CASTELNAU, Almucs de

ALMUCS DE CASTELNAU (c. 1140 – before 1184) was an Occitan trobairitz, or female troubadour, associated with Provence in present-day southern France. Her only surviving work is a stanza from a tenso, a poetic dialogue composed with Iseut de Capio. In it, Iseut asks Almucs to forgive a knight who had offended her, but Almucs refuses because he has shown neither remorse nor a desire for forgiveness. The text survives in a thirteenth-century Occitan chansonnier, accompanied by a manuscript miniature. Although Almucs is traditionally included among the earliest female composers of Western secular music, no original musical notation attributed to her has survived.