1.
County of Forcalquier
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The County of Forcalquier was a large medieval county in the region of Provence in the Kingdom of Arles, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. It was named after the fortress around which it grew, Forcalquier, the earliest mention of a castle at Forcalquier dates to 1044, when it was in the possession of Fulk Bertrand, joint count of Provence. When Fulk died in 1051 his lands were shared between his sons William Bertrand and Geoffrey II, who inherited Forcalquier, sometime in the 1060s Forcalquier was inherited by Williams daughter Adelaide, who was the first person to be styled Countess of Forcalquier. She married Ermengol IV of Urgell and died in 1129, at a time when Provence was sharply disputed by the persons who had inherited some title to it. The Counts of Toulouse claimed the title marchio as descendants of Emma of Provence, meanwhile, the county north of the Durance, with Forcalquier and Embrun, had devolved to Adelaides son by Ermengol, William III. Their marriage in July 1193, Alfonsos inheritance in 1196, 1063/1067–1129 Adelaide. -1129 William III 1129–1149 Guigues, co-ruling with. 1129–1144 Bertrand I 1144–1207 Bertrand II, co-ruling with, 1144–1209 William IV 1209–1217/1220 Garsenda United to Provence in the person of Raymond Berengar IV. Medieval Lands Project, Counts of Forcalquier
2.
Alfonso II, Count of Provence
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Alfonso II was the second son of Alfonso II of Aragon and Sancha of Castile. His father transferred the County of Provence from his uncle Sancho to him in 1185, Alfonso II was born in Barcelona. In 1193, Alfonso married Gersenda II of Sabran, daughter of Rainou, Count of Forcalquier and they had a child who became Ramon Berenguer IV as count of Provence. According to explanations in the manuscripts of Gaucelm Faidits poems, Alfonso was a rival of the troubadour for the love of Jourdaine dEmbrun, Alfonso II died in Palermo, Sicily, Italy
3.
Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Provence
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Ramon Berenguer IV or V, Count of Provence and Forcalquier, was the son of Alfonso II of Provence and Garsenda de Sabran, heiress of Forcalquier. He was the first Count of Provence to live in the county in more than one hundred years, after his fathers death, Ramon was imprisoned in the castle of Monzón, in Aragon until he was able to escape in 1219 and claim his inheritance. He was a powerful and energetic ruler who added Forcalquier to his domain and he and his wife were known for their support of troubadors, always having some around the court. He was known for his generosity, though his income did not always keep up and he wrote laws prohibiting nobles from performing menial work, such as farming or heavy labor. Ramon had many disputes with his neighbors, the Counts of Toulouse. In 1226, Ramon began to reassert his right to rule in Marseille, the citizens there initially sought the help of Ramons father-in-law Thomas, Count of Savoy in his role as imperial vicar. However, they sought the help of Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse. In 1228, Ramon supported his father-in-law in a conflict against Turin. This small war was one of many intended to more firmly establish control over trade from Italy into France. While the Albigensian Crusade worked in his favor against Toulouse, Ramon was concerned that its resolution in the Treaty of Paris left him in a precarious position, Raymond turned his troops from fighting France to attempting to claim lands from Provence. When Blanche of Castile sent her knight to both Toulouse and Provence in 1233, Ramon entertained him lavishly, and the knight left well impressed by both the count and his eldest daughter, Margaret. Soon after, Blanche negotiated the marriage between Margaret and her son, Louis, with a dowry of ten thousand silver marks, Ramon had to get contributions from allies for a portion, and had to pledge several of his castles to cover the rest. Ramon and Beatrice travelled with their daughter to Lyon in 1234 to sign the marriage treaty, shortly after, William began negotiating on Ramons behalf with Henry III of England to marry his daughter Eleanor. Henry sent his own knight to Provence early in 1235, and again Ramon, Henry wrote to William on June 22 that he was very interested, and sent a delegation to negotiate the marriage in October. Henry was seeking a dowry of up to twenty thousand marks to help offset the dowry he had just paid for his sister. However, he had drafted seven different versions of the contract, with different amounts for the dowry. Ramon shrewdly negotiated for that option, offering as consolation a promise to leave her ten thousand marks when he died, in 1238, Ramon joined his brother-in-law, Amadeus IV at the court of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor in Turin. Frederick was gathering forces to more control in Italy
4.
