Ernoul Caupain Explained

Ernoul Caupain was a trouvère, probably active in the mid-thirteenth century. Two pastourelles, a chanson courtoise, and a religious poem have survived of his work, although one of the pastourelles has conflicting attributions in the two sources and probably is not his. His works are only transmitted in the trouvère chansonniers M and T.[1] Gustav Gröber suggested that he was the same person as the Copin who judged a jeu parti between members of the literary circle flourishing in and around Arras.

Ernoul's poems have relatively long strophes of eleven, twelve, or fifteen lines. He typically uses octosyllables mixed with hexa- or heptasyllabic lines. They are written in what was later termed bar form, a designation from the Meistersinger repertoire. In trouvère studies, this form is usually referred to as pedes-cum-cauda form and expressed as ABABX rather than the AAB of bar form.

List of works

References

Notes and References

  1. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84192440 M at Gallica