Chanson de toile

The Chanson de toile (from French toile "canvas", also: Chanson d' histoire ) is a genus of medieval French love song. Your name based on the fact that this kind of songs were sung traditionally at work at the loom. Their tradition is generally anonymous.

Chansons de toile telling simple love stories, usually between a knight and a non-aristocratic girls. Obstacles and how to overcome them play a role. The strophic structure consists largely of an odd number (three or five) assonierender lines of ten syllables, which are concluded with a chorus. This refrain consists of either a line of verse without assonance or two lines that assonieren independently with each other.

The tradition of this song type is low, there are very few documents from the 12th and 13th centuries. Ten songs are completely preserved, seven fragmentary. The origin of the genus is controversial. Some Literaturgeschichtler they think is a folk song, which was artistically formed under the influence of courtly poetry. Others consider it a direct invention of courtly poetry, the so - consciously struck a popular archaic direction.

The Chanson de toile worked despite its few examples on later eras. A well-known example from the late 19th century is the song Bele Erembors (also Bel Eremborc ), which translated the poet and Nobel Paul Heyse as nice Ehrenburg into German. The French composer and singer Émilie Simon released on their first album (2003), a piece titled Chanson de toile.