Three Weaving Songs

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Timothy Perry

Abstract

The weaving song (chanson de toile) is a genre of medieval French lyric poetry that takes its name from a dramatic situation that it frequently represents: a young noblewoman weaving (or spinning, or embroidering) in her room and thinking of her absent love. In nearly all of the twenty or so surviving examples, the story has a happy ending: the woman’s love appears and they are able to overcome some sort of obstacle and live happily ever after. (In the sole exception, the woman learns that her lover has been killed in a joust and retires to found an abbey.)

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