Vernacular Song

Question 1

Chansonnier/”song-book”

Answer 1

A book/manuscript that contains a selection of songs, or polyphonic/monophonic settings of songs

Question 2

Chansonnier St Germain (trouvère) does not rely on a specific motif
Eg there is a 3-note group of a falling 2nd>falling 3rd, but this only occurs once in the book
This occurs in 30 songs in l’Arsenal and 6 times in Cangé

Answer 2

Ian Parker 1979

Question 3

St Germain contains 352 lyric songs, mostly in French

Answer 3

Only less than half are notated

Question 4

St Germain- ‘belongs to the central tradition of trouvère song’ in ‘textual and melodic composition’

Answer 4

Ian Parker 1979

Question 5

St Germain is striking for a trouvère composition, because it contains lots of lacunae (extended passages where no notes are played)

Answer 5

Ian Parker 1979

Question 6

Argues that St Germain is unique for its early date (explains why only half is notated?); many manuscripts are relatively later

Answer 6

Raynaud (early 1400s)

Question 7

St Germain- ‘rich and complex oral tradition’, ‘modest and everyday use’, may have been a performance instead of royal library copy

Answer 7

Ian Parker 1979

Question 8

Features of St Germain manuscript- no illuminations, ‘frequent erasures and crossings out’, blank spaces filled by another scribe who used sweeps on uprights when copying

Answer 8

Ian Parker 1979

Question 9

Scribal error in St Germain

Answer 9

Monophonic song ‘A l’entrada del tens clar’- also appears as one of the voices in a 3-part conductus in the Notre Dame manuscripts.
This Notre Dame version is a tone higher- notation error?
Explanation- scribes of both manuscripts copied from a faulty source

Question 10

Falsa musica

Answer 10

Errors arising in manuscripts from copying, variation etc

Question 11

Evaluation- St Germain

Answer 11

We still need to consider the authenticity of the many accidentals in St Germain (there were flats inserted to ‘correct’ tritones) by investigating the inks used to copy
St Germain likely was a ‘haphazard collection’, for a ‘private collector’ before it was made into a royal copy, which has now been lost

Question 12

The troubadours and trouvères

Answer 12

Lyric-poets/poet-musicians in France, 12th and 13th centuries

Question 13

Troubadours

Answer 13

South of France, wrote in Provencal

Question 14

Trouvères

Answer 14

North of France, wrote in French

Question 15

Timeline

Answer 15

Troubadours’ early songs > 100 years > Trouvères

Question 16

Troubadours- ‘earliest and most significant exponents of…music and poetry in medieval Western vernacular culture’

Answer 16

Stevens 2001

Question 17

460 troubadours, 2600 surviving poems (but only 1/10 had melodies)

Answer 17

Pillet and Carstens 1933

Question 18

Pillet and Carstens’ ‘Bibliographie’ (1933)

Answer 18

Lists all the known troubadours
Considered an important reference work as it includes an anthology of poems by 122 poets

Question 19

Troubadours’ social status in 19th century (Stevens 2001)

Answer 19

Seen as romantics in 19th century, but later on, more ‘careful’ and ‘realistic’ view by scholars
This realistic view is that the troubadour was ‘serious, well-educated and highly sophisticated’ as a ‘verse-technician’
‘Well placed in courtly society’

Question 20

Middle Ages romanticised troubadours- ‘highly romanticised fictions’ of their lives from surviving poems

Answer 20

Troubadour Jaufre Rudel
Fictitious account- nobleman and prince, composed songs with good music and bad poetry
Recovered sense of hearing and smell as he saw his love interest, the countess
Reflects how music and poetry are combined in courtly love, fin’amors

Question 21

Fin’amors

Answer 21

Ideal love, 12th century trope
Troubadours’ ‘distinctive contribution… to Western literary culture’

Question 22

Modern term ‘courtly love’

Answer 22

Coined by Gaston Paris, 19th century
A more nuanced understanding between medieval literary love and Middle Ages’ ‘changing social and ecclesiastical structures of love and marriage’ (Stevens 2001)
Meaning fin’amors is not ‘exclusively literary’ but ‘cultural’

