Chastelain de Couci

(b c1165; d May or June 1203). French trouvère. The Chastelain’s coat-of-arms is given in an Arras miniature, and his purported name (‘Mess. Reignaut Castellain de Couchy’) is entered in GB-Lbl Eg.274. However, the rubric is in a 15th-century hand and is undoubtedly erroneous. Because of his fame as a poet, and because he appears as the hero of the Roman du Chastelain de Couci et de la Dame de Fayel (ed. J.E. Matzke and M. Delbouille, Paris, 1936), an unusual interest in his identification has prevailed since Claude Fauchet's Recueil de l'origine de la langue et poésie francoises appeared in 1581. Many solutions have been proposed, most without factual foundation. The Roman, written c1300 by a certain Jakemes, is one of the numerous adaptations of the ‘Eaten Heart’ legend which spread throughout western Europe between the 12th and 16th centuries. Yet the Roman was treated as biographical fact even as late as the 20th century.

The Sires of Coucy were among the more powerful nobles of medieval France, and the castellanship of Couci le Château (north of Soissons, département of Aisne) was an important post entrusted to descendants of the Thourotte (Torote) family during the 12th century; through marriage, the post passed to the house of Magny in the early 13th century. Two chansons by the Chastelain (Li nouviaus tens and Par quel forfait) are quoted by Jean Renart in the Roman de la rose ou de Guillaume de Dole, a work possibly dating from the 1220s. The first of these is a chanson de croisade. Gui IV de Couci is known to have participated in the third crusade, and was possibly at Acre, where Raoul de Couci fell in 1191. Gui was also among the leaders of the fourth crusade; Villehardouin recorded in his Conqueste de Constantinople (ed. R. de Clery and J. Longnon, Paris, 1981) that he died on the voyage, his body being committed to the sea. There is no evidence to indicate that Renaut de Magny, his successor (1207–18), participated in any crusade. Holger Petersen Dyggve's suggestion that Gui IV may have been identical with the Gui de Ponceaux, a friend of Gace Brulé, is reasonable but undocumented.

Presumably the Chastelain was acquainted with other trouvères who participated in the third and fourth crusades, including Conon de Béthune and Hugues de Berzé. The Chastelain is mentioned as a minor in an act of 1170 and appears in his own right in documents of 1186–1202. He assisted in the regency of Couci during the minority of Enguerrand III, following his return from the third crusade. He is cited by Eustache Le Peintre de Reims (in R.2116) together with Tristan and Blondel de Nesle as one of the ideal representatives of the tradition of courtly love. Quotations from the Chastelain's chansons also appear in the Roman de la violette by Gerbert de Montreuil and in the Roman de la Chastelaine de Vergi. Four poems by the Chastelain are employed by Jakemes in his Roman, together with two others of erroneous attribution. Three of his chansons served as the models for other chansons, one of these for two, possibly even three others.

The Chastelain was one of the more skilful of the trouvère poets, particularly in the handling of rhyme schemes, some of which show evidence of Provençal influence. His poems leave an impression of elegance and sincerity, but do not stray from conventional paths of thought and imagery. He favoured isometric, decasyllabic strophes, but works such as L'an que rose are more complex. Whereas all of the original settings of his poems are in bar form, there is considerable variety to the melodic structures. A vous, amant, L'an que rose and Quant li estés each use reciting notes prominently, but others move more freely. La douce vois is a fine Dorian melody, beginning on the subfinal, as does Merci clamant, reaching a peak at the opening of the cauda and subsiding gently. Coment que longve demeure and Quant voi venir, on the other hand, begin near the peak and descend over the long term. The melodic ideas, like those of the poems, make much use of common coin. The opening of Je chantasse volentiers liement is notated in 3rd mode in F-Pn fr.846, and there are very brief similar indications for A vous, amant, but little other evidence of symmetrical rhythmic organization in the melodies.

Sources, MS

WORKS

Editions: Trouvères-Melodien, ed. H. van der Werf, MMMA, xi–xii (1977–9), iTrouvère Lyrics with Melodies: Complete and Comparative Edition, ed. H. Tischler, CMM, cvii (1997)

Abbreviations: (A) etc. indicates a MS (using Schwan sigla: see Sources, ms) containing a late setting of a poem. When the letter appears in italics, the original setting cannot be identified with certainty

works of uncertain authorship

works of doubtful authorship

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG1 (F. Gennrich)

J.B. de La Borde: Mémoires historiques sur Raoul de Coucy (Paris, 1781)

J. Stafford Smith, ed.: Musica antiqua: a Selection of Music of this and other Countries (London, 1812)

F. Michel and F.-L. Perne: Chanson du Châtelain de Coucy (Paris, 1830)

J. Bédier and P. Aubry: Les chansons de croisade (Paris, 1909/R)

T. Gérold: La musique au Moyen Age (Paris, 1932/R)

T. Gérold: Histoire de la musique des origines à la fin du XIVe siècle (Paris, 1936/R)

A. Lerond, ed.: Chansons attribuées au Chastelain de Couci (Paris, 1964)

F. Gennrich: Die Kontrafaktur im Liedschaffen des Mittelalters, SMM, xii (1965)

I.R. Parker: ‘A propos de la tradition manuscrite des chansons de trouvères’, RdM, lxiv (1978), 181–202

D.J. Mayer-Martin: Melodic Materials in Trouvère Music: a Comparative Analysis of the Chansons of Châtelain de Coucy, Gace Brulé, Thibaut de Champagne, and Gillebert de Berneville (diss., U. of Cincinnati, 1981)

For further bibliography see Troubadours, trouvères.

THEODORE KARP