Raimbaut de Vaquerias and the First of May

The songs of the troubadours were primarily about love. Whether it is lost love, wanted love, waning love or searching for love; the original troubadours were some seriously love sick bachelors. One of these bachelors, and perhaps the famous of them all, was Raimbaut de Vaquerias. Oddly enough, his most famous work, Kalenda Maya is not about love at all, the beginning of summer and what that entails for all.
Raimbaut de Vaquerias, born in 1150, called himself the son of a, “paubre caviler,” or a “poor knight.” Despite his disenfranchised beginning, Raimbaut went on to serve as a troubadour for Margrave of Montferrat in Northern Italy during the 1170’s, and in Provence under Hugues I des Baux shortly thereafter. His notoriety as a troubadour eventually gained him knighthood and an election as leader of the fourth crusade. It was at his first post as troubadour, however, Raimbaut composed his most famous work, Kalenda Maya.
According to the liner notes of Minstrels Two, Kalenda Maya came to be when, “at the court of Montferrat [Raimbaut] was asked to write words for a dance tune which was then being played by minstrels from northern France.” The result, Kalenda Maya, is a perfect illustration of a medieval plainchant and an even better example of the work of a troubadour. The words read almost like a children’s book of today would read. They describe what various animals and people are doing, as they finally have to wait no longer for kalenda maya, or the first of May. The first as well as the second verses paint a typical summer day, complete with smiling people and sleepy dogs, while third verse celebrates summer time sports. “On foot and ball our strength expending/ we’re not intending to be offending/our bruised limbs home we’re wending.” A comical and slightly silly rhyme scheme intertwines itself among an enchanting, jig like melody, resulting in a dance song that could cure any peasant’s plague.
The AB form of the piece solidifies its self-classification as an estampida, a traditional dance tune sung by troubadours. The syllabic verses, accentuate the simplicity of the song, yet one can’t help but hum the tune. That being said, the validity of Raimbaut as a composer is certainly not verified with this song as it was composed to an already existing fiddle tune. Unfortunately of the thirty- three songs accredited to Raimbaut, only seven of them have melodies that exist today . As a result it is hard to determine the legitimacy of Raimbaut’s compositional skills. We can however safely assume that Raimbaut knew how to write a good poem.

New Grove
Sargeant, Brian. Minstrels 2. London: Cambridge UP, 1979.
Sargeant, Brian. Minstrels 2. London: Cambridge UP, 1979.