Chansons de toile or Chansons d'histoire

Names given in early- and mid-13th-c. romances by Jean Renart and Gerbert de Montreuil to third-person narrative trouvère lyrics, short love stories allegedly sung by ladies at their needlework or linen-weaving. Only 15 complete examples and 6 fragments, all pre-14th c., survive in langue d'oïl [see Langue d'Oc]. They are conveniently edited by Michel Zink in his study Les Chansons de toile (1978). Motets and rondets de carole draw on other lost specimens. On average the complete lyrics have 61 lines in nine to ten stanzas with a short refrain. Five are ascribed to Audefroi le Bastart (fl. 1200), the rest being anonymous. Their simplicity of style (contrasting with their melodic ornamentation), occasional lapses into assonance, frequent use of Germanic names, and freedom from the conventions of fin'amor may reflect an archaic northern French tradition (only one Occitan fragment survives). But the archaism may be false and the genre contemporary with other, similarly uninhibited chansons de femme.

These love stories usually end happily with triumph over an obstacle: parental opposition, a forced betrothal, a husband's cruelty, gossip, a third person's presence, geographical distance, a lover's unwarranted suspicion. Or at least fulfilment is promised. But generally any gratification rewards the suffering of the main protagonist, a young, nobly born beauty whose complaint or predicament engages audience sympathy through subjective lyricism or dramatic tension. One chanson d'histoire unexpectedly switches to the first person to contrast the happy couple with the lonesome narrator. Another ends unhappily with the death of one partner, the other becoming a nun.

[Peter Davies]