Engles (

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for '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 indic ...

1253), also spelled Englés, was a

Navarrese Navarre ( ; ; ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre, is a landlocked foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Autonomous Community, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and New Aquitaine in France. T ...

jongleur A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. The term originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist enterta ...

and

troubadour A troubadour (, ; ) 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 equivalent is usually called a ''trobairitz''. The tr ...

of the mid 13th century. His lone ''

tenso A ''tenso'' (; ) is a style of troubadour song. It takes the form of a debate in which each voice defends a position; common topics relate to love or ethics. Usually, the tenso is written by two different poets, but several examples exist in whic ...

'' survives only in fragments and is chiefly of interest to historians for its commentary on court life in

Pamplona Pamplona (; ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Navarre, Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. Lying at near above sea level, the city (and the wider Cuenca de Pamplona) is located on the flood pl ...

under Theobald I. The jongleur with whom Engles is debating is anonymous. The poem has been dated to 1253. First, Engles accuses Theobald of avarice and thriftiness, to which the anonymous replies that Engles—whose name implies that he was

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

—is anti-French (since Theobald was a Frenchman). Engles finishes the poem by indicating that he is leaving Pamplona for the court of

Aragon Aragon ( , ; Spanish and ; ) is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces of Spain, ...

. Engles makes humorous use of a pun on the words ''cort'' (court) and ''corta'' (short):

Peire Guilhem de Tolosa Peire Guillem (or Guilhem) de Tolosa was a 13th-century troubadour from Toulouse. Only one ''sirventes'' he wrote ("En Sordel, que us es semblan"), a ''tenso'' with the contemporary Italian poet Sordello, survives. According to his ''Vida (Occita ...

also attacked Theobald I of Navarres, who was a prolific

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 po ...

and commissioner of the ''

chansonnier A chansonnier (, , Galician and , or ''canzoniéro'', ) is a manuscript or printed book which contains a collection of chansons, or polyphonic and monophonic settings of songs, hence literally " song-books"; however, some manuscripts are call ...

du roi'', which includes many troubadour poems.

Sources

* Riquer, Martín de. ''Los trovadores: historia literaria y textos''. 3 vol. Barcelona: Planeta, 1975. 13th-century Spanish troubadours People from Navarre {{Spain-hist-stub