# Cercamon

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{{Short description|Troubadour}}
[[File:BnF ms. 854 fol. 133 - Cercamon (2).jpg|thumb|right|Cercamon in a 13th-century [chansonnier](/source/chansonnier).]]
'''Cercamon''' ({{IPA|oc|seɾkɔˈmun}}, [fl.](/source/fl.) {{c.}} 1135-1145) was one of the earliest [troubadour](/source/troubadour)s. His true name and other biographical data are unknown.  He was apparently a [Gascony](/source/Gascony)-born jester of sorts who spent most of his career in the courts of [William X of Aquitaine](/source/William_X_of_Aquitaine) and perhaps of [Eble III of Ventadorn](/source/Eble_III_of_Ventadorn). He was the inventor of the ''[planh](/source/planh)'' (the Provençal dirge), of the ''[tenso](/source/tenso)'' (a sort of rhymed debate in which two poets write one stanza each) and perhaps of the ''[sirventes](/source/sirventes)''.

Most of the information about Cercamon's life is nothing but rumour and conjecture; some of his contemporaries credit him as [Marcabru](/source/Marcabru)'s mentor, and some [circumstantial evidence](/source/circumstantial_evidence) points to his dying on crusade as a follower of [Louis VII of France](/source/Louis_VII_of_France).

About seven of his lyrics survive, but not a single melody; the works that most contributed to his fame among his contemporaries, his ''[pastorelas](/source/Pastorela)'' or pastourelles, are lost.
 
''Cercamon'' means "world searcher" in medieval [Occitan](/source/Occitan_language).{{cn|date=April 2020}}
The fossil primate ''[Cercamonius](/source/Cercamonius)'' was named after him.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Gingerich | first1 = Philip Dean | year = 1975 | pages = 163-170 | title = A new genus of Adapidae (Mammalia, Primates) from the Late Eocene of southern France, and its significance for the origin of higher primates | journal = Contributions from the Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan | volume = 24 | issue = 15}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}
*[Alfred Jeanroy](/source/Alfred_Jeanroy) (1966). ''Les Poésies de Cercamon''. Paris: Libraire Honoré Champion.
*Wolf, George and Rosenstein, Roy (1983). ''The Poetry of Cercamon and Jaufre Rudel''. London: Garland Publishing, Inc.
*''Biographies des troubadours'' ed. J. Boutière, A.-H. Schutz (Paris: Nizet, 1964) pp.&nbsp;9–13.

==External links==
*[http://trobar.org/troubadours/cercamon/ Complete works, in Provençal, with English translations]

{{commons category}}
{{Authority control}}

Category:Gascons
Category:12th-century French troubadours
Category:Year of death unknown
Category:Year of birth unknown

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