Cited by 1Medieval European Literature and HistoryMusicology and Musical AnalysisMedieval Iberian Studies

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« Dansa es us dictatz gracios » : la dansa occitane du xiie au xive siècle

Open access
Chaillou-Amadieu, Christelle, Saviotti, Federico·2022·Cahiers de civilisation médiévale

Abstract

L’article constitue la première étape d’une étude interdisciplinaire d’ensemble sur la dansa de langue d’oc, le virelai de langue d’oïl et les autres genres lyriques romans qui leur sont apparentés. Suivant une approche à la fois philologique et musicologique, l’étude se concentre sur l’histoire de la dansa troubadouresque de ses débuts à 1400 environ, avec une discussion sur la définition de sa forme fondée sur les témoignages des sources médiévales, la délimitation de son corpus (entre Occitanie et Catalogne) et, enfin, sur ses origines possibles. À cet égard, une attention particulière est portée à la prétendue dérivation de la dansa d’une production d’ascendance populaire (ou popularisant) telle que celle des compositions à refrain et/ou ayant un schéma de type « zadjalesque ». L’analyse détaillée des traits distinctifs de la dansa et la comparaison avec le répertoire sacré des hymnes et des conductus permet en revanche de conclure qu’elle trouve son origine dans la canso courtoise des troubadours, sous l’influence de la production liturgique et paraliturgique des responsoria.

Overview

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Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

This article is the first stage of an interdisciplinary (philological and musicological) study of the Occitan *dansa*, its corpus, form, and origins between the 12th and 14th centuries. It argues that the *dansa* derives from the courtly troubadour *canso* under the influence of liturgical/paraliturgical *responsoria*, and that the French *virelai* descends from the Occitan form rather than the reverse.

Key findings

  • The authors delimit a corpus of 18 troubadour *dansas* (all *unica*), rejecting 13 pieces listed by predecessors; they add two further distinctive traits to the seven drawn from the treatises: distinction of rhymes between the two parts of the *cobla*, and use of short verses not exceeding eight syllables (longer verses are broken by internal rhymes).
  • The *respos* is not a refrain: it is always in initial position, is never reused in other sources, and is not repeated between strophes (though it may be sung again at the end). The authors note that among the troubadours word-refrains are far more numerous than true refrains: 166 pieces against 66 out of 2,542 total compositions, per I. Frank's count.
  • Against the "zadjalesque" derivation, the authors argue the *dansa* strophe was modelled on the *canso* (bipartite *mudanza*, *vuelta* of several verses on at least two rhymes, courtly register), whereas zadjalesque pieces are tripartite, monorhymed, and popularising in register.
  • Formal tendencies across the three corpora (Table 7): troubadour corpus 79% *coblas singulars*, 61% four-verse *respos*, 33% ABAB *respos*, 31% isometric, 27% heptasyllabic; Catalan corpus 94%, 39%, 10%, 50%, 40%; Consistori del Gai Saber corpus 88%, 88%, 55%, 72%, 94%.
  • Because the earliest *virelai* attestations postdate the *dansa* by at least half a century, the authors revive Paul Meyer's position: the French form takes its source in the Occitan one, not the inverse.

Methods

  • Interdisciplinary philological and musicological study, combining analysis of medieval poetic treatises (*Leys d'Amors*, *Doctrina de compondre dictats*, Ripoll I) with examination of manuscript sources (chansonniers E, W, Sg, f, C, L, N; the Ripoll and Castelló d'Empúries songbooks; Toulouse Academy registers).
  • Corpus delimitation based on the seven criteria common to at least two treatises, applied to troubadour, Catalan (18 pieces before 1400), and Consistori del Gai Saber (18 pieces) corpora, with formal traits quantified in percentages.
  • Comparison of the *dansa* with the Latin sacred repertoire of hymns and *conductus* (eight polyphonic pieces listed from the CPI Conductus database) and with zadjalesque forms, to test the origin hypotheses.

Limitations

  • The authors state that the relative chronology of individual pieces in the two repertoires (Occitan *dansas* and Latin *conductus*) cannot be established with precision; only *conductus* no. 8, attributed to Gautier de Châtillon (d. 1204), could be dated before 1200, and its form is the furthest from the *dansa*; for *Totius triclinium* no date more precise than the 13th century can be proposed.
  • They acknowledge that the hypothesis of an instrumental-only reprise of the *respos* cannot be rejected, though no evidence supports it.
  • The article is explicitly the first stage of a larger study; the authors note they could not study one piece (Rao 0.1j) in detail because the text given by Parramon i Blasco is lacunary and they could not obtain the Pié edition.

