Unfortunately, Occitan also seems to be shrouded by a lot of make-believe history – the kind of thing that happens when something ought to be true for reasons of nationalism or regional pride, and over-enthusiastic “historians” step in to fill the breach. In reality, there are hardly any pre-1600 Occitan / Provencal documents still in existence (hence why Jaume Deydier’s chronicle is so useful) – as I understand it, the Villers-Cotterets ordinance only codified the decline of Occitan, which had already been going on for quite some time before 1539.

On this page on Arpitan Wiki, there are several good sites on Italian Occitan, which I think would be of interest:

Valâdes occitanes du Piemont

This one has good material:

Il patois Occitano Provenzale Alpino di Oulx

Previously I noted at this site:
“La louà 482 dou 15 dzambr 1999.”
Thus they write December as ‘dzambr.”

Also note that while the literary use of Occitan declined toward the end of the XVth century, its administrative use continued. The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts in 1539 required the use of French in official documents in areas subject to the French crown. It took longer for this to happen to Occitan in Provence and Savoy. Even then, my sources note a mild literary resurgence of Occitan during the XVIth century. Once again, in my notes. Plainly, there’s a lot more out there.

Cheers,
Dennis

Jean Tricard (the medieval history professor at the Université de Tours cited above) would be a good person to ask, but I couldn’t find an email address for him. His address is listed here as: 11, bis rue des palmiers Bat C 87100 Limoges.

Now, to find that guy…