Raoul de Beauvais 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 northeast of Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. His period of activity is estimated based on his works being clumped with those of other mid-13th-century trouvères in the 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. Six songs are attributed to him, with three also being (probably wrongly) attributed to Jehan Erart

Jehan Erart

Jehan Erart was a trouvère from Arras, particularly noted for his favouring the pastourelle genre. He has left behind eleven pastourelles, ten grand chants, and one serventois....

. They exhibit great variety of poetical and musical form.

All six songs contain refrain

Refrain

A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...

s. Both Quant la sesons renouvelle and El mois de mai par un matin (also attributed to Erart) are pastourelle

Pastourelle

The pastourelle is a typically Old French lyric form 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...

s. Especially interesting is the contrast between stanza and refrain in Deles un pre verdoiant (also attributed to Erart). Each four-line stanza contains three open cadences (every line but the last), but the three-line refrain uses closed cadences. Melodically, however, both the opening lines of the stanzas and of the refrain are similar. Besides these three pieces, Raoul also wrote:

• Au dieu d'amors ai requis un don
• Remembrance de bone amour
• Puis que d'Amours m'estuet chanter (also attributed to Erart)