Chardon de Croisilles or de Reims (fl. 1220–45) was an Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

 trouvère

Trouvère

Trouvère , sometimes spelled trouveur , is the Northern French form of the word trobador . It refers to poet-composers who were roughly contemporary with and influenced by the troubadours but who composed their works in the northern dialects of France...

 and possibly an Occitan troubadour

Troubadour

A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....

. He was probably from Croisilles

Croisilles

Croisilles is the name of several communes in France:*Croisilles, in the Calvados département*Croisilles, in the Eure-et-Loir département*Croisilles, in the Orne département*Croisilles, in the Pas-de-Calais département...

, but perhaps Reims

Reims

Reims , a city in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, lies east-northeast of Paris. Founded by the Gauls, it became a major city during the period of the Roman Empire....

. He is associated with the school of trouvères in and around Arras

Arras

Arras is the capital of the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. The historic centre of the Artois region, its local speech is characterized as a Picard dialect...

. Chardon wrote four chansons d'amour

Grand chant

The gran chan or, in modern French, chanson courtoise or chanson d'amour, often abbreviated chanson, was a genre of Old French lyric poetry devised by the trouvères. It was adopted from the Occitan canso of the troubadours, but scholars stress that it was a distinct genre...

, two jeux partis, and one partimen

Partimen

The partimen 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 in the form of a question and the two debate the answer, each taking up a different side. It was especially popular in poetic contests....

.

In two of his chansons Chardon represented Marguerite de Bourbon, the wife (from 1232) of Theobald I of Navarre

Theobald I of Navarre

Theobald I , called the Troubadour, the Chansonnier, and the Posthumous, was Count of Champagne from birth and King of Navarre from 1234...

, in acrostic

Acrostic

An acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message. As a form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aid memory retrieval. A famous...

s. Based on this and another internal reference to the castle of Monreal

Monreal

Monreal may refer to:*;Places* Monreal, Navarre, Spain* Monreal del Llano, a town in Cuenca* Monreal del Campo, a town in Aragón, Spain* Monreal, Masbate, Philippines* Monreal, Germany, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany*;People...

 near Pamplona

Pamplona

Pamplona is the historial capital city of Navarre, in Spain, and of the former kingdom of Navarre.The city is famous worldwide for the San Fermín festival, from July 6 to 14, in which the running of the bulls is one of the main attractions...

, whereat Theobald was staying in 1237, it is thought that Chardon joined Theobald's Crusade, which left for the Holy Land

Holy Land

The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...

 in 1237. Henry II of Bar

Henry II of Bar

Henry II of Bar alternately Henri II of Bar was a Count of Bar who reigned from 1214 to 1239. He died in Gaza while on Crusade.-Spouse and children:In 1219 he married Philippa de Dreux , the daughter of Robert II of Dreux....

, who adjudicated one of Chardon's jeux partis, also went on Crusade with Theobald.

All Chardon's French poems use pedes and cauda

Cauda

The Cauda is a characteristic feature of songs in the Conductus style of a cappella music which flourished between the mid-12th and the mid-13th century. The conductus style placed strict rules on composition, and some such rules were devoted to the cauda, which came at the penultimate syllable of...

: the chansons are decasyllabic, the jeux partis octosyllabic. His only surviving melodies, for Mar vit raison covoite trop haut and Rose ne lis ne me done talent, are non-repetitive. A fifth chanson, no longer ascribed to Chardon, Li departirs de la douce contree, is notable for the simplicity of its melody compared to the "floridity" of that of Rose ne lis.

A poet named Chardo wrote a partimen (the Occitan version of a jeu parti) with an otherwise unidentified poet named Uc. The rubric

Rubric

A rubric is a word or section of text which is traditionally written or printed in red ink to highlight it. The word derives from the , meaning red ochre or red chalk, and originates in Medieval illuminated manuscripts from the 13th century or earlier...

 La tenzo del chardo e den ugo ("The tenso

Tenso

A tenso is a style of Occitan song favoured by the troubadours. It takes the form of a debate in which each voice defends a position on a topic relating to love or ethics. Closely related genres include the partimen and the cobla exchange...

of [the] Chardo and of Lord Hugh") appears in the manuscript. While Chardo's half, N'Ugo, cauzetz, avans que respondatz, survives, Uc's poem has disappeared. Hermann Suchier was the first scholar to identify Chardo with Chardon, dating the partimen to c.1240, but he has not gone unopposed.