Dating and historical circumstances:
The poem was composed following the fall of Jerusalem in October 1187 (37-39) to the forces of Saladin (52) and while conflict (30-32) and fighting (43) between the kings (32) of England and France (who had taken the cross in the period late September 1187 to January 1188) were delaying their departure for the Holy Land. This also delayed the arrival of crucial help (33) to the marqes, Conrad of Montferrat, who was holding out in Tyre with the surviving remnants of the nobility and military forces of the kingdom of Jerusalem (34-36: see Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, 3 voll., Harmondsworth 1971, first published Cambridge 1951-1954, vol. II, pp. 471-472). The kings are Philip Augustus on the one hand and most probably Henry II (according to Crescini and Aston) or Richard I (as proposed by De Bartholomaeis). Both the Plantagenet kings were in conflict with Philip in the period 1188-1190, but in 1188 this strife also involved rebellion by the barons in Aquitaine and Richard’s attack on Toulouse and campaign in Quercy (compare 42-45): see John Gillingham, Richard I, New Haven and London 1999, pp. 88-94. These factors more strongly support an identification of Henry II as one of the kings and hence a dating of the piece to before Henry’s death in July 1189. After Henry II’s death, it is not clear that Richard engaged Philip in any significant warfare and De Bartholomaeis’s suggestion seems to concentrate on the discussions and lack of agreement between King Richard and Philip and not to take account of the poem’s references to their gerras. − Peirol’s song is then contemporary with BdT 80.17, in which Bertran de Born similarly evokes the kings’ delay and Conrad’s valiance. − Peirol seems to have been composing songs for some time already (see lines 25-27). Since 366.28 can be dated to 1221-1222, he appears to have enjoyed a long career.