Literature in Frankish Greece 293
been removed, mutilating many pages. It has been argued that this disfigure-
ment happened early in the history of the songbook and this would fit with
the strong impression that the Chansonnier as originally conceived was for
some reason never fully realised.13 However, the briefest examination reveals
that the work was originally meant to be utterly splendid—a “sumptuous and
carefully designed collection”.14 On internal evidence alone, it was originally
created around 1255–60.
This Chansonnier is a significant example of a high medieval genre, the pres-
tige songbook collection of vernacular lyric. The work of the troubadours in
the south from the 11th century (writing in Occitan), followed by their north-
ern counterparts the trouvères (writing in French) in the 12th and 13th, had
given a new prestige to lyric composition in the vernacular and this reper-
toire was certainly known in written form as well as oral before the middle
of the 13th century. Vernacular songs had made an appearance in written
narrative genres as early as the first half of the 13th century, but they were
circulating in another written form of some kind by the middle of the same
century. Around 1250, however, there was a sudden and magnificent fashion
for compiling and creating much more ambitious works, the chansonniers—
beautifully presented collections of poems in French and in Occitan, often
along with their melodies. The chansonniers are clearly prestige pieces, state-
ments of wealth and status, and the fashion for them lasted well into the 14th
century. Some fifty chansonniers in all are extant.15
The vast majority of chansonniers feature either trouvère material in French
or troubadour material in Occitan, but just two contain a mixture of both and
the Chansonnier du Roi is one of these. Its bias is clearly towards the French
repertoire, with around 85 per cent of the featured songs being in French; the
Chansonnier is thus above all a repository of the work of the trouvères. The vast
majority of the poems also have their music, and this is typical of the surviving
trouvère repertoire. The Chansonnier is more unusual in its inclusion of other
genres and, moreover, 51 of its 61 troubadour works come with music, making
the Chansonnier one of the richest resources for the musical repertoire of the
troubadours: it is, for example, the only source to give the music for the beauti-
ful A chantar m’er by the trobairitz the Comtessa da Dia.
The troubadour and other Occitan material in the Chansonnier has been
adapted for its northern French audience, suggesting it was actively heard and
Judith A. Peraino, Giving Voice to Love: Song and Self-Expression from the Troubadours to
Guillaume de Machaut (Oxford, 2011), pp. 155–63.
13 Spanke, “Der Chansonnier,” 58.
14 Aubrey, Music, p. 41.
15 On the songbook genre: Haines, “Songbook,” pp. 60–75.