Peire Cardenal

In the second stanza Peire mentions Peter's success in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa; in the third he alludes to the sacking of Béziers (whose count Raymond Roger Trencavel was supposed to have been Peter's vassal): at Béziers the poorer soldiers of the Inquisition were flogged by the wealthier, and this is the theme of the stanza.

It's not clear who the crois hom or "dreadful man" is in the final couplet, whose deeds are "piggish": Peire has really never addressed anyone in this verse but Peter II and those close to him.

(But dualism had by then made its way into some of the local religious views of Medieval Languedoc: in dualist philosophy worldly deeds might be seen as "piggish".

)[citation needed] Peire subsequently travelled widely, visiting the courts of Auvergne, Les Baux, Foix, Rodez, and Vienne.

In the sirventes, Ab votz d'angel, lengu' esperta, non bleza, dated by Hill and Bergin to around 1229 (when the tribunal of the Inquisition was established at Toulouse by the Dominican Order),[8] Peire enjoins those who seek God to follow the example of those who "drink beer" and "eat bread of gruel and bran", rather than argue over "which wine is the best".

[9] In Atressi cum per fargar Peire suggests that the clergy "protect their own swinish flesh from every blade", but they do not care how many knights die in battle.

[3] He died at an advanced age (allegedly one hundred years old) possibly either in Montpellier or Nimes, but this is only a supposition, based on where the biographer and compiler Miquel de la Tor was active.

[3] Three of Peire's songs have surviving melodies, but two (for a canso and a sirventes) were composed by others: Guiraut de Bornelh and Raimon Jordan respectively.