Brugnolo, Furio. Plurilinguismo e lirica médiévale da Raimbaut de Vaqueiras a Dante. Rome:
Bulzoni, 1983.
Rostaing, Charles, and Jean B.Barbaro. Raimbaut de Vaqueiras. L’Isle sur la Sorgue: Scriba, 1989.
RAIMON DE MIRAVAL
(ca. 1160-after 1229). Born near Carcassonne, the troubadour Raimon de Miraval ruled
over the small castle of Miraval. Protected by Raymond VI of Toulouse, whom he
addressed as “Audiart,” Miraval lost his castle to French troops and fled to Catalonia
after the Battle of Muret (1213). A favorite of the Catalan lord and troubadour Uc de
Mataplana, who directed a sirventes against Raimon criticizing him for the uncourtly
dismissal of his wife, Miraval died in Lérida sometime after 1229. His surviving work
includes thirty-seven cansos and five sirventes. His clear statements about the mutual
responsibilities binding him and his lady, Mais d’Amic, earned him the respect of other
poets, notably Raimon Vidal, who considered him the ultimate authority on love.
Elizabeth W.Poe
[See also: TROUBADOUR POETRY]
Raimon de Miraval. Les poésies du troubadour Raimon de Miraval, ed. Leslie T.Topsfield. Paris:
Nizet, 1971.
RAIS, GILLES DE
(1404–1440). Gilles de Laval, lord of Rais (now Retz) in Brittany, and marshal of France
from 1429, was born at Champtocé castle in Anjou and executed at Nantes on October
26, 1440, after a spectacular trial. His parents were heirs to the important lordship of Rais
in southern Brittany as well as that of Marchecoul, part of the Laval family holdings and
those of the La Suze branch of the Craon family. Gilles’s wife, Catherine de Thouars,
was the heiress of important lands in Poitou. While still in his teens, therefore, Gilles de
Rais was one of the richest men in Europe.
Already well known as a brutal warrior and a man of extravagant tastes, Gilles de Rais
rose to favor at the court of Charles VII thanks to the influence of his cousin Georges de
La Trémoille, and he was named marshal of France in 1429, when he was not yet twenty-
five years old. In that year, he served on campaigns with Jeanne d’Arc. Toward 1432,
Gilles withdrew to his estates, surrounded himself with unsavory henchmen, and began
abducting, sexually abusing, and murdering local children. More than thirty of his victims
are known; their number may have approached 150.
When Gilles extended his extravagant behavior to alchemy and to practices that
looked suspiciously like witchcraft, the duke of Brittany and the bishop of Nantes
decided to move against him, perhaps also with a view to confiscating his strategic
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