Dynasty
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A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system but sometimes also appearing in elective republics. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a house, historians periodize the histories of many sovereign states, such as Ancient Egypt, the Carolingian Empire and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which the family reigned and to describe events, trends. The word dynasty itself is often dropped from such adjectival references, until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory, wealth, and power of his family members. The longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. Succession through a daughter when permitted was considered to establish a new dynasty in her husbands ruling house, however, some states in Africa, determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mothers dynasty when coming into her inheritance. It is also extended to unrelated people such as poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team. The word dynasty derives via Latin dynastia from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to power, dominion and it was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, power or ability, from dýnamai, to be able. A ruler in a dynasty is referred to as a dynast. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the House of Windsor. A dynastic marriage is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, the marriage of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, to Máxima Zorreguieta in 2002 was dynastic, for example, and their eldest child is expected to inherit the Dutch crown eventually. But the marriage of his younger brother Prince Friso to Mabel Wisse Smit in 2003 lacked government support, thus Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession, lost his title as a Prince of the Netherlands, and left his children without dynastic rights. In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, a dynast is a member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchys rules still in force. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Max and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position. The term dynast is sometimes used only to refer to descendants of a realms monarchs. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people, yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor. Thus, in 1999 he requested and obtained permission from Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco. Yet a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time and that exclusion, too, ceased to apply on 26 March 2015, with retroactive effect for those who had been dynasts prior to triggering it by marriage to a Catholic
5.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
6.
Occitan literature
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Occitan literature is a body of texts written in Occitan, mostly in the south of France. It was the first literature in a Romance language and inspired the rise of literature throughout medieval Europe. Occitan literatures Golden Age was in the 12th century, when a rich and complex body of poetry was produced by troubadours writing in Old Occitan, however. Although Catalan is considered by some a variety of Occitan, this article will not deal with Catalan literature, Occitan literature started in the 11th century in several centres. It gradually spread from there, first over the portion of southern France. In its rise Occitan literature stands completely by itself, and in its development it long continued to be highly original. It presents at several points analogies with French literature, but these analogies are due principally to certain elements common to both and only in a slight degree to mutual reaction. Occitan poetry first appeared in the 11th century, the oldest surviving text is the Provençal burden attached to a 10th-century Latin poem. The text has not yet been satisfactorily interpreted, the quality of the earliest remaining works suggest earlier work was lost. The earliest Occitan poem is a 10th-century, seventeen-line charm Tomida femina probably for dispersing the pain of childbirth, much longer is an 11th-century fragment of two hundred and fifty-seven decasyllabic verses preserved in an Orléans manuscript, first printed by Raynouard. It is believed to have come from Limousin or Marche in the north of the Occitan region, the unknown author takes Boethiuss treatise De consolatione philosophiae as the groundwork of his composition. The poem is a piece composed by a clerk. The Cançó de Santa Fe dates from 1054–76, but probably represents a Catalan dialect that evolved into a language from Occitan. From the same there is Las, qui non sun sparvir, astur. From the next century are the poems of William IX, the grandfather of Eleanor of Aquitaine and they consist of eleven diverse strophic pieces, and were consequently meant to be sung. The only one which can be approximately dated was composed around 1119 and it expresses the writers regret for the frivolity of his past life and his apprehensions as he bade farewell to his country and his young son. We also know from Ordericus Vitalis that William had composed poems on the incidents of his ill-fated Crusade of 1101. In one of his pieces he makes an allusion to the partimen, the origins of this poetry are uncertain
7.
