Instructing the Court:

Raimon Vidal’s Pedagogy for the Courtly Joglar

            When in the first years of the thirteenth century the lyrical tradition of the troubadours was waning and the number of courts welcoming singers dwindling,  Raimon Vidal de Besalù wrote a number of texts presenting the centrality of joglaria to the ideal court and society in general.  For Raimon Vidal the joglar’s repertoire was not simply entertainment; the joglar and the troubadour provide the court with the knowledge and understanding necessary for its members to act with cortezia.  Without song and story courtliness disappears from the court.  The loss of the troubadour tradition therefore is not only the loss of an art, but has serious social and even political repercussions.

            To preserve the troubadour tradition and courtly ideals, Raimon Vidal writes a number of texts which together present a veritable pedagogy of joglaria.  In his ensenhamen or guidebook to the joglar, Abril issia,  he explains that the joglar must first lure the courtly ear with what the audience wants to hear and subtly instruct them until their level of knowledge is such that the joglar can move on to more difficult songs.  The Razos de trobar, a text instructing those who wish to compose, reflects a notion of teaching and learning based on this progression that leads one from witnessing, to knowing, and ultimately to understanding. The nova, So fo e·l tems, models how one should use lyric; the protagonists find in lyrical lines advice on how to act and justification for moves already made.  A study of the oeuvre of Raimon Vidal reveals an elaborate notion of joglaria as instructive and fundamental to the preservation of cortezia.

For the full article see Courtly Arts and the Art of Courtliness edited by Keith Busby and Christopher Kleinhenz.