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Lanfranc Cigala (orCicala) (Italian:Lanfranco,Occitan:Lafranc; fl. 1235–1257) was aGenoese nobleman, knight, judge, and man of letters of the mid thirteenth century. He remains one of the most famousOccitantroubadours ofLombardy. Thirty-two of his poems survive, dealing withCrusading,heresy, papal power, peace in Christendom, and loyalty in love. Lanfranc represented a tradition of Italian, Occitan-languagetrovatori who berated thePapacy for its handling of the Crusades.
Lanfranc's surviving corpus consists of thirty-two poems, including sevencansos ofcourtly love; four religiouscansos; threesirventes; twocrusading songs; and oneplanh. Among the thirty works attributed to him are ninetensos composed with other troubadours: four withSimon Doria and one each withJacme Grils,Guilleuma de Rosers,Lantelm,Rubaut, and an otherwise unknown "Guilhem".
Lanfranc was first mentioned in 1235 as aiudex (judge). In 1241, he was an ambassador from theRepublic of Genoa to the court ofRaymond Berengar IV of Provence, where he probably metBertran d'Alamanon. In 1248, he was inCeuta on a mercantile expedition. He was last mentioned alive in a document dated 16 March 1257, and he was recorded as deceased on 24 September 1258. Contrary to legend, he was not assassinated inMonaco in 1278.
Lanfranc was both a critic of the crusading policies of thePapacy and a supporter of theAlbigensian Crusade.[1] EchoingInnocent III's declaration that theCathars were worse than theSaracens (1208), in his poemSi mos chans fos de joi ni de solatz (directed at theCount of Provence, thenCharles of Anjou), Lanfranc wrote:
Coms Proensals, tost fora deliuratz | Count of Provence, would soon be freed |
This poem was written immediately after the loss ofJerusalem to theMamelukes in 1244 and concurrent with the last Albigensian rising.[2] More securely, it can be dated to between August 1244 and 17 July 1245.[3] Lanfranc blamed the loss of Jerusalem on the lack of peace between Christian states, which was the first prerequisite of a successful Crusade in the East. Though he explicitly refused to lay the blame at the feet of either emperor (Frederick II) or pope (Innocent IV), his last words attack the pope's policy as war for profit.[2]
In another poem,Quan vei far bon fag plazentier, written early in 1248, Lanfranc bemoaned the coming fall of Christianity with a metaphoricalSepulchre, which theSaracens, he said, had already destroyed. Christianity, therefore, was doomed and could not be recovered, because it had already been brought down by the infidels. This extreme metaphor was only part, however, of Lanfranc's desire to encourage peace amongst Christians for the sake of the survival of their religion.[4]
Among Lanfranc's religious songs (cansos) are three onMarian themes, the most prominent of which isGloriosa sainta Maria.
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Some of Lanfranc's work presaged thedolce stil nuovo,[5] as when he wrote in his poemQuant en bon luec thatques amors pren en lejal cor naissenza (love is born in loyal hearts).[6] His poetry idealised women and emphasised the need for loyalty. In another poem, Lanfranc praised the deceased countess ofEste thus:
. . . la vol dieus en cel far regnar,
e si tot sai en reman dechaenza
li saint angel la'n portaran chantan.[7]
Among the ladies (dompnas) Lanfranc celebrated in his poetry were Berlenda and onede Villafranca, on whose surname the poet composed many puns, as inTan franc cors de dompn'ai trobat. This last woman may have been Alasia, the daughter ofGuglielmo Malaspina. Lanfranc's onlyplanh was composed for a lady named Luresana, whom Lanfranc calledchan-plor. It beginsEu non chant ges per talan de chantar.
InFrancesco da Barberino'sFlores novellarum, a collection ofBoccaccian novellas, there is a short biography of Lanfranc in which the troubadour is torn by the "duties of hospitality" and the "claims of lady-service". This novella is taken as an example of the early date at which the scene was transferred "from the street to the human soul."[8]
Lanfranc also wrote a violentsirventes beginningEstier mon grat mi fan dir vilanatge attackingBoniface II of Montferrat in July 1245. A lighter composition wasEscur prim chantar e sotil, a defence of thetrobar leu genre.
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