The Voice of the Unrepentant Crusader: ‘Aler m’estuet’ by the Châtelain d’Arras

Marisa Galvez analyzes the crusade love song “Aler m’estuet” by the trouvère the Châtelain d’Arras (first quarter of the 13th c.).  Read against sermons and homiletic texts by Bernard of Clairvaux, Innocent III, and Maurice of Sully, the song articulates the trouvère’s authentic crusade intention. If the goal of confession is recognition and sorrow for one’s sins leading to reconciliation with God, then the poet avoids this confession and establishes his penitential intention through the remembrance of the lady. Through the courtly aesthetic, the trouvère valorizes and authorizes his crusading through an unrepentant and ambivalent avowal of leave-taking. This kind of  professional voice of externalized, erotic self-constraint, as opposed to the confessional voice of internalized penitential self-examination, inspires him for crusade without having to repent the courtly code of fine amour. The song reflects his public’s valorization of both earthly and spiritual sacrifice for crusade.

Marisa Galvez is an assistant professor of French at Stanford University. She specializes in the literature of the Middle Ages in France and Western Europe, especially the poetry and narrative literature written in Occitan and Old French. Her areas of interest include the troubadours, vernacular poetics, the intersection of performance and literary cultures, and the critical history of medieval studies as a discipline.