Peire Vidal (fl. C.1183-1204). Said to be the son of a furrier from Toulouse, this author of nearly 50 songs is the jester among the troubadours. Introducing a more familiar tone into courtly discourse, he gives fantasy its head, purporting at one moment to become wolf-like in his love for a lady Loba (‘she-wolf’), at another to have been dismissed for timidly stealing a kiss and a piece of cord from his sleeping beloved; posing in turn as a swaggering knight, an emperor, and a landless outcast; criticizing those who fail to go on crusade and deciding not to give up home comforts to go himself. Peire Vidal travelled widely and his poetry, formally flawless, won patronage in Spain and Italy as well as in Toulouse.
[Sarah Kay]
