Peire Cardenal

Peire Cardenal (or Cardinal) (c. 1180 – c. 1278) was a troubadour (fl. 1204 – 1272) known for his satirical sirventes and his dislike of the clergy. Ninety-six pieces of his remain, a number rarely matched by other poets of the age.

Peire Cardenal was born in Le Puy-en-Velay, apparently of a noble family; the family name Cardenal appears in many documents of the region in the 13th and 14th centuries. Peire began his career at the court of Raymond VI of Toulouse—from whom he sought patronage—and a document of 1204 refers to a Petrus Cardinalis as a scribe of Raymond's chancery. Peire was influenced by Cadenet, whom he honoured in one of his pieces. He was possibly influenced by Bernart de Venzac.

In his early days he was a vehement opponent of the French, the clergy and the Albigensian Crusade. In the sirventes, Ab votz d'angel, lengu' esperta, non bleza, dated by Hill and Bergin to around 1229 (when the tribunal of the Inquisition was established at Toulouse by the Dominican Order), Peire enjoins those who seek God to follow the example of those who "drink beer" and "eat bread of gruel and bran", rather than argue over "which wine is the best". The latter behavior Peire's verse attributes to the "Jacobins" (Hill and Bergin say this is the Dominican Order). In Atressi cum per fargar Peire suggests that the clergy "protect their own swinish flesh from every blade", but they do not care how many knights die in battle.

Near the end of the sirventes, Ab votz d'angel, lengu' esperta, non bleza, composed as noted probably around 1229, Peire's words, 'ieu fos maritz, "if I were wed", suggest that he is not yet wed. The verse which follows provides evidence in the view of some that Peire married: it first mocks the "barrenness that bears fruit" of the beguinas (beguines, who may have sometimes been associated with the Dominicans; Hill and Bergin in 1973 said this was a reference to nuns of the Dominican Order).

By the end of his life he appears reconciled to the new modus vivendi in southern France. Like many of his contemporary troubadours, Peire merely composed contrafacta. The third, for Un sirventesc novel vuelh comensar, may be Peire's own work.