his mother, having willed his kingdom to John (and what a disaster that proved to be!). The boy he forgave didn’t fare well, after all: a mercenary captain named Mercadier had the young man skinned alive and hanged as soon as Richard had died; so much for chivalry.
Richard’s body parts were scattered into various resting places, a gross if not uncommon practice of the time, with his entrails buried where he died, his heart buried at Rouen in Normandy, and the rest of him buried at the feet of his father Henry II at Fontevraud Abbey in Anjou. Thus ended the life of the musician-king.
In the thirteenth century, the Bishop of Rochester claimed that Richard had spent thirty-three years in purgatory being cleansed of his sins and was admitted into heaven in March 1232. How the bishop arrived at these exact figures is unknown, but he was pretty confident about it.
The Monk of Montaudon (fl. 1193–1210/11)
Let me tell you what annoys me …
The Monk of Montaudon is a singularly curious figure in the history of medieval music. Possibly also known as Pèire de Vic, he was a noble who became a Benedictine monk around 1180, but who seems to have enjoyed deviating from monastic duties and activities. In fact, he suffered the fate that often befell younger male children of noble families who could not inherit their father’s lands and titles: he was offered to a monastery. Such sons had no say in the matter and were understandably resentful.
Despite his enforced monastic vocation (or maybe even because of it), he showed a remarkable talent for vernacular poetry and music in the troubadour genre. Indeed, his work attracted the attention of the nobility and even led to patronage by some of his aristocratic admirers. The gifts they showered on him allowed him to benefit his monastery so much that he was released from his regular duties to serve King Alfonso II of Aragon (presumably to keep all that good money rolling in). This is what his biography relates, but the truth may be that he just left the order and re-entered the secular world. One of his poems mentions that he had “abandoned God for flesh.”
While much of his writing is in the usual troubadour poetic forms of the time, his big claim to fame was his satirical songs and use of the form known as the enueg, or “annoyance,” song. These gleefully sarcastic works are essentially long lists of things that he apparently got riled up about, in a seemingly random and nonsensical order. For example, he writes in Be m’enueia (“I find annoying, do you hear me?”):
I can’t stand a long wait,
Or meat when it’s badly cooked or tough,
Or a priest who lies and perjures himself
Or an old whore who is past it
And—by Saint Delmas—I don’t like
A base man who enjoys too much comfort;
And running when there’s ice on the road,
Or fleeing, armed on horseback
Annoys me, as does hearing dicing maligned.
This goes on for nine verses; you get the idea. Among his other satirical works are two poems describing a debate in heaven between icons and painted ladies (i.e., practitioners of the world’s oldest profession) over who has the right to use facial paint and for how long:
Another time I was at a meeting in Heaven, by chance
The statues were complaining about ladies who paint themselves
I saw them complaining to God about women who improve their complexions
And make their skin shine with paint that should be used on icons.
After much deliberation, God observes that such makeup attracts unwanted attention:
Monk, this painting makes them endure many blows down below
And do you think it pleases them when men make them bend over?
The Monk replies that he “cannot fill their holes” but asks that God spare one lady in particular, Elise of Montfort, who never used makeup or offended icons.
In the second song, St. Peter and St. Lawrence finally set the amount of time that each group (ladies and icons) is allowed to paint themselves, which is quite decent of them. However the ladies have no intention of going along with these new guidelines:
Never were Saint Peter or Saint Lawrence
Obeyed in this matter of the agreement which they caused to be made
With these old women who have longer tusks than a wild boar.
They’ve done worse—haven’t you heard—
They’ve sent up the price of saffron so much
That as far away as Palestine the pilgrims have been talking about it:
I must indeed lodge a complaint about this.
We often think of the Mid
dle Ages as a stuffy, repressed time of heavy censorship and the silencing of ideas and joy, and to be sure, there were many instances of such things. But the mere fact that this kind of poetry could be written—by a monk who got away with it no less—shows that, at least in southern France, there was a more tolerant society willing to poke fun at things and be irreverent. It was a society that would soon meet a brutal and tragic end.
Folquet de Marselha (fl. 1179–1195, d. 1231)
Kill them all, let God sort them out
Folquet de Marselha, also known as Fulk, was a troubadour of some renown with a wealthy background as a merchant. He was well-known and admired for his songs, but sometime around 1195, he had a kind of religious conversion experience that caused him to renounce his life as a troubadour, enter the monastery of Thoronet in Provence, and drag his wife and sons into the monastic life along with him. They don’t seem to have had any say in this; it was as bad as being offered up as a younger son! So deep was his devotion that he rapidly advanced in standing, and by 1205 he was elected Bishop of Toulouse.
One of his songs, Vers Dieus, showed his religious inclinations even in his song-writing days:
God, give me the knowledge and wisdom to learn your holy commandments,
To hear them, to understand them;
And may your pity save me and protect me from this world of earth
Let it not destroy me with itself.
