Songs of the Trobairitz: Medieval Composer Girl Power
As taught by Ambra Michelli | Samantha Moore
A totas las valens femnas
qu’an cantat ses ester cantadas.
To all the valiant women
who have sung and gone unsung
In this class you will learn about the first known female composers of Western secular music in
the early 12th and 13th century, and how they differ from their Troubadour brethren. Beautiful, comical, and
intriguing, you will be introduced to some period music from Occitan. We will review the style, themes,
and subject matter of the time, touching on modal music, sirventes, chansons, tensons, and more.
The Troubadours were singer-poets, originating in southern France. The Trobairitz first appeared
in Occitania in the 12th century. This is generally accepted as the south of France, including the cities of
Bordeaux, Toulouse, Narbonne, Nimes, Arles, Marseille, and Avignon (highlighted in the map on p. 7 of
The Women Troubadours).
The major source of troubadour literature are the vidas. Other resources include articles about
Azalais de Porcairages, Castelloza and the Countess of Dia, expecially, the German monograph from 1888.
Sadly, the most extensive Die Provenzalischen Dichterinnen is only 36 pages long, and is one of the largest
accumulations of troubadour literature.
Unlike the common balladeers of their age, troubadours were dedicated court poets, and rarely left
their patron court. The concept of traveling castle to castle or tavern to tavern was uncommon and far from
a coveted concept. Security and reputation where honed through the approval of the court.
Troubadours are today best renown for their amorous compositions of what is now referred to as
courtly love. After the first Crusade, they spearheaded poems, more commonly addressed (if vaguely) to
noble women. They told of the purity of their love, and often the pain of it, and yet the result of happiness
or betterment through suffering the joys of such a true and humble love. These were some of the first songs
to focus on the purity of love and not love in the terms of sexual passion.
A prime example is E, Dame Jolie, by Anonymous, circa 1300s:
E, Dame Jolie
(eh, damma zho-lee-ay)
Trouvere song circa. 1200
Poetic rendering by Master Efenwealt Wystle
copyright © 1999 by Scott F. Vaughan
based on a literal translation from Historical Anthology of Music, vol 1
E, dame jolie
Mon cuer sans fauceir
Met en vostre bailie
Ke ne sai vo peir
So vant me voix conplaignant
Et an mon cuer dolosant
D'u ne ma laid die
Dont tous li mous an amant
Doit avoir le cuer joiant
Cui teilz malz maistrie
Si forment magrie
Li douls malz da meir
Ke par sa signorie
Me covient chanteir Oh, dear lady, gentle and fair
Know my words are true
I leave my heart within your care
For none compare to you
Long the hours I grieve, complain
In my heart I know such pain
Though in truth I should delight
Any lover, any man
In my place would gladly stand
suff'ring from this tragic plight
Such the joy and gladness you bring
Grief shall I withstand
So I'll rejoice, yes I shall sing
At my heart's command
Just following the first Crusade, or the 12th century, France as we knew it did not exist. Two
general territories spoke unaffiliated languages north and south of the Loire river. In the south, they spoke
lenga d’ oc (like Occitania). In the north, Langue d’ oil. The north had English and German speaking
leanings while the south, settled by Rome, held more ties to Italy and Spain. Langue d’ oc is also
referenced as ‘Provical’.
The troubadours primarily wrote in Provical and this had great influence in Europe during the
thirteenth century. Imitations of their love songs, or chansons, can be traced throughout Italy, Germany,
Spanish, and were even written in langue d’ oil and English.
In Dante’s Beatrice, “love was proclaimed the supreme experience of life”. This is the root of
courtly conduct the SCA endeavors to maintain. Long after Occitan was no more, the influence of the
topics of the Troubadour’s chanson obsession played on in “civilized” society, and was the guideline of
chivalry.
These were also some of the first songs/poems to praise woman as, though the weaker, the purer
and more virtuous sex. In the Middle Ages through much of Europe, women had no power or say in their
destinies. They were pawns of their counterparts, their one function, to bear sons. In fact, a woman could
be set aside for failing to do so. They rarely owned land or had any real rights to speak of. Marriage was
designed for the sake of securing the legacy of one’s family name and line, that the heirs might through law
maintain whatever the aristocracy politically dreamed up.
Love at the time was a notion unrelated to marriage. Marriage was a contract, a security, and a
way of survival, comfort or misery the only option. Women unwed were burdens on the house and often
sent to convents if they waited too long for a husband. “Better to marry than to burn.”
Most secular music of the time if it mentioned women at all mentioned the daughters of Eve; the
first sinner. In such an arguably misogynistic time, the Troubadours’ songs were so out of place, a
revolution of sorts, and thus so very enticing to the courts in their fabled and seemingly vehement beliefs of
love. It is interesting to note that a culture so rooted in its patron society spoke so brazenly in contrast to
the aforementioned defamation of women, and instead, in Italy at least, immortalized her. Given this, the
compositions of documented female troubadours, or “Trobairitz” as they were sited in Provencal, are an
intriguing phenomenon.
