Cançó de Santa Fe
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The ''Cançó'' (or ''Cançon'') ''de Santa Fe'' (, ; french: Chanson de Sainte Foi d'Agen, en, Song of Saint Fides), a
hagiographical A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies mig ...
poem about
Saint Faith Saint Faith or Saint Faith of Conques (Latin: Sancta Fides; French: Sainte-Foy; Spanish: Santa Fe) is a saint who is said to have been a girl or young woman of Agen in Aquitaine. Her legend recounts how she was arrested during persecution of Chri ...
, is an early surviving written work in
Old Occitan Old Occitan ( oc, occitan ancian, label= Modern Occitan, ca, occità antic), also called Old Provençal, was the earliest form of the Occitano-Romance languages, as attested in writings dating from the eighth through the fourteenth centuries. Old ...
and has been proposed to be the earliest work in
Old Catalan Old Catalan is the modern denomination for Romance varieties that during the Middle Ages were spoken in territories that spanned roughly the territories of the Principality of Catalonia, the Kingdom of Valencia, the Balearic Islands, and the isl ...
. It is 593 octosyllabic lines long, divided into between 45 and 55 monorhyming ''
laisse A laisse is a type of stanza, of varying length, found in medieval French literature, specifically medieval French epic poetry (the ''chanson de geste''), such as ''The Song of Roland''. In early works, each laisse was made up of (mono) assonanced ...
s''. It was written between 1054 and 1076, during the reign of Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Barcelona, by an anonymous poet. The place of its composition is controversial. It may have been written in the region around
Narbonne Narbonne (, also , ; oc, Narbona ; la, Narbo ; Late Latin:) is a commune in Southern France in the Occitanie region. It lies from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. It is located about from the shores of the ...
. On the other hand, it may belong to the Roussillon, either to the monastery of
Sant Miquel de Cuixà The abbey of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa () is a Benedictine abbey located in the territory of the commune of Codalet, in the Pyrénées-Orientales ''département'', in southwestern France. It was founded initially in 840, and then refounded at its prese ...
, where relics pertaining to Saint Faith are to be found, or that of Sant Martí del Canigó. In Roussillon in the eleventh century, the name Faith (''Fides'') was relatively common. Other suggested regions include
Provence Provence (, , , , ; oc, Provença or ''Prouvènço'' , ) is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the Italian border to the east; it is bor ...
, Cerdagne, and
Quercy Quercy (; oc, Carcin , locally ) is a former province of France located in the country's southwest, bounded on the north by Limousin, on the west by Périgord and Agenais, on the south by Gascony and Languedoc, and on the east by Rouergue and ...
. The language or dialect of the poem is also debated, since on it hinge the nationalist pride of Catalonia and the thesis that Catalan and Occitan, the language of southern France, were indistinct before the fourteenth century. Ernst Hoepffner (1926) argued that it was "certainly not Catalan".Riquer, p. 198 n1.
Martín de Riquer Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austr ...
(1964) agrees that "one cannot affirm the Catalanity of this beautiful and ingenious poem indubitably".Riquer, p. 198. Aurelio Roncaglia (1961) suggests it was written in the ''lingua d'oc'' (Occitan) but ''ai margini della Catalogna'' (on the margins of Catalonia). As early as 1581 Claude Fauchet believed it was ''vieil espagnol, pour le moins cathalan'' (old Spanish, at least Catalan), but the manuscript Fauchet worked from disappeared. It was rediscovered in 1901 among the works of
Ausiàs March Ausiàs March (Catalan and ; 1400March 3, 1459) was a medieval Valencian poet and knight from Gandia, Valencia. He is considered one of the most important poets of the "Golden Century" (''Segle d'or'') of Catalan/Valencian literature. Biog ...
in the library of the
University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...
by
José Leite de Vasconcelos José Leite de Vasconcelos Cardoso Pereira de Melo (7 July 1858 – 17 May 1941) was a Portuguese ethnographer, archaeologist and prolific author who wrote extensively on Portuguese philology and prehistory. He was the founder and the first dire ...
. It had evidently been misplaced in 1716 based on its misidentification as a work of March's in 1562. In 1962 J. W. B. Zaal studied Fauchet's manuscript and on the basis of the words ''razo espanesca'' found in the ''Cançó'', determined that it was culturally transpyrenean. The manuscript history further supports the notion that the language of the ''Cançó'' is of a more Iberian dialect (so that it could be mistaken for late medieval Catalan). The ''Cançó'' is a versified narration of the
martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
dom of Saint Faith in
Agen The commune of Agen (, ; ) is the prefecture of the Lot-et-Garonne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. It lies on the river Garonne southeast of Bordeaux. Geography The city of Agen lies in the southwestern department ...
(c. 300).For an argument that the ''Cançó'' is the earliest verse narrative combining
lyric poetry Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also ''not'' equi ...
and dance in a
Romance language The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language f ...
, and the earliest piece of surviving Occitan literature, see the introduction of Robèrt Lafont, ed. and trans. (1998), ''"La Chanson de sainte Foi": Texte occitan du XIe siècle'' (Geneva: Droz).
It is primarily based on the now lost
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
'' Passio sanctorum Fidis et Caprisii'', though seven Latin sources have been identified, including the '' De mortibus persecutorum'' of Lactantius. Elisabeth Work divides it into two distinct parts: a conventional '' chanson de saint'' that lasts the first 41 ''laisses'' and is based on the traditional sources, and an original '' chanson de felon'' corresponding to the final eight ''laisses''.Work, p. 366. The first part is eloquent and polished, while the latter part is mediocre, often attributed to the phrase ''a lei francesca'', which is taken to indicate that the poet was composing in the manner of the
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intellig ...
narrative lay. The poet himself narrates the final part with an air of disgust appropriate to the felonious content. Everywhere, however, his language is orthographically, lexically, and rhythmically consistent. According to the final lines of its ''
razo A ''razo'' (, literally "cause", "reason") was a short piece of Occitan prose detailing the circumstances of a troubadour composition. A ''razo'' normally introduced an individual poem, acting as a prose preface and explanation; it might, however ...
'' (prologue), the ''Cançó'' was popular in the regions of Vasconia, Aragon, and Gascony, where the people can affirm its truth: : : : :


Editions

* Antoine Thomas
''La chanson de Sainte Foi d'Agen: poème provençal du XIe siècle''
1974. * French translation by Antoine Thomas on Wikisource


Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Canco de Santa Fe Old Occitan literature Medieval Catalan literature