Troubadour Songs #249614

The Age Of the Troubadours closed With Guiraut Riquier, of Toulouse, the period of whose life extended from 1254 to 1292, and of whose works there are preserved twenty — four poems and Six epistles which in their didactic character reveal unmistakably the decadence of the art The Albigensian Wars destroyed the independence of the South Of France and so impoverished the ruling houses and the nobility in general that they were unable to continue their generous patronage of the arts Most deeply interested in the course Of the struggle and in the defense Of the right Of the Albigenses to religious liberty was the renowned Troubadour Bertran de Born, Of whom one Of his contemporaries wrote, He is a good knight, a good warrior, a good wooer, and a good troubadour He wrote many love songs, but liked almost better still to write songs which stirred to strife, for above all things he delighted in the pomp and glory of war Dante beheld in him a sower of discord, who had set the sons of Henry I I against their father and involved France in war; therefore he pictured him in the Infernal Regions (inferno, Canto XXXVIII) carrying his severed head in his hand, and Speaking thus, In severe punishment for having parted persons who should have been Jolned I carry my brain, alas' parted from its beginning which is in my body. But although With the long period of war and the consequent suffering and impoverishment the cult Of the Troubadours ceased, its Spirit never died out of French poetry It was, indeed, the source of the lyric poetry Of France, and poems With musjc, wholly in the Troubadour vein and manner, were written by Spiritual successors of the Troubadours even in the Sixteenth century, among them such an one as NO VI, N ow My Lightsome Youth is Gone by the courtier-poet musician, Clément Marot.