Bernart de Ventadorn (also known as Bernard de Ventadour or Bernat del Ventadorn; born around 1130–1140 and died around 1190–1200) was an Occitan poet and composer from the classical period of troubadour poetry. He is widely considered the most important troubadour in both poetry and music. Out of 45 poems he is known to have written, 18 of their melodies have survived, more than any other 12th-century troubadour. He is remembered for his skill in creating and spreading the trobar leu style, a poetic technique, and for his many cançons, or songs, which helped shape the genre of courtly love poetry. His work became a model for other troubadours during the next 150 years.

He is now known as "the Master Singer" because he refined the cançons into a more structured style that included unexpected changes. Bernart was skilled at showing women in his songs as both divine figures and as Eve, the figure from religious stories who caused humanity's first sin. This contrast in his writing was expressed in a style described as "graceful, witty, and polished."

Life and career

According to the poet Uc de Saint Circ, Bernart may have been the son of a baker at the castle of Ventadour (Ventadorn), in present-day Corrèze, France. Another source, a humorous poem written by Peire d'Alvernha, a contemporary of Bernart, suggests that Bernart’s father could have been a servant, a soldier, or a baker, and his mother was also a servant or a baker. Evidence from Bernart’s early poem Lo temps vai e ven e vire shows that he likely learned to sing and write from his guardian, Viscount Eble III of Ventadour. Bernart wrote his first poems for his patron’s wife, Marguerite de Turenne.

After falling in love with Marguerite, Bernart was forced to leave Ventadour. He traveled to Montluçon and Toulouse, and later joined Eleanor of Aquitaine in England and the Plantagenet court. Information about these travels and his connection to Eleanor comes mostly from his own poems. Later, Bernart returned to Toulouse, where he worked for Raimon V, Count of Toulouse. Eventually, he went to Dordogne, where he joined a monastery. He most likely died there.

Works

Bernart is special among non-religious composers from the twelfth century because much of his music has survived. Out of his forty-five poems, eighteen have music that is still in good condition, which is rare for a troubadour composer. Trouvères, another group of composers, had a higher survival rate for their music, often because they were not as affected by the Albigensian Crusade, which caused many troubadour sources to be lost. Bernart's work likely dates between 1147 and 1180. He is often considered a major influence on the development of the trouvère tradition in northern France. This is because his music was widely shared, and early trouvère composers seem to have copied his style. Bernart's influence also reached Latin literature. In 1215, a professor from Bologna named Boncompagno wrote in his work Antiqua rhetorica that "How much fame attaches to the name of Bernard de Ventadorn, and how gloriously he made cansos and sweetly invented melodies, the world of Provence very much recognises."

Cultural references

In the BBC TV drama series The Devil's Crown (1978), actor Paul Blake played the character Bernart.

In the final part of his long poem The Cantos, American poet Ezra Pound, who was very interested in the trouveres and troubadours of Provence and southern France, quoted Bernart's poem Can vei la lauzeta mover two times.