Old French crusade songs tend to differentiate themselves progressively from those of a more religious and political bent composed by the troubadours, introducing and developing the theme of courtly love typical of the grand chant courtois. This evolution of the crusade song in the direction of love is probably emphasized and amplified by the particular characteristics of the Old French manuscript tradition, which mainly consists of songbooks of a markedly aristocratic cast based on a canon exclusively devoted to courtly love. Some texts of a political or moral nature, closer to the Occitan tradition of the sirventes, survive outside the aristocratic songbooks in peripheral traditions which are not strictly confined to the lyric, namely in some Occitan songbooks, miscellaneous Anglo-Norman manuscripts containing historical and legal texts, or French chronicles of the crusading period. Such texts provide insights into the reality of the problems of expeditions to the Holy Land and constitute an extraordinary source of historical documentation complementing that of chronicles and official documents.
Le canzoni di crociata in lingua d'oïl tendono a differenziarsi progressivamente da quelle di natura più religiosa e politica scritte dai trovatori, introducendo e sviluppando il tema dell'amore cortese tipico del grand chant courtois. Questa evoluzione in senso amoroso della canzone di crociata risulta probabilmente accentuata e amplificata dalle particolari caratteristiche della tradizione manoscritta della lirica oitanica, costituita in prevalenza da canzonieri di marcata matrice aristocratica incentrati su un canone esclusivamente dedicato all'amore cortese. Alcuni testi più legati alla tradizione occitanica del sirventese, di natura politica o morale, sopravvivono al di fuori dei canzonieri aristocratici, confinati in tradizioni periferiche non strettamente liriche: alcuni canzonieri occitani, manoscritti miscellanei anglonormanni di testi storici e giuridici, cronache francesi del tempo delle crociate. Tali testi ci consentono di penetrare in qualche modo nell'attualità dei problemi delle spedizioni in Terra Santa e costituiscono una straordinaria fonte di documentazione storica che affianca i testi delle cronache e i diplomi ufficiali.
Crusade Songs and the Old French Literary Canon
BARBIERI L
2018
Abstract
Old French crusade songs tend to differentiate themselves progressively from those of a more religious and political bent composed by the troubadours, introducing and developing the theme of courtly love typical of the grand chant courtois. This evolution of the crusade song in the direction of love is probably emphasized and amplified by the particular characteristics of the Old French manuscript tradition, which mainly consists of songbooks of a markedly aristocratic cast based on a canon exclusively devoted to courtly love. Some texts of a political or moral nature, closer to the Occitan tradition of the sirventes, survive outside the aristocratic songbooks in peripheral traditions which are not strictly confined to the lyric, namely in some Occitan songbooks, miscellaneous Anglo-Norman manuscripts containing historical and legal texts, or French chronicles of the crusading period. Such texts provide insights into the reality of the problems of expeditions to the Holy Land and constitute an extraordinary source of historical documentation complementing that of chronicles and official documents.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.