Raimon Vidal de Bezaudun
Encyclopedia
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
: Ramon Vidal de Besalú, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
: Raymond Vidal de Besaudun; c. 1196 – c. 1252) was a Catalan
Catalan people
The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
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....
from Besalù
Besalú
Besalú is a town in the comarca of Garrotxa, in Catalonia, Spain.The town's importance was greater in the early Middle Ages, as capital of the county of Besalú, whose territory was roughly the same size as the current comarca of Garrotxa but sometime extended as far as Corbières, Aude, in France....
. He is famous for authoring the first poetical tract in a Romance language (Occitan), the Razós de trobar (c. 1210). He began his career as a joglar and he spent his formative years at the court of Hug de Mataplana
Huguet de Mataplana
Huguet de Mataplana was a Catalan nobleman and poet. His name is also spelled Hug, Huc, Uc, or Uget....
, which he often recalls fondly in his poems and songs.
In the Razós, Raimon distinguishes the "parladura francesa" (French) from the "cella de Lemosin" (Occitan). He also discusses the art of the listener (li auzidor) and his responsibility to understand the troubadour works. Raimon's insistence that the audience understand what is sung and that they keep silent during its singing has been regarded as seminal in the history of classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
. To him, listeners have a responsibility to enquire about what they do not understand (which is "one of the wisest things in the world") and to be true to the quality of the work, praising greatness and condemning poor form. Vidal also took pains to argue for the superiority of lemosí (or Lemozi, i.e., Occitan) over other vernaculars, prompting the Florentine
History of Florence
Florence is a major historical city in Italy, distinguished as one of the most outstanding economical, cultural, political and artistic centres in the peninsula from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance.-Prehistoric evidence:...
poet Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
to write a De Vulgari Eloquentia
De vulgari eloquentia
De vulgari eloquentia is the title of an essay by Dante Alighieri, written in Latin and initially meant to consist of four books, but abandoned in the middle of the second. It was probably composed shortly after Dante went into exile; internal evidence points to a date between 1302 and 1305...
justifying the use of the Tuscan vernacular as opposed to the Occitan. The Razós ends with an Occitan-Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
glossary. Late in the 13th century, Terramagnino of Pisa wrote a condensed verse form of the Razós. Jofre de Foixà
Jofre de Foixà
Jofre de Foixà was a troubadour from Foixà in the Empordà, the second son of Bernard of Foixà.At a young age Jofre became a Franciscan and appears in that position when mentioned for the first time at Monzón in 1267...
wrote an expanded version, the Regles de trobar, for James II of Sicily.
In addition to the aforementioned tract, there are preserved several fragments of song lyrics and three narrative romans
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
. Among his most famous is So fo e·l temps qu'om era gais, which is fawning in its treatment of Raimon de Miraval
Raimon de Miraval
Raimon de Miraval was a troubadour and, according to his vida, "a poor knight from Carcassonne who owned less than a quarter of the castle of Miraval." Favoured by Raymond VI of Toulouse, he was also later associated with Peter II of Aragon and Alfonso VIII of Castile...
, an earlier troubadour. In the nova, Raimon presents two ladies as fighting over one knight. The nova or ensenhamen called Abril issi'e mays intrava, which also refers to Miraval (and to the three sons 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...
: Enricx
Henry the Young King
Henry, known as the Young King was the second of five sons of King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine but the first to survive infancy. He was officially King of England; Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou and Maine.-Early life:Little is known of the young prince Henry before the events...
, Richartz
Richard I of England
Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Nantes, and Overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period...
, and Jofrés), is an assessment of contemporary literature and one of the best descriptions of the joglar that we possess. Finally, the Castiagilós is much like a fable, which narrates the story of a jealous husband who is eventually convinced that his suspicions are baseless.
Vidal wrote at the height of the troubadours' popularity and as he himself said:
"all people wish to listen to troubadour songs and to compose (trobar) them, including Christians, SaracenSaracenSaracen was a term used by the ancient Romans to refer to a people who lived in desert areas in and around the Roman province of Arabia, and who were distinguished from Arabs. In Europe during the Middle Ages the term was expanded to include Arabs, and then all who professed the religion of Islam...
s, JewsJewsThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
, emperors, princes, kings, dukes, counts, viscounts, vavassours, knights, clerics, townsmen, and villeins."
Tota gens Crestiana, Juzeus e Sarazís, emperador, princeps, rei, duc, conte, vesconte, contor, valvasor e tuit autre cavailler e clergues borgés e vilanz.