Occitan Language and Literature (Medieval). ‘Occitan’ is the name now most widely used to refer to the speech of an area comprising much of southern France and extending into northern Italy. It is famous for two main literary movements, widely separate in time: the court literature of fin'amor created in the 12th and 13th c. by the troubadours; and the 19th-c. revival pioneered by Mistral.
Although now generally thought of as a variety of French, in the Middle Ages the langue d'oc was considered a language in its own right, alongside the langue d'oïl (northern French) [see History of the French language]. The name Occitania was coined in the 13th c. following the Albigensian Crusade, a war waged under the banner of crusade but which resulted in the effective annexation of the south by the French Crown [see Cathars]. Before then, the principal regions of the south (Poitou and Aquitaine, the country of Toulouse, and the county of Provence) enjoyed considerable political independence, and were more closely allied with Spanish courts or, following the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry II Plantagenet, with those of the Anglo-Norman empire than with those of northern France. Recent years have seen a growing desire among some Occitanians to return to the cultural and linguistic autonomy of the south which characterized the early Middle Ages.
Confusingly, Occitan is sometimes referred to by other names. Early scholars of the medieval language considered it to be the closest to Latin of the romance vernaculars, and baptized it roman. Under the influence of Mistral and his followers, the term provençal gained wide acceptance, and is still used by many scholars. A disadvantage of this term, however, is that it suggests identification with the county of Provence. In fact, the earliest troubadours came not from the east of the Occitan-speaking domain but from its extreme west: Poitou and Aquitaine. The literary movement spread eastwards gradually, with other early poets coming from the Limousin and the Auvergne. Their literary language and that of their successors, though not to be identified with any one local dialect, is closest to that of the Limousin.
Although the troubadours are the most famous poets composing in medieval Occitan, there are a few narrative works which pre-date the earliest-known troubadour, Guilhem IX (1071-1126). A vernacular Chanson de sainte Foy, concerning the parton saint of Agen martyred under Diocletian, survives from the IIth c., as does a fragment of an adaptation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy. From the 12th c. we have two chansons de geste, Girart de Roussillon and Daurel et Beton; and two other fragments, part of an Alexander romance and a version of the Song of Antioch (Chanson d'Antioche) from the crusade cycle. One of the finest literary productions of medieval Occitan is a 13th-c. Flamenca, and there are a number of narrative works of this date, including more fragmentary chansons de geste, an Arthurian romance, Jaufre, a fabliau on the theme of adultery, a version of the Cour d'amour, and the Vida sant Honorat. But it was lyric poetry which established the reputation of Occitan as a literary language. From the late 12th c. onwards, Catalans (such as Guillem de Berguedà) and Italians (such as Sordello) writing in Occitan swell the ranks of the troubadours, and many poets from outside the Occitan-speaking region also try their hand at it.
From that period too, linguistic manuals were composed in order to assist novice poets to eliminate errors in their Occitan, so that they could then go on to produce their own compositions; the longest and most interesting of these is also the latest in date, the 14th-c. Leys d'amors. Raimon Vidal, author of the earliest such manual, the Razos de Trobar, dated by its editor between 1190 and 1213, says that ‘the French language is worth more, and is more suitable, for the composition of romances and
Troubadour poetry is formally very elaborate; although poets often use the same themes as one another, they rarely use the same metrical form as a predecessor. Formal intricacy and inventiveness, centring on rhyme, are the hallmarks of this tradition. Medieval Occitan has the advantage that both verbs and nouns possess a wide range of stressed suffixes. A poet could thus be assured of finding a large number and variety of rhymes relatively easily. For example, past participles offer a series in -a (amat, desirat, etc.); a series in -i (auzitz, chauzitz); and one in -u (volgut, mogut). Infinitives can provide masculine rhymes in -r, -er, or -ir. The existence of a case system for nouns provides derivational suffixes in -aire (nominative) in words such as amaire, ‘lover’, chantaire, ‘singer’, trobaire, ‘poet’; or in -ador (oblique), such as amador, chantador, trobador; this last is still used today with the spelling troubadour. One of the commonest rhymes is furnished by a derivational suffix forming an abstract noun: amor, dolor, iror (‘distress’), paor (‘fear’), savor, etc. Unlike northern French at the same date, Occitan has four unstressed vowels which can appear in a final unstressed syllable (a, e, i, and o), and so add variety to feminine rhymes. In addition, the syntax of the language benefited from a relatively unfettered word order, which meant that it was just possible to compose stanzas with lines of six, five, four, three, two, and even, exceptionally, one syllable, without forfeiting intelligibility. Finally, the vocabulary deployed in the songs had associations with religious and feudal usage (as illustrated, for example, by the Sainte Foy and the chansons de geste mentioned above). The word amor could designate love of God and/or the bond to one's overlord, as well as erotic attachment to the beloved. Similarly, fe could refer to religious faith, juridical commitment, or emotional loyalty. The key terms of lyric composition thus brought with them not only a sense of familiarity but also a weight of affective response.
The success of troubadour poetry not only inspired the composition of linguistic manuals. It gave rise to other more or less parasitic genres such as ensenhamens, instructing jongleurs, knights, or ladies on behaviour appropriate to their station; and to short prose works purporting to record the life of a troubadour (his vida) or to explain the circumstances of composition of an individual song (razo). Although the content of these works is generally suspect from the point of view of the modern historian, they provide an interesting insight into the way 13th-c. readers interpreted troubadour poetry. Another literary by-product of the troubadours was the Breviari d'amor by Matfre Ermengaud, a late 13th-c. encyclopaedic treatise studded with lyric quotations.
This tradition of reception and commentary outlived the productions on which it was based. At the start of the Albigensian Crusade (1209) vernacular court poetry was flourishing. It was recruiting new kinds of poets, notably women (the trobairitz) and writers from the bourgeoisie or abroad. It was experimenting with new genres, such as the partimen or jeu parti. And it was attracting new audiences: the very small number of courts which had patronized poets in the early 12th c. had grown continuously as the prestige of troubadour poetry increased. But the effect of the Crusade seems to have been to stifle these courts. Troubadours who lived through the Crusade complain of oppression by the northern French, and repression by the clergy—particularly the Inquisitors—who were perceived as their agents. A long and very fine chronicle in the manner of a chanson de geste, the Canso de la crotzada, details the course of this war, highlighting, in its second part, the unjust sufferings of the supporters of the house of Toulouse. With its court infrastructure largely dismantled, Occitan literature became increasingly academic and nostalgic. The scholar-poets and commentators of the later 13th c. and beyond are, however, our great benefactors, since to their diligence we owe much of our knowledge of their diligence we owe much of our knowledge of their more illustrious predecessors.
[Sarah Kay]
Bibliography
- J. Anglade, Histoire sommaire de la littérature méridionale au moyen age, des origines à la fin du XVe siècle (1921)
- R. Lafont and C. Anatole, Nouvelle Histoire de la littérature occitane (1970-1)
