Sainte des Prez

Sainte des Prez was a trouvère probably from Le Prés in La Ferté-sous-Jouarre^[1] and active in the 13th century.^[2]

Nothing is known about her beyond what can be deduced from her name.^[1] She shares her toponymic surname with Gui des Prés, named in a chansonnier from Siena as the composer of a song elsewhere attributed to Perrin d'Angicourt and who himself may be identical with Guy des Prés, bishop of Noyon from 1272 to 1296.^[3] In 1581, Claude Fauchet included Sainte des Prez in his catalogue of French poets from before 1300.^[4]

Sainte probably belonged to the school of trouvères centred on Arras.^[2] She wrote a jeu-parti with the otherwise unknown lady of La Chaucie, probably La Chaussée in Crouy-sur-Ourcq.^[3] This is her only surviving work. It has Picard dialectal features. She opens the poetic exchange with the line "Que ferai je, dame de la Chaucie" (What shall I do, Lady of Chaucie) by which the song is conventionally known.^[5] In her response, the lady (dame) addresses Sainte as damoisele (maiden), meaning unmarried. The subject of their debate is how a woman ought to behave when a man declares his love for her. The older and more experienced married lady recommends letting the man have his say, but Sainte is afraid of being seduced by flattery.^[6]

References

1. Eglal Doss-Quinby, Joan Tasker Grimbert, Wendy Pfeffer and Elizabeth Aubrey, Songs of the Women Trouvères (Yale University Press, 2001), p. 27.
2. Doss-Quinby et al. (2001), p. 74.
3. Roberto Crespo, "Il raggruppamento dei «Jeux partis» nei canzonieri A, a e b", in Madeleine Tyssens (ed.), Lyrique romane médiévale, la tradition des chansonniers (Université de Liège, 1991), pp. 399–428, at 402.
4. Doss-Quinby et al. (2001), pp. 2–3.
5. Doss-Quinby et al. (2001), pp. 81–83.
6. Peter Dronke, Forms and Imaginings: From Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century(Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2007), pp. 326–327.