Eustache le Peintre de Reims or Eustache de Rains (fl.

Floruit

Floruit , abbreviated fl. , is a Latin verb meaning "flourished", denoting the period of time during which something was active...

 1225–40) was a 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...

 from 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....

, possibly a painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 (peintre), but that may just be a family name. Seven poems of his are preserved in surviving chansonnier

Chansonnier

A chansonnier is a manuscript or printed book which contains a collection of chansons, or polyphonic and monophonic settings of songs, hence literally "song-books," although some manuscripts are so called even though they preserve the text but not the music A chansonnier is a manuscript or...

s.

Eustache addressed one of his songs, Amours, coment porroie chancon faire, to Guigues IV, Count of Forez and Nevers. Guigues participated in the Crusade 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 1239 and died in 1241; Eustache's poem was probably written during this time.

All of Eustache's poems are in isometric

Isometre

Isometre is a music theory term describing the use of pulse without regular meter. See also: homorhythm. The music is currently used in the psalmsongs of the Orthodox Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, based on the rhythm made by Petrus Datheen , as well as some other churches....

 decasyllable

Decasyllable

Decasyllable is a poetic meter of ten syllables used in poetic traditions of syllabic verse...

s; stanza

Stanza

In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...

s are usually eight lines in length with two rhyme

Rhyme

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...

s. His melodies are simple, and recorded in bar form

Bar form

Bar form is a musical form of the pattern AAB.-Original Use:The term comes from the rigorous terminology of the Meistersinger guilds of the 15th to 18th century who used it to describe their songs and the songs of the predecessors, the minnesingers of the 12th to 14th century...

. He must have participated in puys

Puy (society)

A puy or pui was a society, often organised as a guild or confraternity, sometimes along religious lines, for the patronisation of music and poetry, typically through the holding of competitions...

, for his Force d'Amours me destraint et mestroie is labelled a chanson couronnée (crowned, i.e. prized, song) in one of the manuscripts.

Works

• Amours, coment porroie chancon faire
• Chanter me fait pour mes maus alegier
• Cil qui chantent de flour ne verdure
• Ferm et entier, sans fauser et sans faindre
• Force d'Amours me destraint et mestroie
• Nient plus que droiz puet estre sans raison
• Tant est Amours puissans que que nus die