Eustache le Peintre de Reims

Who is Eustache le Peintre de Reims?

Eustache le Peintre de Reims or Eustache de Rains was a trouvère from Reims, possibly a painter, but that may just be a family name. Seven poems of his are preserved in surviving chansonniers.

Eustache addressed one of his songs, Amours, coment porroie chancon faire, to Guigues IV, Count of Forez and Nevers. Guigues participated in the Crusade of Theobald I of Navarre in 1239 and died in 1241; Eustache's poem was probably written during this time.

All of Eustache's poems are in isometric decasyllables; stanzas are usually eight lines in length with two rhymes. His melodies are simple, and recorded in bar form. He must have participated in puys, for his Force d'Amours me destraint et mestroie is labelled a chanson couronnée in one of the manuscripts.