Geography & Language of the Troubadours
Part 1
What is now France made up the bulk
of the region known as Gaul. By the 2nd century BC, Celtic France was called
Gallia by the Romans, and its people were called Gauls. The peoples of the
southwest of France were called the Aquitani by the Romans. Under later Roman
rule, after 355 C.E., most of Occitania was known as Aquitania, itself part of
the Seven Provinces with a wider Provence, while the northern provinces of what
is now France were called Gallia (Gaul). Gallia Aquitania (or Aquitanica) is thus also a name used
since medieval times for Occitania (i.e. Limousin, Auvergne, Languedoc and
Gascony), including Provence as well in the early 6th century. In the later
stages of the Roman Empire, Gaul was subject to barbarian raids and migration,
most importantly by the Germanic Franks, the people of Gaul who merged with the
Gallo-Roman populations during succeeding centuries, passing on their name to
modern-day France and becoming part of the heritage of the modern French
people. Thus the name France comes from Latin Francia, which literally means
land of the Franks. It originally applied to the whole Empire of the Franks, extending
from southern France to eastern Germany. Under the reign of the Franks Kings
Clovis I, Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, and Charlemagne, the country was
known as Kingdom of Franks or Francia. The Frankish king Clovis I united most
of Gaul under his rule in the late 5th century, setting the stage for Frankish
dominance in the region for hundreds of years. Frankish power reached its
fullest extent under Charlemagne. Thus, France as nation came into existence
when Charlemagne became Emperor in 800 CE. The medieval Kingdom of France
emerged from the western part of Charlemagne's Carolingian Empire, known as
West Francia, and achieved increasing prominence under the rule of the House of
Capet, founded by Hugh Capet in 987. It was known as Aquitanica or the
Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse, before the northern French conquest started in
the early 1200s. Gallia Aquitania (or Aquitanica) is thus also a name used
since medieval times for Occitania, including Provence as well in the early 6th
century. Occitania has been recognized as a linguistic and cultural concept
since the Middle Ages, but has never been a legal or a political entity under
this name, although the territory was united in Roman times as the Septem
Provinci and the early Middle Ages. Thus the historic Duchy of Aquitaine
must not be confused with the modern French region called Aquitaine: this is
the main reason why the term Occitania was revived in the mid-19th century.
The
troubadours wrote and sung not in classical Latin, but in the vernacular
dialects. As far as pinning down the exactly dialect is concerned, scholars
vary on this, depending how where one draws the line between Southern and
Northern dialects. Its complicated, but simply put the vernacular Southern
dialects were those of Languedoc and Provence; north of the line were the
Limousin and Auvergne Northern dialects. At the present day these dialects have
diverged very widely, but in the early middle ages the difference between them
was by no means so great. Moreover, a literary language grew up by degrees,
owing to the wide circulation of poems and the necessity of using a dialect
that could be universally intelligible. Thus scholars hold that it was the
Limousin dialect that became, so to speak, the backbone of this literary language,
now generally known as Provenal, just as the Tuscan became
predominant for literary purposes among the Italian dialects. It was in
Limousin that the earliest troubadour lyrics known to us were composed, and
this district with the adjacent Poitou and Saintonge may therefore be
reasonably regarded as the birthplace of Provenal lyric poetry. In any case, linguists
and philologists today, ever since Dante (De
vulgari eloquentia—On the Eloquence of Vernacular), recognize all
these dialects under the designation of romance languages.
This issue of
language gets rather confusing, since this north-south demarcation actually
encompasses what was one cultural-linguistic region of the South of France,
then known (an area south of the river Loire) as the Occitan. Furthermore, the
main division of language is north and south of the river Loire; two distinct
linguistic and cultural areas, with c language (Occitan)
and of the south and the ol language (medieval version of modern
French) of the north, the language that the trouvres (the later
northern troubadours) wrote in. In
other words, France was then two distinct cultural-linguistic regions. A further confusion for the layman
comes in because terms like Occitan, Provenal, and Langue doc designate both a
language and a region. Simply put, language of
the troubadours was Occitan (also known as the langue doc, or Provenal); the
language of the trouvres was Old French (also known as langue doil).
