About the Use of Foreign Words in This Novel
Occitan is the name used today for the Romance language still spoken in southern France, Monaco, and parts of Italy and Spain. It descends recognizably from a language used during the Middle Ages that scholars call Old Provençal. It was the elegant, poetic language of the troubadours whose songs were sung in courts throughout Europe.
In France today, Occitan stubbornly survives, though the number of speakers continues to decline. I chose to use Old Provençal words as linguistic reminders of a once-flourishing language and culture that gradually succumbed to war, oppression, and annexation.
Finding authoritative sources for a language spoken in the thirteenth century was difficult, especially for an English speaker with limited French. Old Provençal had many different dialects and no standardized spellings. I drew from several sources mentioned in the bibliography, prioritizing those that seemed oldest and most authoritative. Ultimately I chose to codify my own lexicon for use in this book, and occasionally I did borrow a word or two from modern Occitan. I also used some words from Latin, with smatterings from other European languages then in use, since trade, church, and legal matters took place in a multi-lingual context then, as now.
To me, Old Provençal read strangely at first, but its strangeness became its beauty.
OLD PROVENÇAL WORDS USED
abadia: abbey.
Abadia de Fontfreda: loosely, the Coldspring Abbey. Known by its French name, L’Abbaye de Fontfroide, it is not far from Narbonne (Narbona) and Bages (Bajas). It still functions as a museum, vineyard, winery, restaurant, and hotel.
acabansa: finished, done.
amic/amicx: friend (singular/plural).
amicx de Dieu: the friends of God. See bona femna and bon ome for more information.
amor: love.
an: year.
aze: buttocks, bottom.
bastida: bastide, a new type of walled market town built throughout Provensa according to the terms of the Treaty of Paris that ended the Albigensian Crusade. Count Raimon VII of Toulouse was allowed to build such towns for economic and political purposes, provided they did not have military fortifications. In this way he attempted to rebuild his lands following the devastation of the crusade. Over the next century some seven hundred were built.
bayle: bailiff; an officer of a count, a lord, or the king.
bon/bona: good (masculine/feminine). Plural, bons/bonas.
bona femna/bonas femnas: good woman (singular/plural). The term could mean generally a woman held in esteem or respect. In the specific context of the practices deemed as heretical by the pope and the inquisitors, it meant those women who practiced certain localized rituals of courtesy (cortezia) and holiness, and received honor (onor), respect, and gifts in their community for their holy status, or at least they did before the Albigensian Crusade of 1209–1229. Men who held the same status and observed the same practices were called bons omes. They were also, as a group, referred to as the amicx de Dieu, or friends of God.
bonjọrn: good day (greeting). From bon (good) + jọrn (day).
bon ome/bons omes: good man, the masculine counterpart of bona femna (singular/plural).
caçolet: there is no English name for this dish; we call it by its French name, cassoulet. It was a peasant dish that originated in Provensa, made from dried beans, bits of meat and fat (typically salted duck and pork, or mutton, goose, partridge), slow-cooked in a clay bowl (a cassoule) to form a succulent and hearty stew. Three cities that feature in our story—Toulouse (Tolosa), Castelnáudary (Castèlnòu d’Arri), and Carcassonne (Carcassona)—have a friendly dispute today over which of them originated the cassoulet.
castȩl: castle.
comtessa: countess.
cortezia: courtesy, courtliness. An elaborate set of rules and rituals for how all members of society showed deference and respect to one another, through words, actions, and gifts. In the thirteenth century, in this area of Provensa, courtesy was far more than mere social politeness. It permeated all social relationships, and defined the “courtliness” of the age for which southern nobles were known.
devina: soothsayer, witch (feminine).
Dieu: God.
domna: lady; term of address used for women of noble origin.
donzȩlla: Miss, maiden, young woman (suggesting nobility).
enamoratz/enamorat: lover, (singular/plural).
eṇfan: infant or young child.
faidit: a term for southern nobles displaced from their lands (and thus their honor or onor) by the crusade. It disparagingly implied that one was an outcast, a rebel, a sympathizer with heretics, a fugitive, and a criminal.
femna: woman.
filh: son.
filha: daughter.
flamenc: flamingo.
fogasa: flatbread cooked on a hearth, a common staple of diet in Provensa (modern spelling, fogassa). Similar, though not identical, to the Italian focaccia or French fouace.
galineta: sweetheart.
grácia: grace, mercy; also thanks.
