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Folquet of Marseilles is a troubadour whose life belongs to these years of turmoil. He was the son of a Genoese merchant by name Anfos, who apparently settled in Marseilles for business reasons: Genoa was in close commercial relations with the South of France during the twelfth century, as is attested by treaties concluded with Marseilles in 1138 and with Raimon of Toulouse in 1174.
By the faith which I owe to you, by his deeds and his words and his dealings, more like is he to Anti-Christ than to an envoy of Rome." Folquet died on December 25, 1231, and was buried at the Cistercian Abbey of Grandselve, some thirty miles north-west of Toulouse.
Occasionally troubadours existed with sufficient resources of their own to remain independent; Folquet of Marseilles seems to have been a merchant of wealth, above the necessity of seeking patronage.
Peire d'Auvergne wrote several religious hymns after his retirement from the world; these are largely composed of reiterated articles of the Christian faith in metrical form and are as unpoetical as they are orthodox, Crusade poems and planhs upon the deaths of famous nobles or patrons are religious only in a secondary sense. A fine religious alba is ascribed to Folquet of Marseilles
He maintains a semi-artificial love; frequenting her house, writing sonnet after sonnet, rhetorical exercises, studies from the antique and the Provençal, for the most part; he, who was born to be a mere troubadour like Ventadour or Folquet, becomes, through the influence of Dante, the type of the poet Abate, of the poetic cavaliere servente; a good, weak man with aspirations, who, failing to get the better of Laura's virtue, doubtless consoles himself elsewhere, but returns to an habitual contemplation of it.
The preceding defeat of Alfonso's forces at Alarcos in 1195 had called forth a fine crusade sirventes from Folquet of Marseilles appealing to Christians in general and the King of Aragon in particular to join forces against the infidels.
The stories of the jealousy of Azalais' sister which drove Folquet to leave Marseilles are probably apocryphal. Folquet also addressed poems to the wife of the Count of Montpelier, the daughter of the Emperor of Constantinople. He wrote a fine planh on the death of Barral of Marseilles in 1192 and it was about this time that he resolved to enter the church. His last poem belongs to the year 1195.
No doubt the wealth which he may have brought to the Church as a successful merchant contributed to his advancement, but Folquet was also an indomitably energetic character. Unlike so many of his fellow poets, who retired to monasteries and there lived out their lives in seclusion, Folquet displayed special talents or special enthusiasm for the order which he joined.
Peire Vidal was the son of a Toulouse merchant. He began his troubadour wanderings early and at the outset of his career we find him in Catalonia, Aragon and Castile. He is then found in the service of Raimon Gaufridi Barral, Viscount of Marseilles, a bluff, genial tournament warrior and the husband of Azalais de Porcellet whose praises were sung by Folquet of Marseilles.
So Bertran of Born, Bernart of Ventadour, Peire Rogier, Cadenet and many others retired from the disappointments of the world to end their days in peace; Folquet of Marseilles, who similarly entered the Cistercian order, became abbot of his monastery of Torondet, Bishop of Toulouse, a leader of the Albigeois crusade and a founder of the Inquisition.
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