Basselin
NAME: Basselin, Olivier
ACHIEVEMENTS: Origin of Vaudeville
NICKNAME/ALIAS: Surname also spelled Bachelin, Vasselin, Bisselin
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: c. 1350, Vire, Normandy, France
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: c. 1419. Aged about 70
DISCIPLINE: Songwriter/Poet
FIELD: Literature
LANGUAGE: French
PARENTS: Unknown
SIBLINGS: Unknown
SPOUSE: Unknown
CHILDREN: Unknown
EDUCATION: Unknown
MAJOR WORK: Collected edition of songs and verse attributed to him
LIFE AND TIMES:
Almost nothing is known about Basselin. He is believed to have been a cloth presser, living in the valley of the River Vire in Normandy (an area that became famous for its Calvados, an apple brandy.) He apparently belonged to a group of poets who called themselves the "Companions of the Vire" and wrote drinking and love songs.
Certainly, many of the songs Basselin is credited with celebrated local wines and ciders. The lyrics, clearly composed by someone who had little knowledge of literary rules, (or pretended to have little knowledge of literary rules,) are written in a spirit of lively vulgarity and coarse wit. Because they were sung to the people of the Vaux, a district around the Vire, they became known as "vaux de vire," an expression which is possibly the source of the word "vaudeville*".
The first edition of Basselin's songs was published in 1576 by a local lawyer, Jean le Houx. At one time, it was thought le Houx wrote the songs under the fictitious name Basselin because he was too embarrassed to admit the bawdy words were his. In the Bayeux manuscript by Charles de Bourbon (c. 1514), a song, "Helas, Olivier Basselin (Alas, Olivier Basselin"), tells of the death of Basselin, and Basselin's name appears in a letter of 1515.
The dates of Basselin's birth and death are still a matter of conjecture. Most historians agree he was born in the mid-14th century and was killed sometime between 1418-19, when Vire was captured by the English.
The last fragment of song attributed to him is certainly composed at the beginning of a siege and calls for a stand against the English. But some historians believe he was killed in 1450 at the battle of Formigny (which would have put him close to 100 years old.)
(After the battle of Formigny, which virtually completed the restoration of French rule in Normandy, Charles VII of France entered Rouen and ordered an inquiry into the death of his most ardent supporter, an inspiration to Basselin, Joan of Arc*, who had been burned at the stake in Rouen almost 20 years earlier.)
ASSESSMENT: Regarded as the first French poet to write drinking songs, it would also appear he was associated with the war against the English invaders during the 15th century
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: A poem by Henry Longfellow entitled "Oliver Basselin", first published in 1858 along with "The Courtship of Miles Standish", memorializes Basselin and his songs as outliving the baron, knights and abbot of his time since, quoting from the poem, "the poets memory here, of the landscape makes a part: Like the river swift and clear flows through many a heart.”
ONELINER: Olivier Basselin, medieval vaudevillian
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
French Bibliographical Archive, series I and II (6 different pieces/authors)