") was an Italian

Italian people

The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...

 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....

 (trovatore) in Lombardy

Lombardy

Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...

 in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. He was one of the earliest Occitan troubadours in Italy. He is famous for his sirventes

Sirventes

The sirventes or serventes is a genre of Occitan lyric poetry used by the troubadours. In early Catalan it became a sirventesch and was imported into that language in the fourteenth century, where it developed into a unique didactic/moralistic type...

.

Among his preserved works are the sirventes

Sirventes

The sirventes or serventes is a genre of Occitan lyric poetry used by the troubadours. In early Catalan it became a sirventesch and was imported into that language in the fourteenth century, where it developed into a unique didactic/moralistic type...

 D'un serventes faire and La Paz de Costanza. Peire wrote the first encouraging the communes of northern Italy to resist German overlorship, which has been dated to as early as 1157. However, Peire incites the Lombard cities by harkening back to the fate of the baronage of Apulia

Apulia

Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...

 who had resisted the Germans earlier:

Lombart, beus gardaz

Que ja non siaz

Pejer que compraz,

Si ferm non estaz!

De Pulla'us sovegna

Dels valens baros

Qu'il non an que pegna

For de lor maisos;

Gardaz non devegna

Autretal de vos!

This has led some to date it to 1194, when Henry VI

Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

Henry VI was King of Germany from 1190 to 1197, Holy Roman Emperor from 1191 to 1197 and King of Sicily from 1194 to 1197.-Early years:Born in Nijmegen,...

 conquered Sicily

Kingdom of Sicily

The Kingdom of Sicily was a state that existed in the south of Italy from its founding by Roger II in 1130 until 1816. It was a successor state of the County of Sicily, which had been founded in 1071 during the Norman conquest of southern Italy...

 or as late as 1225, when the city-states of northern Italy renewed the old Lombard League

Lombard League

The Lombard League was an alliance formed around 1167, which at its apex included most of the cities of northern Italy , including, among others, Crema, Cremona, Mantua, Piacenza, Bergamo, Brescia, Milan, Genoa, Bologna, Padua, Modena, Reggio Emilia, Treviso, Venice, Vercelli, Vicenza, Verona,...

 in opposition to Henry's son, Frederick I of Sicily, Holy Roman Emperor

Holy Roman Emperor

The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...

.

Writing in Lombardy in the Occitan tongue under the nominal sovereignty of the German monarch, Peire took the opportunity to poke fun at the German language

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....

, writing in a famously debated passage:

Granoglas resembla [la gent d'Alemanha]

En dir(e): Broder, guaz;

Lairan, quant s'asembla

Cum cans enrabjaz.


Frogs resemble [the people of Germany]

In saying: Brother, watz!

The sound of which as much resembles

Dogs barking.

The German word "watz" is said to be an interjection

Interjection

In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...

 resembling the clinking of glasses and proposes a toast.

Peire also had ties to Sardinia

Sardinia

Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

. He dedicated his D'un serventes faire to a senhal Malgrat de toz, which has been identified as Barisone II of Arborea

Barisone II of Arborea

Barison II or Barisone II was the giudice of Arborea, a kingdom of Sardinia, from 1146 to 1186. He was the son of Comita II and Elena de Orrubu. His reign was groundbreaking in Sardinian history...

, who was crowned King of Sardinia at Pavia

Pavia

Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...

 by the Emperor Frederick I in return for 4,000 silver marks from Genoa

Republic of Genoa

The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....

, but was later deposed. Peire later had contact with the cultured Judge of Cagliari, Salusio IV

William I of Cagliari

William I was the giudice of Cagliari from 1188 to his death.William was one of the greatest of medieval Sardinian giudici...

.