Patrick C. DeBrosse
Fordham University
During the final decades of the twelfth century, the nobility of the duchy of Aquitaine engaged in a series of revolts against their Angevin rulers. The duchy consequently gained a reputation for disloyalty that has endured in modern historiography. Scholars tend to depict Aquitaine as a territory where Angevin rule ran shallow, where the Angevins failed to introduce institutional reforms or to foster a sense of shared cultural identity. Yet one of the most rebellious regions within Aquitaine, the Limousin, generated some of the most famous, rhetorically-elevated laments for the sons of Henry II. It is worth asking what motivated troubadours to memorialize these men. This paper examines the planhs of the troubadours Bertran de Born and Giraut de Borneil. These singers used the deaths of Henry the Young King and Richard I as spaces to experiment with the traditional Occitan planh. I argue that within their laments, the troubadours used explicitly imperial language, dwelt upon their wider world, and situated the Angevins within semi-legendary historical frameworks. Such themes resonated with the singers’ audiences because the nobility of the Limousin had already redefined their identities in terms of empire, and developed a clear, positive, vision for the future under Angevin rule.