an art quintessentially expressive of aristocratic values. The virtues claimed for the second were its
greater technical prowess (or so it was argued, since as the Roman poet Horace famously remarked, the
greatest art is the art that conceals art) and its power to create a sense of community and shared values.
Within the narrow social context of troubadour culture this is hardly to be looked upon as a “democratic”
ideal. It might better be regarded as a feudal piety.
These arguments were given an early, classic exposition in a tenso by Guiraut de Bornelh, a recent
convert to trobar clar, in mock debate with a fellow troubadour, Raimbaut d’Aurenga (called Linhaure),
who remained loyal to trobar clus. The melody, unfortunately, has not survived. In somewhat abridged
translation, the dispute runs as follows:
- I should like to know, G. de Bornelh, why you keep blaming the obscure style.
Tell me if you prize so highly that which is common to all? For then would all be
equal. - Sir Linhaure, I do not take it to heart if each man composes as he pleases; but
judge that song is more loved and prized which is made easy and simple, and do not
be vexed at my opinion. - Guiraut, I do not like my songs to be so confused, that the base and good, the
small and great be appraised alike; my poetry will never be praised by fools, for they
have no understanding nor care for what is more precious and valuable. - Linhaure, if I work late and turn my rest into weariness to make my songs
simple, does it seem that I am afraid of work? Why compose if you do not want all to
understand? Song brings no other advantage. - Guiraut, provided that I produce what is best at all times, I care not if it be not
so widespread; commonplaces are no good for the appreciative—that is why gold is
more valued than salt, and with song it is just the same.^3
For the troubadours, these opposing sentiments were not so much passionately held convictions as
postures; many poets cultivated both styles depending on the occasion and saw no compelling reason to
choose between them. And yet the debate continues. It will run through this book like a red thread,
steadily gathering force and urgency as the audience for art changes (and inexorably widens) over time.
For one of the enduring characteristics of “high art,” and a perennial source of contention, is the fact that it
is produced by and for political and social elites. That, after all, is what makes it “high.” But then there
can be many reasons for hiding meaning, and not all of them are proud.
Nor is original purpose an inherent limitation on meaning or value. Art devised to serve the interests
or the needs of a feudal aristocracy must be serving other interests now, if it is serving any interests at all.
And yet trobar clus and trobar clar, by other names and in other forms, are with us still. Each still has its
ardent defenders and its adamant detractors. Their subtexts and agendas are many. There is no more
consequential theme in the history of art.
The art of the troubadours lasted about two hundred years. It declined together with the Provençal
culture that sustained it. Many of the later troubadours fled southward, into present-day Spain and Italy, at
the time of the so-called Albigensian Crusade (from 1208). This was a drawn-out, devastating war of
aggression waged by the northern French against the courts of Languedoc under pretext of a religious
campaign. (The ostensible targets were the so-called Cathari or Albigenses, adherents of an old
philosophical tradition called Manicheism that had been declared a heresy by the Catholic Church.)
Guiraut Riquier (ca. 1230–ca. 1300), the last of the troubadours, found employment at the court of
Alfonso X of Castile, which became a major center of vernacular courtly and devotional song in the later