Pastourelles

The pastourelle is a French, (or Provençcal, a dialect that became the language of the troubadours) medieval lyric characterized by its pastoral theme, usually the attempted seduction of a shepherdess by a gallant knight. The form originated with the troubadour poets of the 12th century and particularly with the poet Marcabru. He is one of the earliest troubadours for whom music survives. Many examples survive from the troubadour and trouvère repertory of the 12th and 13th centuries. The pastourelle poetic form contrasts with the songs of courtly love where the object of desire is usually a noble lady, and there are clear social constraints. In the pastoruelles, a commoner is the object of desire, with less refined associations and outcomes; the poet knight usually meets a shepherdess who gets the better of him in a battle of wits, but also displays general shyness; usually the poet knight (narrator) has sexual relations with the shepherdess, either by consent or rape. Later examples of this poetic form moved toward pastoral poetry by having a shepherd and also sometimes a love quarrel. One short example from Scotland is Robene and Makyne. Adam de la Halle’s thirteenth century Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion is a dramatization of a pastourelle. By the 15th century pastourelles existed in French, English, Welsh & German. (see Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia; Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms; The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics)