Gavaudan

Gavaudan
Born
Other namesGavaudas, Gavauda, le Vieux
Occupation(s)Troubadour, soldier
Years activec. 1195–1215
EraReconquista
Employer(s)Raymond V, Raymond VI
Known forPastorelas and crusade song
Notable workSenhors, per los nostres peccatz

Gavaudan[1] (fl. c. 1195 – 1215, known in 1212–1213) was a troubadour and hired soldier (soudadier) at the courts of both Raymond V and Raymond VI of Toulouse and later on in Castile. He was from Gévaudan, as his name (probably a nickname) implies. He wrote moralising lyrics, either religious or political, and ten of his works survive, including five sirventes, two pastorelas, one canso, one planh for an anonymous domna (lady), and one Crusade song. He is sometimes clumped in a primitive Marcabrunian "school" of poetry alongside Bernart Marti, Bernart de Venzac, and Peire d'Alvernhe. He developed a hermetic style, combining elements of the trobar ric and trobar clus.

  1. ^ His Occitan name is also found as Gavaudas in the accusative and, by extension, Gavauda in the nominative. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French scholarship used to call him le Vieux (the Old), but there is no basis for this.