Savary de Mauléon, Talmont's troubadour
And also
The tops
A troubadour
Raoul de Mauléon, lord of Talmont, added a second wall to his fortress. This one became the most well-fortified castle of its time!
Among the Mauléon, let’s meet Savary, Raoul’s grandson: lord of Talmont like his grandpa but also a troubadour! “His only name was worth an army” said a period chronicles.
A gallant poet and a very brave lord from Poitou, but also a councillor for English kings: Poitou at that time was divided between Capétiens (king of France) and Plantagenets (England).
Savary supported both of them, changing camp each time he felt the wind changing, always thinking of his own interests.
Aaaah, love...
What about Savary’s poems? We know his tensons, those songs written in langue d’oc, made like a kind of dialogues, a debate about love… Savary had lots of things to say about love!
He was in love with the pretty Guillemette de Bénauges, noble lady from Gascogne, that he met one day during a stay in the area, when he was a seneschal.
Gifts, poems… he gave everything to the lady, but she ignored him. Well, do you love me, my lady? asked Savary. Maybe… answered she. And each time he went to Gascogne, she kept him waiting, promising him the moon…
And yet Savary didn’t give up, he hoped! But the lady played with two other troubadours’ hearts, Elie and Geoffroy Rudel...
One day, they even wooed her, together, one man in front of her, one on her left side, one on her right. She looked Geoffroy with a passionate eye, touched Elie’s hand and squeezed Savary’s foot with her own foot. Then the 3 chaps left her, each one thinking they were the beloved one… not at all, my friends!
The two brothers started to chat about the situation, and Savary understood the lady’s game. And yet he said nothing. He’d ask the advice of two friends, poets themselves, and they wrote about this a tenson, to know which one the lady loved the most…