Chapter 46

THE TROUBADOURS, TROUVÈRES AND MINNESINGERS.

To the full account of the origin of the _Chansons de Geste_ in the foregoing chapter, it remains now to add a few notes concerning the _personnel_ of the different classes of minstrels through whose efforts these great songs were created.

The first of these singers were the troubadours, who were traveling minstrels especially gifted in versification and in music. Their compositions appear to have been short, on the whole, and of various kinds, as will presently be seen. The earliest of the troubadours of whom we have definite account was Count Wilhelm of Poitiers, 1087-1127. Among the kind of songs cultivated by these singers were love songs, canzonets, chansons; serenade--that is, an evening song; auberde, or day song; servantes, written to extol the goodness of princes; tenzone, quarrelsome or contemptuous songs; and roundelays, terminated forever with the same refrain. There was also what was called the pastourelle, a make-believe shepherd's song.

The so-called chansonniers of the north, who flourished toward the end of the twelfth century, were also troubadours. Among them the name of Count Thibaut of Champagne, king of Navarre, stands celebrated--1201-1253. He composed both religious and secular songs. The following is one of his melodies unharmonized. Its date is about the same as that of "Summer is Coming In." Another celebrated name of these minstrels was Adam de la Halle, of Arras in Picardy--1240-1286. Upon many accounts the music of this author is of considerable interest to us. He was a good natural melodist, as the examples in Coussemaker's "Adam de la Halle" show. He is also the author of the earliest comic opera of which we have any account, the play of "Robin and Marion." We shall speak of this later, in connection with the development of opera in general.

[Music illustration:

L'autrier par la ma-ti-né-e, En-tre un bois et un ver-gier U-ne pastoure ai trou-vé-e Chantant pour soi en-voi-sier, Et di-soit un son pre-mier 'Chi me tient li maus d'amor.' Tan-tost ce-le part m'entor, Ka je l'oi des rais-ner; Si li dis sans de-la-ier. Bel-le Diex vous doint bon-jor.]

Immediately following the troubadours came the trouvères, who were simply troubadours of nobler birth, and perhaps of finer imagination. There were so many of these singers that it is quite impossible here to give a list of their names. Among the more celebrated, forty-two names are given by Fétis, the most familiar among them being those of Blondel, the minstrel of Richard Coeur de Lion, and the Châtelaine de Coucy (died about 1192), from whom we have twenty-three chansons.

It was the trouvères who invented the _Chansons de Geste_ already mentioned--songs of action; in other words, ballads. One of the most celebrated of these was the "Story of Antioch," a romance of the crusades, extending to more than 15,000 lines. This poem was not intended to be read, but was chanted by the minstrels during the crusades themselves. One Richard the Pilgrim was the author. The song is, in fact, a history of the crusade in which he took part, up to a short time before the battle in which he was killed. Another very celebrated piece of the same kind, the "Song of Roland," the history of a warrior in the suite of Charlemagne, is said to have been chanted before the battle of Hastings by the Jongleur Taillefer. Other pieces of the same kind were the "Legend of the Chevalier Cygne" ("Lohengrin") "Parsifal" and the "Holy Grail." Each one of these was sung to a short formula of melody, which was performed over and over incessantly, excepting variations of endings employed in the episodes. A very eminent author of pieces of this kind was the Chevalier de Coucy, who died 1192, in the crusade. There are twenty-four songs of his still in the Paris Library.

A similar development of knightly music was had in Germany from the time of Frederick the Red--1152-1190. These were known as minnesingers. Among the most prominent were Heinrich of Beldeke, 1184-1228, an epic writer; Spervogel, 1150-1175; and Frauenlobe, middle of the twelfth century. The forms of the minne songs were the song (_lede_), lay (_lerch_), proverb (_spruch_). The song rarely exceeded one strophe; the lay frequently did. A little later we encounter certain names which have been recently celebrated in the poems of Wagner, such as Heinrich von Morungen, Reinmar von Hagenau, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried von Strassburg, Walther von der Vogelweide, Klingsor, Tannhäuser, etc. All of these were from the middle of the thirteenth century. A portrait of Reinmar, the minnesinger, has come down to us with a manuscript now contained in the National Library at Paris. The last of the minnesingers was Heinrich von Meissen, 1260-1318. His poems were always in the praise of woman, for which reason he was called Frauenlob ("Woman's Praise"). An old chronicle tells us that when he died the women of Mayence bore him to the tomb, moistened his grave with their tears, and poured out libations of the costliest wines of the Rhineland. The following illustration is supposed to be a representation of this minstrel, although the drawing is hardly up to the standard of the modern Academy.

The work of the minnesingers was succeeded in Germany by a class of humbler minstrels of the common people, known as the Mastersingers, the city of Nuremberg being their principal center. A few of these men were real geniuses--poets of the people. One of the most celebrated was Hans Sachs, since represented in Wagner's "Meistersingers." Sachs was a very prolific poet and composer, his pieces being of every kind, from the simpler songs of sentiment and home to quite elaborate plays. About nine volumes of his poems have been reprinted by the Stuttgart Literary Union.

The principal influence of these different classes of popular minstrel was temporary, in keeping alive a love for music and a certain appreciation of it. The most of their music was rather slow and labored, and it is impossible to discover in the later development of the art material traces of their influence upon it. In this respect they differ materially from the Celtic and English bards mentioned in the previous chapter. Although the productions of those minstrels have all passed away, they have left a distinct impress upon musical composition, even to our own day, in certain simple forms of diatonic melody of highly expressive character. The troubadours, trouvères and minnesingers, on the other hand, never acquired the art of spontaneous melody, and as for harmony, there is no evidence that they made any use of it. Their instrument of music was a small harp of ten or twelve strings, but no more--a much smaller and less effective instrument than the Irish harp of the eleventh century, or the Saxon of the tenth. (See Fig. 28.)