Capela et mongue barbut,
E lauzengier bee esmolut.
"These vex me greatly, if I may say so, language when it is base servility, and a man who wishes too high a place (at table) and a charger which is put to drawing carts. And, by my hope of salvation, I am vexed by a young man who bears too openly a shield which has never received a blow, by a chaplain and monk wearing beards and by the sharp beak of the slanderer." The monk's satire upon other troubadours is stated by himself to be a continuation of that by Peire d'Auvergne; the criticism is, as might be expected, personal. Two tensos deal with the vanities of women, especially the habit of painting the face: in one of them the dispute proceeds before God as judge, between the poet and the women: the scene of the other is laid in Paradise and the interlocutors are the Almighty and the poet, who, represents that self-adornment is a habit inherent in female nature. In neither poem is reverence a prominent feature.
One of the most extraordinary figures in the whole gallery of troubadour portraits is Peire Vidal, whose career extended, roughly speaking, from 1175 to 1215. He was one of those characters who naturally become the nucleus of apocryphal stories, and how much truth there may be in some of the fantastic incidents, in which he figures as the hero, will probably never be discovered. He was undoubtedly an attractive character, for he enjoyed the favour of the most distinguished men and women of his time. He was also a poet of real power: ease and facility are characteristics of his poems as compared with the ingenious obscurity of Arnaut Daniel or Peire d'Auvergne. But there was a whimsical and fantastic strain in his character, which led him often to conjoin the functions of court-fool with those of court poet: "he was the most foolish man in the world" says his biographer. His "foolishness" also induced him to fall in love with every woman he met, and to believe that his personal attractions made him invincible.
Peire Vidal was the son of a Toulouse merchant. He began his troubadour wanderings early and at the outset of his career we find him in Catalonia, Aragon and Castile. He is then found in the service of Raimon Gaufridi Barral,[24] Viscount of Marseilles, a bluff, genial tournament warrior and the husband of Azalais de Porcellet whose praises were sung by Folquet of Marseilles. It was Barral who was attracted by Peire's peculiar talents: his wife seems to have tolerated the troubadour from deference to her husband. Peire, however, says in one of his poems that husbands feared him more than fire or sword, and believing himself irresistible interpreted Azalais' favours as seriously meant. When he stole a kiss from her as she slept, she insisted upon Peire's departure, though her husband seems to have regarded the matter as a jest and the troubadour took refuge in Genoa. Eventually, Azalais pardoned him and he was able to return to Marseilles. Peire is said to have followed Richard Coeur de Lion on his crusade; it was in 1190 that Richard embarked at Marseilles for the Holy Land, and as a patron of troubadours, he was no doubt personally acquainted with Peire. The troubadour, however, is said to have gone no farther than Cyprus. There he married a Greek woman and was somehow persuaded that his wife was a daughter of the Emperor of Constantinople, and that he, therefore, had a claim to the throne of Greece. He assumed royal state, added a throne to his personal possessions and began to raise a fleet for the conquest of his kingdom. How long this farce continued is unknown. Barral died in 1192 and Peire transferred his affections to a lady of Carcassonne, Loba de Pennautier. The biography relates that her name Loba (wolf) induced the troubadour to approach her in a wolf's skin, which disguise was so successful that he was attacked by a pack of dogs and seriously mauled. Probably the story that an outraged husband had the troubadour's tongue cut out at an earlier period of his life contains an equal substratum of truth. The last period of his career was spent in Hungary and Lombardy. His political sirventes show an insight into the affairs of his age, which is in strong contrast to the whimsicality which seems to have misguided his own life.
Guillem de Cabestanh (between 1181 and 1196) deserves mention for the story which the Provençal biography has attached to his name, a Provençal variation of the thirteenth century romance of the Châtelaine de Coucy.[25] He belonged to the Roussillon district, on the borders of Catalonia and fell in love with the wife of his overlord, Raimon of Roussillon. Margarida or Seremonda, as she is respectively named in the two versions of the story, was attracted by Guillem's songs, with the result that Raimon's jealousy was aroused and meeting the troubadour one day, when he was out hunting, he killed him. The Provençal version proceeds as follows: he then took out the heart and sent it by a squire to the castle. He caused it to be roasted with pepper and gave it to his wife to eat. And when she had eaten it, her lord told her what it was and she lost the power of sight and hearing. And when she came to herself, she said, "my lord, you have given me such good meat that never will I eat such meat again." He made at her to strike her but she threw herself from the window and was killed. Thereupon the barons of Catalonia and Aragon, led by King Alfonso, are said to have made a combined attack upon Raimon and to have ravaged his lands, in indignation at his barbarity.
The Provençal biography, like the romance of the Châtelain de Coucy, belongs to the thirteenth century, and the story cannot be accepted as authentic. But the period of decadence had begun. By the close of the twelfth century the golden age of troubadour poetry was over. Guiraut de Bornelh's complaints that refinement was vanishing and that nobles were growing hard-hearted and avaricious soon became common-places in troubadour poetry. The extravagances of the previous age and the rise of a strong middle and commercial class diminished both the wealth and the influence of the nobles, while the peace of the country was further disturbed by theological disputes and by the rise of the Albigeois heresy.
CHAPTER VI
THE ALBIGEOIS CRUSADE
The feudal society in which troubadour poetry had flourished, and by which alone it could be maintained, was already showing signs of decadence. Its downfall was precipitated by the religious and political movement, the Albigeois Crusade, which was the first step towards the unification of France, but which also broke up the local fiefs, destroyed the conditions under which the troubadours had flourished and scattered them abroad in other lands or forced them to seek other means of livelihood. This is not the place to discuss the origin and the nature of the Albigeois heresy.[26] The general opinion has almost invariably considered the heretics as dualists and their belief as a variation of Manicheism: but a plausible case has been made out for regarding the heresy as a variant of the Adoptionism which is found successively in Armenia, in the Balkan peninsula and in Spain, and perhaps sporadically in Italy and Germany. Whatever its real nature was, the following facts are clear: it was not an isolated movement, but was in continuity with beliefs prevalent in many other parts of Europe. It was largely a poor man's heresy and therefore emerges into the light of history only when it happens to attract aristocratic adherents or large masses of people. It was also a pre-Reformation movement and essentially in opposition to Roman Catholicism. Albi was the first head-quarters of the heresy, though Toulouse speedily rivalled its importance in this respect. The Vaudois heresy which became notorious at Lyons about the same time was a schismatic, not a heretic movement. The Vaudois objected to the profligacy and worldliness of the Roman Catholic clergy, but did not quarrel with church doctrine. The Albigenses were no less zealous than the Vaudois in reproving the church clergy and setting an example of purity and unselfishness of life. But they also differed profoundly from the church in matters of doctrine.