Luys Ycart

Who is Luys Ycart?

Luys Ycart, or Lluís Icart in modern orthography, was a Catalan poet. He left behind fourteen lyric poems and a long poem called Consolació i Avís d'amor. All of his poetry was produced before the composition of the chansonnier Vega-Aguiló, into which it was copied soon after it was written.

Luys was a minor nobleman, the son of Pere Ycart and Johanna de Subirats from Lleida. As early as 1396 he had a relationship with a woman known as Lionor de Pau. He was dubbed a knight in 1429 or 1430. He married a woman named Blanquina in an unknown year, but his four children were still young in 1433. Luys participated in the Lleidan feuds that dominated the local situation in the 1420s and 1430s. In 1430 the offenders, including Luys and his enemy Felip Claver, were fined by Queen Maria. In 1433 Maria confiscated Luys' property for his complicity in the assassination of the archdeacon of Lleida. Sometimes thereafter he adopted his mother's surname of "de Subirats", a common practice in those times.

Luys participated in the jocs florals of the Consistori del Gay Saber, held annually in Toulouse. One song composed by Luys for judgement in the Consistori's contests has survived, addressed appropriately to los senhors set of the gay sauber. In this poem the artificial restraints imposed by the Consistori through its Leys d'amor are evident in Luys' verse. The rhyme scheme is a simple rims capfinits. The poem is uninspired, repetitive, and forced.