Raimbaut de Vaqueiras

(ca. 1155–ca. 1207)

   Raimbaut de Vaqueiras was a Provençal TROUBADOUR whose exploits on the battlefield were at least as interesting as his poetry.He was born in humble circumstances, rose to the rank of knight through his military service, left some 36 lyrics of significant merit, and was probably killed during the Fourth Crusade.

   Raimbaut was born to a very poor family in the area of Vaucluse in Provence. As a young man he traveled into northern Italy, where at the court of Montferrat he was befriended by Boniface, the future margrave of Montferrat. In the later 1180s, he traveled back to Provence and, by 1189, was probably attached to the court of Hugues I of Baux. Raimbaut returned to Italy in about 1190, and when Boniface succeeded his father to become Boniface I, margrave of Montferrat in 1192, Raimbaut joined his court. Boniface welcomed and patronized a number of poets, including probably Peire VIDAL and the noted TROUVÈRE, CONON DE BÉTHUNE, but it was Raimbaut who stayed with him the longest. Raimbaut supported Boniface in Sicily during the margrave’s campaign there in service of the emperor Henry VI. It was in Sicily that Raimbaut is said to have saved Boniface’s life and, as a result, was knighted by his patron.When Boniface was chosen as one of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade, Raimbaut decided to return to Provence as Boniface left from Venice in 1202, but by 1203, Raimbaut had joined Boniface in Constantinople. Here he wrote one of his best-known works, an epic letter to Boniface, in which Raimbaut details his life and campaigns with his patron.

   On September 4, 1207, near Messiaple, Boniface was killed in a skirmish with Bulgarian forces allied with the Byzantines. Most scholars have assumed that Raimbaut died alongside his patron.However, it is possible that he survived the attack and returned to Provence. A certain Raimbaut de Vaqueiras is mentioned in a document from 1243, and some have suggested this is the same man— though realistically, he would have been nearly 90 years old at the time.

   Raimbaut wrote a number of lyrics, some bilingual or multilingual texts. His best-known lyric is his Kalenda Maya (May Day), which he calls an estampida. It is the first known example of this lyric genre—a dance song with lyrics expressing love and devotion to a lady,written in four stanzas with a refrain, followed by one or two envois set to a different melody.

   But certainly Raimbaut’s most important literary contribution is no single poem but rather his introduction of the vernacular Provençal lyric tradition into the courts of Italy. Through his influence, and to a lesser extent some of the other troubadours who visited Italian courts, the future course of Italian literature was set, ultimately culminating in the great poets of the 13th and 14th centuries, including DANTE and PETRARCH.

   Bibliography

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

   ■ Linskill, Joseph. The Poems of the Troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras. The Hague:Mouton, 1964.

   ■ McPeek, Gwynn S.“ ‘Kalenda Maia’: A Study in Form.” In Medieval Studies in Honor of Robert White Linder, edited by Brian Dutton, J.Woodrow Hassell, Jr., and John E.Keller, 141–154.Valencia: Castalia, 1973.