Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (or Riambaut de Vaqueyras) (fl. 1180–1207) was a Provençal troubadour and, later in his life, knight. His life was spent mainly in Italian courts[1] until 1203, when he joined the Fourth Crusade.
As his name suggests, Raimbaut came from Vacqueyras near Orange, France. He spent most of his career as court poet and close friend of Boniface I of Montferrat. He served with him in action against the communes of Asti and Alessandria. Raimbaut claimed he earned a knighthood through protecting Boniface with his shield in battle at Messina, when they took part in Emperor Henry VI's invasion of Sicily. He was present at the siege and capture of Constantinople in 1204, and then accompanied Boniface to Thessalonica. His writings, particularly the so-called Epic Letter, form an important commentary on the politics of the Latin Empire in its earliest years, after which they suddenly cease: it is generally presumed that Raimbaut died on 4 September 1207, together with Boniface, in an ambush by the Bulgarians.
The only critical edition of Raimbaut attributes 33 extant songs to him; only eight of the associate melodies have survived. He used a wide range of styles, including a descort in five languages, cansos, tensos and albas; he, with Perdigon and Ademar de Peiteus, invented the torneyamen (or at least left us its earliest example). One of his songs, Kalenda Maia, is referred to as an estampida and is considered one of the best troubadour melodies. However according to the razó he borrowed the tune from two musicians. This would explain why the song is called an estampida when it is theoretically a purely instrumental piece.
Raimbaut is equally known to have written a multilingual poem called Eras quan vey verdeyar where he used several different languages as French, Italian, Galician-Portuguese and he used Gascon as a different language from his own "Provençal".
In 1922, Vaqueiras was the subject of a verse drama by Nino Berrini, Rambaldo di Vaqueiras: I Monferrato. Strongly derivative of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac and La Princesse Lointaine, it presents a highly romantic, fictionalised image of the poet, in love with his patron's daughter Beatrice. At the end, he returns, mortally wounded, from Thessalonica, to die in her arms.