“Fransa tol als engles cascun dia” (BdT 138,1): El saqueo a los ingleses en la lírica trovadoresca occitana

Abstract

In the beginning of the 13th century, the French government started an aggressive campaign against the Albigensian heresy, condoned by the Papacy. That way they got to occupy the Occitan territories to the South. In their poems, the most political troubadours used all type of arguments on their reach, aimed for the victory in and out of the battlefi eld, searching an alliance with the most important powers of that time. England faced France, but the confrontation did not obtain the desired results; due to those results, soon they became the target of many jokes and jeers. They turned to be a stereotype, the victim of the French plundering, as it becomes evident when one reads the poetical works written by the Occitan writers of the century.