The biographies of the troubadours, which throw an unpar alleled light upon mediaeval literary life, may perhaps be most conveniently treated in connection with the courts at which each group of them flourished. It is in Poitou that we trace them first, where Guilhem, count of Poitiers, who reigned from 1087 to 1127, was both the earliest patron and the earliest poet of the school. The daughter of Guilhem X. carried on her grandfather's tradi tion. This was Eleanor of Aquitaine, at whose court Bernart of Ventadour rose to eminence. This poet seems to have been the son of a kitchen-scullion in the castle of Eble II., viscount of Ventadour. Eble, himself a poet, was early impressed by the talents of his serving-boy, and trained him to be a poet. The beautiful wife of Eble, the viscountess Agnes of Montlucon, encouraged the suit of the youthful Bernart ; indeed, they had secretly loved one another from their childhood. The poems which this passion inspired are among the most admirable lyrics which have come down to us from the middle ages. The husband at last discovered the intrigue and exiled Bernart from Ventadour. The troubadour took shelter with Eleanor of Aquitaine, who became in 1152 the queen-consort of Henry II. of England, him self a protector of poets.
Henry, eldest son of Henry II., was the patron of another eminent troubadour, Bertran de Born, viscount of Hautefort in Perigord. Dante saw Bertran de Born in hell, carrying his severed head before him like a lantern, and compared him with Achito phel, who excited the sons of David against their father. This referred to the subtle intrigues by which the troubadour had worked on the jealousy existing between the three sons of the king of England. The death of Prince Henry (1183) produced from Bertran de Born two planks, which are among the most sincere and beautiful works in Provencal literature. The poet was immediately afterwards besieged in his castle of Hautefort by Richard Coeur de Lion, to whom he became reconciled and whom he accompanied to Palestine. He grew devout in his old age, and died about 1205.
There were poetesses in the highly refined society of Provence, and of these by far the most eminent was Beatrix, countess of Die, whose career was inextricably interwoven with that of an other noble troubadour, Rambaut III., count of Orange, who held his court at Courthezon, a few miles south of Orange. Rambaut said that since Adam ate the apple no poet had been born who could compete in skill with himself, but his existing lyrics have neither the tenderness nor the ingenuity of those of his illustrious lady-love. The poems of Beatrix are remarkable for a simplicity of form rare among the poets of her age. Marca brun (c. 1120-95), from whose pen some 4o poems survive, was an innovator and a reformer; to him the severity of classical Provencal style is mainly due, and he was one of the first to make use of that complex form which was known as the trobar clus. He posed as a violent misogynist—"I never loved and I was never loved." Marcabrun expresses great affection for "that sweet
poet," Jaufre Rudel, prince of Blaye, whose heart turned, like the disk of a sunflower, towards the Lady of Tripoli. Little else than that famous adventure is known about the career of this ultra-romantic troubadour, except that he went as a crusader to the Holy Land, and that his surviving poems have so mystical a tone that Jaufre Rudel has been suspected of being a religious writer who used the amorous language of his age for sanctified purposes, and whose "Princess Far-away" was really the Church of Christ. Peire d' Alveona (Peter of Auvergne), like Marcabrun, was of mean birth, son of a tradesman in Clermont-Ferrand, but he was handsome and engaging, and being the first troubadour who had appeared in the mountain district, "he was greatly honoured and feted by the valiant barons and noble ladies of Auvergne." It is believed that Peire's poems were produced be tween 1158 and 1180. He flourished at the court of Sancho III., king of Castile, and afterwards at that of Ermengarde, viscountess of Narbonne.
It is doubtless owing to the repeated praise which was given by Dante, in the Inferno and elsewhere, to Arnaut Daniel that this name remains the most famous among those of the troubadours. He was a knight of Riberac, in Perigord, and attached himself as a troubadour to the court of Richard Coeur de Lion. Dante calls Daniel the "smith," the finished craftsman, of language, and it is evident that it was the brilliant art of the Provencal's elabo rated verse which delighted the Italian. His invention of forms of verse (see SESTINA), in particular, dazzled the great Italian. Dante was curiously anxious to defend Arnaut Daniel as being a better artist than his immediate rival, Giraut de Bornelh; critical posterity, however, has reversed this verdict. Giraut laments, in his poems, the brutality of the age and the lawlessness of princes. A troubadour of the same district of south-western France was Arnaut de Mareuil, to whom is attributed the intro duction into Provencal poetry of the amatory epistle.
Peire Vidal of Toulouse was the type of the reckless and scatterbrained troubadour. His biographer says that he was "the maddest man in all the world." His early life was a series of bewildering excursions through France and Spain. At Marseilles he made a mortal enemy of Azalals, the wife of Viscount Barral de Baux, from whom he stole a kiss (I i8o). He committed a thousand follies; among others, being in love with a lady called Louve (she-wolf), the poet dressed himself as a wolf, and was hunted by a pack of hounds in front of the lady's castle. Folquet of Marseilles was a troubadour of Italian race, the son of a merchant of Genoa; Dante met Folquet in paradise, and gives an interesting notice of him. It is in the sirventes of Folquet that critics have seen the earliest signs of that decadence which was so rapidly to destroy Provencal poetry.