Be Your Own Troubadour with Tracey Warr and Amandine Rey Thursday 18 July and Friday 19 July 10am-12 noon Salle des Fetes, Laguépie 82250 In French, English and Occitan Create your own troubadour vida (introductory, often boasting autobiography) and tenso (debate song, usually between a man and a woman about love) or canso (love song)….
Tag: occitan
Treading the Ground: Researching for a Medieval Novel
I’ve just returned from a research trip to Narbonne, Carcassonne, Aigues-Mortes, and Conques. There’s nothing like treading the ground to inspire writing. I thought a photo-journal of the trip might be of interest for some of you. NARBONNE I am giving a couple of talks on medieval Occitan female lords over the next few months….
The Female Troubadours
Ladies and gentlemen, imagine yourselves back in time, nearly 900 years, to the middle of the 12th century. Imagine that you are in the Great Hall at the court of Raimbaut d’Aurenga in the castle of Courthézon, three days’ ride east of here, on a good horse, a little north of Avignon … Last week, in…
Exoplanet song
For the Exoplanet Lot exhibition organised by MAGP, open in France now until 4 September, I collaborated with artist Tania Candiani on an ‘exoplanet song’. Tania installed this fabulous listening sculpture on the cliff top at Saint Cirq Lapopie above the Lot river. I adapted the lyrics of a medieval song written by the…
Almodis Reader Comments
Have received some wonderful feedback from readers of Almodis, such as: Dear Tracey Warr, I would like to complain: I started reading your novel in the bath and hours later realised that I’d read a third of the novel, was still in the bath, and I was freezing cold.
Almodis: The Peaceweaver Extract
Prologue Roccamolten Castle, La Marche November 1037 I stand on the precipice wrapped in bulky grey and silver furs. My eyes are trained, like a hawk at hunt, on the steep road snaking up the mountain towards me. I feel the bitter cold of the granite ledge through the thin leather of my shoes, and…
Writing Almodis
Paolo Ucello, The Hunt in the Forest, 1470, Ashmolean Museum, inspired my description of Almodis on a deer hunt. ORIGINS When I enrolled on the MA Creative Writing at Trinity St David, University of Wales three years ago, the last thing I expected to produce was an historical novel. I imagined I would develop the…
Almodis Bibliography
Aurell, Martin, Les Noces du Comte: Mariage et Pouvoir en Catalogne (785-1213) (Paris: Sorbonne, 1995). Bachrach, Bernard S., State-Building in Medieval France: Studies in Early Angevin History (Aldershot: Variorum, 1995). Bloch, Marc, Feudal Society, 2 vols. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1961). Bogin, Meg, The Women Troubadours (New York: W.W. Norton, 1980). Bonnassie, Pierre, La Catalogne…
Tracey Warr Writing 