.jpg)
Marcabru (Occitan pronunciation:[maɾkaˈβɾy];fl. 1130–1150) is one of the earliesttroubadours whose poems are known. There is no certain information about him; the twovidas attached to his poems tell different stories, and both are evidently built on hints in the poems; not on independent information.[1]
According to the brief life in BnF ms. 12473,Marcabrun was fromGascony (details of the dialect of his poems support this) and was the son of a poor woman named Marcabrunela. This evidently comes from a reading of poem 293,18.[2]
According to the longer biography in MS. Vat. Lat. 5232Marcabru was abandoned at a rich man's door, and no one knew his origin. He was brought up byAldric del Vilar, learned to make poetry fromCercamon, was at first nicknamedPan-perdut[a] and laterMarcabru. He became famous, and the lords of Gascony, about whom he had said many bad things, eventually put him to death. This appears to be based on poems 16b,1 and 293,43 (an exchange between Aldric del Vilar and Marcabru) and guesswork; the link with Cercamon is doubted by modern scholars.
Forty-four poems are attributed to Marcabru, learned, often difficult, sometimes obscene, relentlessly critical of the morality of lords and ladies. He experimented with thepastorela, which he uses to point out the futility of lust. One tells of how the speaker's advances are reviled by a shepherdess on the basis of class. Another tells of how a man's attempt to seduce a woman whose husband was at thecrusades is firmly rebuffed. He may also have originated thetenso in a debate withUc Catola (as early as 1133) on the nature of love and the decline of courtly behaviour.[4] Marcabru was a powerful influence on later poets who adopted the obscuretrobar clus style. Among his patrons wereWilliam X of Aquitaine and, probably,Alfonso VII of León. Marcabru may have travelled to Spain in the entourage ofAlfonso Jordan,Count of Toulouse, in the 1130s. In the 1140s he was a propagandist for theReconquista and in his famous poem with the Latin beginningPax in nomine Domini! he called Spain alavador (washer) where knights could go to have their souls cleansed fighting the infidel.[5]
Fourmonophonic melodies to accompany Marcabru's poetry survive; additionally, three melodies of poems that may becontrafacta of Marcabru's work may be attributed to him.[6]
