Audefroi le Bastart

Audefroi le Bastart (modern French Bâtard) was a French trouvère from Artois, who flourished in the early thirteenth century.[1]

Of his life nothing is known, though he is certainly the illegitimate child of a noble or upper-class bourgeouise family, but his family is not to be identified with the noble family Arras or with the bourgeouise family of Louchart, also from Arras; Audefroi himself is not to be identified with Gautier d'Arras.[1] The Seigneur de Nesles, to whom some of his songs are addressed, is probably the Châtelain of Bruges who joined the Fourth Crusade.[2][3]

Audefroi was the author of ten chansons d'amour and five chansons de toile: "Argentine," "Belle Idoine," "Belle Isabeau," "Belle Emmelos," and "Biatrix." These five follow older chansons in subject,[1] but the smoothness of the verse and beauty of detail readily compensate for the spontaneity of the shorter form.[2][3]