vida

   The scribes that compiled some of the earliest anthologies of TROUBADOUR poetry in the 13th and 14th centuries prefaced the work of each poet with a short biography in prose, known as vidas. These accounts are seldom more than a few sentences long, and usually give such information as the poet’s parentage and where he was born, what class he belonged to and who his patrons were, who his great loves were, what kind of person he was, the kind and quality of poetry he wrote, and where he died. There are vidas for about 100 troubadours, surviving in some 20 manuscripts, mostly produced in northern Italy; five of these date from the 13th century. Vidas are to be distinguished from RAZOS, which are generally longer prose introductions to individual troubadour poems in the anthologies.

   The vidas are the largest source of biographical information we have concerning the troubadours, and also one of the least reliable. While many of the historical and geographical facts found in the vidas are verifiable, the information in the vidas comes from a variety of nonbiographical sources, including popular folktales, SAINTS’ LIVES, and even FABLIAUX. But the single largest source of information for the vidas is the troubadours’ own body of poetry. Thus the vida for Jaufré RUDEL, famous for his poetry extolling his “love far away,” includes the fanciful notion that he fell in love with the countess of Tripoli without ever having seen her, and that he traveled to find her only to die in her arms. None of this is verifiable, but it is a fanciful extrapolation from Jaufré’s poetry.

   Recently some attention has been paid to the prose vidas as literary creations in their own right. Recent studies have argued that there are stylistic similarities in most of the earlier vidas and razos, enough to suggest that they were all originally composed by a single writer. Two manuscripts contain references to an author named Uc de Saint-Circ, and, according to Elizabeth W. Poe,“we can take as a working assumption that all of the vidas and razos pertaining to events before 1257 or so were the work of Uc” (1995, 188). Uc, a JONGLEUR educated at Montpellier, seems to have collected vidas and razos already current among other jongleurs, added historical and geographical details he may have researched, and composed the vidas all in his own style. Poe describes characteristics of Uc’s style, noting that humor and wordplay are common in the vidas. For example Uc will sometimes ironically juxtapose incongruous items using the conjunction “and,” as when he calls GUILLAUME IX “one of the most courtly men in the world and one of the greatest deceivers of women” (Poe 1995, 194). Uc will also sometimes add things as unexpected afterthoughts in a manner that creates a humorous effect, as in the vida of Peire de Valeira:“His songs did not have much value,” Uc says, and then adds “and neither did he” (Poe 1995, 194).

   Bibliography

   ■ Egan, Margarita. The Vidas of the Troubadours. Garland Library of Medieval Literature, 6. New York: Garland, 1984.

   ■ Poe, Elizabeth W. “The Vidas and Razos.” In A Handbook of the Troubadours, edited by F. R. P. Akehurst and Judith M. Davis, 185–197. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.