Troubadour
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A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages. Since the word troubadour is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz, the troubadour school or tradition began in the late 11th century in Occitania, but it subsequently spread into Italy and Spain. Under the influence of the troubadours, related movements sprang up throughout Europe, the Minnesang in Germany, trovadorismo in Galicia and Portugal, dante Alighieri in his De vulgari eloquentia defined the troubadour lyric as fictio rethorica musicaque poita, rhetorical, musical, and poetical fiction. The texts of troubadour songs deal mainly with themes of chivalry, most were metaphysical, intellectual, and formulaic. Many were humorous or vulgar satires, works can be grouped into three styles, the trobar leu, trobar ric, and trobar clus. The oldest mention of the word troubadour as trobadors is found in a 12th-century Occitan text by Cercamon. The English word troubadour is a rendition from a French word first recorded in 1575 in an historical context to mean langue doc poet at the court in the 12th and 13th century. The French word is borrowed itself from the Occitan word trobador and this recreated form is deduced from the Latin root tropus, meaning a trope and the various meanings of the Old Occitan related words. In turn, the Latin word derives ultimately from Greek τρόπος, meaning turn, B Intervocal Latin shifted regularly to in Occitan. The Latin suffix -ātor, -atōris explains the Occitan suffix, according to its declension and accentuation, Gallo-Romance *TROPĀTOR > Occitan trobaire, there is an alternative theory to explain the meaning of trobar as “to compose, to discuss, to invent. It has the support of some historians, specialists of literature, According to them, the Arabic word ṭaraba “song could partly be the etymon of the verb trobar. Another Arabic root had already been proposed before, Ḍ-R-B “strike and they entertain the possibility that the nearly homophonous Ḍ-R-B root may have contributed to the sense of the newly coined Romance verb trobar. In archaic and classical poetry, the word is only used in a mocking sense. Cercamon writes, Ist trobador, entre ver e mentir, Afollon drutz e molhers et espos, Peire dAlvernha also begins his famous mockery of contemporary authors cantarai daquest trobadors, after which he proceeds to explain why none of them is worth anything. When referring to themselves seriously, troubadours almost invariably use the word chantaire, the early study of the troubadours focused intensely on their origins. No academic consensus was achieved in the area. In his study, Lévi-Provençal is said to have found four Arabo-Hispanic verses nearly or completely recopied in Williams manuscript, trend admitted that the troubadours derived their sense of form and even the subject matter of their poetry from the Andalusian Muslims. Meg Bogin, American translator of the trobairitz, held this hypothesis, to such a strong and multi-faceted tradition of love literature and song nearby must be added the presence of the Toledo School of Translators starting in 1126
8.
Lyric poetry
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Lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. The term derives from a form of Ancient Greek literature, the lyric, the term owes its importance in literary theory to the division developed by Aristotle between three broad categories of poetry, lyrical, dramatic and epic. Much lyric poetry depends on regular meter based either on number of syllables or on stress, the most common meters are as follows, Iambic – two syllables, with the short or unstressed syllable followed by the long or stressed syllable. Trochaic – two syllables, with the long or stressed syllable followed by the short or unstressed syllable, in English, this metre is found almost entirely in lyric poetry. Pyrrhic – Two unstressed syllables Anapestic – three syllables, with the first two short or unstressed and the last long or stressed, dactylic – three syllables, with the first one long or stressed and the other two short or unstressed. Spondaic – two syllables, with two successive long or stressed syllables, some forms have a combination of meters, often using a different meter for the refrain. For the ancient Greeks, lyric poetry had a technical meaning, verse that was accompanied by a lyre, cithara. Because such works were sung, it was also known as melic poetry. The lyric or melic poet was distinguished from the writer of plays, the writer of trochaic and iambic verses, the writer of elegies, the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria created a canon of nine lyric poets deemed especially worthy of critical study. These archaic and classical musician-poets included Sappho, Alcaeus, Anacreon, archaic lyric was characterized by strophic composition and live musical performance. Some poets, like Pindar extended the metrical forms to a triad, including strophe, antistrophe, among the major extant Roman poets of the classical period, only Catullus and Horace wrote lyric poetry, which however was no longer meant to be sung but instead read or recited. What remained were the forms, the meters of the Greeks adapted to Latin. Catullus was influenced by both archaic and Hellenistic Greek verse and belonged to a group of Roman poets called the Neoteroi who spurned epic poetry following the lead of Callimachus, instead, they composed brief, highly polished poems in various thematic and metrical genres. The varying forms of the new Chu ci provided more rhythm, originating in 10th-century Persian, a ghazal is a poetic form consisting of couplets that share a rhyme and a refrain. Formally, it consists of a short lyric composed in a meter with a single rhyme throughout. Notable authors include Hafiz, Amir Khusro, Auhadi of Maragheh, Alisher Navoi, Obeid e zakani, Khaqani Shirvani, Anvari, Farid al-Din Attar, Omar Khayyam, and Rudaki. The ghazal was introduced to European poetry in the early 19th century by the Germans Schlegel, Von Hammer-Purgstall, and Goethe, lyric in European literature of the medieval or Renaissance period means a poem written so that it could be set to music—whether or not it actually was. A poems particular structure, function, or theme might all vary, the lyric poetry of Europe in this period was created by the pioneers of courtly poetry and courtly love largely without reference to the classical past
