Presencia trovadoresca en la Corona de Aragón

Abstract

The presence of troubadours at the Crown of Aragon was constant since the beginnings of this original poetic movement, and the Catalonian kings were the ones who sheltered the last members of this profession.
Troubadours gathered around King Alfonso the II of Aragon (or other troubadours who, from far away places, mentioned him in their poems), became strong supporters of the King's policy beyond the Pyrenees. Nevertheless these same troubadours didn't hesitate in criticizing several other attitudes of their Monarch. Therefore they acted as chroniclers of historical and domestic events of their time through highly artistic poems.
After the golden age of the troubadours, that concurs with the kingdom of King Alfonso, his grandchild Jaime I is mentioned (from his own Court or from the other side of the Pyrenees) by more than twenty troubadours or minstrels between around 1213 and 1276, year in which the King died. The internal affairs of his kingdom, his relationship with the Castillian Court, his passive attitude concerning the invasions of Provenç by the French king, his projected Crusade in 1269 and his death, are all events that can be found precisely recorded in the sirventeses of these poets.
Some of these songs written by professional troubadours in the second half of the Xllth century, show very clearly how they are not trying to conceal nor disguise the lack of confidence they feel concerning their profession. And they do so by mentioning the persistent rivalries among themselves, something that can be interpreted as a manifestation of their concern about the survival of their profession. Paulet de Marselha, Guiraut Riquier and Cerverí de Girona, among others, are constantly complaining of being offered only temporary shelter in the Courts, of always having to depend on the generosity and the mood of the Princes, of always having to request instead of being requested and, sometimes, of showing in the accounting roster of the Royal House as "juglar Paulet", as "G. de Cervaria, ioculatori" or as "mimmo", instead of being called troubadours, a profession so carefully defined by king Alfonso X el Sabio. They probably found another reason to feel afflicted in the fact of being connected with the minstrels. In those same years some moralist writers like Thomas de Cabham or Ramon LIull casted such direct and strong criticism on the minstrels and their compositions that seemed that they were referring to some sirventeses written by troubadours like Bertrán de Born, Guillem de Berguedà, Cerverí de Girona or some other troubadoursd mentioned in this paper.