Troubadour Read online

  Raimon-Roger Trencavel was a remarkable young man. He had inherited his title when he was only nine and had managed to hold on to it at a time when it was difficult for minors to grow to manhood, let alone retain their lands. He had been hoping for a peaceful future, with his wife Agnes and their little son. Bertran was bringing news that would lead to the break-up of that dream. Trencavel was only twenty-four when he died in the dungeon at Carcassonne.

  .

  The Count of Toulouse

  Raimon VI, Count of Toulouse, was an extraordinary character. He was married six times. His first wife, Ermessinde, died childless after four years of marriage. The second was Beatrice Trencavel, who bore Raimon a daughter but later became a Perfect. It was not difficult to get the Pope to grant him a divorce from her since she was a declared heretic.

  Wife number three, Bourgogne of Cyprus, lasted a year before Raimon divorced her. Then there was Joan of England, sister of Richard the Lionheart. She gave the Count his only heir, another Raimon, who would be the seventh count of that name. Joan left the Count and took refuge in a convent, but a respectable one of the Church, at Fontevrault. She had been carrying another child. They both died, from the results of Joan’s having to be sliced open to release the baby.

  And once he had his son and heir, who grew and thrived, Raimon had been able to please himself about a fifth wife, another Beatrice, but this marriage also ended in divorce, in 1202. His sixth and last wife was a good dynastic choice. She was Eleanor (Leonora) of Aragon, King Pedro II’s sister.

  Raimon VI was therefore uncle to Raimon-Roger Trencavel twice over, being his mother’s brother and the ex-husband of Trencavel’s Beatrice – though that marriage was not referred to during the crusade, because of her being a heretic.

  .

  The Feudal System

  It is perfectly possible for a lord to have vassals and yet himself be a vassal to another lord of higher rank or to a king. Hence Bertran is vassal of Lanval, who is vassal of Trencavel, who is vassal of Toulouse, who is vassal of King Pedro! The only figure to whom Aragon is vassal is the Pope.

  King Pedro is suzerain (= overlord) to Toulouse and all those below him.

  .

  The Languedoc and the Langue d’Oc.

  The region of southern France that we know as the Languedoc got its name from the language spoken there. This was the ‘Langue d’Oc’, the language of Oc where ‘Oc’ meant ‘yes’. In northern France they spoke the ‘Langue d’Oïl’ the language of Oïl, where ‘Oïl’ meant ‘yes’ (= modern day French ‘oui’).

  This language has been called Provençal in the past but this is misleading, because it was not limited to Provence; the preferred term used now is ‘Occitan’ and I have provided a glossary of Occitan words used in Troubadour.

  .

  After the Crusade

  During the crusade troubadours became distrusted – some were forbidden to compose – and many fled from Occitania into Northern Italy or Spain.

  Most of the characters in Troubadour are fictional but I have made even the historical ones do some fictional things. I could find out virtually nothing about the Papal Legate who was Bishop of Couserans, for example, so felt no compunction in having him interrogate Bertran de Miramont. Or in making Simon de Montfort the leader who suggested betraying Raimon-Roger Trencavel. Someone did it and why not Montfort the wolf? It is perfectly in character.

  Only Jean-Charles-Léonard Sismondi, in the mid-nineteenth century, has the detail that some citizens of Carcassonne escaped through a series of caverns to Cabardes, but it was suggested first in 1645 and was too good an idea to resist.

  There is no historical record of the ‘Nightingale of Carcassonne’ or that a couple of joglars were, for good and ill, at Béziers. I have shamelessly stolen the words of William of Tudela for Huguet’s planh at Termes.

  .

  Fate of Historical Characters

  Simon de Montfort was made to yield up the child of Maria and King Pedro in 1214 and the proposed marriage with his daughter never took place. The boy was already an orphan because his father had been killed at Muret in 1213 and his mother, Maria, had died some months before. But little Jacques/Jaime was raised by the Templars and eventually became King of Aragon, a strong and well-made man, known as James the Conqueror.

  The Abbot of Cîteaux never got his hands on Toulouse. He became Archbishop of Narbonne and was dead before the end of the crusade.

  Pope Innocent died in 1216 and was replaced by Honorius III.

  Guglielmo, Marchese of Monferrato, died in 1226 when about to set off to defend his father’s conquests in Greece. His Marchesa, Berta, had already died in 1224.

  Raimon of Toulouse lived another four years after Simon de Montfort’s death. He was excommunicated at the time of his death and his body was not allowed to be buried in hallowed ground. He and his son, Raimon VII, managed to recapture much of their territories before the crusade ended in 1229. But when Raimon VII died, twenty years later, the County of Toulouse passed to the French King of the time, Louis IX (later Saint Louis). That marked the end of Occitania as a separate entity from France.

  Pierre of Castelnau never did become a saint. The man whose murder set off the whole crusade remains merely ‘Blessed Pierre’.

  .

  .

  LIST OF CHARACTERS

  .

  .

