Dia, Comtessa de

Extract

(fl late 12th/early 13th century). Troubadour (or trobairitz, to use a later term for a woman troubadour). No medieval source gives her a first name. Her vida says she was the wife of Guillem de Poitiers, but there is no known Guillem de Poitiers who was married to a Countess of Dia, a town on the Drôme in the marquisate of Provence. The most plausible theory is that she was a daughter of Count Isoard II of Dia, called ‘Beatrix comitissa’ in a document of 1212 from Châtillon, and who may have married Guilhem de Poitiers, Count of Viennois. That theory is, however, problematic in light of the allusion in her vida to a relationship with Raimbaut d'Aurenga (d 1173), since the Beatriz in question would have been rather young at his death. The Comtessa de Dia composed one tenso and four cansos, one of which, ...