Colin Muset

(fl c1200-50). French trouvère poet and composer, active in the Champagne region. Only half the works attributed to him survive with melodies, but they represent a wide variety of types. They also contain interesting references to instruments and the playing of them, and reveal him to have been a jongleur by profession; this may account for the folksong-like simplicity of his melodies.

Colin Muset (fl. 1230-70). A professional trouvère-jongleur employed at courts in Lorraine and Champagne. He is credited with 18 lyrics: nine attributed to him in manuscripts, three more naming him, one implausibly attributed to another person, and five anonyma. His seven chansons jongleuresques and three serventois express his preferences and aversions, predictably condemning lordly avarice and naïvely celebrating the good life which satisfies all appetites. Ironic self-mockery offsets the moralizing. Although in a tenso Muset answers Jacques d'Amiens with cynicism, his whimsical good humour (conveyed partly by diminutives) relieves the clichés of fin'amor in his remaining lyrics, which include two descorts and a lai.

[Peter Davies]

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