A King, a Pope, and a War: Economic Crisis and Faulte d’argent Settings in the Opening Decades of the Sixteenth Century

Abstract

The French-Italian wars reached their peak with the confrontation between Louis XII and Pope Julius II from 1510-12. This conflict created a strain in the financial situation of France and its Italian ally Florence. During this crisis many of the rhetoriqueurs in royal service produced propagandistic works to support the king’s cause against the pope. The same poets, however, also penned satirical works expressing the people’s concern with the economic hardships accompanying a new expedition into Italy. The sharpest criticism emerges in Pierre Gringore’s sottie, Le jeu du Prince des Sotz (1512), featuring the song Faulte d’argent, c’est douleur non pareille as its central piece. During the same years, polyphonic settings of this presumably popular tune first appear in musical sources (AugsS 142a, CambriP 1760). Two such versions form a pair that opens and closes FlorC 2442, and another two chansons on the subject of lack of money appear within that same collection. Given FlorC 2442’s highly organized structure, it is unlikely that the inclusion and placement of the above chansons was haphazard. FlorC 2442’s disputed chronology, provenance, and alleged recipient are thus examined against the crisis in the politico-economic affairs, during which the Faulte d’argent topos apparently found fertile ground, prompting a vast array of musical and literary responses. This historical approach strengthens the arguments for an early compilation date of FlorC 2442, situating it during Louis XII’s reign, and it suggests that Faulte d’argent settings started life in association with events indeed characterized by ‘lack of money’.