(Raimbaut d’Aurenga)
(ca. 1130–1173)
Raimbaut III, count of Orange, was a TROUBADOUR from the region of Provence. He was lord of the town of Omelas, west of Montpellier, and held the castle of Cortezon between Orange and Avignon. Here he kept a lavish court, and here he also seems to have entertained other troubadours, like MARCABRU, PEIRE D’ALVERNHE, and GIRAUT DE BORNELH, with whom he composed a famous TENSON, or DEBATE POEM, on styles of poetry, Giraut defending the clear and easy TROBAR LEU style, and Raimbaut rather arrogantly defending the difficult, closed style called TROBAR CLUS.He does not care, Raimbaut says in that poem, if his songs are widely known, for “cheap abundance never/had great worth:/that is why you set a higher price on gold than salt,/and it is the same with any song” (Goldin 1973, 205, ll. 31–35). It is said that Raimbaut squandered much of his inheritance on gambling and high living. When he died Giraut wrote a lament for him that mourned the death of folly and games of dice. Early tradition also linked him romantically with the famous trobairitz, the COUNTESS OF DIA, but that connection is likely to be spurious. In fact very little is known with certainty about his life. His poetry, however, reveals a man of high intelligence, admirable technical skill, a taste for irony, and a persistent sense of humor. He had little sympathy with the conventions of the COURTLY LOVE lyric, nor, as an aristocrat, did he need to follow convention for the sake of a patron. Like GUILLAUME IX, the first troubadour and another nobleman, he has a mischievous streak. Sometimes he parodies the conventions of love, or adopts a persona that ironically undercuts courtly attitudes. As Simon Gaunt points out, Raimbaut’s poems are often GAPS, or boasting poems, or can be seen as inverse gaps, in which he boasts about his sexual deprivation, pushing the courtly tradition, as Gaunt says, to “its most absurd limits” (Gaunt 1989, 141). In his “Escotatz, mas no say qus’ es,” for instance, Raimbaut parodies the frustrated lover and manages to stand religion on its ear as well by asking his lady for sex in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost:
It’s been a good four months—that’s more
than a thousand years to me, yes,
since she promised me and swore
to give me what I long for most.
Lady, my heart is your prisoner,
therefore sweeten my bitterness.
Help me, God, in nominee Patriis et Filli et
Spiritus sancti! Madam, how will it all turn out?
(Goldin 1973, 181, ll. 22–28)
There is much variety as well as humor in Raimbaut’s 39 extant lyrics. Though he defends the trobar clus style (possibly learned from Marcabru) in his early verse, he seems to have composed more in the clearer trobar leu style later on, perhaps through Giraut’s influence. Later he seems to have become interested in the highly ornate trobar ric style,with its complex rhyme schemes and rare vocabulary. In this he may have influenced the technical virtuosity of ARNAUT DANIEL.
Bibliography
■ Gaunt, Simon. Troubadours and Irony. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
■ Goldin, Frederick, ed. and trans. Lyrics of the Troubadours and Trouvères: An Anthology and a History. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973.
■ Pattison,Walter T. The Life and Works of the Troubadour Raimbaut d’Orange. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1952.
Encyclopedia of medieval literature. 2013.