2 MSS: D (208r) Ugo cacola, z (2 col, E) no heading, but In the Marcabru section

Attribution

Although D copies the song in its Ugo Catola section (along with XX and XLIII), it is clearly a dialogue with Marcabru; z attributes the song to Marcabru, Scholars tend to agree that the poem is the result of collaboration between the two poets (for example, see Roncaglia, ‘La tenzone’, pp. 211–12); see also ‘Dating’.

Analysis of the manuscripts

The common error in line 34 indicates both MSS derive from the same defective source; line 20 may also offer evidence of a faulty archetype. Both have individual careless errors: see lines 17, 20, 35, 44, 49 and possibly 50 in D and lines 5, 7, 8 and so on in z, while z is lacunary in the first two lines, presumably as a result of an initial having been removed. As z has more errors than D and is lacunary, D is the obvious base MS.

Versification

Frank, Repértoire, 44.9: a8 a8 a8 b8; fourteen coblas doblas with a constant V rhyme.

Prepious scholarship

Appel, ‘Zu Marcabru’, pp. 438–39; Franz, Marcabru, p. 24; Gaunt, Troubadours, pp. 72-73; Harvey, Marcabru, pp. 30–31; Lewent, ‘Beiträge’, pp. 320-21; Meneghetti, Il pubblico, pp. 149–56; Mölk, Trobar clus, p. 60; Riquer, Los trovadores, I, pp. 192–95; Roncaglia, ‘La tenzone’; Tortoreto, ‘Cercamon’, pp. 79-84.

Scholars have sought to determine whether this is the earliest surviving tenso (see ‘Dating’), and have been interested in the poem’s use of debating technique and in its humour.

Dating

Roncaglia (‘La tenzone’, pp. 212–13) assigns the poem to the period 1133–37, This is because he identifies Marcabru’s interlocutor with the ‘charissimo amico nostro domno Hugoni Catulae’, whom Peter the Venerable addresses in his letter 51 (see ed. Constable, I, pp. 151–52; also PL, 199, 206), The man addressed in this letter is urged to keep his vow to become a monk rather than merely go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem,. Roncaglia’s daring of the letter is based partly on the ordering of Peter’s letters in the MS, partly on the absence of any reference to the second crusade (declared in 1146), and he concludes that the tenso predates the letter because Ugo’s stance in s Amies Marchabran’ is not consistent with the state of mind of a man contemplating entry into a religious order.