later Middle Ages were the rondeau, ballade, chant royal, chanson, sirventes, virelai, lai
lyrique, and pastourelle.
The earliest treatise to distinguish between quantitative and syllabic accentual verse
was by the Englishman Bede, De arte metrica (ca. 725). Other medieval treatises in Latin
were collected by Faral, especially those by Matthieu de Vendôme, Geoffroi de Vinsauf,
Gervais de Melkley, Evrard TAllemand, and Jean de Garlande). The first vernacular
work on versification was by the Catalan troubadour Raimon Vidal, the Razos de trobar
(ca. 1200). The most important collection of Provençal arts poétiques was the Leys
d’Amors, or Flors del gay saber (1341). The first treatise in French was the Art de dictier
(1392) of Eustache Deschamps. Important 15th-century treatises on versification were
collected by Langlois (Jacques Legrand, Baudet Herenc, Jean Molinet, and four
anonymous treatises). Also important in the development of verse forms are the Prologue
(1370) of Machaut’s Dit du vergier (ca. 1330) and the Intermedes lyriques of his Remede
de Fortune (ca. 1340). The theorist of the Grands Rhétoriqueurs was Jean Molinet, author
of the Art de rhétorique vulgaire (1493).
Lenora D.Wolfgang
[See also: ARTS DE SECONDE RHÉTORIQUE; BALLADE; CHANSON DE
GESTE; DESCHAMPS, EUSTACHE; FORMES FIXES; FRENCH LANGUAGE;
GRAND RHÉTORIQUEURS; HERENC, BAUDET; LAI-DESCORT; LEYS D’AMORS;
MACHAUT, GUILLAUME DE; MOLINET, JEAN; PASTOURELLE/PASTORELA;
RONDEAU; SESTINA; SIRVENTES; TROUBADOUR POETRY; TROUVÈRE
POETRY; VIRELAI]
Elwert, W.Theodor. Traité de versification française des origines a nos jours. Paris: Klincksieck,
1965.
Faral, Edmond. Les arts poétiques du XIIe et du XIIIe siècle. Paris: Champion, 1924.
Grammont, Maurice. Le vers français. 5th ed. Paris: Delagrave, 1964.
——. Petit traîté de versification française. Paris: Colin, 1965.
Kastner, Leon Emile. A History of French Versification. Oxford: Clarendon, 1903.
Langlois, Ernest. Recueil d’arts de seconde rhétorique. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1902.
Lote, Georges. Histoire du vers français. 6 vols. Paris: Boivin, 1949–51, Vols. 1–3: Le Moyen âge;
and Aix-en-Provence: Université de Provence, Vols. 4–6: Le XVIe et le XVIIe siècle.
Tobler, Adolphe. Le vers français ancien et moderne, trans. Karl Breul and Léopold Sudre. Paris,
1885.
VERSUS
. Monophonic and polyphonic songs with both sacred and secular texts, written in
significant numbers from the late 11th through the early 13th century, especially in
southern France. The versus belonged to the late-medieval flourishing of rhythmic,
accentual Latin poetry that affected several genres of liturgical song, and they
undoubtedly influenced the development of troubadour song as well. When sacred versus
became important in the north, most notably in Paris in the late 12th and early 13th
centuries, they were called “conductus” and were frequently set polyphonically.
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