Question 23

Concepts central to love in troubadour poetry

Answer 23

Refinement/being a ‘worthy lover’
Longing/unattainable women
Secretiveness
‘Social and personal benefits of love’
‘Tension and contradiction’- ‘sacred/profane’, ‘idealism/messy social realities’
Love being the ‘source of all goodness’- ‘quasi-religious’
Women and power

Question 24

Women and power in troubadour poetry

Answer 24

Different types of power ascribed to women
Because trobairitz had an ‘exalted…definition’ despite their ‘context of female suppression’
However, some scholars argue that the troubadours worked in ‘self-contained masculine circles’, where women were instead ‘excluded’
(Stevens 2001)

Question 25

Critical approaches to vernacular song/poetry

Answer 25

19th-20th centuries- attention to the genesis of troubadour lyric and what experiences they conveyed Recently- less focus on origins of medieval attitudes, 'fresh examination of the social and historical contexts' (Stevens 2001)

Question 26

Recent scholarship- less focus on origins/more on contexts, examples

Answer 26

Bloch and Duby Huchet and Cholakian Gruber Zink and Kay All of this has turned scholars away from 'formalism as an end in itself'

Question 27

Bloch and Duby

Answer 27

Marxist approach, feudal terms/class-based views to look at poetry; poetry to unattainable female desires was for 'younger...disaffected aristocratic sons' (Stevens 2001)

Question 28

Huchet and Cholakian

Answer 28

Psychoanalytical approach, saw poetry as an expression of 'male anxiety'- 'loss of social and erotic control', 'inter-male rivalry' (Stevens 2001)

Question 29

Zink and Kay

Answer 29

See the "subject" of troubadour lyric as a 'complex, shifting rhetorical position', shifting between 'personal' and the 'general' (Stevens 2001)

Question 30

Gruber

Answer 30

Investigates intertextual relationships between songs and groups of authors, 'semantic, metrical, and musical terms' (Stevens 2001)

Question 31

Motifs in troubadour love poetry

Answer 31

Love and courtesy Idolatry of the lady, 'service' of love Power of the lady Joy of love Love as creative inspiration

Question 32

Genres- created from the troubadour love motifs

Answer 32

Vers (c.1100-1150 troubadour songs) Post-1150s: Canso, Tenso, Descort

Question 33

Canso

Answer 33

Courtly love song Occitan lyrics- meaning 'predominantly serious content and high style' Usually have 5/6/7 stanzas, with one or more shorter tornados Have some basic rhyme schemes, some involving repetition/different schemes within stanzas

Question 34

Tenso

Answer 34

Songs in debate form, 2 named participants, but not always joint compositions Peirol- 'Quant amors trobet partit'- debate between the poet and Love

Question 35

Descort

Answer 35

A "discordant" song Individual stanzas 'disagreeing and variable in rhyme, melody...and in languages'

Question 36

Style in troubadour poetry

Answer 36

Self-conscious Mostly strophic (except descort) Stanzaic- modern analyses describe using rhyme/syllables

Question 37

The trouvères (Stevens 2001)

Answer 37

French form of the word troubadour 'Earliest surviving view of the troubadours'- reactionary group, had the historical position to analyse, parody and reinvent them However, mostly discussed as a 'footnote' to the troubadours

Question 38

The language of the trouvères

Answer 38

Their French was a 'collection of related, regional languages' Champagne, Normandy, Picardy, England etc

Question 39

Social status of the trouvères

Answer 39

Poet-musician, usually of 'high birth'- eg Thibaut IV was King of Navarre Some were 'jongleurs'- 'professional instrumentalist, singer, entertainer' However, unclear distinction between the poet-musician and jongleur Muset was a jongleur, but became known as poet-composer due to his talent (Stevens 2001)

Question 40

Links between troubadours and trouvères

Answer 40

Fine amour- trouvères' version of fin'amors- learnt directly from the troubadours Meaning their repertories were not completely 'distinct'- there were chansons in both Occitan and French However, compared to troubadour poetry, trouvères' have more sense of public mixing with the social and personal (Stevens 2001)

Question 41

Themes in trouvère poetry/song

Answer 41

Like the troubadours, dominated by references to fine amour Can turn to parody, self-mocking Above all for courtly 'social entertainment' 'The poet-lover's eloquence and elegance' but keeps 'commonplace feeling'- eg common genres like Pastourelle, Lai

