Gautier d’Espinal (EN)

Gautier d’Espinal, d’Épinal, *Épinal (Vosges), was a northern French trouvère. He was active in the first half of the 13th century. No detailed information about his life or activity has survived. Fourteen of his songs have been preserved (including ten with melodies), and a further eight are attributed to him. These works, for example Se par force de merci, Quant je voi l’erbe menue, and Comencement de douce saison bele (probable authorship), belong to the hymn-like type. In his melodies, Gautier most frequently used the Mixolydian mode (G). Many of his works feature frequent changes of tonal centers and a free (irregular) rhythm. Gautier’s songs were fairly widely disseminated, and some have survived in multiple sources. They were also sometimes used as the basis for contrafacta, as their Latin versions are known.

Literature: F. Gennrich Grundriss einer Formenlehre des mittelalterlichen Liedes, Halle 1932; H. Petersen Dyggve Personnages historiques figurant dans la poésie lyrique française des XIIe et XIIIe siècles, vol. 2: Gautier d’Epinal, «Neuphilologische Mitteilungen» XXXVI, 1935; T. Gérold Histoire de la musique des origines à la fin du XIVe siècle, Paris 1936.