Comtessa de Dia

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

The Comtessa de Dia, the countess of Die, was a trobairitz: a female troubadour from the south of France. She was active around 1175 or around 1212; we do not know more precisely than that. Her name too is uncertain. She may have been called Beatritz or Isoarda. In the sources from her time she is called only the countess of Die, a small town north-east of Montélimar. She was presumably the daughter of Count Isoard II of Die. According to her vida, the short biography that has been preserved with the songs, she was married to William of Poitiers, but loved Raimbaut of Orange and sang about him.

Music and breakthrough

Five pieces of her work have survived: four cansos and a tenson. She sang in Occitan, the language of the troubadours. Her subjects are optimism, praise of herself and her love, but also betrayal. In A chantar m'er de so qu'ieu non volria she plays an abandoned lover who nevertheless keeps defending and praising herself.

Influence

That song is the reason her name counts in music history. It is the only canso by a trobairitz whose melody has also survived. It appears in Le Manuscript du roi, a song collection copied around 1270 for Charles of Anjou, the brother of Louis IX. It is therefore one of the few places where we can really hear how a medieval woman sang her own love songs.

Listening