Research Article: Medieval Europe 814-1450: Music

c. 1240–c. 1285

Performer
Poet
Composer

Adam de la Halle (c. 1240–c. 1285) is considered to be the last of the trouvères, the poet-musicians of northern France who specialized in writing poems and songs of courtly love. He was born in Arras in northern France (Picardy) and later probably studied in Paris. Also known as "Adam le Bossu" (bossu = hunchback), he is known for having written one of the earliest recorded secular dramas in French, a 1,099-line satiric play (apparently intended for performance at a local festival) that ridicules character traits of some of the citizens of Arras. Manuscripts of this work include music since songs were a part of the play, which had little plot but was full of proverbs and puns. Sometime after 1276, Adam entered into the service of Robert II, the count of Artois, and accompanied him to Naples where he wrote a poem about Charles d'Anjou,...
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