Trouvères

Trouvère (French pronunciation: ​[tʁuvɛʁ]), sometimes spelled trouveur [tʁuvœʁ], is the Northern French (langue d'oïl) form of the langue d'oc (Occitan) word trobador. It refers to poet-composers who were roughly contemporary with and influenced by the troubadours (composers and performers of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages) but who composed their works in the northern dialects of France. The first known trouvère was Chrétien de Troyes (fl. 1160s-1180s) (Butterfield, 1997) and the trouvères continued to flourish until about 1300. Some 2130 trouvère poems have survived; of these, at least two-thirds have melodies.

The etymology of the word troubadour and its cognates in other languages is disputed, but may be related to trobar “to compose, to discuss, to invent”, cognative with Old French trover “to compose something in verses”. (For a discussion of the etymology of the word troubadour and its cognates, see troubadour: etymology.)

The popular image of the troubadour or trouvère is that of the itinerant musician wandering from town to town, lute on his back. Such people existed, but they were called jongleurs and minstrels — poor musicians, male and female, on the fringes of society. The troubadours and trouvères, on the other hand, represent music making. They were either poets and composers who were supported by the aristocracy or, just as often, were aristocrats themselves, for whom the creation and performance of music was part of the courtly tradition. Among their number we can count kings, queens, and countesses. The texts of these songs are a natural reflection of the society that created them. They often revolve around idealized treatments of courtly love ("fine amors", see grand chant) and religious devotion, although many can be found that take a more frank, earthy look at love.

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