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A medieval depiction of Bernart de Ventadorn.

Bernart de Ventadorn (1130-1140 – 1190-1200), also known as Bernard de Ventadour, or Bernat de Ventadorn in Occitan, was a troubador composer and poet.

According to the troubadour Uc de Saint Circ (1217?-1253?), Bernart was possibly the son of a baker at the castle of Ventadour (Ventadorn), in Corrèze, France. Yet another source, a satirical poem written by a younger contemporary, Peire d'Alvernha, indicates that he was the son of either a servant, a soldier, or a baker, and his mother was also either a servant or a baker. From evidence given in Bernart's early poem, Lo temps vai e ven e vire, he most likely learned the art of singing and writing from his protector, viscount Eble III of Ventadorn. He composed his first poems to his patron's wife, Marguerite de Turenne.

Forced to leave Ventadour after falling in love with Marguerite, he traveled to Montluçon and Toulouse, and eventually followed Eleanor of Aquitaine to England and the Plantagenet court; evidence for this association and these travels comes mainly from his poems themselves. Later Bernart returned to Toulouse, where he was employed by Raimon V, Count of Toulouse; later still he went to Dordogne, where he entered a monastery. Most likely he died there.

Bernart is unique among secular composers of the 12th century in the amount of music which has survived: of his 45 poems, 18 have music intact, an unusual circumstance for a troubador composer (music of the trouvères has a higher survival rate, usually attributed to them surviving the Albigensian Crusade, which scattered the troubadours and destroyed many sources). His work probably dates between 1147 and 1180. Bernart is often credited with being the most important influence on the development of the trouvère tradition in northern France, since he was well known there, his melodies were widely circulated, and the early composers of trouvère music seem to have imitated him.

• Moshé Lazar (ed.), Bernart de Ventadour: Chansons d'Amour. Paris, Klincksieck, 1966
• Mark Herman and Ronnie Apter (tr.), A Bilingual Edition of the Love Songs of Bernart De Ventadorn in Occitan and English: Sugar and Salt. Ceredigion, Edwin Mellen Press, 1999. ISBN 0-7734-8009-9
• Jerome Roche, "Bernart de Ventadorn," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• Richard H. Hoppin, Medieval Music. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1978. ISBN 0-393-09090-6
• Elizabeth Aubrey, "Music of the Troubadours", 1996.
• W. S. Merwin, The Mays of Ventadorn. National Geographic, 2002. ISBN 0-7922-6538-6
• Marguerite-Marie Ippolito, Bernard de Ventadour : troubadour limousin du Template:S- : prince de l’amour et de la poésie romane, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2001 ISBN 2747500179

• Bernart de Ventadorn: Complete Works (in Provençal, with the extant melodies)

French Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Bernard de Ventadour

• French literature
• Provençal literature
• Joel Cohen, who has recorded music by Ventadorn