Guillem de la Tor was a minstrel, who was from Perigord, from a castle called La Tor. And he went to Lombardy. And he knew many songs, and created and sang well and graciously, and he also invented. But when he wanted to recite his songs, he made his discussion of the explanation longer than the song itself. And he took a wife in Milan, who was beautiful and young, the wife of a barber, whom he abducted and took away to Como. And he loved her more than anything in the world.
And it came to pass that she died. He was so afflicted by this that he became mad and believed that she was pretending to be dead in order to leave him. So he left her ten days and ten nights on the tomb. And every evening he would go to the tomb and carry her outside and look at her face, kissing and embracing her and asking her to speak to him and tell him whether she was dead or alive; and if she were alive, that she return to him, and if she were dead, that she tell him what afflictions she was suffering; that he would have so many masses given for her and he would give so many alms that he would free her from those afflictions.
This became known in the city by the notable men, so that the people of the place had him go away from there. And he looked everywhere for sorcerers and sorceresses to tell him if she could ever be brought back to life. And a trickster led him to believe that if he read the Psalter every day and recited 150 Pater Nosters and gave alms to seven poor persons before he ate, and if he did this for a whole year, without missing a day, she would come back to life, but would not eat or drink or talk. And he was very pleased when he heard this, and began at once to do what this trickster had directed him to do. And so he did this for an entire year without missing a single day. And when he saw that what he had been taught was of no avail, he despaired and allowed himslef to die.
Vida #58, quoted from:
Egan, Margarita, The Vidas of the Troubadours, Vol. 6 Series B, Garland Library of Medieval Literature, NY, 1984, page 59-60.