Raimon de las Salas (?) ~ Bertran Folco d’Avigno (?), “Bertran, si fossetz tant gignos” (BdT 406.16 = 83.1)

This paper will offer a new edition, with critical apparatus, commentary and translation, of the ‘tenso’ “Bertran, si fossetz tant gignos”, transmitted by chansonniers ADIK and perhaps ascribable to Raimon de las Salas and Bertran Folco d’Avigno. It is a debate (that takes place within the framework of the Albigensian Crusade and was most likely composed in northern Italy) aimed at establishing whether, as far as military prowess, hospitality and courtly values as a whole are concerned, the Lombards (where Lombardy obviously means northern Italy as a whole) are better than the Proven als (that is the exponents of the feudal culture of all the courts of southern France put together). Of particular interest is the contrast between Occitania and its typically courtly ethics and the exclusively economic (indeed economicistic) outlook of the Lombards.