Arlabecca

The arlabecca () was a genre of Old Occitan lyric poetry. First mentioned in an "ensenhamen" by Peire Lunel, the genre was supposed by François Raynouard to be a lament or dirge, and Emil Levy thought it a "kind of poetry". It may derive from the Galician-Portuguese term for a rebec, "arrabecca". The term "rebec" (plural "rebecz") can be found in Old Occitan references to both an instrument and a genre (as in the "Leys d'amors", where it is undefined). Possibly the "rebec" is the same genre as the "arlabecca". Lunel defined his "arlabecca" by its metre, and thus his "ensenhamen" was an "arlabecca" as well.