Thibaut IV, Count of Champagne and Brie, King of Navarre

(b Troyes, 30 May 1201; d Pamplona, 7 July 1253). Trouvère. He was one of the most important of the northern French trouvères, with a larger surviving output of poetry and music than any other trouvère. His grandmother, Marie de France, patroness of Gace Brule, Conon de Béthune and Chrétien de Troyes, was a daughter of King Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine. His mother, Blanche of Navarre, was the daughter of King Sancho VI. His father, Thibaut III, had been named head of the 4th Crusade, but died suddenly on 24 May 1201, before departure. To obtain the protection of King Philip II Augustus, his mother contracted that Thibaut IV should spend four years at court and should pay homage to the king when he came of age. But because he was born only after his father’s death, Thibaut’s titles were twice challenged – in 1221 by Erard de Béthune and his wife Philippine, and in 1233 by Alix, Queen of Cyprus.

Thibaut was present at the Battle of Bouvines (1214) and took part in the siege of La Rochelle in 1224 in the war against the English. He fulfilled his duties as vassal at the siege of Avignon in 1226, but then left secretly against the wishes of Louis VIII. He refused to attend the coronation of Louis IX late that year, and joined a league of powerful nobles opposed to the regent, Queen Blanche of Castile. His submission and that of the Count of Bar was speedily enforced. This aroused the enmity of his former allies, who invaded Champagne and retired only after the threat of royal intervention. The bitter feelings were aired in sirventes by Hue de la Ferté.

Thibaut was crowned King of Navarre on 7 or 8 May 1234, after the death of his uncle, Sancho the Strong. His efforts to regain fiefs sold to the royal house to meet the settlement granted to Alix of Cyprus were frustrated.

In 1239 he left France for the Holy Land as the head of a crusade and, after visiting Jerusalem, returned the following year. He supported the French against the English in 1242, and in 1244 lost a battle in Gascony against English forces led by Nicolas de Molis. His headstrong, authoritarian attitudes led to quarrels with the clergy resulting in an interdiction, lifted after a 1248 pilgrimage to Rome. He married three times.

Thibaut’s work was mentioned in the Grandes chroniques de France, and by Dante, by the theorist Johannes de Grocheio and by the Minnesinger Wahsmuot von Mülnhûsen. Quotations appear in Girardin d’Amiens’ Meliacin and in Matfre Ermengau’s Perilhos tractat.

Prolific and versatile, Thibaut wrote not only chansons courtoises but also chansons de croisade, jeux-partis, débats, pastourelles and religious works, including a lai, a serventois, and chansons to the Virgin. His poetry exhibits a wide variety of strophic structures, most strophes being isometric (many of them in decasyllables) but some having several different line lengths. His chansons normally contain five strophes, his jeux-partis six. Four works each use a fixed refrain and one has a variable refrain. The device of re-using the same strophic form for three pairs of chansons, and for one of these pairs using the same melody also (Sire, loez moi a loisir), is unusual for the period – parallels may be found in the work of Richart de Semilli and Moniot d’Arras. Most of the jeux-partis draw on poetic structures and melodies of older poems. It is possible that neither of the extant melodies to Baudouin, il sont dui amant was by Thibaut and that this jeu-parti was intended to use the melody to Bernart de Ventadorn’s Quan vei la lauzeta mover. In turn, several of Thibaut’s works (De bone amour, Empereres ne rois, Tant ai Amours, Ausi com l’unicorne and Tuit mi desir) served as models for later chansons, one of them being imitated three times.

