Cercamon was one of the early TROUBADOUR
poets. Tradition says he was born in Gascony, like
his friend and fellow troubadour MARCABRU. His
VIDA says that Cercamon was Marcabru’s teacher,
but the scholarly consensus today is that more
likely Cercamon learned from Marcabru. At the
very least, his poems seem to owe a great deal to
Marcabru’s, as they do also to those of William
IX, the first troubadour. From Guillaume, Cercamon seems to have learned his smooth and simple technique—his songs are examples of the
TROBAR LEU style of troubadour poetry. Like Marcabru, Cercamon focuses on the theme of true
love, which he distinguishes from adulterous
love.
We have no specific knowledge of Cercamon’s
life. His pseudonym, the only name by which he
is known, means “vagabond” in Provençal, suggesting he spent some of his life wandering. But
William X of Aquitaine, son and heir of the first
troubadour, was briefly his patron, as the lament
he wrote on William’s death suggests. Cercamon
also alludes in one poem to the marriage of the
15-year-old Eleanor of Aquitaine, his patron’s
daughter, to the future Louis VII of France in
1137. In another poem Cercamon seems to allude
to Eleanor’s scandalous behavior with her uncle
Raymond of Antioch in 1148, during the Second
Crusade.
Cercamon celebrates true love, and condemns
the kind of behavior that Eleanor was accused of.
For him love was pure, and promiscuity represented the corruption of love. The true lover
should serve his beloved and earn her attention
through years of service:
I start, I burn, I tremble, all over,
sleeping and waking, for love of her.
I am so afraid of dying,
I dare not think of asking her;
however, I shall serve her two years or
three,
and then, maybe, she will know the
truth.
(Goldin 1973, 97, ll. 25–30)
Seven of Cercamon’s songs survive. An eighth is
of questionable authorship. According to his vida,
he also wrote “pastorals,” but if this is true none are
extant. The pastoral form did ultimately become
popular in the south of France, as did Cercamon’s
depictions of the trembling, humble lover.
Bibliography
Goldin, Frederick, ed. and trans. Lyrics of the Troubadours and Trouvères: An Anthology and a History.
Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1973.
Wolf, George, and Roy Rosenstein, ed. and trans. Poetry of Cercamon and Jaufre Rudel. New York: Garland, 1983.