The new troubadour Pèire del Portalet

The publication in Romanische Studien of a selection of fragments by the troubadour Pèire del Portalet is an event in the field of medieval studies, where a new troubadour does not appear every day. However, Pèire del Portalet was not completely unknown.

Aurelio Roncaglia referred to it in a yearbook of the Société de Linguistique Romane, unfortunately lost. When the Clemencic Consort recorded its canonical compilations of the troubadours it was on the verge of including the song Cantatz e siatz urós . It is known, from ancient sources, that Pèire del Portalet performed Cantatz e siatz urós before many kings and dukes, at the court of Brighthelmston, in England, on St. George 's Day in 1174.

It is one of the earliest references to Europe in troubadour poetry. For this reason, Emmanuel Macron has requested that Pèire del Portalet's verses be performed at the British Museum, on the occasion of the upcoming tour of the Bayeux Tapestry, a major diplomatic and cultural operation, and an unprecedented challenge for restorers and conservators, with an expected cost of one million euros. The Bayeux Tapestry is an 11th-century embroidered cloth, almost fourteen meters long, which recounts the conquest of England by the Normans.

Romanische Studien has recovered fragments of the Vida de Pèire del Portalet . The vidas de trovadores are fictionalized narratives, sometimes with fantastic elements, about the poets, which anticipate the popular biographies in the magazine Súper Pop . Thanks to the Vida de Pèire del Portalet we know that his father was a textile merchant and that he very possibly visited Catalonia, because he mentions the plain of Vic. This fact has sparked the interest of Jordi Savall, who plans to include the song Una lagrema tombèt sus la sabla on a future album.

“More than an erotic kiss, it is a test of vassalage,” wrote Martí de Riquer.

It is said that a lady’s tears fell onto the sand of a beach, that the troubadour picked them up, placed them on her lips and then kissed her. “More than an erotic kiss, it is a proof of vassalage,” wrote our Martí de Riquer, quoting the stanza: “ Oh, if you could find her/The measurements with their labels/The measurements with their labels/So that you could swim .” Due to its beauty and expressiveness, it has been compared to the fragment of the drops of blood on the snow by Perceval , one of the peaks of universal literature.

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Hey! It's a joke. El Portalet is the Portal de Sant Antoni where Pere Pubill Calaf, Peret, lived. Cantatz e siatz urós is Sing and Be Happy, which participated in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton. Una lagrema tombèt sus la sabla is Una lágrima cayó en la arena . And La Vida de Peire de Portalet is El mig amic , the song that Peret dedicated to his father: “Entangling here, entangling there.” The idea was to show that we have to be more creative and fun, and that if the AI ​​wants to beat us, it will have to rack its brains, which it doesn't have.