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Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.4000/ccm.8893

Cites

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

100 Sources not found · 73 Own interpretation · 67 Own result · 67 No basis given · 13 Not checked yet · 2 Own method

Show all 171 claims

  • Probably not a substantial claim. 64
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 102
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 6
151 of 151
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Les critères formels définis par les traités identifient correctement les dansas.

    “au moins dix-huit pièces se conforment fidèlement aux critères formels définis par les traités”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Les principaux traits distinctifs du refrain signalés par la critique sont valides.

    “Les principaux traits distinctifs du refrain signalés par la critique sont :”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Si le respos était répété entre les strophes, les copistes l'auraient signalé.

    “Les copistes ne signalent jamais la répétition du respos interstrophique116.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Le corpus répertorié de dansas occitanes et catalanes est suffisamment représentatif pour tirer des conclusions sur la pratique de la dansa.

    “sur les quelques cinquante dansas occitanes et catalanes répertoriées”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The etymology of respos and responedor is the same.

    “encore une fois l’étymologie est la même”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    There is a formal correspondence between the dansa and the virelai.

    “Compte tenu de la correspondance formelle entre la dansa et le virelai”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The respos is an obligatory element of the dansa.

    “respos obligatoire de la dansa”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    In its simplest and most widespread version, the zadjalesque stanza consists of a monorhymed tristich followed by a one-verse vuelta whose rhyme is identical in all stanzas.

    “Dans sa version la plus simple et la plus répandue, la strophe est constituée par un tristique monorime suivi d’une vuelta d’un seul vers dont la rime est identique dans toutes les strophes (aaax bbbx cccx etc.).”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The period of flourishing of the conductus genre is between 1150 and 1250.

    “la période de l’épanouissement du genre des conductus se situe entre 1150 et 1250 environ”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Ripoll is a cultural center of first order and its relation with troubadour production is well known.

    “centre culturel de premier ordre et dont le rapport avec la production troubadouresque est bien connu”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The Catalan domain is where the dansa had the most important success.

    “le lieu fait partie de ce domaine catalan où la dansa a connu le succès le plus important.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    There existed very first lost troubadour dansas.

    “antérieures même aux toutes premières dansas troubadouresques perdues.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The hymn In honore Sanctae Crucis (Pange, lingua, gloriosi) by Venance Fortunat (6th c.) had immense success in the liturgy of Passion time until modern era.

    “Il s’agit de l’hymne de Venance Fortunat (vie siècle) In honore Sanctae Crucis (incipit : Pange, lingua, gloriosi), qui connut un immense succès dans la liturgie du temps de la Passion jusqu’à l’époque moderne”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    In the classic form of the virelai (and of the dansa), the first part of the strophe always presents a musical contrast (and very often metric) vis-à-vis the refrain/respos, sometimes even characterized by a change of mode.

    “du virelai (et de la dansa), la première partie de la strophe présente toujours un contraste musical (et très souvent métrique) vis-à-vis du refrain/respos, parfois même caractérisé par un changement de mode.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The scribes behave coherently with regard to recurring elements in lyric texts.

    “sur l’hypothèse que les scribes se comportent de manière cohérente aux égards des éléments récurrents dans les textes lyriques.”
15 of 15

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

1 of 1

Citations

Cites

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Metadata

Authors
Chaillou-Amadieu, C., & Saviotti, F.
Venue
Cahiers de civilisation médiévale
Publisher
OpenEdition
Published
2022
Volume
257
Issue
257
Pages
3-36
ISSN
  • 0007-9731 (ISSN-L)
  • 2119-1026
OpenAlex
W4281609127
Cited by
1
References
0
Citations by year
2025: 1
FWCI
0.66
Type
journal article
Language
fr
Open access
Locations
  • Cahiers de civilisation médiévale (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • HAL (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • Cairn.info (submittedVersion)
  • OpenEdition (OpenEdition) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
Funders
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-18-CE27-0016)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Medieval European Literature and History
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Music › Musicology and Musical Analysis
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Medieval Iberian Studies
Keywords
Occitan troubadour poetry, virelai, troubadour poetry, conductus, 12th-14th centuries

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