Bertran Folcon d'Avignon or Bertran Folco d'Avinhon (
fl.
''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...
1202–1233) was a
Provençal
Provençal may refer to:
*Of Provence, a region of France
* Provençal dialect, a dialect of the Occitan language, spoken in the southeast of France
*''Provençal'', meaning the whole Occitan language
*Franco-Provençal language, a distinct Roman ...
nobleman and
troubadour from
Avignon
Avignon (, ; ; oc, Avinhon, label=Provençal dialect, Provençal or , ; la, Avenio) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Vaucluse Departments of France, department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region of So ...
. He was a faithful partisan of
Raymond VI
Raymond VI ( oc, Ramon; October 27, 1156 – August 2, 1222) was Count of Toulouse and Marquis of Provence from 1194 to 1222. He was also Count of Melgueil (as Raymond IV) from 1173 to 1190.
Early life
Raymond was born at Saint-Gilles, Gard, ...
and
Raymond VII of Toulouse in Provence, and participated in the wars against the
Albigensian Crusade
The Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (; 1209–1229) was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crown ...
. He was inside the city during the siege of
Beaucaire in 1216. In 1226 Raymond VII appointed him
bailiff
A bailiff (from Middle English baillif, Old French ''baillis'', ''bail'' "custody") is a manager, overseer or custodian – a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. Bailiffs are of various kinds and their offi ...
of Avignon.
Of Bertran's poetic works are conserved only two ''
coblas'' written in response to
Gui de Cavalhon. This exchange between Bertran and Gui is of some historical interest. Raymond VII had moved an army against
Castelnou d'Arry early in 1220 but was forced to lift his siege to deal with an offensive of
Amaury de Montfort. He returned to besiege the place in July and brought in Gui to oversee the
circumvallation. In the third month of the siege, October–November, Gui decided to request the assistance of Bertran in a poem, with the intention of hurrying the town's surrender. Gui evidently knew Bertran from some previous encounter and they address each other with friendly satire. This entire story is found in Gui's ''
vida
Vida means “life” in Spanish and Portuguese. It may refer to:
Geography
* Vida (Gradačac), village in Bosnia and Herzegovina
* Lake Vida, Victoria Valley, Antarctica
* U.S. settled places:
** Vida, Montana
** Vida, Oregon
** Vida, Missour ...
'', with the exchange of ''coblas'' appended to it in manuscript ''H''.
[Egan, 42. ''H'' is a late 13th-century Lombard ]chansonnier
A chansonnier ( ca, cançoner, oc, cançonièr, Galician and pt, cancioneiro, it, canzoniere or ''canzoniéro'', es, cancionero) is a manuscript or printed book which contains a collection of chansons, or polyphonic and monophonic settings o ...
in the Biblioteca Vaticana in Rome. Now classified as Latin 3207.
According to
Alfred Jeanroy,
Raimon de las Salas
Raimon de (las) Salas or la Sala was a Provençal troubadour probably of the 1220s/1230s. His short ''vida'' survives. He left behind four or five poems, but he must have composed more, since he is ''vida'' records his composition of ''cansos'', ' ...
composed a ''
partimen'' with Bertran, who proposed the dilemma: who are better at making war, feasts, and gifts, the
Lombards or Provençals? Raimon praises his compatriots and puts down Lombard women as big and ugly. Linda Paterson, however, does not identify Raimon's interlocutor, who is known only as Bertran, with Folco d'Avinhon.
Sources
*Egan, Margarita (1984). ''The Vidas of the Troubadours''. New York: Garland.
.
*Guida, Saverio (1972). "Per la biografia di Gui de Cavaillon e di Bertran Folco d’Avignon." ''Culture neolatina'', 32, pp. 189–210.
*Guida, Saverio (2002)
Premessa all’edizione in linea della tenzone fra Gui de Cavaillon e Bertran Folco d’Avignon (192.2, 83.2)*
Jeanroy, Alfred (1934). ''La poésie lyrique des troubadours''. Toulouse: Privat.
*Paterson, Linda M. (1993). ''The World of the Troubadours: Medieval Occitan Society, c. 1100–c. 1300''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
.
External links
Gui de Cavaillon · Bertran Folco d’Avignon edited by Saverio Guida (1973)
Notes
{{authority control
People of the Albigensian Crusade
13th-century French troubadours
Writers from Avignon