Troubadours

Troubadours were poets/songwriters who were prominent in the 11th and 12th centuries.  Poitieres, in Aquitaine (today, south western France) was the main center for troubadours.  Troubadours wrote in Occitan which differed from the Old French from northern France.

Troubadours were generally better educated than minstrels had been and this was reflected in the quality of their poems.  Their music began to replace the music of minstrels in the noble courts.  (Minstrels thus became traveling performers until their popularity faded in the 15th century).

The texts of troubadour songs deal mainly with themes of chivalry and courtly love.  Most were metaphysical, intellectual, and formulaic.  Many were humorous or vulgar satires.  There were many genres, the most popular being the canso (love song), but sirventes and tensos were especially popular in the post-classical period.  The troubadour tradition died out about the time of the Black Death (1348).

Feudalism

Feudalism was a combination of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries.  Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land (a fief) in exchange for service or labour.  In its classic definition, by François-Louis Ganshof (1944), feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs.  

Types of troubadour songs

   sirventes  -  a song (either serious or satirical) from vassal to lord about knightly service or on some theme of political alliance usually told from the vassals point of view. 

   enuig  -  a complaint about infractions of knightly service

   gap  -  a bluster-song bragging of one's exploits or issuing a challenge 

   planh  -  a eulogy on the death of a lord

   canzo  -  a poem about love.  The canzo is considered the most admired of the troubadour songs.



Famous troubadours:


    1071 - 1127  -  Duke William IX of Aquitaine (Portieres)  First troubadour - courtly love 


                                   Every joy must abase itself,
                                   and every might obey
                                   in the presence of Midons, for the sweetness of her welcome,
                                   for her beautiful and gentle look;
                                   and a man who wins to the joy of her love
                                   will live a hundred years.
                                   The joy of her can make the sick man well again,
                                    her wrath can make a well man die.


                                                        How the Count of Poitiers pretended to be mute


    1135 - 1194  -  Bernart de Ventadorn  -  Composer of the most famous canzo Can vei la lauzeta mover  

                                                                    (English text)  


   fl. 1180 - 1200  -  Arnaut Daniel  -  Praised by Dante as "the best smith" and called a "grand master of 

                                                           love" by Petrarch.  


  c. 1230 - 1300  -  Guiraut Riquier  -  

          The last of the troubadours.  Among the many late troubadours who fled France after 

           Aquitaine and its culture was racked by the Albigensian crusade (1209 - 1229), Riquier 

           found employment with Alfonso X of Castile  (Alfonso was a prolific author of Galician

           poetry, such as the Cantigas de Santa Maria, which are equally notable for their musical 

           notation as for their literary merit).


Trobairitz were woman troubadours.  They were almost always nobles.  The most important trobairitz were Alamanda de Castelnau, Azalais de Porcairagues, Maria de Ventadorn, Tibors, Castelloza, Garsenda de Proença, Gormonda de Monpeslier, and the Comtessa de Diá.