Lorete was a trouvère, one of only eight women composers of

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 intelligib ...

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 ...

known by name. She is known only be her given name.Eglal Doss-Quinby, Joan Tasker Grimbert, Wendy Pfeffer and Elizabeth Aubrey, ''Songs of the Women Trouvères'' (Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 26–27. Her only known work, preserved in a single manuscript, is ''Lorete, suer, par amor'' ("Lorete, sister, in the name of love"), a ''

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'' (debate song) between her and an unnamed "sister". It has features of the

Lorrain dialect Lorrain is a language (often referred to as patois) spoken by now a minority of people in Lorraine in France, small parts of Alsace and in Gaume in Belgium. It is a langue d'oïl. It is classified as a regional language of France and has the r ...

.Doss-Quinby et al., pp. 79–81, which contain an edition and translation. Lorete's debate concerns the merits of two men who are seeking to marry her. Lorete prefers the one who is coy and approaches her indirectly through her friends, but her "sister" defends the man who openly declares his love for her, comparing the other man to a sneaky Reynard the Fox. The poem was submitted to the judgement of two other women: the countess of Leiningen, Jeanne d'Aspremont, and her sister, Mahaut, dame of Commercy. These women were well known in trouvère circles and Jacques Bretel records both them at the

Tournament of Chauvency The Tournament of Chauvency was held in 1285 to bring together the greatest knights of France and Germany for six days of jousting and other activities, a social event of primary importance at the end of the thirteenth century. Dedicated to Henry ...

in October 1285, although Jeanne was only a countess from 1282 to 1316 and Mahaut the dame of Commercy from 1305 to 1329.Doss-Quinby et al., p. 32.

References

{{Trouvère Trouvères Medieval women poets French women composers 13th-century French women writers 13th-century French poets