Marcabru was one of the earliest of the Provençal
TROUBADOURS. He was born in Gascony, in the city
of Auvillar, in the first decade of the 12th century.
Unlike most other troubadours, he was not of
noble birth, but he seems to have been educated,
perhaps as a cleric. He found patronage among the
high nobility of Provençe and Spain, including
Guillaume X of Aquitaine (son of the first troubadour) and Alfonso VII of Castille. Some 42 of his
lyrics survive, including four with their musical
settings.
Marcabru is the first practitioner of what is
called the TROBAR CLUS, the deliberately obscure,
hermetic troubadour style. In one of his lyrics,“Per
savi.l tenc ses doptanssa,” he begins with the lines
“I say he’s a wise man, no doubt about it/who
makes out, word for word,/what my song signifies,/and how the theme unfolds:/for I myself take
pains/to cast some light on the obscurity” (Goldin
1973, 83, ll. 1–5).
Most often his lyrics deal with the corruption
and depravity of the noble class, for which he
blames the troubadours in part for their glorification of lust, which Marcabru calls amars, or bitter
love. This he contrasts with amors, the good love
that he extols: a love that does not cause pain but
brings joy; that is not selfish but responsible. His
style is often satiric, as he depicts false lovers with
bitter irony. He categorizes those in his courtly audience who practice or uphold amars as false lovers,
jealous ones, gossipmongers, and spies. Those who
respect amors he calls his friends. In the same lyric
cited above, Marcabru says that “whoever settles
down with Lust [amars]/wars against himself ”
(Goldin 1973, 83, ll. 15–16), and later asserts:
It fills me with anger and grief
to hear that pack of perjurers telling us
that Love deceives and tortures
a man by cooling down his lust.
They are liars, for the happiness of lovers is
Joy, Patience, Restraint.
(Goldin 1973, 83, ll. 19–24)
Marcabru significantly influenced later poets,
particularly those writing in the trobar clus style.
His categories of groups like “talebearers” and
“jealous ones” among the courtly audience were
also taken up by a number of later poets.
Bibliography
Goldin, Frederick, ed. and trans. Lyrics of the Troubadours and Trouvères. New York: Anchor, 1973.