Peire de Corbiac or Corbian was a
Gasconcleric and
troubadour of the thirteenth century. His most famous works are a religious piece, the Prière à la Vierge (
prayer to the
Virgin), and his "treasures", Lo tezaurs (c. 1225).[1]
Peire was born at
Corbiac near
Bordeaux to a poor family.[2] He was educated at
Orléans in the
Scholastic tradition.[3] His nephew was the troubadour
Aimeric de Belenoi, whose vida refers to him as maestre (master, teacher) and Peire elsewhere calls himself maistre. Certainly Peire's Tezaur is didactic in nature: his purpose in writing was to convince the wise that though he was poor in material terms he was richer still. Composed in 840
alexandrines, the Tezaur is an encyclopaedic compilation of all that the troubadour knew.[2] The work displays a great breadth of knowledge. He expends 547 lines narrating the chief events of the
Old and
New Testaments, then discusses the seven
liberal arts,
medicine,
surgery,
necromancy,
mythology, the lives of the ancient
Greeks and
Romans, and those of the contemporary
French and
English.
Peire was familiar with the work of
Venerable Bede, of
John de Holywood, and of
Chrétien de Troyes.[4] He also provides the modern historian with several pieces of crucial information not found elsewhere. He refers to dancing the Sanctus, Agnus, and the Cunctipotens, showing that the
liturgy was performed.[3] The Tezaur also contains the first mention of contrapointamens, a century before its appearance in Latin as contrapunctus, today's
counterpoint.[3] The Tezaur had a lasting influence in the
Late Middle Ages. The Jew
Emanuele da Roma wrote the Ninth Meḥabbereth, a Hebrew poem based on the Tesoretto of
Brunetto Latini, itself based on the Tezaur of Peire.[5]
Peire was a religious man, as the dedicatory first verse of his Tezaur attests: it contains a dedication to
Jesus and Mary and a statement of
Trinitarian faith:
Jeanroy, Alfred, and Bertoni, Giulio (1911). "Le Thezaur de Peire de Corbian." Annales du Midi, 23, 289–308 and 451–71.
Léglu, Catherine E. (2005). "The Two Versions of Peire de Corbian's Thezaur." Études de langue et de littérature médiévales, offertes à Peter T. Ricketts à l'occasion de son 70ème anniversaire. Brepols: Turnhout.
ISBN2-503-51640-8.