Today, the term Troubadours of the Provence is used identify and to
locate the home of the troubadours as equal to the entire south of France. By
the same token, the term Provenal is used to
cover the vernacular romance language of the troubadours. However, to be more
accurate, the terms Provence and Provenal are not
entirely appropriate to describe the region and the literary language of the
troubadours, as they may be restricted to denote only one single region and
dialect spoken in what is called Provincia or the Provence. (And it should be
noted that what divided the north from the south of medieval France is roughly
the Loire river. Thus Occitania was demarcated at the Loire River to the north,
the Atlantic Ocean at its western boundary, the Mediterranean Sea at its
eastern boundary, and the Pyrenees mountains at its southernmost boundary.
Aquitania, or Aquitanica, was also the name used since medieval times for
Occitania.) The term Provenal is especially
misleading given that the earliest of the troubadours all came not from the
Provence, but from Poitou and Gascony (provinces of west-central France near Aquitaine), whose dialect was Limousin. It was
not in fact until past the middle of the 12th century that we find troubadours
in Provence proper.
This difficulty in terminology was felt at an early date. It is a
difficulty because the southern region of Provincia was in the 12th and 13th
centuries only one of at
least nine other southern
regions of provinces that made up Occitania, which also included (looking at a
map from north to south) Poitou, Limousin, Auvergne, Aquitaine, Languedoc or
Toulouse, Gascogne, Vavarre, Aragon, Roussillon, and Catalunya (or Catalonia).
Occitania was united by a common culture, which used to cross easily the
political, constantly moving boundaries. This terminology is all the more
confusing, since both the provinces and the dialects have the same names; for
instance Occitan and Languedoc denote both.
The first
troubadours spoke of their language as roman
or lingua romana, a term equally
applicable to any other romance language. Lemosin
was also used, which was too restricted a term, and was also appropriated by
the Catalonians to denote their own dialect. A third term in use was the lingua doc, which has the authority of
Dante and was used by some of the later troubadours; however, the term Provenal has been generally accepted, and must henceforward be
understood to denote the literary language common to the south of France and
not the dialect of Provence properly so-called. For obvious reasons Southern France
during the early middle ages had far outstripped the Northern provinces in art,
learning, and the refinements of civilization. Roman culture had made its way
into Southern Gaul at an early date and had been readily accepted by the
inhabitants, while Marseilles and Narbonne had also known something of Greek
civilization.
Occitania has been recognized as a linguistic and cultural concept since
the Middle Ages, but has never been a legal nor a political entity under this
name, although the territory was united in Roman times as the Septem
Provinci and the early Middle Ages (Aquitanica or the Visigothic Kingdom
of Toulouse) before the northern French conquest started in the early 1200s.
Under later Roman rule (after 355 C.E.), most of Occitania was known as
Aquitania, itself part of the Seven Provinces with a wider Provence, while the
northern provinces of what is now France were called Gallia (Gaul). Gallia
Aquitania (or Aquitanica) is thus also a name used since medieval times for
Occitania, including Provence as well in the early 6th century. (Thus the
historic Duchy of Aquitaine must not be confused with the modern French region
called Aquitaine: this is the main reason why the term Occitania was revived in
the mid-19th century.)
Occitania was often politically united during the Early Middle Ages,
under the Visigothic Kingdom and several Merovingian and Carolingian
sovereigns. Charlemagne, in 805, vowed that his empire be partitioned into
three autonomous territories according to nationalities and mother tongues:
along with the Franco-German and Italian ones, was roughly what is now modern
Occitania from the reunion of a broader Provence and Aquitaine. But things
didnt go according to plan, and at the division of the Frankish Empire (c. 9th
century C.E.) Occitania was split into different counties, duchies and
kingdoms, bishops and abbots, self-governing communes of its walled cities.
