Biography
Uc was born in the town of Thégra to a minor nobleman, Arman, lord of Saint-Circ-d'Alzon, a village which no longer exists but was in the vicinity of Rocamadour. According to Uc's vida, the castle of Saint-Circ lay "at the foot of" (al pe de) the church of Sainta-Maria de Rocamadour, which is atop a cliff overlooking the Alzon river valley and was destroyed by war in Uc's time. Furthermore according to his vida, Uc's many older brothers sent him off to receive a clerical education in Montpellier. At Montpellier he learned to read and write and discovered "songs and poems and sirventes and tensos and couplets and the deeds and the sayings of the worthy men and the worthy women who were living or had lived in the world." It was through this education that he became a minstrel (jongleur).
Uc's gained fame through the coblas and partimens he exchanged with the Count of Rodez, under whom he probably served in the Albigensian Crusade, and through the two tensos he exchanged with Raymond III of Turenne, brother of Maria de Ventadorn. He also had contact with Dalfi d'Alvernha, to whom he addressed one poem. According to his vida, he went into Gascony, where he wandered around on foot—occasionally on horse—penniless. Eventually he gained settled down with Guillerma de Benauges, a countess and viscountess, who introduced him to Savaric de Mauleon, who in turn clothed and outfitted him.
According to his vida, he spent a considerable amount of time with Savaric in Poitou and the surrounding regions before heading into Catalonia and Aragon, where he was at the court of Peter II; Castile, where he attended that of Alfonso VIII; and finally León, where he was at that of Alfonso IX. Around 1220 he moved east into Provence, where his vida says he was "with all the barons", and into Lombardy and the March of Treviso (marca Trevisana). During his travels in Languedoc, Spain, Provence, and Italy he probably met many other troubadours. Eventually Uc is said to have settled down with a wife and children, after which he never composed songs. Uc's association, in Italy, with the da Romano and Malaspina families is evident in his surviving poetry. It lasted forty years while he was in Italy, where he was probably a Guelph.
Read more about this topic: Uc De Saint Circ
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