Foremost of French soldier-troubadours, born in Périgord in 1140. Henry Curtmantle, the son of Henry II. of England, was his patron, and the struggles of Henry furnished the themes of his poems of arms. With his sword he fought, and with his Sirventeses he sang, and both brought him fame in the conflict between Henry II. and his rebel sons. In his poems of love, the force and passion of his war poetry is not found. His pictures of the struggles and political conditions of the twelfth century are of historical value. Dante celebrates de Born as the great poet of arms of the middle ages. He died about 1215, in the monastery in which his declining years were spent. His influence in the bloody struggles of the sons of Henry, and upon the conflicts between Philippe Auguste and Richard the Lion-Hearted, had been remarkable.
See The Historic Rôle of Bertrand de Born (L. Clédot, 1878) and Bertrand de Born, Complete Poems (A. Thomas, 1888).
