I. PEIRE DE BERGERAC, BEL M’ES CANT AUG LO RESSO (329,1) (1)

 

The first of our three poems was inspired by a disinherited daughter’s claim to succeed her father. When William VIII, lord of Montpellier, died in 1202, he was survived by children of two wives. Eudoxia of Constantinople, whom he married first, had given him only a daughter, Mary, and had been repudiated in 1185 to make way for a certain Inés of the royal house of Castile. This second union produced several children, all obviously quite young in 1202. Despite his formal promise to Eudoxia that any child of theirmarriage, whether male or female, should inherit the lordship of the city after his death, William passed over Mary in his will, leaving Montpellier to his son William IX and its dependencies to his other children by Inés. Mary, like her mother, had already led a hard life: she lost her first husband by death, and in 1201 she was repudiated by the second, Count Bernard of Comminges. In 1204, however, fortune seemed to be preparing her for better things. Peter II of Aragon became interested in her, whether for love or as a potential heiress to extensive domains in southern France, and together they set out to vindicate her claim to Montpellier. The inhabitants of the city apparently welcomed her with open arms. In June, 1204, she was declared “seigneur” of the city; her half-brother fled with his mother and his siblings; and at some point in all this activity Mary herself became the wife of Peter II. “Les événements se sont déroulés à un rythme rapide, et nous ne connaissons aucun détail, ni leurs causes.” (2) One can nevertheless surmise the motives behind these incidents, and the emotions roused in Montpellier by Peter’s approach to claim it in his wife’s name.

Peire de Bergerac’s sirventes, written against this background, expresses warlike emotions reminiscent of Bertran de Born: he is glad to see the arrival of Peter’s army before Montpellier, in part because he evidently favors Mary’s cause, but also for a more selfish reason. War, he says, brings out the generosity of the rich nobles, while in time of peace they can think o nothing but resting and eating-activities in which he was evidently not invited to share. We know nothing about Peire de Bergerac (Bragairac in Provençal) beyond what he tells us in this, his only extant poem.

  

ATTRIBUTION: Peire de Bragairac, IKd.

VERSIFICATION: A sirventes of four coblas unissonans, with the rime scheme aabbcccdd (Frank 166,1). (3) All the lines have seven syllables, and the rimes are o, an, ais, os. A canso by Peire Vidal (364,34: Per ces dei una chanso), two coblas by Raimon de Miraval (?; 406,10a: Er avem n’Ait de Borbo), and an anonymous cobla (461,147: L’altrer fui a Calao) share the same scheme and the same rimes. Peire Vidal’s song doubtless served as a model for the others, since it is a more extensive composition and belongs to a loftier genre; the melody has not been preserved.

TEXT: That of I; but the choice between it and the almost identical version of K was largely arbitrary. I have not consulted d, which is apparently a copy of K. (4)

 

 

Notes:

1) This and all numerical designations applied to Provençal poems in this article are taken from Alfred Pillet-Henry Carstens, Bibliographie der Troubadours (Halle, 1933). This work will be referred to as Pillet-Carstens. (↑)

2) Jean Baumel, Histoire d’une seigneurie du Midi de la France, 1 (Montpellier, 1969), 232-233. (↑)

3) All numerical designations of rime schemes are taken from István Frank, Répertoire métrique de la poésie des troubadours, 2 vols. (Paris, 1953-1957). (↑)

4) Adolfo Mussafia, “Del codice estense di rime provenzali,” in Sitzungsberichte der kais. Akad. der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Klasse 55 (Vienna, 1867). (↑)