Le Vinier, Guillaume

(b Arras, c1190; d 1245). French trouvère. He was the son of the well-to-do bourgeois Philippe le Vinier and his wife Alent. Though married, Guillaume was a cleric. His younger brother Gilles le Vinier, with whom he exchanged two jeux-partis (Frere, ki fait mieus and Sire frere, fetes m'un jugement), was also a trouvère. Guillaume was among the more prolific and imaginative of the trouvère poets within the Arras circle during the second quarter of the 13th century. Colart le Boutellier (r.891, 1610), Adam de Givenchi (r.112) and Jehan Erart (r.1712) each dedicated one or more poems to him, and the first two each engaged Guillaume in a jeu-parti, as did Andrieu Contredit d'Arras. It is likely that Moniot d'Arras, Thomas Herier and Thibaut IV de Champagne were also partners of his in three other jeux-partis. The fourth strophe of En tous tens was quoted in the Roman de la violette and thus antedates c1225. His stylistic debt to Gace Brulé's songs is expressed specifically in Voloirs de faire and indirectly by means of a citation from Gace's N'est pas a soi in Sire frere.

Guillaume le Vinier's poetic output is varied, including chansons d'amour, jeux-partis, a lai and descort, a chanson de mal mariée, a ballade, songs to the Virgin, and an imaginary dialogue with a nightingale. He had a marked preference for heterometric strophes, nine of his works having three different line lengths and one, En mi mai, having four. The great majority of his strophes have more than eight lines each. Li rossignolés and Quant ces moissons are unusual in that they employ pedes of five lines each. Possibly because of the distinctiveness of his formal constructions, only one of Guillaume's poems, Frere, qui fait mieus, provided the model for a later work. En tous tens, which is termed a ballade in the envoi, is the only strophic work with fewer than eight lines per strophe, being cast in the pattern aaabCB.

Most of the chansons follow bar form. Despite their length, there is almost no literal repetition in the caudas, and varied repetition is employed only sparingly. Moines, ne vous anuit pas, which displays the pattern ABAB CDCD' EF (D' being a 3rd lower than D), is the most noticeable exception to this general rule. The ballade features the repeat pattern, AABCBC, while Voloirs de faire chanson, not in bar form, is extraordinary in that lines 2, 3, 5 and 8 are different modifications of the opening phrase.

The treatment of the pedes of Thomas, je vous vueil demander is unusual in that the first pes ends on the final, while the second does not, thus reversing the normal ouvert–clos order. The melodies all move over a range of at least an octave, and examples with ranges of an 11th are not rare. There is considerable variety in the modal construction. A noticeable number of melodies have finals a 5th above the lowest tone centre of importance and a 4th below the highest. Melodies in authentic modes often begin a 7th above the final and gradually wend their way downwards. The role of the final as a centre of tonal gravity is quite variable. Chancon envoisie is given in part in mensural notation in the Chansonnier Cangé (F-Pn fr.846), following the pattern of the 2nd mode. Occasional hints of regular rhythmic organization may be observed in the disposition of single notes and ligatures in a few other chansons, but these patterns are not followed consistently. In general, modal interpretation of the melodies does not seem appropriate.

Sources, MS

WORKS

Edition: Trouvère Lyrics with Melodies: Complete Comparative Edition, ed. H. Tischler, CMM, cvii (1997)

works of joint authorship

authorship uncertain

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Jeanroy, L. Brandin and P. Aubry: Lais et descorts français du XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1901/R)

E. Ulrix: ‘Les chansons inédites de Guillaume le Vinier d'Arras’, Mélanges de philologie romane et d'histoire litteraire offerts à M. Maurice Wilmotte (Paris, 1910/R), 785–814

F. Gennrich, ed.: Romdeaux, Virelais und Balladen aus dem Ende des XII., dem XIII. und dem ersten Drittel des XIV. Jahrhunderts, ii (Göttingen, 1927)

P. Ménard, ed.: Les poésies de Guillaume le Vinier (Geneva, 1970, 2/1983)

M.-H. Fernandez: ‘Le génie ondoyant et divers du trouvère Guillaume le Vinier’, Marche Romane, xxx/3–4 (1980), 93–103

For further bibliography see Troubadours, trouvères.

THEODORE KARP