Guilhem Molinier or Moulinier ( 1330–50) was a medieval Occitan poet from

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and fr ...

. His most notable work is ''Leys d'amors'' ("Laws of Love"), a treatise on

rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate par ...

and

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes doma ...

that achieved great notoriety and, beyond the Occitan, influenced poets writing in Catalan as well as in Galician or Italian, for which they served as a reference. The occasion for its composition was the founding in 1323 of the Consistori de la Sobregaya Companhia del Gay Saber ("Consistory of the Happy Company of the Gay Science") at Toulouse. The consistory consisted of seven members who organized poetic contests and rewarded lyric poems that best imitated the style of the 12th- and 13th-century

troubadours A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a '' trobai ...

. Molinier was not an original member of the consistory, but he was its chancellor in 1348, when he was tasked with codifying the principles of Occitan lyric poetry. In this work he had a collaborator, Marc Bartholomieu. A final version was approved by the consistory in 1356..

The original ''Leys d'amors'' dates to 1328. The archives of the present-day

Académie des Jeux floraux The Consistori del Gay Saber (; "Consistory of the Gay Science") was a poetic academy founded at Toulouse in 1323 to revive and perpetuate the lyric poetry of the troubadours. Also known as the Acadèmia dels Jòcs Florals or Académie des Jeux ...

(a descendant of the Consistory del Gay Saber) contains a folio copy of this edition under the title by which the work has become known. It contains many subsequently deleted passages and numerous editorial markings. A folio copy of the final and definitive text is also in the archive of the Académie, under the title ''Las Flors del gay saber'' ("The Flowers of the Gay Science"). It contains all the deletions, modifications and additions indicated in the unedited 1328 text. This manuscript received a

critical edition Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in da ...

in 1841–43. A copy of the latter text is also found in the Archives of the Crown of Aragon and a verse edition is found in the

National Library of Catalonia The Library of Catalonia ( ca, Biblioteca de Catalunya, ) is the Catalan national library, located in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The primary mission of the Library of Catalonia is to collect, preserve, and spread Catalan bibliographic producti ...

. Further copies based on the Catalan manuscripts are found in Paris, Madrid and Toulouse. The ''Leys d'amors'' is divided into five parts. Part I contains some

philosophy of language In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of Meaning (philosophy of language), meanin ...

, theory of poetry,

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...

and rules of

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

. Part II deals with rules for versification and the issue of

literary genre A literary genre is a category of literature. Genres may be determined by literary technique, tone, content, or length (especially for fiction). They generally move from more abstract, encompassing classes, which are then further sub-divided in ...

. Part III is about grammar and contains both classical material borrowed from Donatus,

Priscian Priscianus Caesariensis (), commonly known as Priscian ( or ), was a Latin grammarian and the author of the ''Institutes of Grammar'', which was the standard textbook for the study of Latin during the Middle Ages. It also provided the raw materia ...

Isidore Isidore ( ; also spelled Isador, Isadore and Isidor) is an English and French masculine given name. The name is derived from the Greek name ''Isídōros'' (Ἰσίδωρος) and can literally be translated to "gift of Isis." The name has survived ...

and Alexander de Villa Dei, as well as modern material on the system of declensions in Occitan, the use of articles, the nature of the sentence and

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

. In terms of linguistic varieties, this section recommends the ''us acostumat'' ("customary usage") over local customs. Part IV discusses errors (barbarisms and solecisms) and bad verse. Part V covers practical considerations. The ''Leys d'amors'' owes a debt to

Brunetto Latini Brunetto Latini (who signed his name ''Burnectus Latinus'' in Latin and ''Burnecto Latino'' in Italian; –1294) was an Italian philosopher, scholar, notary, politician and statesman. Life Brunetto Latini was born in Florence in 1220 to a Tusc ...

's ''Li livres dou Tresor'' and Albertano di Brescia's ''Ars loquendi et tacendi''. It was in turn especially influential in Catalonia. Its influence can be seen in Luys d'Averçó's ''Torcimany'' and

Joan de Castellnou Joan de Castellnou (; fl. 1341–1355) was a troubadour of the Consistori del Gay Saber active in Toulouse. He left behind five or six ''cansos'', three '' vers'', a ''dansa'', a '' conselh'', and a '' sirventes''. His most famous works are ...

's ''Compendi de la coneixança dels vices en els dictats del Gai Saber''. Its influence can even be seen in the Castilian lyrical grammar of

Enrique de Villena Enrique de Villena (1384–1434), also known as and , was a Spanish nobleman, writer, theologian and poet. He was also the last legitimate member of the House of Barcelona, the former royal house of Aragon. When political power was denied to ...

Notes

References

{{Authority control Occitan poets 14th-century French poets