Hugues IV de Berzé
Hugues IV de Berzé (or Bregi; 1150/1155 – 1220) was a knight and trouvère from the Mâconnais.[1] He participated in the Fourth Crusade in 1201 and the Fifth Crusade in 1220. He was the lord of Berzé-le-Châtel.
Hugues wrote at least five
jongleur Bernart d'Argentau and it forms an important source of information about both poets. According to Hugues, neither he nor Falquet were young at the time.[2] Hugues was dead by August 1220, which provides an ante quem date for the poem. Hugues is referred to as N'Ugo de Bersie in the Occitan razo
that accompanies the poem in the chansonnier.
His most famous
Cathar heresy was rampant in southern France. Hugues has criticism for all three social classes (nobility, clergy, and peasantry). Hugues's Bible is in the same category as the slightly earlier Bible Guiot of Guiot de Provins
. La Bible exemplifies "the beliefs of a pious layman with a considerable breadth of worldly experience".
In the late sixteenth century, Hugues's Bible furnished much historical evidence for the antiquarian works of Claude Fauchet.
References
- ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.
- ^ Though the poetic exchange has been dated as early as 1201 or as late as November 1220 – September 1221, the former date is too early and the latter invalidated by Hugues's death. Recently, dates of 1215, 1216, 1217, and 1219 have been proffered (Riquer).
Sources
- Boulton, Maureen B. M. "Hugues de Berzé" (p. 462). Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, ed. William W. Kibler. New Jersey: Routledge University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8240-4444-4.
- Lecoy, Félix. "Pour la chronologie de Hugues de Berzé." Romania 67 (1942–1943): 243–254.
- Riquer, Martín de. Los trovadores: historia literaria y textos. 3 vol. Barcelona: Planeta, 1975.