Peire d'Alvernhe
Encyclopedia
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....
(active 1149–1170) with twenty-one or twenty-four surviving works. He composed in an "esoteric" and "formally complex" style known as the trobar clus
Trobar clus
Trobar clus , or closed form, was a complex and obscure style of poetry used by troubadours for their more discerning audiences, and it was only truly appreciated by an elite few. It was developed extensively by Marcabru, but by 1200 its inaccessibility led to its disappearance...
. He stands out as the earliest troubadour mentioned by name in Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
's Divine Comedy.
Life
According to his vidaVida (Occitan literary form)
Vida is the usual term for a brief prose biography, written in Old Occitan, of a troubadour or trobairitz.The word vida means "life" in Occitan languages. In the chansonniers, the manuscript collections of medieval troubadour poetry, the works of a particular author are often accompanied by a...
, Peire was a burgher's son from the Diocese of Clermont. As testified to by his vida, his popularity was great within his lifetime and afterwards. Said to be handsome, charming, wise, and learned, he was "the first good inventor of poetry to go beyond the mountains" (i.e. the Pyrenees
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...
) and travel in Spain. He passed his time in Spain at the court of Alfonso VII of Castile and that of his son Sancho III
Sancho III of Castile
Sancho III was King of Castile and Toledo for one year, from 1157 to 1158. During the Reconquista, in which he took an active part, he founded the Order of Calatrava...
in 1157–1158. It is possible that he was present at a meeting between Sancho of Castile, Sancho VI of Navarre
Sancho VI of Navarre
Sancho VI Garcés , called the Wise , was the king of Navarre from 1150 until his death in 1194....
and Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona in 1158. The author of his vida, editorialising, considers his poems to have been the greatest until Giraut de Borneill and his melodies to have been the best ever. The anonymous biographer records that his information about Peire's later years comes from Dalfi d'Alvernha. It has been suggested that Dalfi was the author of the vida.
According to an accusation of fellow troubadour Bernart Marti
Bernart Marti
Bernart Marti was a troubadour, composing poems and satires in Occitan, in the mid twelfth century. Nine or ten of his poems survive; they show that he was influenced by his contemporaries Marcabru and knew Peire d'Alvernha, whom, in one poem, he accused of abandoning holy orders...
, Peire entered upon a religious life early, but quit Holy Orders
Holy Orders
The term Holy Orders is used by many Christian churches to refer to ordination or to those individuals ordained for a special role or ministry....
for a life of itinerant minstrelsy. He may be the same person as the Petrus d'Alvengue and Petrus de Alvernia who appear in surviving documents from Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
dated to the year 1148. Peire appears to have cultivated the favour of the ruling family of the Crown of Aragon
Crown of Aragon
The Crown of Aragon Corona d'Aragón Corona d'Aragó Corona Aragonum controlling a large portion of the present-day eastern Spain and southeastern France, as well as some of the major islands and mainland possessions stretching across the Mediterranean as far as Greece...
, and his poems contain allusions to the counts of Barcelona and Provence. Perhaps he was following the fashion of the lords of Montpellier of his time, who, though vassals of the Count of Toulouse, were partial to the Aragonese. At the same time Peire did garner the support of Raymond V of Toulouse
Raymond V of Toulouse
Raymond V was count of Toulouse from 1148 until his death in 1194.He was the son of Alphonse-Jordan. When Alphonse died in the Holy Land in 1148, the county of Toulouse passed to his son Raymond, at the time 14 years old....
. In his wanderings he may have spent some time at Cortezon, at the court of the minor nobleman and troubadour Raimbaut d'Aurenga.
Peire lived a long into old age, and performed penance before dying.
Poetry
Peire wrote mostly cansosCanso (song)
The canso is a song style used by the troubadours. It consists of three parts. The first stanza is the exordium, where the composer explains his purpose. The main body of the song occurs in the following stanzas, and usually draw out a variety of relationships with the exordium. The canso can end...
, which, as his vida points out, were called vers in his day. He also invented the "pious song" and wrote six such poems dealing with serious themes of religion, piety, and spirituality. Even in his more profane works, however, one can detect the moralising influence of 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...
, with whom in whose old age he was possibly acquainted. One of Marcabru's late songs is a satire of an early one by Peire d'Alvernhe. Marcabru's complexity was also imparted to Peire.
On the topic of courtly love
Courtly love
Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....
, Peire, who had abandoned the religious life early, came to abandon the claims of fin'amor ("fine love") later. When Peire espouses love of the Holy Ghost over cortez' amors de bon aire ("well-spirited courtly love") he is the only troubadour to ever use the term "courtly love". Marcabrunian influence can be seen here too. In a later Crusade song
Crusade song
A Crusade song is any vernacular lyric poem about the Crusades. Crusade songs were popular in the High Middle Ages: 106 survive in Occitan, forty in Old French, thirty in Middle High German, two in Italian, and one in Old Castilian. The study of the Crusade song, which may be considered a genre of...
