'''Marcoat''' was a minor Gascon troubadour and joglar who flourished in the mid twelfth century. He is often cited in connexion with Eleanor of Aquitaine and is placed in a hypothetical "school" of poetry which includes Bernart de Ventadorn, Marcabru, Cercamon, Jaufre Rudel, Peire Rogier, and Peire de Valeria among others.<ref>Harvey, 102.</ref> Of all his works, only two ''sirventes'' survive: {{Lang|oc|Mentre m'obri eis huisel}} and {{Lang|oc|Una re.us dirai, en Serra}}.<ref name="Chambers90">Chambers, 90.</ref>
Marcoat was an innovator building off the work of the contemporary Gascon Marcabru,<ref name="Thiolier-Méjean">Thiolier-Méjean, 114–123.</ref> whose death he recalls in one of his works c. 1150.<ref>Léglu, 48.</ref> Nonetheless, his works are very simple, the stanzas being composed of three heptasyllables rhyming in the form AAB.<ref name="Chambers90"/> It was he who first used the term ''sirventes'' to describe his poems;<ref name="Chambers90"/> the word appears in both of his surviving works, twice in one: :{{Lang|oc|Mentre m'obri eis huisel,}} :{{Lang|oc|un sirventes escubel}} :{{Lang|oc|en giteira inz s'arena}} :'''. . .''' :{{Lang|oc|Mon serventes no val plus,}} :{{Lang|oc|que faitz es de bos moz clus}} :{{Lang|oc|apren lo, Domeing Sarena}}''.''<ref>Chambers, 91, from the poem ''Mentre m'obri eis huisel''.</ref> The meaning of these verses is obscure, as he was an early practitioner of the ''trobar clus'' style.<ref name="Thiolier-Méjean"/><ref name="Bloch114">Bloch, 114.</ref> According to himself, he wrote {{Lang|oc|vers contradizentz}} (contradictory verses).<ref name="Bloch114"/> He was a model for the later troubadour Raimbaut d'Aurenga.<ref name="Thiolier-Méjean"/>
==Sources== {{refbegin}} *Bloch, R. Howard. [https://books.google.com/books?id=_BvcxDvqjp8C ''Etymologies and Genealogies: A Literary Anthropology of the French Middle Ages''.] Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. {{ISBN|0-226-05982-0}}. *Chambers, Frank M. [https://books.google.com/books?id=wWwlECmpynUC ''An Introduction to Old Provençal Versification''.] Diane Publishing, 1985. {{ISBN|0-87169-167-1}}. *Dejeanne, Jean-Marie-Lucien. "Marcoat." ''Annales du Midi'', xv (1903). *Harvey, Ruth. "Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Troubadours." ''The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France between the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries'', edd. Marcus Bull and Catherine Léglu. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005. {{ISBN|1-84383-114-7}}. *Léglu, Catherine. "Moral and satirical poetry." [https://books.google.com/books?id=Qd-wbGvEpSsC ''The Troubadours: An Introduction''.] edd. Simon Gaunt and Sarah Kay. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. {{ISBN|0-521-57473-0}}. *Pfeffer, Wendy. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2865941 Review] of Suzanne Thiolier-Méjean, ''La Poétique des Troubadours: Trois Études sur le Sirventes'', in ''Speculum'', 72:1 (Jan., 1997), pp. 230–231. *Thiolier-Méjean, Suzanne. ''La poétique des troubadours: Trois études sur le sirventes''. Paris: Presse de l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1994. {{refend}}
==Notes== {{reflist}}
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Category:Gascons Category:12th-century French troubadours