Question 42

Common trouvère genres

Answer 42

Pastourelle Sung and spoken forms eg the Lai

Question 43

Refrain-chanson

Answer 43

Unique to the trouvères Strophic repetition of music was broken into verses, inserted refrains; this was unlike the troubadours

Question 44

Chanson de toile

Answer 44

Unique to trouvères 'Courtly, mock-popular song', which was not actually popular (Stevens 2001)

Question 45

Religious/serious chansons

Answer 45

Trouvères Crusade songs and songs to the Virgin De Coincy was a pioneer

Question 46

Words and music in troubadour and trouvère songs

Answer 46

Rhythm- greatest debate, because of idiosyncratic medieval notation, presented in diverse ways; ambiguous medieval theoretical writing, many unresolved questions about form Define song by its text or melody? For later Italian troubadour chansonniers, there was no preparation for music, as it was circulated orally- song texts therefore had different values to 'compilers' and 'patrons'

Question 47

The trouvères' 'rhetoric', eg stanza patterns and rhymes, were 'artificial and calculated' but in a positive way

Answer 47

Dragonetti 1960

Question 48

Increasing literacy in the Middle Ages

Answer 48

Meant scribes could learn how to 'represent vernacular compositions in written form'- high and low art forms?

Question 49

Troubadours and trouvères did not see their art as 'self-sufficient' (Stevens 2001)

Answer 49

'Their verse achieved life mainly through the performance of the singer'

Question 50

Major sources of troubadour poetry

Answer 50

36 manuscripts and fragments from 13th-16th centuries Significant that 50 chansons are accompanied by music in multiple sources Many surviving troubadour manuscripts do not have melodies

Question 51

Major sources of trouvère poetry

Answer 51

24 manuscripts and fragments from the 13th-16th century More trouvère manuscripts than troubadour Most survive with music, but assumed that the poet and composer are the same person Divided into distinct families- eg by content, order of content, textual variants

Question 52

Trouvère- Arsenal poetry family

Answer 52

Contrasts with other families, because there are not many variants in the melodic readings Members of Arsenal were 'unquestionably copied from a common archetype' (Stevens 2001) In different families where there are variants- oral tradition

Question 53

Musical features of the troubadour/trouvère songs

Answer 53

'Richest modally constructed repertoire of the Middle Ages' Many songs have a melody which '[oscillates] between two centres, usually a whole tone apart' (focus on text?) Stock imagery matched with 'standard melodic outlines' Repetition Most works have balanced phrases/structures Musical structural dividing points only occur a line or rarely two earlier/later than the poem's corresponding point

Question 54

Cangé chansonnier

Answer 54

Chief source of information about trouvère rhythm There are symbols for longs and breves, but no distinguishing between notes occurring in ligatures

Question 55

Van der Werf- main function of melodies is to support the text The rhythm is constantly being reshaped to meet poetic demands

Answer 55

Stevens 2001

Question 56

Razos

Answer 56

Explain why a troubadour wrote a particular song, like a commentary Razos are some of the earliest prose text we have in Romantic languages

Question 57

Jaufre Rudel

Answer 57

Reputation as the troubadour poet of distant love His vida about falling in love and dying in the countess' arms seems fictitious He was in the Second Crusade of 1147 Vida claims he wrote many poems with good music and poor words

Question 58

Bernart de Ventadorn

Answer 58

Important early troubadour Early 12th century Vida- humble origins, he was a foot soldier, mother was a baker/servant However, this is told satirically by his student in his vida, which could reveal his high status More melodies survived than any other 12th century poet 4 of his songs are contradicted (reused by other composers) Other troubadour melodies were through composed, but he used ABABX form, pioneer of structure

Question 59

Bernart de Ventadorn, 'Can vei' (song)

Answer 59

Poet talks about his love interest and how she deceived him for not being what he wanted Compares himself to a lark flying towards the sun, unattainable Ending tornada- doom, she is not what he wanted but she controlled his life Slightly tonal- first and last note D, movement away and to this 'tonic' One of the first troubadours to do 'tonality'- this is modal, quite triadic, but not surely tonal Restrained and plain text No ligatures- moments of small flourishes only Reflects how the man is bound by his ideals of the woman

Question 60

Troubadour Manuscript H

Answer 60

Early manuscript, late 13th century 4 main scribes- collaborative 1st-all rounded 2nd- fidelity of text, corrections in margins 3rd- artistic, illuminations at the start (MS for rich benefactor) 4th- only adds an extra song at the end (owner?) Emphasis on tensos, unlike mainstream, link with collaborative process/debate As time passes, more layers of subjectivity about the MS, can there be a 'perfect'/complete edition?

