Elias Cairel

Born in Sarlat in the Périgord, he first travelled with the Fourth Crusade and settled down in the Kingdom of Thessalonica at the court of Boniface of Montferrat (1204–1208/10) before moving back to western Europe, where he sojourned at the court of Alfonso IX of León (1210–11) and in Lombardy (1219–1222/24).

He wrote fourteen surviving lyrics: ten cansos, one tenso, one descort, one sirventes, and one Crusade song.

Elias' vida survives in three manuscripts with a variant in a fourth designed to refute the other three.

[1] His singing, composition, fiddling, and speaking were reputed as "bad", but his biographer says ben escrivia motz e sons: "well he wrote words and songs", implying a distinction between his composing and his writing.

[3] In his Toz m'era de chantar gequiz, the Bolognese troubadour Rambertino Buvalelli asks Elias to bring the poem to Beatrice d'Este when he travels to the court of Azzo VII at Este.