Giraut de Bornelh

(Guiraut de Borneil)

(ca. 1138–ca. 1212)

   Called by his contemporaries the “master of the TROUBADOURS,” Giraut de Bornelh was an influential Provençal poet whose 77 extant lyrics are the largest number to have survived from any individual troubadour of the 12th century.

   Giraut was born in the region of Dorgogne, apparently to parents of modest means.He was, however, able to obtain an excellent education. His VIDA, or early biography, claims that he spent his winters in scholarly pursuits and his summers traveling about to the various courts of the Occitan and northern Spain, accompanied by two singers who performed his songs. The vida says that he never married. In his later life, he was known as a benefactor of the church in St. Gervais, and it is likely that is where he lived out his final years. Giraut’s lyrics confirm that he traveled widely, and reveal that, as a professional troubadour, he was connected at one time or another with virtually every important nobleman in the area, including Alfonso VIII of Castile, Raymond V of Toulouse, and Ferdinand II of Leon. He knew Alfonso II of Aragon well enough to have composed a TENSON, or debate poem, with him on the subject of whether it is better for a lady to love a king or a knight. His association with Adémar V of Limoges was particularly close, since he is thought to have accompanied Adémar to Jerusalem during the Third Crusade in 1192, and one of his poems from that period praises Richard I of England.

   Giraut also seems to have been acquainted with many of his contemporary troubadours. He is satirized in a famous SIRVENTES by PEIRE D’ALVERNHE, who says that Giraut “looks like a goatskin dried out in the sun” (Goldin 1973, 171, l. 14). But Giraut seems to have been particularly close to RAIMBAUT D’ORANGE, whose death he mourns in a lyrical lament, and with whom he composed a tenson concerning the relative merits of the two chief styles of troubadour poetry, the TROBAR CLUS and the TROBAR LEU.

   Giraut is the poet most often considered in discussions of style in the troubadour lyric, partly because he uses stylistic terms, like clus and leu, in his poetry.He is best remembered as a defender of the trobar leu, the clear and easy style, in his famous tenson with Raimbaut. But Giraut also composed in the trobar clus, the obscure and complex style, and defends that mode in another of his lyrics, “La flors el vergan.” Some critics believe that he composed in the trobar clus early in his career, but abandoned it for the trobar leu later on. Others argue that Giraut most likely adapted his style to fit the tastes of whatever patron he happened to be composing for at the time.

   While Dante did not concur with the high opinion Giraut’s contemporaries had of him, he did admire the moral content of many of Giraut’s verses, and called Giraut the “poet of rectitude.” Despite this morality in some of his poetry, Giraut was not without humor and irony. About half of his extant lyrics are CANSOS, or love songs, but these are not highly original and he is more admired today for his efforts in other genres, like the tenson with Raimbaut. Giraut’s ALBA, or “dawn song,” “Reis glorios, verais lums e clartiatz” may be the best known of all troubadour songs. It is sung by the watchman, who warns the lover that he must leave his mistress’s side. In the final stanza, the watchman comes to realize that his efforts on behalf of the lover are not appreciated, especially now that he is telling the lover to leave his lady:

   Fair friend, how you begged me not to fall

   asleep outside there on the steps

   but watch all night till daybreak; now

   you wish my song away, and me,

   and soon the dawn will rise.

   (Goldin 1973, 197, ll. 26–30)

   Bibliography

   ■ Gaunt, Simon. Troubadours and Irony. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

   ■ Goldin, Frederick, ed. and trans. Lyrics of the Troubadours and Trouvères: An Anthology and a History. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1973.

   ■ Sharman, Ruth Verity. The Cansos and Sirventes of the Troubadour Giraut de Borneil: A Critical Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.