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They could be the servants of a heavenly mistress and attribute to her all the graces and beauty of form and character. It has been supposed that the Virgin was the mysterious love sung by Jaufre Rudel and the supposition is not inconsistent with the language of his poems.
Marcabrun knows the technical terms cortesia and mesura, which he defines: mesura, self-control or moderation, "consists in nicety of speech, courtesy in loving. He may boast of courtesy who can maintain moderation." The poem concludes with a dedication to Jaufre Rudel Lo vers e·l son vueill envier A'n Jaufre Rudel outra mar. "The words and the tune I wish to send to Jaufre Rudel beyond the sea."
Those critics who accept the truth of the story regard Melisanda, daughter of Raimon I., Count of Tripoli, as the heroine; but the biography must be used with great caution as a historical source, and the mention of the house of the order of Templars in which Jaufre is said to have been buried raises a difficulty; it was erected in 1118, and in the year 1200 the County of Tripoli was merged in that of Antioch; of the Rudels of Blaya, historically known to us, there is none who falls reasonably within these dates.
Jaufré, the prior of Vigeois, an abbey of Saint-Martial of Limoges, is the only chronicler during the reigns of Henry II. and Richard Coeur de Lion who mentions Bertran's name. From these materials, and from forty-four or forty-five poems which have come down to us, the poet's life can be reconstructed. Bertran de Bern's estates were situated on the borders of Limousin and Périgord.
Is it possible that strong men have wept and fainted at a mere woman's name, like the Count of Nevers in "Flamenca," or that their mind has swooned away in months of reverie like that of Parzifal in Eschenbach's poem; that worldly wise and witty men have shipped off and died on sea for love of an unseen woman like Jaufre Rudel; or dressed in wolf's hide and lurked and fled before the huntsmen-like Peire Vidal; or mangled their face and cut off their finger, and, clothing themselves in rags more frightful than Nessus' robe, mixed in the untouchable band of lepers like Ulrich von Liechtenstein?
This was the troubadour whom Petrarch has made famous Jaufre Rudel che usò la vela e'l remo A cercar la sua morte.
His romantic story is as follows in the words of the Provençal biography: "Jaufre Rudel of Blaya was a very noble man, the Prince of Blaya; he fell in love with the Countess of Tripoli, though he had never seen her, for the good report that he had of her from the pilgrims who came from Antioch, and he made many poems concerning her with good tunes but poor words.
As all poems were intended to be sung, the poet was also a composer; the biography of Jaufre Rudel, for instance, says that this troubadour "made many poems with good tunes but poor words."
The probability is that the constant references in Jaufre's poems to an unknown distant love, and the fact of his crusading expedition to the Holy Land, formed in conjunction the nucleus of the legend which grew round his name, and which is known to all readers of Carducci, Uhland and Heine. Contemporary with Jaufre Rudel was Bernard de Ventadour, one of the greatest names in Provençal poetry.
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