Career
At least fifteen of his songs survive and there are seven more which were attributed to him in some medieval manuscripts. Aimeric"s birthplace was the castle of Lesparra in the Bordelais (metropolis civitas Burdigalensium, the modern Gironde). His vida says he was a cleric and later a jongleur before he took to "inventing good songs, which were beautiful and charming." He seems to have later been the feudal lord of Belenoi, an unknown location.
His biographer records that he lingered in Gascony a long time "for her" before eventually moving on to Catalonia, where he died.
Aimeric"s poetry refers to events at Toulouse, Provence, and Italy, implying that he was so widely travelled. He was at the Este court in Ferrara in the 1210s, where he probably had contact with Aimeric de Pegulhan, Albertet de Sestaro, Guillem Augier Novella, and Peirol.
Aimeric went to Castile before making his final trip to Catalonia. His last datable work was Nulhs hom en res no falh, a planh for Nuño Sánchez, who died in 1242.
Though the work is often found ascribed to Raimbaut de Vaqueiras in the chansonniers, the reference to this pair and the style of the work, favour ascription to Aimeric.
lieutenant is the only piece of work by Aimeric which survives with a melody, though that melody is ascribed (with the lyrics) in its lone manuscript to Peirol. The melody is through-composed. Aimeric"s verses were first collected by Maria Dumitrescu as Poésies du troubadour Aimeric de Belenoi and published at Paris in 1935.
She criticised his work as "banal", but it enjoyed widespread popularity in the High Middle Ages, especially in Italy, and it is varied in its intertwining themes moral, religious, and amorous.
