Bernart de Ventadorn

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Bernart de Ventadorn (1130-1140 – 1190-1200), also known as Bernart de Ventadour, was a troubador composer and poet.

According to the troubadour Uc de Saint Circ (1217?-1253?), Bernart was possibly the son of a baker at the castle of Ventadour (Ventadorn), in Corrèze, France. Yet another source, a satirical poem written by a younger contemporary, Peire d’Alvernha, indicates that he was the son of either a servant, a soldier, or a baker, and his mother was also either a servant or a baker. From evidence given in Bernart’s early poem, Lo temps vai e ven e vire, he most likely learned the art of singing and writing from his protector, viscount Eble III of Ventadorn. He composed his first poems to his patron’s wife, Marguerite de Turenne.

Forced to leave Ventadour after falling in love with Marguerite, he traveled to Montluçon and Toulouse, and eventually followed Eleanor of Aquitaine to England and the Plantagenet court; evidence for this association and these travels comes mainly from his poems themselves. Later Bernart returned to Toulouse, where he was employed by Raimon V, Count of Toulouse; later still he went to Dordogne, where he entered a monastery. Most likely he died there.

Bernart is unique among secular composers of the 12th century in the amount of music which has survived: of his 45 poems, 18 have music intact, an unusual circumstance for a troubador composer (music of the trouvères has a higher survival rate, usually attributed to them surviving the Albigensian Crusade, which scattered the troubadors and destroyed many sources).