“Better a witty fool than a foolish wit”

Feste (the royal jester), Act I, Scene V, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare

Before we distinguished between composers, performers, magicians, philosophers, poets, comedians and songwriters, the Renaissance/ Medieval court jester was the true jack of all trades. From virtuosic performances of full 4000 line ‘chansons de geste’ (Medieval French epic poems romanticising historic events), to the ‘troubadour’ courtly love songs, they all communicated secular ideals of devotion.

As a child, I enjoyed the fantasy of life in Medieval Europe. There was something incredibly theatrical about capital punishment, the power of the Church and feudalism, the Norman Invasion and the Black Death. The court jester or minstrel seemed like a wonderful antidote to all that seriousness, partly because the idea reminded me of my dad, who is a professional storyteller. 

The minstrel was a controversial character whose humour sharply commented on the political power imbalance. Shakespeare’s Feste in the Twelfth Night is the most observant and sharp of the characters; an almost omniscient observer to the play’s comedic chaos. Renaissance painter, Jheronimus Bosch’s infamous ‘Garden of Earthy Delights’ gives the controversial minstrels the comeuppance the Church believed these good-timers so very much deserved. One of these unfortunate sinners, a harpist, is crucified on his harp with strings penetrating the neck, back and bottom. 

Wondering why on earth the witty observer was such a challenge to the pious, I spent time listening to courtly love songs and chansons de geste. ‘Kalenda Maya’ is an Occitan (medieval or modern language of Languedoc) song meaning ‘May Day’. The troubadour, Raimbaut de Vaqueiras wrote this song to Lady Beatriz, the daughter of his patron. She is ‘noble’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘the source of gracious deeds’, but loves him not- unrequited and unconsummated love were a favourite theme for the troubadours. The arrival of summer and ‘May Day’ means nothing to Raimbaut de Vaqueiras for as long as he is without Lady Beatriz’s love. There’s also a mention of a “jealous one” so I wonder if it might even be an illicit affair! 

My beautiful friend

by God, this never be:

that out of jealousy one scoffs at my harm,

he’d command a dear price

for his jealousy

if it were such as to part two lovers;

Since never again I’d be happy

nor would I know happiness, without you;

I’d take

such a way

that I’d never be seen by men again;

that day

I’ll die,

brave lady, in which I lose you.

(extract from ‘Kalenda Maya’

Many of the song’s musical features (e.g. the Mixolydian mode and compound time meter and irregular melodic phrases) have a lot in common with Notre Dame School’s polyphony. During a period of plague, poor social structure, arranged marriages and various crusades, the troubadours’ mystical love was almost radical. The Catholic Church felt that secular music about love was a sin as it encouraged sensual passion and diverted attention from God. For example, 12th century Bishop of Chartres John of Salisbury states in his 1159 book Policraticus that “actors and mimes, buffoons and harlots, panders [pimps] and other like human monsters, which the prince ought rather to exterminate entirely than to foster … the law … not only excludes such abominations from the court of the prince, but totally banishes them from among the people of God.”

Raimbaut de Vaqueiras himself was not only a troubadour, but also a knight taking part in the Fourth Crusade. This was a time where the Catholic Church called on Christian men to take part in violent wars against Muslims to be able to possess holy sites, such as Jerusalem and Constantinople. He recounts his time in battle in his epic letter to Boniface of Montferrat:

And I pursued with you to Philopation the emperor of Byzantium, which you have despoiled of his inheritance to crown the other one

Religion and the state went hand in hand at a time when European society was controlled by feudalism. Meanwhile, the Islamic Golden age influenced Europe in many ways. There is a theory that the troubadours themselves may have been inspired by poetry of Andalusian Muslims. Indeed, many medieval instruments are similar to ones in the Arab world; the lute is similar to the oud, the lyra to the rabab and the psaltery to the qanun. Mystical, though not necessarily sensual love was popular among the Sufis who were appalled by the worldly, violent goals of the Umayyad Caliphate. To be in tune with the observer self, to be able to detach from the cultural dogmas of different power structures, is as overwhelming as accepting the heart’s various truths. Maybe devotion to something unattainable, as the troubadours expressed, may be a humbling beginning to realising how very little we actually know about reality.