Gace Brulé

(ca. 1160–ca. 1213)

   Gace Brulé was one of the earliest of the TROUVÈRES, northern French vernacular lyric poets of the high Middle Ages. It is likely that he was born in Champagne. His name is simply a corruption of the word burelé, meaning “banded” or “barred,” describing the blazon of red and silver bands he wore on his shield. Gace Brulé was a knight and is known to have owned property in Grusliere (in Dreux). The future King Louis VIII seems to have been his patron late in his life, but his poetry suggests that he had several other patrons among the highest ranks of the nobility.At one point he seems to have been attached to the court of Geoffrey II, count of Brittany (through whom Gace may have been acquainted with the famous TROUBADOUR, BERTRAN DE BORN). The Countess MARIE DE CHAMPAGNE was also among Gace’s patrons, and through her court he may have met some of the other wellknown literary figures attached to her, including CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES.

   Gace also is thought to have known many other poets among the first generation of trouvères, including BLONDEL DE NESLE, CONON DE BÉTHUNE, and perhaps Le CHATELAIN DE COUCI. Accompanying one of his many noble patrons, he seems to have taken part in either the Third or the Fourth Crusade, or perhaps both. A document from late in his life suggests that he also had some dealings with the Knights Templar.

   Gace was one of the most prolific of the trouvères, as well as one of the best known. Quotations and allusions to his poetry appear in the texts of several other poets, and one of his lyrics, Ire d’amors, is cited by DANTE in De VULGARI ELOQUENTIA, though Dante mistakenly attributes the poem to THIBAUT DE CHAMPAGNE.

   Gace is known for faithfully following the conventions of the vernacular lyric established by the troubadours. Goldin compares him to GUILLAUME IX in his explicitly categorizing his songs according to their intended audience, often beginning them with Compaignons or Seigneurs (for his strictly male audience). Gace has also been compared with BERNART DE VENTADORN, and many of his songs resemble the love songs of that prolific troubadour. His song “Li pluseur ont d’Amours chanté,” for example, begins with a sentiment quite common in Bernart—that the true lover’s song rises above those of the false, for love ennobles the singer:

   Most have sung of Love

   as an exercise and insincerely;

   so Love should give me thanks

   because I never sang like a hypocrite.

   My loyalty kept me from that,

   and Love, which I have in such abundance

   it is a miracle if I hate anything,

   even that crowd of pests.

   (Goldin 1973, 385, ll. 1–8)

   Bibliography

   ■ Mayer-Martin, D. J. “The Chansons of Gace Brulé: A Stylistic Study of the Melodies,” in Literary and Historical Perspectives of the Middle Ages: Proceedings of the 1981 SEMA Meeting, edited by Patricia W. Cummins, Patrick W. Conner, and Charles W. Connell. Morgantown:West Virginia University Press, 1982, 93–103.

   ■ Rosenberg, Samuel N., and Samuel Danon, eds. and trans. The Lyrics and Melodies of Gace Brulé.Music edited by Hendrik van der Werf. New York: Garland, 1985.