Gaucelm Faidit

Gaucelm Faidit, *ca. 1150 Uzerche (near Limoges), †ca. 1230, Provençal troubadour. He came from a burgher family. According to the Old Provençal “vida”, he lost his fortune playing dice and began a life as a juggler, travelling with Guilhelma Monja, his future wife. He held an important place among the circle Marie de Ventadorn’s poets, herself an active poet, to whom he dedicated 12 songs.  Among his numerous patrons were King Richard the Lionheart (whose death at Chalus in 1199 Gaucelm Faidit commemorated with the funeral planh Fortz cauza es que tot lo major dan), the Provençal senor Raymond d’Agout, and the Margrave Boniface II of Montferrat (whom Gaucelm Faidit accompanied on an expedition to the Holy Land in 1202–1204). Gaucelm Faidit’s poetic style is characterised by simplicity; in his varied stanzaic structures, he frequently employed an alternation of long and short lines. Of his approximately 70 surviving songs (love songs, songs dedicated to the Crusades, tensons and planhs), 14 pieces have musical notation.

Literature: F. Gennrich Der musikalische Nachlass der Troubadours, vol. 1, Darmstadt 1958; J. Mouzat Les poèmes de Gaucelm Faidit, Paris 1965; J. Boutière, A.-H. Schutz Biographies des troubadours, Paris 1965.