Jhesus: Jesus.
jocglars: the performers who sang the songs written by troubadours; in French, jongleurs.
lach: milk.
legums: vegetables.
luna: moon.
maire: mother.
maisoṇ: home, dwelling, domicile, usually of someone not noble.
mar: sea.
mẹrda: fecal matter.
mima: term of endearment for grandmother.
moton: mutton; sheep or goat’s meat.
mujọl: mullet; an edible fish found in the Mediterranean.
Na: (short for domna) lady; term of address used for women of noble origin.
ome: man.
ọncle: uncle.
onor: honor; it could also mean a gift, or the title or inheritance to a piece of property, as these were, in this society, related ideas.
paire: father.
pap: term of endearment for grandfather.
pọl: chicken, rooster.
polẹt: young chicken, young bird; can also be a term of endearment: “My little chicken!”
poma: apple.
p
rta: door or gate.
Prta Narbonesa: the Narbonne Gate, a major gate entering the city of Toulouse (Tolosa) from the south.
Provensa: a term used by troubadours to describe the region of present-day southern France where Occitan was spoken.
rossinhol: nightingale.
sant/santa: saint (masculine/feminine).
senhor: lord.
sẹr: evening.
sọpa: soup.
srre: sister.
tanta: aunt.
toza: girl.
tozẹt: boy.
trobador: troubadour, one of the poets of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, who originated in Provensa. They are largely credited with establishing the foundations of Western poetry and romantic literature and, in some sense, romance itself as we now understand it, through their songs and ballads of courtly love.
vila: village, villa, town.
viṇ: wine.
LATIN WORDS USED
castrum/castra: fortified farm or village (singular/plural).
Dominus: Lord. Latin, not Old Provençal, was used to designate a priest. Hence Bernard, the village priest, is “Dominus Bernard” not “Senhor Bernard.” (The tradition of referring to priests as “Father” emerged later.)
friar: brother; used to refer to members of various male religious orders who viewed one another as brothers, including the Dominicans and Franciscans.
illiteratus: illiterate. Friar Lucien, trained in theology using Latin, would have felt superior to less educated country priests and used this Latin slur, which he would have heard in his university studies.
medicus/medica: healer (masculine/feminine).
Provincia: the Latin name for the region referred to elsewhere in the novel as Provensa. Churchmen and scholars, such as Friar Arnaut d’Avinhonet, would certainly have referred to it by its Latin name.
socii: partner, associate. Each Dominican friar was assigned a companion, to remain with him at all times. They were supposed to work in pairs.
OTHER TERMS
Albigensian: a French term used to describe the “heretics,” as the good men and good women were accused of being. The term was coined by northern Crusaders and the monastic intellectuals who wrote about and argued in favor of the Crusade of 1209–1229. In time, the Crusade came to be known as the Albigensian Crusade, but the people living in and around Provensa, the term I’m using for present-day Southern France, would have been unlikely to use this term during the war—and prior to the war, would have been extremely unlikely to consider the good men and good women anything other than good Christians.
fidel: a stringed musical instrument played with a bow, also called the vielle or viuola. Considered a precursor to the violin or viola.
PLACE NAMES
The Occitan name for places in the book, and what we call them now.
| Place Name (Occitan) | Place Name Today (In French, Spanish, or English) |
| Anglatèrra | England |
| Avinhonet | Avignonet |
| Bajas | Bages |
| Balbastro, Aragón | Barbastro, Spain |
| Barçalona, Catalonha | Barcelona, Catalonia |
| Basièja | Baziège |
| Besièrs | Béziers |
| Carcassona | Carcassonne |
| Castèlnòu d’Arri | Castelnaudary |
| Florença | Florence (Firenze in Italian) |
| Fontcobèrta | Fontcouverte |
| Londres | London |
| Narbona | Narbonne |
| Perpinhan | Perpignan |
| Polinyino, Aragón | Poleñino, Spain |
| Roma | Rome |
| San Cucufati | St. Couat d’Aude |
| Tolosa | Toulouse |
| Vilafranca de Lauragués | Villefranche-de-Lauragais |