Peirol

Peirol or Peiròl (French: [peʁɔl], Occitan: [pejˈɾɔl]; birth ca. 1160,known in 1188–1222/1225, death in the 1220s) was an Auvergnat troubadour who wrote mostly cansos of courtly love in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Thirty-four surviving poems written in Occitan have been attributed to him; of these, seventeen (sixteen of them love songs) have surviving melodies. He is sometimes called Peirol d'Auvergne or Peiròl d'Auvèrnha, and erroneously Pierol.

Not much is known of his life, and any attempt to establish his biography from a reading of his poems is soundly rejected by the most recent scholarship.

Peirol's birth is commonly estimated around 1160. He may have hailed from — and been named after — the village of Pérols in Prondines, Puy-de-Dôme, "at the foot of" (al pe de) the castle of Rochefort-Montagne (Rocafort). Another candidate for his birth town is Pérol in modern Riom-es-Montagnes. His homeland was thus en la contrada del Dalfin: in the county of the Dauphin of Auvergne.

Peirol was originally a poor knight, described as "courtly and handsome" by the author of his late thirteenth-century vida (biography). He served at the court of Dalfi d'Alvernha, but was in love with his sister Salh (or Sail) de Claustra (which means "fled from the cloister"), the wife of Béraut III de Mercœur, and wrote many songs for this "domna" (lady). While Dalfi had brought his sister to his court for Peirol and had helped Peirol cater to her tastes in his compositions, eventually Dalfi grew jealous of the attention his sister gave Peirol and, in part because of the impropriety, had to dismiss Peirol, who could not support himself as a man-at-arms. His biographer indicates, Peirols no se poc mantener per cavallier e venc joglars, et anet per cortz e receup dels barons e draps e deniers e cavals. That is: Peirol being unable to maintain himself as a knight became a jongleur, and travelled from court to court, receiving from barons clothing, money, and horses.

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