Since then the country was never politically united again, though Occitania was
united by a common culture that used to cross easily the political, constantly
moving boundaries. (A good example of this is the southern-eastern province of
Occitania, Catalunya or Catalonia, which is now a Spanish province, with its
capital of Barcelona. Under Visigothic rule for four centuries after Romes
collapse, it came under Moorish al-Andalus control in the 8th century. After
the defeat of Emir Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqis troops at Tours in 732, the Franks
conquered former Visigoth states that had been captured by the Muslims or had
become allied with them in what today is the northernmost part of Catalonia.
Charlemagne created in 795 what came to be known as the Marca Hispanica, a buffer
zone beyond the province of Septimania made up of locally administered separate
petty kingdoms which served as a defensive barrier between the Umayyad Moors of
Al-Andalus and the Frankish Kingdom. However, Catalonia was to become
politically and culturally linked with Southern France or Occitania, when, in
1137, Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona married Queen Petronila of Aragon,
the province to the northwest, establishing the dynastic union of the County of
Barcelona with the Kingdom of Aragon that was to create the Crown of Aragon. It
was not until 1258, by means of the Treaty of Corbeil, that the king of France
formally relinquished his feudal lordship over the counties of the Principality
of Catalonia to the king of Aragon James I, descendant of Ramon Berenguer IV.
This Treaty transformed the regions de facto autonomy into a de jure
direct Aragonese rule.)
Occitania and Occitan
language (Occitana lingua) appeared in Latin texts from as early as
1242-1254 to 1290[9] and during the following years of the early 14th century;
texts exist in which the area is referred to indirectly as the country of the
Occitan language (Patria Linguae Occitanae). This derives from the name
Lenga dc that was used in Italian (Lingua dc) by Dante (De
vulgari eloquentia) in the late 13th century to denote the vernacular
romance language of the troubadours. Occitan or langue doc (lenga dc)
is a Latin-based Romance language in the same way as Spanish, Italian or
French. There are six main regional varieties with easy intercomprehension
among them: Provenal (including Niard spoken in the vicinity of Nice),
Vivaroalpenc, Auvernhat, Lemosin, Gascon (including Bearns spoken in Barn)
and Lengadocian. All these varieties of the Occitan language are written and
valid. Standard Occitan is a synthesis that respects soft regional adaptations.
Catalan is a language very similar to Occitan and there are quite strong
historical and cultural links between Occitania and Catalonia. Written texts in
Occitan appeared in the 10th century: it was used at once in legal then
literary, scientific and religious texts. The spoken dialects of Occitan are
centuries older and appeared as soon as the 8th century, at least, revealed in
toponyms or in Occitanized words left in Latin manuscripts, for instance.
Actually, the terms Lenga doc, Occitan, and Occitania appeared at the
end of the 13th century. Occitan literature was glorious and flourishing at
that time—in the 12th and 13th centuries, the troubadours invented
courtly love (finamor) and the Lenga doc spread throughout all
European cultivated circles.
Thus, to
speak of troubadour culture entails not just the south of France, but also
south into Spain (Catalonia) and east into Italy. The earliest lyric poetry of
Italy is Provenal in all but language; almost as much may be said of Portugal
and Galicia; Catalonian troubadours continued to write in Provenal until the 14th century. The lyric poetry of the trouvres and the romances of Northern France were deeply influenced
both in form and spirit by southern troubadour poetry, and traces of this
influence are perceptible even in early middle-English lyrics, the most
prominent of which being Chaucers. Finally, the German minnesingers knew and
appreciated troubadour lyrics, and imitations or even translations of Provenal poems may be found German works. Eventually, the troubadours
became a pan-European phenomenon and are credited with the birth of modern
European poetry.
