Blondel de Nesle

Blondel de Nesle – either Jean I of Nesle (c. 1155 – 1202) or his son Jean II of Nesle (died 1241) – was a French trouvère.

The name 'Blondel de Nesle' is attached to twenty-four or twenty-five courtly songs. He was identified in 1942, by Holger Dyggve, as Jean II of Nesle (near Amiens), who was nicknamed 'Blondel' for his long blond hair. He married at the time of his father's death in 1202, and that same year, went on the Fourth Crusade; he later fought in the Albigensian Crusade. However, in 1994, Yvan Lepage suggested that the poet may have been Jean I, father of Jean II, who was Lord of Nesle from 1180 to 1202; this Jean took part in the Third Crusade, which may explain the subsequent legend linking him with King Richard I of England.

If the works are correctly identified and dated, he was a significant influence on his European contemporaries, who made much use of his melodies. (The melody of "L'amours dont sui espris" is used in Carmina Burana, for the song "Procurans Odium"). His works are fairly conventional, and several have been recorded in modern times.

By 1260, Blondel's name had become attached to a legend in the highly fictionalised Récits d'un Ménestrel de Reims; this claimed that, after King Richard of England was arrested and held for ransom in 1192, he was found by the minstrel Blondel, whom he saw from his window, and to whom he sang a verse of a song they both knew. Later versions of the story related that Blondel went from castle to castle, singing a particular song that only he and Richard knew, and that the imprisoned Richard replied with the second verse – thus identifying where he was imprisoned. Then, Blondel either aided the king's escape or reported his position back to his friends. Blondel finally found Richard at Dürnstein; in fact, there was no mystery about Richard's location which was widely publicized by his ransomers.

'Blondel' is a common surname on the Channel Island of Guernsey. It is recorded that King Richard granted a fief on the island to a vassal named Blondel, but it remains uncertain as to whether this has any connection with the legend, or whether the legend has any connection with the known trouvère.

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