Question 61

1880 onwards

Answer 61

Industrial Revolution- people looking for reasons based on technology and not God Means 19th century philologist readings demanded one single authentic meaning Adler- 'Musikwissenschaft', the science of music

Question 62

Text and music of MS studied as one

Answer 62

Because the music of manuscripts might have only staves and not music, due to oral tradition, so music was not written down If staves are empty, there was still potential for music to be written there

Question 63

Troubadour MS O

Answer 63

An important troubadour MS written for the King of Navarre More deluxe than MS X (St Germain) A typical deluxe MS for a king/local lord Age of narrative, finding 'one ultimate goal', researchers do not want to look for historic differences between X and O Meaning they would mostly look at the rhythm, as there were few rhythmic modes, determined using stems for value of the note length

Question 64

1976- Meg Begin published her edition of trobairitz poems, sparking many 'critical appraisals and analyses' Revival of Middle Ages women studies in late 19th century

Answer 64

Sankovitch 1999

Question 65

Women as 'domna' (Sankovitch 1999)

Answer 65

Function is 'mainly...the necessary object of the poet-lover's desire', 'passive and silent' Kristeva- the domna is the poet's 'mirror', because fin'amor 'holds only nothingness' for the other sex (woman?)

Question 66

Lack of research and attention to trobairitz (Sankovitch 1999)

Answer 66

Many anonymous texts, with 'linguistic implications' that women wrote them Little biographical information even on the women poets we know- only 5 women with vidas Zufferey- 'discrimination based on anonymity' Other critics- believe that some named trobairitz were 'fictitious'

Question 67

Trobairitz mainly write...

Answer 67

Cansos and tensos (only exist a few of each) One of these tensos is a conversation between two unnamed women, 'domna' and 'donzela' (female invisibility coming from the female writer?)

Question 68

Why is there disparity between women and men poets?

Answer 68

Some of the women's texts were not recorded at all- difficult to self-articulate and enter Occitanian culture like men But by 1170-1260, this was achieved, and women poets' 'expression' was considered 'dynamic' for the time This meant they broke from the 'circumscribed sphere of the domestic' (Sankovitch 1999)

Question 69

Why was the trobairitz' breakthrough into Occitanian culture possible?

Answer 69

The trobairitz seemed to have belonged to nobility Meaning they had a larger role in organising culture and audience However, still 'essentially voiceless' (Sankovitch 1999)

Question 70

How was trobairitz poetry different to male poetry?

Answer 70

Ferrante- 'specifically female rhetoric' Bec- 'psycho-poetic values' (fidelity, emotivity) over 'socio-poetic' ones (reputation, moderation, generosity) Sankovitch- courtly literature is made up of 'man-made notions' Meaning that the woman must take on the courtly role of the man, flip the mirror (Kristeva) and recreate herself in the man's view Female corporeality is presented as evil in the Middle Ages, but increasing number of female texts, where the women assert themselves against this mode of thinking (Sankovitch 1999)

Question 71

'Ar em' (Canso by Azalais de Porcairagues, trobairitz)

Answer 71

'obvious lack of thematic unity', 'fragmentation and incoherence' Conventional 'nature' opening depicting winter, where there is less procreation This is a metaphor for the trobairitz' suppressed creativity (they frequently used metaphors) Topic of 'assag' (sexual test) occurs twice, a test by the domna on the man, which Bec sees as a 'guarantee' of female power However, 'assag' is more about 'male accomplishments' (Sankovitch 1999)

Question 72

'Estat ai' (Canso by Contessa de Dia, trobairitz)

Answer 72

'Questions essential elements of the courtly code', by talking about loving a knight to excess, which is against moderation The husband figure is named instead of being unnamed in the masses of 'false flatterers' and 'jealous ones' This means she articulates her own pleasures and preferences This is unlike how men cause female erasure, and Contessa de Dia does not present the lover as an 'absent foil' (Sankovitch 1999)

