Bertran de Bern’s estates were situated on the borders of Limousin and Perigord.  The family was ancient and honourable; from the cartulary Bertran appears to have been born about 1140; we find him, with his brother Constantin, in possession of the castle of Hautefort, which seems to have been a strong fortress; the lands belonging to the family were of no great extent, and the income accruing from them was but scanty.  In 1179 Bertran married one Raimonde, of whom nothing is known, except that she bore him at least two sons.  In 1192 he lost this first [59] wife, and again married a certain Philippe.  His warlike and turbulent character was the natural outcome of the conditions under which he lived; the feudal system divided the country into a number of fiefs, the boundaries of which were ill defined, while the lords were constantly at war with one another.  All owed allegiance to the Duke of Aquitaine, the Count of Poitou, but his suzerainty was, in the majority of cases, rather a name than a reality.  These divisions were further accentuated by political events; in 1152 Henry II., Count of Anjou and Maine, married Eleanor, the divorced wife of Louis VII. of France, and mistress of Aquitaine.  Henry became king of England two years later, and his rule over the barons of Aquitaine, which had never been strict, became the more relaxed owing to his continual absence in England.

South of Aquitaine proper the dominions of the Count of Toulouse stretched from the Garonne to the Alps; this potentate was also called the Duke of Narbonne, and was not disposed to recognise the suzerainty of the Duke of Aquitaine.  But in 1167 Alfonso II., King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona, had inherited Provence, to which the Duke of Toulouse laid claim.  Henry and Alfonso thus became natural allies, and the power of Alfonso in Aragon and Catalonia, was able to keep in check any serious attempt that the Count of Toulouse might have meditated on [60] Aquitaine.  On the other hand, Henry had also to deal with a formidable adversary in the person of the French king, his lawful suzerain in France.  Louis VII. (or Philippe Auguste) was able to turn the constant revolts that broke out in Aquitaine to his own ends.  These circumstances are sufficient to account for the warlike nature of Bertran de Born’s poetry.  The first sirventes which can be dated with certainty belongs to 1181, and is a call to the allies of Raimon V, Count of Toulouse, to aid their master against the King of Aragon.  What Bertran’s personal share in the campaign was, we do not know.  He was soon involved in a quarrel with his brother Constantin, with whom he held the castle of Hautefort in common.  Constantin was driven out and succeeded in persuading the Count of Limoges and Richard, Duke of Aquitaine, to help him.  Richard, however, was occupied elsewhere, and Bertran survived all attacks upon the castle.  In 1182 he went to the court of Henry II., during a temporary lull in the wars around him; there he proceeded