xoaqwepo: friendship and love poems

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His name indicates that he came from Mareuil-sur-Belle in Périgord. He is said to have been a "clerk" from a poor family who eventually became a jongleur; he settled at the courts of Toulouse and then Béziers. He apparently loved the countess Azalais, daughter of Raymond V of Toulouse, married to Roger II Trencavel, and Arnaut's surviving poems may be seen as a sequence (lyric cycle) telling of his love. Alfonso II of Aragon was his rival for Azalais's affections, and according to the razó to one of Arnaut's poems, the king jealously persuaded her to break off her friendship with Arnaut. He fled to Montpellier, where he found a patron in count William VIII.

friendship poem

Arnaut de Mareuil was less famous than his contemporary Arnaut Daniel, but has been said to surpass him in elegant simplicity of form and delicacy of sentiment. His cantaire (singer) and jongleur (minstrel, messenger) was Pistoleta.