Question 73

'Na Maria' (Canso by Bieiris de Romans, trobairitz)

Answer 73

Sexuality is explored, as it is a love poem addressed to a woman Role reversal- the female poet uses terms a troubadour would address a domna with This is done using unexpected literary schemes However, Bieiris de Romans knows that she has a feminine identity under the 'linguistic cross-dressing', by using the expected, she 'erases' the "manliness" of the poem (Sankovitch 1999)

Question 74

Trobairitz and tensos (dialogue/debate genre)

Answer 74

Tensos are 'clearly privileged' by the trobairitz compared to the troubadours Dialogue offers the woman 'ready access to the realm of song' (social status) This is because dialogue is 'situational', highly related to courtly conversations, and women were accepted in these 'patroness/hostess' roles (Sankovitch 1999)

Question 75

'Lombards volgr'eu eser' (Tenso between Lombarda and Bernart Arnaut)

Answer 75

Bernart woos Lombarda by pretending to submit to her, changing his name to Lombard Shows that she possesses him, but also links to his possession of properties in Lombardy. This objectifies the woman He mentions other women, Allamanda and Giscarda Lombarda confronts him with these women- bringing four extra 'mirrors' Her last mirror is used for self-reflection (without Bernart) All this means she '[makes] fun of hoary courtly topoi' (Sankovitch 1999)

Question 76

'Interest' in trobairitz 'follows the rising and falling tides of feminism' Current climate is 'in theory, pro-feminist'

Answer 76

Bruckner 1995

Question 77

Why did trobairitz studies receive special attention in the 1980s?

Answer 77

Because of Meg Bogin's "The Women Troubadours", which reproduced and translated 23 poems Before this, the last edition of the trobairitz as a group was 1946

Question 78

When were the trobairitz active?

Answer 78

Mid 12th to mid 13th century

Question 79

Gaudairenca (Trobairitz)

Answer 79

None of her poems survived Mentioned in two razos- how the troubadour/husband Raimon de Miraval argued 'there were too many poets in one home', divorced her (Bruckner 1995)

Question 80

Azalais d'Altier (Trobairitz)

Answer 80

She significantly self-titles, naming herself as the author of a poetic letter Here, she takes on a masculine, mediating role on behalf of a male lover who quarrelled with his lady (Bruckner 1995)

Question 81

Anonymous poems by trobairitz

Answer 81

Some named poets do not correspond to real women poets Eg- tenso between 'Na Carenza' and 'Na Alaisana Iselda' mentions 3 women instead of 2

Question 82

Some tensos by trobairitz were feigned

Answer 82

Shapiro (1981)- identifies 10 fictional tensos between male and female speakers, fictional dialogues between troubadours and anonymous women

Question 83

Why is the tenso important?

Answer 83

Shapiro (1981)- because the cans 'only offers one half of a potential dialogue', 'realises [the] potential in the interplay of debate and disagreement'

Question 84

Bruckner (1995)- argues that all ladies are domnas

Answer 84

Troubadour lyrics suggest that domnas are 'loved by troubadours' or 'loving in turn' 'Described using the same adjectives'- 'noble, beautiful, charming, educated', eg Garsenda (a trobairitz and powerful noble patroness)

Question 85

Social status of the trobairitz (Bruckner 1995)

Answer 85

Occitanian society (South) favoured women, and had 'economic and cultural expansion', meaning there was a significant group of trobairitz in the South (despite the troubadour lyric spreading across the Continent) 'Politically active and powerful women' eg Eleanor of Aquitaine and Ermengarde of Narbonne were 'exceptional' cases

Question 86

'All readers would agree' that trobairitz poetry is situated 'within the poetic system of the troubadours' They 'operate' and are 'conceived' by this 'masculine system'

Answer 86

Bruckner 1995

Question 87

Where does courtly love originate?

Answer 87

The troubadour canso (Gaunt 1995)

Question 88

Macarbru- a 'misogynistic satirist' (Gaunt 1995)

Answer 88

The writer is actually a woman, who 'attacks courtly troubadours', using the rhyme 'amador/amor/traitor', against dominant sexist narratives However, the song was preserved under the man Raimon Jordan's name, probably because the subject interested him Does this force men to look misogynistic?