Countess of Dia

(12th century)

   The best-known of the 20 or so women TROUBADOURS (or trobairitz) who have left extant poems or fragments, the Countess of Dia has long been admired for her direct and passionate verse and for her technical skill in composing in the clear and natural TROBAR LEU style used by popular troubadours like BERNART DE VENTADORN. James Wilhelm has called her “the Sappho of the Rhone.” Virtually nothing is known about the countess’s life. Her title tells us that she was of noble descent and that she was from the town now called Die, southeast of Valence in the valley of the Drôme River. One tradition says that she was Beatriz, the daughter of Guigne VI of Viennois, and that she married William I, the count of Valentinois. Thus the countess is often referred to as “Beatriz.” But there is, in fact, no reason to believe this tradition, and for that matter this Beatriz was certainly not the countess of Dia.

   Nor is there any reason to believe the information contained in her VIDA, which claims that she was the wife of Guilhèm de Poitiers (we know of five contemporaries known by this name) and lover of the famous troubadour RAIMBAUT D’ORANGE. While it is tempting to associate her with Raimbaut (the city of Orange is fairly close to the town of Die), it has also been suggested that her lover may have been Raimbaut IV, the poet’s nephew. But the point is probably moot, since the affair is almost certainly fictional. In the absence of any real biographical data, it is necessary to allow the countess’s four surviving lyrics to speak for themselves. It has been common for scholars to remark upon the directness of the female voice in the countess’s lyrics, so unexpected from the woman portrayed in conventional COURTLY LOVE lyrics as distant, aloof, passive, and idealized. So it is surprising and refreshing when the countess says:

   I’d like to hold my knight

   in my arms one evening, naked.

   (Bruckner 1995, 11, ll. 9–10)

   Like other troubadours, the countess also plays on the various perspectives of her audience, but again her method is quite straightforward:

   And you, foul-tongued, jealous man,

   don’t think that I’ll be slow

   to please myself with joy and youth

   just because it may upset you.

   (Bruckner 1995, 13, ll. 17–20)

   At times the countess expresses the same kinds of love-longing and distress at her lover’s cruelty that male troubadours articulate:

   I would like to know, my fine, fair friend,

   Why you are so fierce and cruel to me.

   I can’t tell if it’s from pride or malice.

   (Bruckner 1995, 9, ll. 33–35)

   It may be a valuable corrective to remember, however, that the songs of the Countess of Dia are written for public performance, presumably by a JONGLEUR, and that though the voice sounds quite personal, there is really nothing individualizing in the texts: The countess, like other poets of the time, is creating a persona that speaks her lines. Part of her skill as a poet is in getting us to respond to the immediacy of the voice.

   Bibliography

   ■ Bogin, Meg. The Women Troubadours. Scarborough, U.K.: Paddington Press, 1976.

   ■ Bruckner, Matilda Tomaryn. “Fictions of the Female Voice: The Women Troubadours,” Speculum 67 (1992): 865–891.

   ■ Bruckner, Matilda Tomaryn, Laurie Shepard, and Sarah White, eds. and trans. Songs of the Women Troubadours. New York: Garland, 1995.

   ■ Paden,William D., Jr., ed. The Voice of the Trobairitz: Perspectives on the Women Troubadours. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.

   ■ Wilhelm, James J. Seven Troubadours: The Creators of Modern Verse. University Park and London: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1970.