Conon de Béthune

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Coat of arms of Conons de Béthune

Conon de Bethune (German and Kuno of Bethune * in 1150 in Artois ; † 17th December 1219 / 1220 in Adrian Opel or Constantinople Opel ) was a knight and Trouvère .

Conon was born as the 10th son of Robert V , Lord of Béthune, in Artois , then Flanders . He was a cousin of the Trouvères Huon d'Oisi and also a student in its arts. On the part of his grandmother, he was related to the Counts of Hainaut in Flanders . Its appearance at the French royal court around 1180 is therefore probably due to the wedding of the then 10-year-old Isabella von Hainaut with the French King Philip II .

He initially mocked his bad French and his Picardy dialect (he complains about it in a song: ... mon langage ont blâmé les François, et mes canchons oyant les Champenois ... ), followed King Philip II. in the Third Crusade (1189 / 1190–1193), which he had wished for in his famous 1188 crusade song (model for a whole series of poems on this subject). His father died here in 1191 during the siege of Acre .

He took part in the Fourth Crusade as a follower and close confidante of Count Baldwin of Hainaut and Flanders , who rose to become Latin Emperor of Constantinople in the course of the crusade . Conon negotiated ship transport with Venice and, after the conquest of Constantinople, held important offices such as that of governor of Adrianople . After Baldwin's death he was one of the leading figures in the ruling barons of the Latin Empire .

The crusade writers describe him as a spirited, violent, eloquent and proud gentleman; that's what Gottfried von Villehardouin calls him : "Bon chevalier et sage estoit et bien eloquens" .

Works

Conon is considered to be an important mediator of the Minne poetry, which originally came from Provence , in northern France. Ten songs of his poems have been handed down:

  • Chançon alloy a entender
  • Si voiremant con cele don je chant
  • Mout me semont Amors que je m'envoise
  • Ahi! Amors, com dure departie
  • Bien me deuss targier
  • Se raige et derverie
  • Belle doce lady chiere
  • Tant ai amé c'or me convient haïr
  • L'autrier un jor aprés la Saint Denise
  • L'autrier avint en cel autre païs

literature

  • Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization. Vol. 2: Baanes-Eznik of Kolb. Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2008, ISBN 978-2-503-52377-4 , pp. 225-226.

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