, Peire defended Marcabru's abandonment of the carnal amar. He advocates gran sabers ni purs ("great and pure wisdom") through bon'amor ("good love"). Along with Bernart Marti, Bernart de Venzac
Bernart de Venzac
Bernart de Venzac was an obscure troubadour from Venzac near Rodez in the Rouergue. He wrote in the Marcabrunian style, leaving behind five moralising pieces and one religious alba...
, and Gavaudan
Gavaudan
Gavaudan was a troubadour and hired soldier at the courts of both Raymond V and Raymond VI of Toulouse and later on in Castile. He was from Gévaudan, as his name implies...
, Peire was part of a "Marcabrunian school". Nonetheless, as mentioned above, Bernart Marti attacked Peire for claiming superior spiritual status:
- E quan canorgues si mes
- Pey d'Alvernh'en canongia,
- a Dieu per que.s prometia
- entiers que peuys si fraysses?
- Quar si feys, fols joglars es
- per que l'entiers pretz cambia.
Peire's aesthetic philosophy esteemed the "whole song" (vers entiers), which is what he termed his completed pieces, denigrating all others' works as incomplete and imperfect. Nonetheless, from Marcabru Peire picked up a notion of the trobar braus as a legitimate format for "rough" themes.
One anonymous song of the Fifth Crusade
Fifth Crusade
The Fifth Crusade was an attempt to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering the powerful Ayyubid state in Egypt....
, Lo Senhre que formet lo tro, written between Spring 1213 and July 1214 has been attributed to Peire d'Alvernhe, but the dating makes that impossible. In a 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...
between a Bernart (probably Bernart de Ventadorn
Bernart de Ventadorn
Bernart de Ventadorn , also known as Bernard de Ventadour or Bernat del Ventadorn, was a prominent troubador of the classical age of troubadour poetry. Now thought of as "the Master Singer" he developed the cançons into a more formalized style which allowed for sudden turns...
) and an unnamed Peire, perhaps Peire d'Alvernhe, the latter argues that "it is not becoming for ladies to make love-pleas; it is fitting that men plead with them and beg their mercy."
By far, however, Peire's most famous work is Chantarai d'aquest trobadors, a sirventes written at Puivert
Puivert
Puivert is a commune in the Aude department in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France.-History:In the 12th century a castle stood on this site which had strong links to both Cathars and troubadours...
(Puoich-vert) in which he ridicules twelve contemporary troubadours ("a poetical gallery") and praises himself. It has been conjectured that this piece was first performed in the presence of all twelve of the ridiculed poets in late Summer 1170 while an embassy bringing Eleanor, daughter of Henry II of England
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...
, to her Spanish goorm Alfonso VIII of Castile
Alfonso VIII of Castile
Alfonso VIII , called the Noble or el de las Navas, was the King of Castile from 1158 to his death and King of Toledo. He is most remembered for his part in the Reconquista and the downfall of the Almohad Caliphate...
sojourned at Puivert. If the above date is not accepted, it can be probably dated later than 1165—since Giraut de Borneill was only active from c.1170—and certainly before 1173, when Raimbaut d'Aurenga died. The Monge de Montaudon
Monge de Montaudon
The Monge de Montaudon , born Pèire de Vic, was a nobleman, monk, and troubadour from the Auvergne, born at the castle of Vic-sur-Cère near Aurillac, where he became a Benedictine monk around 1180...
later composed a parody of Peire's satire, Pos Peire d'Alvernhl a chantat.
Chantarai d'aquest trobadors is near universally regarded today as playful parody and not as a work of serious literary or artistic criticism. The obscurity of most of the ridiculed poets and the attack upon such personal characteristics as appearance and manners has been cited in support of the view that the parody was done in the presence of all twelve victims, further supporting the conclusion that the parody was good-natured. Besides the criticism of a personal nature, many of the criticism launched by Peire allude to the works of the others, notably those of Bernart de Ventadorn and Raimbaut d'Aurenga.
Music
Peire's vida acclaimed him an accomplished singer and the greatest composer of melodies for verses yet known. Peire's famous Chantarai d'aquest trobadors contains a final tornadaTornada (Occitan literary term)
In Occitan lyric poetry, a tornada refers to a final, shorter stanza which is addressed to a patron, lady, or friend. They often contain useful information about the piece's composition and the troubadour's circle....
indicating its musical nature, though its own melody has not survived:
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Only two of Peire's melodies still exist: one of Dejosta.ls breus jorns e.ls lonc sers, a canso, and another of his tenso. Modern notations of both are provided in Aubrey, The Music of the Troubadours.
On the whole, Peire's music is more melisma
Melisma
Melisma, in music, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note.-History:Music of ancient cultures used...
tic than that typical of the troubadours and it mimics the trobar clus style of his lyrics.
External links
- Peire d'Alvernha: Complete Works at Trobar. org