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On leaving Narbonne, he visited Raimbaut at Orange and afterwards travelled to Spain and Toulouse, finally entering a monastery where he ended his life. Auvergne produced a far more important troubadour in the person of Peire d'Auvergne, whose work extended from about 1158 to 1180; he was thus more or less contemporary with Guiraut de Bornelh and Bernart de Ventadour.
The fact is, that the nature of troubadour poetry and its homage to the married woman were incompatible with the highest standard of religious devotion. The famous alba of Guiraut de Bornelh invokes the "glorious king, true light and splendour, Lord Almighty," for the purpose of praying that the lovers for whom the speaker is keeping watch may be undisturbed in interchange of their affections.
We now reach a group of three troubadours whom Dante selected as typical of certain characteristics: "Bertran de Born sung of arms, Arnaut Daniel of love, and Guiraut de Bornelh of uprightness, honour and virtue." This title is not awarded to him by any other troubadour; the jealousy constantly prevailing between the troubadours is enough to account for their silence on this point.
The Monk of Montaudon, Peire Raimon of Toulouse, Uc de San Circ, Uc Brunet and other troubadours of less importance also enjoyed Alfonso's patronage. Guiraut de Bornelh sent a poem to the Catalonian court in terms which seemed to show that the simple style of poetry was there preferred to complicated obscurities.
The social conditions again under which troubadour poetry was produced, apart from the limitations of its subject matter, tended to foster an obscure and highly artificial diction. This obscurity was attained, as we have said, by elevation and preciosity of style, and was not the result of confusion of thought. Guiraut de Bornelh tells us his method in a passage worth quoting in the original
"Peire Rogier sings of love without restraint and it would befit him better to carry the psalter in the church or to bear the lights with the great burning candles. Guiraut de Bornelh is like a sun-bleached cloth with his thin miserable song which might suit an old Norman water-carrier.
Bernart de Ventadour is even smaller than Guiraut de Bornelh by a thumb's length; but he had a servant for his father who shot well with the long bow while his mother tended the furnace." The satiric sirventes soon found imitators: the Monk of Montaudon produced a similar composition. Like many other troubadours, Peire ended his life in a monastery.
The inevitable reaction occurred, and a movement in the opposite direction was begun; of this movement the most distinguished supporter was the troubadour, Guiraut de Bornelh. He had been one of the most successful exponents of the trobar clus, and afterwards supported the cause of the trobar clar. I should like to know, G. de Bornelh, why, and for what reason, you keep blaming the obscure style.
It is obvious that the disputants are at cross purposes; the object of writing poetry, according to the one, is to please a small circle of highly trained admirers by the display of technical skill. Guiraut de Bornelh, on the other hand, believes that the poet should have a message for the people, and that even the fools should be able to understand its purport.
This point Guiraut de Bornelh advances as an objection to the use of the easy style: "I should like to send my song to my lady, if I should find a messenger; but if I made another my spokesman, I fear she would blame me. For there is no sense in making another speak out what one wishes to conceal and keep to oneself."
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