A Breton lai , also known as a narrative lay or simply a lay , is a form of medieval French and English romance literature . Lais are short (typically 600–1000 lines), rhymed tales of love and chivalry , often involving supernatural and fairy-world Celtic motifs. The word "lay" or "lai" is thought to be derived from the Old High German and/or Old Middle German leich , which means play, melody, or song, or as suggested by Jack Zipes in The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales , the Irish word laid (song).
7-497: A lai (or lay lyrique , "lyric lay", to distinguish it from a lai breton ) is a lyrical, narrative poem written in octosyllabic couplets that often deals with tales of adventure and romance. Lais were mainly composed in France and Germany , during the 13th and 14th centuries. The English term lay is a 13th-century loan from Old French lai . The origin of the French term itself
14-480: Is unclear; perhaps it is itself a loan from German Leich (reflected in archaic or dialectal English lake , "sport, play" and in modern Swedish (att leka = to play). The terms note , nota and notula (as used by Johannes de Grocheio ) appear to have been synonyms for lai . The poetic form of the lai usually has several stanzas , none of which have the same form. As a result, the accompanying music consists of sections which do not repeat. This distinguishes
21-547: The Roman de Fauvel , all of them anonymous. The lai reached its highest level of development as a musical and poetic form in the work of Guillaume de Machaut ; 19 separate lais by this 14th-century ars nova composer survive, and they are among his most sophisticated and highly developed secular compositions. French composers German composers Lai breton Zipes writes that Arthurian legends may have been brought from Wales, Cornwall and Ireland to Brittany ; on
28-473: The basis for the narrative lais. The earliest written Breton lais were composed in a variety of Old French dialects, and some half dozen lais are known to have been composed in Middle English in the 13th and 14th centuries by various English authors. Breton lais may have inspired Chrétien de Troyes , and likely were responsible for spreading Celtic and fairy-lore into Continental Europe. An example of
35-522: The continent the songs were performed in various places by harpists, minstrels, storytellers. Zipes reports the earliest recorded lay is Robert Biker's Lai du Cor, dating to the mid- to late-12th century. The earliest of the Breton lais to survive is probably The Lais of Marie de France , thought to have been composed in the 1170s by Marie de France , a French poet writing in England at Henry II's court between
42-512: The lai from other common types of musically important verse of the period (for example, the rondeau and the ballade ). Towards the end of its development in the 14th century, some lais repeat stanzas, but usually only in the longer examples. There is one very late example of a lai, written to mourn the defeat of the French at the Battle of Agincourt (1415), ( Lay de la guerre , by Pierre de Nesson ) but no music for it survives. There are four lais in
49-464: The late 12th and early 13th centuries. From descriptions in Marie's lais, and in several anonymous Old French lais of the 13th century, we know of earlier lais of Celtic origin, perhaps more lyrical in style, sung by Breton minstrels . It is believed that these Breton lyrical lais, none of which has survived, were introduced by a summary narrative setting the scene for a song, and that these summaries became
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