Uc de Saint Circ

Uc de Saint Circ (San Sir) or Hugues (Hugh) de Saint Circq (fl. 1217–1253) was a troubadour from Quercy. Uc is perhaps most significant to modern historians as the probable author of several vidas and razos of other troubadours, though only one of Bernart de Ventadorn exists under his name. Forty-four of his songs, including fifteen cansos and only three canso melodies, have survived, along with a didactic manual entitled Ensenhamen d'onor. According to William E. Burgwinkle, as "poet, biographer, literary historian, and mythographer, Uc must be accorded his rightful place as the 'inventor' (trobador) of 'troubadour poetry' and the idealogical trappings with which it came to be associated."

Uc is probably to be identified with the Uc Faidit (meaning "exiled" or "dispossessed") who authored the Donatz proensals, one of the earliest Occitan grammars. This identity fits with Uc's status as the "inventor" of troubadour poetry as a distinct type and his life in Italy (possibly due to exile during the Albigensian Crusade).

Uc was born in the town of Thégra to a minor nobleman, Arman, lord of Saint-Circ-d'Alzon, a village which no longer exists but was in the vicinity of Rocamadour. According to Uc's vida, the castle of Saint-Circ lay "at the foot of" (al pe de) the church of Sainta-Maria de Rocamadour, which is atop a cliff overlooking the Alzon river valley and was destroyed by war in Uc's time. Furthermore, according to his vida, Uc's many older brothers sent him off to receive a clerical education in Montpellier. At Montpellier he learned to read and write and discovered "songs and poems and sirventes and tensos and couplets and the deeds and the sayings of the worthy men and the worthy women who were living or had lived in the world." It was through this education that he became a minstrel (jongleur).

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