The pastourelle is a typically 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...

 lyric form

Lyric poetry

Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...

 concerning the romance of a shepherdess. In most of the early pastourelles, the poet knight meets a shepherdess who bests him in a wit battle and who displays general coyness. The narrator usually has sexual relations, either consensual or rape

Rape

Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...

, with the shepherdess, and there is a departure or escape. Later developments moved toward pastoral poetry by having a shepherd and sometimes a love quarrel. The form originated with the 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....

 poets of the 12th century and particularly with the poet Marcabru

Marcabru

Marcabru is one of the earliest troubadours whose poems are known. There is no certain information about him; the two vidas attached to his poems tell different stories, and both are evidently built on hints in the poems, not on independent information.According to the brief life in MS...

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This troubadour form melded with goliard

Goliard

The Goliards were a group of clergy who wrote bibulous, satirical Latin poetry in the 12th and 13th centuries. They were mainly clerical students at the universities of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and England who protested the growing contradictions within the Church, such as the failure of the...

 poetry and was practiced in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Occitan until the Carmina Burana

Carmina Burana

Carmina Burana , Latin for "Songs from Beuern" , is the name given to a manuscript of 254 poems and dramatic texts mostly from the 11th or 12th century, although some are from the 13th century. The pieces were written principally in Medieval Latin; a few in Middle High German, and some with traces...

of c. 1230. In Spanish literature

Spanish literature

Spanish literature generally refers to literature written in the Spanish language within the territory that presently constitutes the state of Spain...

, the pastourelle influenced the serranilla, and fifteenth century pastourelles exist in French, German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, English, and Welsh

Welsh language

Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

. One short Scots example is Robene and Makyne

Robene and Makyne

"Robene and Makyne" is a short poem by the 15th-century Scottish makar Robert Henryson. It is an early example of Scottish pastourelle written in a form of ballad stanza and is almost unique of its kind. Very simple in structure and plot, yet highly compressed, multi-layered and open in possible...

. Adam de la Halle

Adam de la Halle

Adam de la Halle, also known as Adam le Bossu was a French-born trouvère, poet and musician, whose literary and musical works include chansons and jeux-partis in the style of the trouveres, polyphonic rondel and motets in the style of early liturgical polyphony, and a musical play, "The Play of...

's Jeu de Robin et Marion (the game of Robin and Maid Marion) is a dramatization of a pastourelle, and as late as Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...

 the pastourelle is referred to in book six of Faerie Queene. Child's ballads gives an example in The Baffled Knight

The Baffled Knight

The Baffled Knight or Blow Away the Morning Dew is Child ballad 112 , existing in numerous variants. A version is recorded in Thomas Ravenscroft's Deuteromelia with a matching tune, making this one of the few early ballads for which there is extant original music.-Synopsis:A knight meets a maid...

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