Vida (Occitan literary form)

A Vida is a biographical prose text in Provencal language, which tells the life of a troubadour or a Trobairitz the 12th and 13th century.

Approximately 180 Vidas have survived, being rich in the amount of short texts of just a few lines to several pages long texts.

The Vidas contain information on the origin, the activities, the places of their work, the revered of the troubadours ladies (or revered by the Trobairitz men) and his reputation as a poet. They are not composed by the poet himself described in general.

Vidas often contain verifiable facts, but also demonstrable misinformation to adventurous derivations based on the song lyrics of the poet. Thus, it is at the Vidas to important sources, however, must not be uncritically received as a whole as facts.

Closely related to the Vidas are the Razos.