Cone

The Congé ( old French “farewell”) is a lyrical genre of medieval French and Provencal poetry. It deals with the farewell to home, friends and society and may have its justification in the verse de la mort on the memento-mori motif of Trouvères and later monk Hélinand von Froidmont (1166–1230).

The creator of the genre, which, in contrast to the so-called license (old French “permission”, i.e. to move away), does not emphasize the cheerful farewell and the hope of a happy reunion, but rather its finality, is the Ménestrel Jehan Bodel , who in 1202 because of a leprosy his hometown Arras had to leave and Li Congie left behind a farewell song of 41 stanzas of twelve octosyllabic verses . Baude Fastoul wrote a cone around 1260 for the same reason. Adam de la Halle turned the genre in 1269 when he left Arras - his marriage had failed - into satirical . The influence of the Congé on François Villon's Great Testament (1461/62) is controversial.

literature

Pierre Ruelle: Les congés d'Arras. Jean Bodel, Baude Fastoul, Adam de la Halle . Brussels 1965