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{{redirect|Senhals|the place in Germany|Senheim}}
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A '''''senhal''''' is a codename used to address ladies, patrons and friends in the [[Old Occitan]] poetry of the [[troubadour]]s. Only a minority of persons addressed by ''senhal'' have been identified, the rest being subject to much speculation.<ref name=FMC>Frank M. Chambers, [https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780190681173.001.0001/acref-9780190681173-e-1015 "Senhal"], in Roland Greene (ed.), ''The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics'', 4th ed. (Princeton University Press, 2017).</ref>
''Senhals'' are usually found in the ''[[Tornada (Occitan literary term)|tornadas]]'' of poems. They could be nouns, adjectives or phrases. They were usually expressions of admiration, longing or joy, as in ''Bel vezer'' (beautiful gaze), ''Mon desir'' (my desire) and ''Gen conquis'' (nobly conquered). Occasionally they are humorous or deprecating, as in ''Tort n'avetz'' (you are wrong).<ref name=AJ>[[Alfred Jeanroy]], ''La poésie lyrique des troubadours'' (Slatkine Reprints, 1998 [1934]), pp. 317–320.</ref>
''Senhals'' appear in the earliest troubadours works, those of Duke [[William IX of Aquitaine]] in the early twelfth century.<ref name=FFA>Fidel Fajardo-Acosta, ''The Poetry of the Medieval Troubadour, William IX of Aquitaine: The Songs That Built Europe'' (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023), p. 148.</ref> Early poets employed different ''senhals'' for different addressees, but later poets used the same ''senhals'' repeatedly for different referents. Their use continued into the fourteenth century in the works of [[Raimon de Cornet]].<ref name=AJ/> [[Guilhem Molinier]]'s prose ''Leys d'amors'' states as a rule that troubadours should adopt their own ''senhals'', which thus functioned more as signatures of the poets than identifiers of others.<ref name=FS>Federico Saviotti, [http://www.medioevi.it/index.php/medioevi/article/viewFile/14/23 "L'énigme du ''senhal''"], ''Medioevi'' '''1''' (2015): 101–121.</ref>
The origin of the ''senhal'' has been much debated. It has been linked by [[Martín de Riquer]] to classical practice, as in the case of the Lesbia of [[Catullus]] or the Cynthia of [[Propertius]]. It has also been linked to the practice of [[nicknames at the court of Charlemagne]] and to the ''[[kināya]]'' of contemporary [[Literature of al-Andalus|Andalusi poetry]].<ref name=FS/>
==References==
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[[Category:Old Occitan literature]]