All this said, the terms Provence and Provenal have,
nevertheless, been generally accepted to locate the region at large of the
troubadours and to denote the literary language common to the south of France
respectively (and not the dialect of Provence properly so-called). Therefore,
it should be kept in mind that when the GS uses these terms he does so only
because they have been accepted as normative to describe the geography and
language of the troubadours.
Part 2
Southern France (or the south of
France), colloquially known as le Midi, is defined geographical area
consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the
Gironde, Spain, the Mediterranean, and Italy. The Midi includes:
Aquitaine
Midi-Pyrnes
Languedoc-Roussillon
Provence-Alpes-Cte d'Azur
Corsica
Rhne-Alpes (southern parts)
This area corresponds in large part
to the name for Southern France, Occitania (which has been recognized as a
linguistic and cultural concept since the Middle Ages); the territory in which Occitan (langue
d'oc—as distinct from the langues d'ol of Northern France)
was historically the dominant language. Thus Occitania is the name given to the
area where Occitan, the langue d'oc, was
traditionally the first language. It covers almost half of modern France (the
Midi–the southern part, excluding the Basque Country and the Roussillon
which is Catalon speaking), along with parts of what are now Italy and Spain. The
regions of Auvergne and Limousin are also a part of Occitania but are not
normally referred to as Southern France. From the Middle Ages onward the French
rulers believed their kingdoms had natural borders: the mountains of the
Pyrenees and the Alps and the rivers of the Rhine and Loire.
The terms used in this musical essay
series for the region of Southern France of the Middle Ages (especially the 12th
century) can be confusing. During the Middle Ages, what we know today as France
was actually two separate cultural, linguistic, and political territories: Gaul
(Francia), in the north and Occitania in the south, which are roughly divided
by the great river Loire. Also today, the home of the troubadours is called
Provence (thus the popular term the Troubadours of the Provence). But this is
largely for convenience sake, since the first troubadours were, for the most
part, natives of provinces farther north; Poitou, Auvergne, and Limousin. The
confusion is compounded by the fact that the southern provinces are also
separate linguistic areas, so that such provinces as, for instance, Limousin
and Provence are also designations of dialects; Lemosin and Provencal, both
dialects of the Occitan (or Langue d'oc)
language.
Lengadc (Occitan word) is a former province
of France, now continued in the modern-day regions of Languedoc-Roussillon and
Midi-Pyrnes in the south of France, and whose capital city was Toulouse, now
in Midi-Pyrnes. The province of Languedoc (bordering the Mediterranean Sea on
the south and the Rhne River) covered an area of approximately 16,490 sq.
miles in the central part of southern France, roughly the region between the Rhne
River (border with Provence) and the Garonne River (border with Gascony),
extending northwards to the Cvennes and the Massif Central (border with
Auvergne). The province of Languedoc took its name from the Romance Provenal
language widely spoken in Southern France in the Middle Ages and known as
Langue d'oc (oc is Provenal for yes). Again, the use of the
geographical designation Languedoc (separate from the language) can be
confusing, since at the time of the troubadours Languedoc was a southeastern
province in the political territory or country of Toulouse. But Languedoc can
also be synonymous with Occitania, the special culture of all of Southern
France.
Occitan language is a Romance
language. The French spoken north of the Loire and in France today was known as
langue d'ol (ol also meaning
yes). Occitan, also called Provenal or Langue d'oc (lenga d'c), is a
Latin-based Romance language in the same way as Spanish, Italian or French.
There are six main regional varieties with easy intercomprehension among them:
Provenal, Vivaroalpenc, Auvernhat, Lemosin, Gascon and Lengadocian. All these
varieties of the Occitan language are written and valid. Standard Occitan is a synthesis
that respects soft regional adaptations.
As for the geographical region of Provence
in the time of the troubadours, it covered a larger area than today. Thus, it
should be kept in mind that when the Provence is used for the home of the
troubadours, it is not a designation that is completely accurate, but has come
to conventionally represent their geographic and linguistic (Provenal)
identity. (See maps on this Troubadours & Courtly Love webpage.)