Raimon Gaucelm de Bezers

Raimon Gaucelm de Bezers was a Languedocian troubadour with nine surviving works. Many of his works appear with dates in the rubrics in manuscript C, a 14th-century work now "BN f.f. 856" in the , Paris, allowing his career to be dated with ease.

Raimon was from Béziers, where he was a contemporary resident with Joan Esteve and Bernart d'Auriac. The poets of Béziers in that day were Gallicised heavily and supported the French over and against the native Occitan aristocracy. In this vein he wrote, in 1268, , a about Louis IX of France and his preparations for the Eighth Crusade. In 1270 he wrote , another and this time also a for Louis IX after his failed Crusade and death.

Raimon was a middle-class, urban poet, and certainly no courtesan. He was also a non-noble opponent of the artificial courtliness which surrounded aristocratic life in his day. He wrote to encourage generosity to the poor. It is an indicator of his status in society that he penned , a (1262) for a local bourgeois named Guiraut de Linhan and the only such poem surviving for a middle-class figure.

Raimon was fairly popular in his own lifetime, as evidenced by the first stanza of , a . In it Raimon says that he wishes to go somewhere where the people don't ask him ('have you made anything new?'). This poem was dedicated to Raimon Gaucelm de Sabran, lord of Uzès, whom Raimon calls (brother) because they share a first name. Another poem, , was dedicated, according to its rubric, to the ('lord of Uzès who has the same name as Raimon Gaucelm').

Raimon composed one humorous (a with a proposed dilemma) with Joan Miralhas in which Raimon poses the following question: Joan Miralhas, may God guard you from pain, what would please you more from the following : that you be circular with your head attached to your sole, or cleaved of everything between your feet and your chin and thus to wear a belt around your nose? Raimon also wrote religious songs, including and . This last was, according to the rubric, ('the stanzas R. Gaucelm made when he was ill'). It was composed on the model of as a prayer to God for delivery from illness and from sin, possibly on the poet's deathbed .

Works Complete works at Rialto