The sirventes was a special genre of TROUBADOUR
poetry that was written in stanzas but that was
concerned with politics or moralizing rather than
love, the subject of the better-known CANSO.
Politics or current events were often the subject
matter of the sirventes, as, for example, in the poem
by the troubadour BERTRAN DE BORN, beginning
“Miei sirventes vuolh far de.ls reis amdos” (“I shall
make a half sirventes about both kings”) (Goldin
1973, 233), in which he looks forward to a coming
conflict between Alfonso VIII of Castile and
RICHARD I of England.
Most often the tone of the sirventes was satiric,
and the poet did not shy from reviling the object of
his satire. In the following poem, Peire VIDAL exhorts
the cities of Italy to unite against an invasion
by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI in
1194–95, and spends some time berating the Germans
themselves:
The Germans, I find, are gross and vulgar,
and when one of them gets it into his head he’s
a courtly man,
it is a burning mortal agony, an insult,
and that language of theirs sounds like the
barking of dogs.
(Goldin 1973, 263, ll. 9–12)
Typically, along with the satire, a sirventes contained
a moral or didactic message. The troubadour
Peire CARDENAL was the master of this type of
poem, particularly in his attacks on the venality of
the clergy. In one of his lyrics, for example, he says
that all power is now in the hands of the clergy,
who are characterized by “stealing, betrayal,
hypocrisy, violence, and sermons” (Goldin 1973,
291, ll. 19–21).
Other common subjects for sirventes were
praise of individuals, literary satire, or the Crusades.
The word sirventes means “servant” in
Provençal, but could also mean “mercenary” or
“foot soldier.” The connection between the term
and the genre is unclear, but certainly the point of
view of a poem like Bertran de Born’s above is that
of a mercenary.
It could also be said that the sirventes came to be
considered an inferior and less original genre in
troubadour poetry, one that did not require the
same amount of creative energy as the canso. Many
sirventes were written to the tune, and with the
same rhyme schemes, as popular cansos. Though
the genre eventually came to be seen as imitative,
its greater practitioners produced some remarkably
effective and original poetic satires.
Bibliography
Goldin, Frederick, ed. and trans. Lyrics of the Troubadours
and Trouvères: An Anthology and a History.
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973.