Bertran de Born's planh for the Young King Henry, the son of Henry II who died prematurely, mourning the loss of the most generous of lords and the most valiant of warriors, is the most celebrated example of the genre: it combines personal grief, political observation, and courtly praise in the characteristic troubadour manner; The planh's formal structure is typically that of the canso, using the same melodic and strophic organization as the love song: this formal identity reveals that for the troubadours, grief and love are parallel emotional experiences requiring the same formal vehicle; Folquet de Marseille's planhs demonstrate how the genre could be used to mourn friends and patrons without purely panegyric content, incorporating genuine philosophical reflection on mortality and the transience of worldly greatness; A student writing a planh in the troubadour tradition should use the canso's formal structure, five or six coblas of six to eight lines plus a tornada, and adapt its language from love to mourning, discovering how the courtly vocabulary of service, loyalty, and loss translates between the two emotional domains; The planh's social function in the troubadour economy is clear: a poet who composed an eloquent planh for his deceased patron maintained goodwill with the patron's heirs while demonstrating to potential new patrons the loyalty and eloquence they could expect; The transformation of the planh from Occitan to northern French tradition, as trouvères adapted the genre for their own patrons and occasions, shows how poetic genres migrate and adapt across linguistic boundaries while maintaining their essential formal and social functions.