  Aimeric de Sévignan, a knight

  Alessandro da Selva

  Alys de Sévignan

  *Arnaut-Aimery, Abbot of Cîteaux and Papal Legate

  Azalais de Tarascon, a trobairitz

  Berenger, Lord of Digne

  Bernardina, a joglaresa

  *Berta, Marchesa of Monferrato

  Bertran de Miramont, a troubadour

  Blandina le Viguier

  Borel, ferryman between Arles and Saint-Gilles

  Clara de Sévignan

  Elinor de Sévignan

  *Ermengaud, Bishop of Béziers 1205–8

  *Folquet de Marseille, Bishop of Toulouse, formerly a troubadour

  Garsenda, servant of the Lady Iseut

  *Guglielmo VI, Marchese of Monferrato

  Gui le Viguier, a knight, foster son of Lord Lanval

  Hugo, the cook

  Huguet, a joglar

  Iseut de Saint-Jacques, widow of Jaufre, a trobairitz

  *Innocent III, Pope (1198–1216)

  Lanval de Sévignan

  Lucatz, a troubadour

  Maria, a joglaresa

  *Maria de Montpellier, the Lady of that city

  *Milo, Papal Legate, a Cistercian monk

  Miqela, an old servant in Sévignan, formerly a wet nurse

  Nahum, a Jewish spice trader of Béziers

  *Bishop of Couserans, a Papal legate

  *Otto IV of Brunswick, Holy Roman Emperor

  *Pedro II, King of Aragon

  Peire, a child orphaned at Béziers

  Pelegrina, a Catalan joglaresa

  Perrin, a joglar

  Philippe-Auguste, King of France 1180–1223

  *Pierre of Castelnau, Papal Legate, murdered in 1208

  *Peire-Roger, Lord of Cabaret

  *Raimon VI, Count of Toulouse

  *Raimon-Roger Trencavel, Viscount of Béziers, Albi, Rezés

  and Carcassonne

  *Raimon, Lord of Termes

  *Renaut de Montpeyroux, Bishop of Béziers, 1208–11

  *Simon de Montfort, one of the most ferocious leaders of the crusade

  Thibaut le Viguier, a nobleman

  Victor, a jailer at Saint-Gilles

  * = a historical character

  .

  .

  GLOSSARY OF OCCITAN WORDSr />
  .

  .

  Amic Friend

  Amistat Friendship

  Canso Love song

  Canso de gesta Song about heroic deeds

  Cortesia Courtly behaviour

  Domna Lady

  Donzela Young girl

  Dolcment Gently

  Dolor Sadness, grief

  Estampida Vigorous dance

  Familha Family

  Fin’amor Courtly love

  Joglar Minstrel

  Joglaresa Female minstrel

  Joi Joy

  Joven Young boy

  Noiretz Foster-son

  Oc Yes

  Planh Lament

  Ribaut A ruffian (literally ‘ploughman’)

  Senescal Senior male servant in a castle

  Senhor Lord of a bastide, castle or city

  Senhoria The position and authority of a feudal lord

  Tenso Debate poem

  Trobairitz Female troubadour

  .

  .

  GLOSSARY OF MEDIEVAL WORDS

  .

  .

  Bailey Courtyard of castle

  Ballista Siege engine, like a giant crossbow

  Bastide Fortified town

  Consolamentum Ceremony of being received into the Cathar faith

  Believer What would now be called a Cathar

  Chansons de Geste French songs about heroic deeds

  Demesne A lord’s lands, castle and property

  Faidit A lord who has lost his demesne

  Fealty Allegiance owed by subjects to their lord

  Fief A vassal’s source of income, land and labour

  Hippocras Spiced wine

  Keep The main tower of a castle

  Mangonel Wooden siege engine

  Perfect A man or woman who had received the consolamentum and lived according to the strictest rules of the Cathar belief

  Rebec A small stringed instrument played with a bow

  Saltarello A lively dance involving jumping or leaping

  Seigneury The position and authority of a feudal lord

  Solar A private or upper chamber in a medieval house

  Suzerain Sovereign or feudal lord over other kings or lords; overlord

  Trebuchet Wooden siege engine, like a massive catapult

  Trencher Platter, sometimes wooden, sometimes made of bread

  Vassal A free man who held land (fief) from a lord to whom he paid homage and swore fealty. A vassal could be a lord in his own right.

  .

  .

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  .

  .

  Dr Susanna Niiranen, of the Department of History in the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, kindly read and commented on this novel. She specialises in the women troubadours of Southern France in the 12th and 13th centuries. Norman Allum was most helpful in the Languedoc.

  And Alessandro Barbero, Claudia Grosso and Riccardo Pergolis all provided invaluable information on the court of Monferrato. In spite of their assurances that the court would have moved around, I have taken the view of the Enciclopedia de La Repubblica (Utet, 2003) that it would have been at Chivasso, because I needed it to be somewhere!

  I am very grateful to Nicolas Gouzy and Véronique Marcaillou of the Centre for Cathar Studies in Carcassonne for their assistance and support.

  I have read many books and articles about troubadours, trobairitz, Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade while researching this book. Among the most useful have been Yves Rouquette’s The Cathars (Loubatières, 1998), Jonathan Sumption’s The Albigensian Crusade (Faber, 1978), Stephen O’Shea’s The Perfect Heresy (Profile Books, 2001) and Laurence Marvin’s The Occitan War (Cambridge University Press, 2008). On troubadour life and poetry, Linda M. Paterson, The World of the Troubadours (Cambridge University Press, 1993), and F. R. P. Akehurst and Judith M. Davis (eds), A Handbook of the Troubadours (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1995), have been invaluable.

  I’m grateful to the Bodleian and Taylorian libraries in Oxford and, as always, the utterly wonderful London Library.

  .

  .

  Also by Mary Hoffman

  The Falconer’s Knot

  .

  The Stravaganza Sequence:

  City of Masks

  City of Stars

  City of Flowers

  City of Secrets

  City of Ships

  .

  Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin, New York and Sydney

  First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  36 Soho Square, London, W1D 3QY

  Text copyright © Mary Hoffman 2009

  Map illustration © Peter Bailey 2009

  The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted

  Raymond Lévesque, Quand les hommes vivront d’amour . . . , used by permission of

  Éditions Typo, 1989 © 1989 Éditions Typo and Raymond Lévesque

  This electronic edition published in September 2010 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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  ISBN 978 1 4088 1337 9

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