Most of Thibaut’s melodies are cast in bar form. However, some (Une doulours enossee, A envis sent mal, Savés pour quoi Amors and Ausi com l’unicorne) are non-repetitive, while others (Li dous penser, Je ne puis pas bien metre, Li rossignous, Au tens plain de felonie) contain unorthodox repetitions. Pour mal tens and Robert, veez de Pieron use forms characteristic of the rotrouenge. Ausi com l’unicorne, cited by Grocheio as a ‘cantus coronatus’, begins near the peak of its range, defines the upper tetrachord in the first two phrases and the lower pentachord in the next two, cadencing on the lowest note and creating a momentary impression of finality. The remaining phrases explore primarily the upper tetrachord, ending on its lowest tone. Chanter m’estuet, cited by Grocheio as a cantus versualis, has a simpler, more symmetrical tune which moves primarily within the pentachord above the final. Like a large number of his melodies, these two are in the modes on G; Thibaut has in fact a clear preference for modes with a major 3rd above the final. (Except for melodies ending on F, he preferred authentic to plagal forms.) The nearly syllabic settings of these two songs, punctuated by brief cadential flourishes, are representative of many works. He normally began on or just above the final and expanded the melody upwards. Examples that descend from the 7th or octave (De novel, Qui plus aime, some versions of En chantant veul) are rare. Often the manuscript sources are divergent in essential features of modality. For example, the refrain of Pour mal tens ends on four different notes in five of its sources, and is lacking altogether in a sixth, causing still another note to appear as final. While most melodies by Thibaut make clear the importance of the final as the main tonal centre, some are ambiguous or even misleading. Most remain within the range of a 7th, 8th or 9th, but a few extend to an 11th. Mensural rhythm is indicated in about 20 melodies. Dieus est ensi is notated in first rhythmic mode in one source (F-Pn fr.12615). Many of the remaining examples, in the Chansonnier Cangé (Pn fr.846), show inconsistencies and contradictions in the notation. Disposition of patterns in some melodies sometimes hints that modal interpretation may be acceptable for other tunes.

Sources, MS

WORKS

Editions:Las canciones del Rey Teobaldo, ed. H. Anglès (Pamplona, 1973)Trouvères-Melodien, ii, ed. H. van der Werf, MMMA, xii (1979)Trouvère Lyrics with Melodies: Complete Comparative Edition, ed. H. Tischler, CMM, cvii (1997)

(V) etc. indicates a MS (using Schwan sigla seeSources, ms) containing a late setting of a poem; when the letter appears in italics, the original setting cannot be identified with certainty.

works of joint authorship

works of uncertain authorship

works of doubtful authorship

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG1 (F. Gennrich)

P.A. Lesveque de la Ravallière: Les poésies du roy de Navarre, avec des notes & un glossaire françois (Paris, 1742) [edn of texts]

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

A. Wallensköld: Les chansons de Thibaut de Champagne, roi de Navarre (Paris, 1925/R)

J. Maillard: Anthologie de chants de trouvères (Paris, 1967)

H. van der Werf: The Chansons of the Troubadours and Trouvères: a Study of the Melodies and their Relation to the Poems (Utrecht, 1972), 122ff

M.R. Dolly and R.J.Cormier: ‘Aimer, souvenir, souffrir: les chansons d'amour de Thibaut de Champagne’, Romania, xci (1978), 311–46

A. Arens: ‘Traditionelles und Originelles bei Thibaut IV von Champagne: die Kanzone “Por conforter ma pesance”’, Romania cantat: Gerhard Rohlfs zum 85. Geburtstag gewidmet: Lieder in alten und neuen Chorsätzen mit sprachlichen, literarischen und musikwissenschaftlichen Interpretationen, ed. F.J. Oroz Arizcuren, G.B. Bucciol and I. Monreal-Wickert (Tübingen, 1980), ii, 435–37

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)

C. Brucker: ‘Conventions, variations et innovations stylistiques dans la poésie lyrique du XIIIe siècle: Thibaut de Champagne’, Le génie de la forme: mélanges de langue et de littérature offerts à Jean Mourot (Nancy, 1982), 27–40

Y. Bellenger and D.Quéruel, eds.: Thibaut de Champagne: prince et poète au XIIIe siècle (Lyons, 1987) [incl. E. Baumgartner: ‘Présentation des chansons de Thibaut de Champagne dans les manuscrits de Paris’, 35–44; H.-H. Räkel: ‘Le chant du roi, le roi du chant: l'invention mélodique chez Thibaut de Champagne’, 57–64; F. Ferrand: ‘Thibaut de Champagne: de l'obsession du mal à la mort du chant’, 77–89]

R. Pensom: ‘Thibaut de Champagne and the Art of the Trouvère’, Medium Aevum, lvii (1988), 1–26

K.J. Brahney, ed.: The Lyrics of Thibaut de Champagne (New York, 1989)

For further bibliography see Troubadours, trouvères.

THEODORE KARP