Guillaume de Ferrières

A reference in the Vidame's song Combien que j'aie demouré to a forced sojourn in a "hated land" probably refers to Guillaume's stay in southwestern France in 1188, before the departure of the Crusade, while the leaders (Richard the Lionheart and Philip Augustus) were squabbling.

Further evidence linking the trouvère with Guillaume includes a quotation of two stanzas of the Vidame's most popular song, Quant la saison du dous tens s'asseure, in the chivalric romance Guillaume de Dole, which was written probably in the 1220s.

The rather garbled and uncertain melodies which accompany the Vidame's poems further support an early (pre-1200) date for the trouvère.

The coat of arms with which the trouvère is depicted in his miniature portrait in the Chansonnier du Roi belonged mid-century to the Meslay family, who became vidames of Chartres only in 1224.

With the sole exception of Li plus desconfortés du mont, all his melodies are preserved in bar form and cover more than an octave in range each.