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Aplanctus ("plaint") is alament ordirge, a song or poem expressing grief or mourning. It became a popular literary form in theMiddle Ages, when they were written in Latin and in the vernacular (e.g., theplanh of thetroubadours). The most commonplanctus is to mourn the death of a famous person, but a number of other varieties have been identified byPeter Dronke. The earliest known example, thePlanctus de obitu Karoli, was composed around 814, on the death ofCharlemagne.[1]
Otherplanctus from the ninth century include vernacular laments in a woman's voice, Germanic songs of exile and journeying, andplanctus on biblical or classical themes (like the LatinPlanctus cygni, which is possibly derived from Germanic models). The earliest examples of music forplanctus are found in tenth-century manuscripts associated with theAbbey of Saint Martial of Limoges. From the twelfth century Dronke identifies a growing number of laments of theVirgin Mary (called aplanctus Mariae) andcomplaintes d'amour (complaints of love) in thecourtly love tradition.[2] From the mid-thirteenth century survives an earlyCatalan Marian lament,Augats, seyós qui credets Déu lo Payre, and around 1300 theLamentations of Mary were composed inOld Hungarian. TheMongol invasion of Europe drew aplanctus from an anonymous monk in the entourage ofBéla IV of Hungary, thePlanctus destructionis regni Hungariae per Tartaros (1242).
