Audefroi le Bastart (modern French Bâtard) was a
French trouvère
''Trouvère'' (, ), sometimes spelled ''trouveur'' (, ), is the Northern French ('' langue d'oïl'') form of the '' langue d'oc'' (Occitan) word ''trobador'', the precursor of the modern French word ''troubadour''. ''Trouvère'' refers to poet ...
from
Artois
Artois ( ; ; nl, Artesië; English adjective: ''Artesian'') is a region of northern France. Its territory covers an area of about 4,000 km2 and it has a population of about one million. Its principal cities are Arras (Dutch: ''Atrecht'') ...
, who flourished in the early thirteenth century.
Of his life nothing is known, though he is certainly the illegitimate child of a noble or upper-class bourgeoisie family, but his family is not to be identified with the noble family Arras or with the bourgeoisie family of Louchart, also from Arras; Audefroi himself is not to be identified with
Gautier d'Arras.
The
Seigneur de Nesles, to whom some of his songs are addressed, is probably the
Châtelain
Châtelain (from la, castellanus, derived from ''castellum''; pertaining to a castle, fortress. Middle English: ''castellan'' from Anglo-Norman language, Anglo-Norman: ''castellain'' and Old French: ''castelain'') was originally the French title ...
of
Bruges
Bruges ( , nl, Brugge ) is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country, and the sixth-largest city of the country by population.
The area of the whole city a ...
who joined the
Fourth Crusade.
Audefroi was the author of ten
chansons d'amour and five
chansons de toile: "Argentine," "Belle Idoine," "Belle Isabeau," "Belle Emmelos," and "Biatrix." These five follow older
chanson
A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic so ...
s in subject,
but the smoothness of the verse and beauty of detail readily compensate for the spontaneity of the shorter form.
References
12th-century French writers
French poets
Medieval French literature
Trouvères
13th-century French poets
French male poets
Male classical composers
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