In the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, the ''rotrouenge'' (

Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...

) or ''retroencha'' (Old Occitan) was a recognised type of lyric poetry, although no existing source defines the genre clearly. There are four conserved troubadour poems, all with refrains and three by

Guiraut Riquier Guiraut Riquier de Narbona ( 1230 in Narbonne – 1292 in Narbonne or Rodez) is among the last of the Occitan troubadours. He is well known because of his great care in writing out his works and keeping them together—''The New Grove Dictionary ...

with music, that are labelled ''retronchas'' in 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 ...

s. Six ''rotrouenges'' survive, but only one with music, and four of them are attributed to one

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 ...

Gontier de Soignies Gontier de Soignies was a medieval trouvère and composer who was active from around 1180 to 1220. Biography Gontier was from the region of Soignies in the County of Hainaut, a region that was then a state of the Holy Roman Empire. His life is mos ...

. Medieval Occitan treatises state that the ''retroencha'' always has a refrain, but modern scholars have found no other distinguishing characteristic. Pioneering work in singling out and identifying the ''rotroencha'' was made by

Alfred Jeanroy Alfred Jeanroy (5 July 1859 – 13 March 1953) was a French linguist. Jeanroy was a leading scholar studying troubadour poetry, publishing over 600 works. He established an influential view of the second generation of troubadours divided into tw ...

. In the twentieth century, the German scholars Friedrich Gennrich and Hans Spanke developed two distinct theories about the textual and melodic form of the ''rotrouenge'', implicitly suggesting in the process that some of the few specimens of lyric labelled as such in the manuscripts are in fact mis-labelled and do not represent the ''rotrouenge''. The French scholar Jean Frappier noted that "we are not absolutely sure that we have any authentic specimens of the rotrouenge", indicating that by the time the term came into use in the late twelfth century it was no more than an

archaism In language, an archaism is a word, a sense of a word, or a style of speech or writing that belongs to a historical epoch beyond living memory, but that has survived in a few practical settings or affairs. lexicon, Lexical archaisms are single a ...

("an attractive old term" in the words of Hendrik van der Werf) and that the original genre may have lost its distinct identity. The following are the only four ''retroenchas'' that survive: *"Si.m vai be ques eu non envei" by

Joan Esteve En Johan Esteve de Bezers, in modern orthography Joan Esteve (fl. 1270–1288), was a troubadour from Béziers. The only chansonnier which contains his eleven works, also calls him Olier de Bezers, implying that he was perhaps a potter. All his ...

*"Si chans me pogues valensa" by

*"Pos astres no m'es donatz" by Guiraut Riquier *"No cugei mais d'esta razo chantar" by Guiraut Riquier

Notes

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Bibliography

The following bibliography is taken from Hendrik van der Werf: * P. Bec. ''La lyrique française au Moyen-Age (XIIe–XIIIe siècles): contribution à une typologie des genres poétiques médiévaux'' (Paris, 1977–8). *J. Frappier. ''La poésie lyrique en France aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles: les auteurs et les genres'' (Paris, 1960). *F. Gennrich. ''Die altfranzösiche Rotrouenge'' (Halle, 1925). *F. Gennrich. ''Grundriss einer Formenlehre des mittelalterlichen Liedes'' (Halle, 1932), 52ff. *H. Spanke. ''Eine altfranzösische Liedersammlung'' (Halle, 1925), 294ff. Genres