Locality, Distance, and Troubadour Song in the Second Crusade

Troubadour song has been explored as an expression of courtly love and early vernacular song creation, even mythologized as a brief flowering of a romanticized Occitanian golden age. However, troubadour songs also importantly act as expressions of place and provide indices of contemporaneous regional communities and identities. Contemporary with the Second Crusade, the troubadour songs Pax in nomine Domini by Marcabru and Lanqan li jorn by Jaufre Rudel employ circularity, dialectic, and movement as ways of expressing place and creating a sense of near versus far. These songs should not be understood as only fixed texts; rather in sounding, transmission, and the enacting of motion they move through new environments and assume new agency as they travel. Troubadour songs of the Second Crusade thus transcend the role of fixed musical object to mediate between the position of composer-poet, the voice of the performer, and the reception of distant listeners.

Place, Frankishness, and Regionality

While the First Crusade would entail great destruction, Pope Urban’s initial summons proved captivating, joining concepts of love and duty, and associating crusading with Frankishness, an index of identity for northern Frenchmen and Occitanians. Crusade chronicles, along with concepts found in Crusade song, reveal the persuasive nature of this messaging. This chapter demonstrates the particularly Frankish and Occitanian nature of the First Crusade and ways that Occitanian citizens, like Raymond of Saint-Gilles and Adhémar of Le Puy, aided the effort. Occitanians found crusading inspiration in relics like the Holy Lance, and in stories of local heroes, like Gouffier of Lastours. Chant e deport by Gaucelm Faidit demonstrates such notions of locality, heroism, and imagination. Finally, Occitanians affirmed their allegiance to Christian theologies such as the Incarnation, and saw the failure to uphold one’s vows as warranting extreme acts of violence. These values are articulated in Latin versus Nube carnis maiestatis.

Introduction

Assatz i a portz e camis. / E per aisso no·n sui devis . . . [Many are the ports and roads, / And so I cannot prophesy . . .] (ll. 19–20) —Jaufre Rudel, Lanqan li jorn 1 In his song Lanqan li jorn, the early-twelfth-century troubadour Jaufre Rudel expresses a sense of wonder and uncertainty about the future, one that he maps onto his perception of geography as complex, interwoven, and often unknowable. The song proclaims Jaufre’s intention to travel eastward to the Crusade front as a Christian pilgrim, and to unite there with his beloved Lady (generally understood as the Countess of Tripoli), the object of his ...

Near and Distant Lands in First Crusade Songs

Two First Crusade songs from the turn of the twelfth century—Ierusalem mirabilis and Nomen a solemnibus—demonstrate Occitanian attitudes toward violence, Jerusalem, and dynamic Crusade journeys. Both come from the Aquitanian versus repertory and reference current or recent events pertaining to the First Crusade, and the state of Jerusalem between 1096 and 1099. In this way, they enhance our understanding of the versus repertory, which typically focuses on broader themes of Marian and Christological theology. Both songs rely upon various elements of Pope Urban’s Crusade call and contemporaneous crusading ideologies. They employ musical-poetic rhetorical techniques such as circular motion and dialectic opposition in order to portray the early Crusades as active, vital campaigns. The also employ deictic language to mark positionality and us-versus-them belief systems. In so doing, they position Jerusalem and Occitania—conceptually and geographically—in relation to one another, particularly through spatial notions of nearness and distance.

Identity, Space, and Song in Crusading Occitania

In conceptualizing Holy War, Pope Urban II’s message transformed Christian ideals and shaped attitudes toward violence and geography. His rhetoric and agenda inspired Occitanian people to newly encounter space in ways—including through song—whose legacies continue to resound. Many songs written in response to crusading were born in the area of modern-day southern France known as Occitania, particularly in the form of troubadour song and Aquitanian versus. Within the context of crusading, these songs reveal Occitanian attitudes regarding Christianity and Islam, dualistic (us-versus-them) ideologies, regional community, perceptions of Crusade goals, and concepts of distance—both spatial and metaphoric. This chapter outlines methodologies employed throughout the book, including philosophical and geographic understandings of space and place. Engaging with previous scholarship on these repertories, this chapter defines a repertory of Crusade songs; it overviews characteristics and representative examples of various genres, including songs of pilgrimage, exhortation, sirventes, pastorela, laments, and love song.

Situating the Holy Land: Juxtapositions and Circular Paths

In endowing the Holy Land with sanctity, the Crusades established it as an object of territorial desire and a site of spiritual transcendence. Cultivating this desire for the Holy Land involved several interrelated Crusade concepts: the power of pilgrimage traditions, perceptions of the Eastern enemy, fear and curiosity about the unknown, and delineations of the position of the Holy Land within a larger globe. These factors converged to redefine Jerusalem within a sacred landscape, where Crusaders sought to walk in the very steps that Christ had impressed in the sacred terrain. Such concepts were explored in Crusader maps, and articulated in Crusade lyric. The rhetoric of Crusade song variously relied upon circular and linear motions, dualistically juxtaposed nearness and distance, sameness and difference, and yearning and attainment. This chapter demonstrates ways in which Crusade songs, such as Ara pot hom conoisser by Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, mapped space, articulated geographic beliefs, and explored physical and spiritual senses of movement.

Occitania, Court, and Cloister

While medieval Occitania lacked national or governmental cohesiveness, its language and culture constructed a distinctive collective identity. Meanwhile, the sociopolitical volatility of twelfth-century Occitania imbued local lands with seeds of disquiet, yielding ambiguities regarding the region’s boundaries, territory, and sovereignty. Song culture centrally established Occitanian-ness during the Crusade era, revealing how the song creators experienced devotional practices, power structures, and identifications with home. Versus and troubadour repertories crystallized Occitania’s positions on linguistic distinctiveness, spatial perceptions, and cultural identity. The versus genre became an expression of resistance and creativity, while troubadour poet-composers blended their religious-political positions into the context of courtly love composition. Later, during the thirteenth century, the Albigensian Crusade radically challenged Occitania’s political independence and cultural vitality, causing displacement and senses of nostalgia. Analysis of Bel m’es q’ieu chant by Raimon de Miraval reveals the troubadour’s concern with Occitanian territory and homeland during the time of the Albigensian Crusade.

Singing Crusade Journeys

In mapping geopolitics and spirituality, Crusade songs enacted motion and travel. Directionality and circularities typify Crusade songs and Crusaders alike. Songs variously embody dialogues between singing and hearing, the actions of Crusaders traveling both outremer and homeward. As songs moved through geographical spaces, bodies, air, and time, they articulated new contexts. Multiply re-created, songs emerged from composite and collective processes that included monks, troubadours, performers, scribes, and listeners. Contrafacture, seen in the relationship between Walther von der Vogelweide’s Palästinalied and Jaufre Rudel’s Lanqan li jorn, demonstrates the dialogic nature of these layers of creation, and how differing Crusade perspectives re-inscribe a song’s expression of striving, movement, or conclusion. Overall, Occitanian songs rendered the Crusade front as areas inflected by regional perspectives, from unknown spaces to meaningful places. Using techniques like deictic language, oppositional rhetoric, and circular motion, Crusade songs reinforced contemporaneous ideologies in both their poetic texts and directed melodic shapes.