Uc de Saint Circ

Uc de Saint Circ (San Sir) or Hugues (Hugh) de Saint Circq (fl. 1217–1253 ) was a troubadour from Quercy. Uc is perhaps most significant to modern historians as the probable author of several vidas and razos of other troubadours, though only one of Bernart de Ventadorn exists under his name. Forty-four of his songs, including fifteen cansos and only three canso melodies, have survived, along with a didactic manual entitled Ensenhamen d'onor. According to William E. Burgwinkle, as "poet, biographer, literary historian, and mythographer, Uc must be accorded his rightful place as the 'inventor' (trobador) of 'troubadour poetry' and the ideological trappings with which it came to be associated."

Uc is probably to be identified with the Uc Faidit (meaning "exiled" or "dispossessed") who authored the Donatz proensals, one of the earliest Occitan grammars. This identity fits with Uc's status as the "inventor" of troubadour poetry as a distinct type and his life in Italy (possibly due to exile during the Albigensian Crusade).

Biography Uc was born in the town of Thégra to a minor nobleman, Arman, lord of Saint-Circ-d'Alzon, a village which no longer exists but was in the vicinity of Rocamadour. According to Uc's vida, the castle of Saint-Circ lay "at the foot of" (al pe de) the church of Sainta-Maria de Rocamadour, which is atop a cliff overlooking the Alzon river valley and was destroyed by war in Uc's time. Furthermore, according to his vida, Uc's many older brothers sent him off to receive a clerical education in Montpellier. Eventually Uc is said to have settled down with a wife and children, after which he never composed songs. Another of his sirventes, which begins as a "light" work with many textual affinities to at least four other troubadour works, but it ends as a political assault on Ezzelino III da Romano, the viceroy of the Emperor Frederick II in Italy: Chanzos q'es leu per entendre.

In , Uc demonstrates a hatred of the emperor, accusing him, a "monster of heresy", of believing in neither immortality nor paradise. Furthermore, he intends to humiliate France and the Church and so the Crusade against him in Apulia is justified because selh qu'en Dieu non cre non deu terra tener: "he who does not believe in God should not reign".

Uc also composed a danseta in which the refrain was apparently repeated between the four stanzas.

Prose Late in his life, at the da Romano court, Uc became a representative of the academic prose style then coming into fashion. In this vein he composed a collection of vidas and razos. Most of these were written in Italy and the numerous historical errors they contain have been attribute to the time and distance between the lives and events they describe, for, judging by the Italianisms which had crept into Uc's vocabulary by the time they were written, he must have been in Italy a while before he began their composition. The razos have been dated to 1227–1230 and no post-1219 events are recorded in them. Uc's earliest attempt at biography, however, is the collection of razos of Bertran de Born, which were possibly penned in Languedoc or shortly after his arrival in northern Italy; in his later works he refers to the razos of Bertran as l'autr'escrit: "the other writings". The sole vida to contain a direct claim of authorship is that of Bernart de Ventadorn, which says: Et ieu, N'Ucs de Saint Circ, de lui so qu'ieu ai escrit si me contet lo vescoms N'Ebles de Ventadorn ("And I, Lord Uc of Saint Circ, have written about him [Bernart] what the viscount Lord Ebles of Ventadorn told me").

Among the vidas he is supposed to have written is one of Sordello, a troubadour at the court of Ezzelino III and Alberico da Romano.