- Ricaut Bonomel
Ricaut Bonomel ("En Ricatz Honomel" in one
chansonnier ) was a Knight Templar andtroubadour in theHoly Land around the time of theEighth Crusade .Puckett, 844.] He was an outspoken critic ofCharles I of Naples and his attempts to secure a throne inItaly , and of the Papal policy which diverted funds intended for the Holy Land to other purposes. [Puckett, 873.] He was also a vocal critic of the European clergy who did not preach crusading.Bonomel's problem is not so much with the Italian crusades in general, but with the siphoning off of monies paid for the commuting of crusader vows to fund
Angevin ambitions in Italy when they should have been going to the Holy Land.Puckett, 874.] His sole surviving song, "Ir'e dolors s'es dins mon cor asseza", a "sirventes ", is acontrafactum of a "canso" byPeirol , "M'entencio ai tot'en un vers mesa". [Puckett, 878 n59.] Ricaut demonstrates a skilled portrayal of the emotions of frustration and anger. [Puckett, 878.] He employsreverse psychology in an effort to stoke fervour for crusading: the Holy Land is lost, Christianity is defeated, God is on the side of the pagans. It is a conscious play on the assumption implicit in many "chansons de geste " that divine approval is indicated by success on the battlefield.The poem can be dated to between the capture of the
Hospitaller castle ofArsuf toBaibars on29 April 1265 and that of the Templar fortress at Saphet in late July 1266. [ [http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/religion/monastic/ricaut.htm Nicholson.] ]Notes
ources
*Puckett, Jaye. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-7910%28200109%29116%3A4%3C844%3A%22NETTA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z "Reconmenciez novele estoire": The Troubadours and the Rhetoric of the Later Crusades."] "MLN", Vol. 116, No. 4, French Issue. (Sep., 2001), pp. 844–889.
*Throop, Palmer A. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0038-7134%28193810%2913%3A4%3C379%3ACOPCPI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E "Criticism of Papal Crusade Policy in Old French and Provençal."] "Speculum", Vol. 13, No. 4. (Oct., 1938), pp. 379–412.External links
*Ricaut Bonomel, "Ir'e dolors s'es dins mon cor asseza", translated by Helen Nicholson, at [http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/religion/monastic/ricaut.html The ORB: On-Line Reference Book for Medieval Studies.]
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