(b Autafort [now Hautefort], ?1150; d Dalon, nr Hautefort, before 1215). French troubadour. His birthplace was in the Périgord region of the former province of Limousin; he was lord of the family castle at Autafort. In about 1195 he entered the Cistercian monastery at Dalon, Ste Trie, and remained there until his death. He is probably best known for his praise of military and political exploits; in the eighth circle of Dante’s Inferno he is referred to as the ‘headless trunk that followed in the tread … and by the hair held its severed head’. He was punished in this way because he was the instigator of the quarrels between Henry II and his sons in the 1180s. Though his actual participation in these events has possibly been exaggerated by his medieval biographers, many of his poems do refer to the events directly or indirectly.
Of over 40 poems attributed to Bertran, only one, Rassa, tan creis e mon' e poja, survives with music (PC 80.37). Yet it seems that he both imitated melodies of other troubadours and was musically imitated by one trouvère. Several of Bertran's poems without melodies are textual contrafacta of other poems for which melodies survive, including two by his contemporary Giraut de Bornelh. Three poems were models for later settings with melodies by Conon de Béthune, but it is uncertain whether any of these musical contrafacta was sung to Bertran's poems.
Editions:Bertran de Born, sein Leben und seine Werke, ed. A. Stimming (Halle, 1879) [S]Der musikalische Nachlass der Troubadours, ed. F. Gennrich, Summa musicae medii aevi, iii (Darmstadt, 1958) [G]Las cançons dels trobadors, ed. I. Fernandez de la Cuesta and R. Lafont (Toulouse, 1979) [C]The Extant Troubadour Melodies, ed. H. van der Werf and G. Bond (Rochester, NY, 1984) [W]The Poems of the Troubadour Bertran de Born, ed. W. Paden, T. Sankovitch and P. Stäblein (Berkeley, 1986) [P]
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no music |
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Ai, Lemonis, franca terra corteza, PC 80.1 (nm) [same form and near-identical rhymes to Bertran's ‘Pois als baros enoia en lur pesa’, PC 80.31; model for: Conon de Béthune, ‘Mout me semont amors que je m’envoise’, R.1837], S, G, C, P |
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Ar ven la coindeta sazos, PC 80.5 (nm) [modelled on Raimon de Miraval's ‘Chansoneta farai’, PC 406.21], P |
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Be·m plai lo gais temps de pascor, PC 80.8a (nm) [modelled on Giraut de Bornelh's ‘Non posc sofrir’, PC 242.51], P |
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Cazutz sui de mal en pena, PC 80.9 (nm) [model for: Conon de Béthune, ‘Bele douce dame chiere’, R.1325, according to Gennrich and Fernandez de la Cuesta; model for: Conon's ‘Ne lairai que je ne die’, R.1131, according to Van der Werf], S, G, C, P |
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D'un sirventes no·m cal far loignor ganda, PC 80.13 (nm) [modelled on Giraut de Bornelh's ‘S'ie·us quier conseil’, PC 242.69], P |
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Ges de disnar no for’ oimais maitis, PC 80.19 (nm) [model for: Conon de Béthune, ‘Tant ai amé c’or me convient häir’, R.1420], S, G, C, P |
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Pois als baros enoia en lur pesa, PC 80.3 (nm) [see ‘Ai, Lemonis’, PC 80.1], P |
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Rassa, tan creis e mon’ e poja, PC 80.37 [model for: Lo Monge de Montaudo, ‘For m’enoja, so auzes dire’, PC 305.10], S, G, C, W (addressed to Geoffrey Plantagenet) |
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Ben grans avoleza intra, PC 233.2 (nm) (questionable attrib.) [modelled on Arnaut Daniel's ‘Lo ferm voler’, PC 29.14], P |
C. Appel: Bertran von Born (Halle, 1931)
G. Gouiran: L'amour et la guerre: l'oeuvre de Bertran de Born (Aix-en-Provence, 1985, abridged 1987)
R. Labaree: ‘Finding’ Troubadour Song: Melodic Variability and Melodic Idiom in Three Monophonic Traditions (diss., Wesleyan U., 1989), 276
For further bibliography see Troubadours, trouvères.
ROBERT FALCK/JOHN D. HAINES