the southern sirventes, and the troubadours’ planh is barely reflected in the few,
heterogeneous death laments of the trouvères; much the same may be said of the
alba/aube. The Provençal debate songs, on the other hand, proved a popular model, with
the jeu-parti in particular showing a much greater development among the trouvères,
especially in the bourgeois circle of Arras; similarly, the pastourelle, documented first in
Provençal, came to be cultivated above all by the trouvères.
In addition to the lyric types deriving wholly or in part from the troubadours, the
trouvère repertory includes genres indigenous to northern France. Though the Provençal-
inspired tend toward a certain aristocratic tone, the natively French types incline,
relatively speaking, toward a popular, even folkloric, character; while the former,
moreover, are almost exclusively masculine in poetic voice, the latter give prominence to
the feminine voice. Indeed, women’s songs, embracing the chanson de toile and other
types, form a significant segment of the trouvère corpus. Other purely French genres,
certain of which came to be represented in Provençal as well, include some defined
chiefly by their content, such as the chanson pieuse (devotional), sotte chanson (parodic),
reverdie (springtime reverie), satirical songs, and songs of jongleur life, and others
defined by their prosodic/musical form, sometimes reflecting a dance function, like
ballette, rondet (or rondeau), rotrouenge, estampie, motet. Frequently occurring
throughout this repertory—and in some genres, such as the ballette and rondeau,
constituting a structural sine qua non—is the refrain, an apparently independent one- or
two-line utterance that, like its modern counterpart, is invariable, cited recurrently at
fixed intervals through the song (chanson a refrain), or else is variable, one of a
succession of such utterances strung through the song at fixed intervals (chanson avec
des refrains).
Samuel N.Rosenberg
[See also: ADAM DE LA HALLE; ALBA/AUBE; AUDEFROI LE BÂTARD;
BALLADE; BALLETTE; BLONDEL DE NESLE; CHANSON DE TOILE; CHRÉTIEN
DE TROYES; COLIN MUSET; CONON DE BÉTHUNE; COUCY, CHÂTELAIN DE;
COURTLY LOVE; CRUSADE SONGS/CHANSONS DE CROISADE; GACE BRULÉ;
JEU-PARTI; JONGLEUR; LAI-DESCORT; MULTIPLE REFRAIN SONGS
(CHANSONS AVEC DES REFRAINS); PASTOURELLE/PASTORELA; PUY;
RESVERIE; REVERDIE; RHYTHM; RUTEBEUF; SIRVENTES; THIBAUT DE
CHAMPAGNE; TROUBADOUR POETRY; VERSIFICATION; VERSUS; WOMEN’S
SONGS]
Bec, Pierre, ed. La lyrique française au moyen âge (XIIe-XIIIe siècles): contribution a une
typologie des genres poétiques médiévaux. 2 vols. Paris: Picard, 1977–78, Vol. 1: Études; Vol.
2: Textes.
Boogaard, Nico H.J.van den, ed. Rondeaux et refrains du 12e siècle au début du 14e. Paris:
Klincksieck, 1969.
Rosenberg, Samuel N., and Hans Tischler, eds. Chanter m’estuet: Songs of the Trouvères.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981.
van der Werf, Hendrik, ed. Trouvères-Melodien I-II. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1977–79.
Dragonetti, Roger. La technique poétique des trouvères dans la chanson courtoise. Bruges: De
Tempel, 1960.
Linker, Robert W. A Bibliography of Old French Lyrics. University: Romance Monographs, 1979.
Mölk, Ulrich, and Friedrich Wolfzettel. Répertoire métrique de la poésie lyrique des origines a
- Munich: Fink, 1972.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1766