Bernart de Ventadorn

Bernart de Ventadorn (1130-1140 – 1190-1200), also known as Bernard de Ventadour or Bernat del Ventadorn, was a prominent troubador of the classical age of troubadour poetry. He is remembered for his mastery as well as popularisation of the "trobar leu" style, and for his prolific "cansos", which helped define the genre and establish the "classical" form of courtly love poetry, to be imitated and reproduced throughout the remaining century and a half of troubadour activity.

According to the troubadour Uc de Saint Circ, Bernart was possibly the son of a baker at the castle of Ventadour (Ventadorn), in today's Corrèze. Yet another source, a satirical poem written by a younger contemporary, Peire d'Alvernha, indicates that he was the son of either a servant, a soldier, or a baker, and his mother was also either a servant or a baker. From evidence given in Bernart's early poem, "Lo temps vai e ven e vire", he most likely learned the art of singing and writing from his protector, viscount Eble III of Ventadorn. He composed his first poems to his patron's wife, Marguerite de Turenne.

Forced to leave Ventadour after falling in love with Marguerite, he traveled to Montluçon and Toulouse, and eventually followed Eleanor of Aquitaine to England and the Plantagenet court; evidence for this association and these travels comes mainly from his poems themselves. Later Bernart returned to Toulouse, where he was employed by Raimon V, Count of Toulouse; later still he went to Dordogne, where he entered a monastery. Most likely he died there.

Bernart is unique among secular composers of the twelfth century in the amount of music which has survived: of his forty-five poems, eighteen have music intact, an unusual circumstance for a troubador composer (music of the trouvères has a higher survival rate, usually attributed to them surviving the Albigensian Crusade, which scattered the troubadours and destroyed many sources). His work probably dates between 1147 and 1180. Bernart is often credited with being the most important influence on the development of the trouvère tradition in northern France, since he was well known there, his melodies were widely circulated, and the early composers of trouvère music seem to have imitated him. Bernart's influence also extended to Latin literature. In 1215 the Bolognese professor Boncompagno wrote in his "Antiqua rhetorica" that "How much fame attaches to the name of Bernard de Ventadorn, and how gloriously he made "cansos" and sweetly invented melodies, the world of Provence very much recognises." ["Quanti nominis quanteve fame sit Bernardus e Ventator, et quam gloriosa fecerit canciones et dulcisonas invenerit melodias, multe orbis provincie reconoscunt. Ipsum ergo magnificentie vestre duximos conmendandum" (Boase, 5).]

On screen, Bernart was portrayed by actor Paul Blake in the BBC TV drama series "The Devil's Crown" (1978).

Bibliography

*Aubrey, Elizabeth (1996). "The Music of the Troubadours". Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0 253 21389 4.
*Boase, Roger (1977). "The Origin and Meaning of Courtly Love: A Critical Study of European Scholarship". Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 0 87471 950 X.
*Herman, Mark and Ronnie Apter, trans. (1999). "A Bilingual Edition of the Love Songs of Bernart de Ventadorn in Occitan and English: Sugar and Salt". Ceredigion: Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 0 7734 8009 9.
*Hoppin, Richard H. (1978). "Medieval Music". New York: W. W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-393-09090-6.
*Ippolito, Marguerite-Marie (2001). "Bernard de Ventadour: troubadour limousin du s-|XII|e: prince de l'amour et de la poésie romane". Paris: L'Harmattan. ISBN 2 74750 017 9.
*Lazar, Moshé, ed. (1966). "Bernart de Ventadour: Chansons d'Amour". Paris: Klincksieck.
*Merwin, W. S. (2002). "The Mays of Ventadorn." "National Geographic". ISBN 0 7922 6538 6.
*Roche, Jerome (1980). "Bernart de Ventadorn." "The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians", 20 vols., ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 1 56159 174 2.

External links

* [http://www.trobar.org/troubadours/bernart_de_ventadorn/ Bernart de Ventadorn: Complete Works] (in Occitan, with the extant melodies)

Notes