To date, we know of approximately twenty women troubadours (and roughly 400 Troubadours).
We can only assume there were more, whose work, like so very many other pieces lost to time before the
printing press or, lets face it, the internet, has been lost to us.
Something to consider is that over half of these recorded Troubaritz were noted as poetesses in
their own lifetime. This too is very uncommon.
Though the Trobairitz wrote in similar rhythm and meter to the Troubadours, instead of word play
and adoration, their tones and speech are much more straight forward and to the point, conversational even.
All Trobairitz we know of were aristocrats, most of which were from the valley of Rhone where
inheritance law, during the 12th century, had been radically altered by the first Crusades. The
Mediterranean south of what we know of as France had more favorable laws toward women. The old Gllia
Togata (Roman Gaul), favored two late Roman codices in Occitania (unlike the rest of Europe). These
took hold in that region in the sixth and seventh centuries. Certain Celtic and Visigothic practices also
influenced the law in that region. The Trobairitz, who lived around 1150-1250 took advantage of this
abnormal freedom, and wrote under their own names.
The Code of Justinian of 528-533 limited the husband’s right to his wife’s dowry to usufructus.
This meant that he could use her land but not pass it to his own heirs. This helped serve as a deterrent to
setting her aside too easily. Later, in 1171, Beatrix de Montpellier (only female child) passed over her son
for her granddaughter and daughter. This rarely happened as custom dictated otherwise and feminism was
yet young.
The Theodosian Code of 394-95, named for the Roman emperor who made Christianity a state
religion. This code gave sons and unmarried daughters and equal share in the father’s estate.
“The property of the father shall be divided equally between his son and his unmarried or
undowered daughter” (lib en del payre tornon al filh et a la filha non maridada ni heretada, per egals parts).
In other words, for a woman living in 12 th century Europe, Occitania was the place to be.
This influence in women gaining political power, as land equaled power in this time, likely opened
the door for Trobairitz to exist. If you give a woman power and then put her on a petal stool, defying
cultural traditions of male superiority, see if she doesn’t voice her opinions.
Of note, in this time of inequality and idolization, this is likely why the main two voices of the the
Trobairitz go from dispersions of hypocrisy to deference to traditional love. Change is frightful, no matter
the age.
For instance, even as the Troubadours spoke of love as supreme servitude, a text often referenced
in context with the themes of courtly love that was written in 1184 called “the Art of Courtly Love” by
Andreas Capellanus states:
“If you should, by some chance, fall in love with a peasant woman, be careful to puff her up with
lots of praise and then, when you find a convenient place, do not hesitate to take what you seek and
embrace her by force.”
As we briefly touched, the Crusades had an impact on the poetry of the time. An example of a
piece the Troubadour Marcabru wrote was a male’s rendition from a female perspective, a “transformation
of the Pastorela, or shepherdess’ song”:
‘Her eyes welled up beside the fountain,
And she sighed from the depths of her heart.
“Jesus,” she said, “King of the world,
Because of You my grief increases,
I am undone by your humiliation,
For the best men of this whole world
Are going off to serve you, that is your pleasure.
….I do believe
That God may pity me
In this next world, time without end,
Like many other sinners, but here He wrests from me the one thing
that made my joy increase, Nothing Matters now,
for he has gone so far away.”
Some 60000 men left for Jerusalem in 1099. The second and third crusades were estimated to have
cost Europe 500000 lives. Because of the drastic reduction of men, women were granted more rights to
hold land. This stopped a man’s lord from wedding or wedding off his wife and lands when and if he died,
leaving his sons and daughters often with nothing when all was said in done, in deference to the new
husbands past or new offspring.
Despite the upspring in Troubadour poetry, no other region had Occitania’s boasted number of
Trobairitz.
The first known Troubadour was an aristocrat, Guilhem de Poitou. He wrote his songs to entertain
the court of Occitania, but whether his intent was noble or tongue in cheek, he instantly found himself and
the court beset with imitators latching onto this ‘new’ form.
The man was the seventh count of Poitiers and the ninth duke of Aquitaine. He was by no means
a servant. And yet, one of his first pieces was this:
No man has never had the cunning to imagine
What it is like, he will not find it in will or desire
In thought or mediation.
Such joy you cannot find its like:
A man who tried to praise it justly
would not come to the end of his praise in a year
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 \
and her wrath can make a well man die,
…the courtliest man can become a churl,
And any churl a courtly man…
This notion of love would come to be known as “fine love” or fin amors. He died in 1127 in
Occitania, and with his death came a birth and plethora of Troubadours and Troubadour writings of fin
amors.
Most Troubadours were Jongleurs turned poet or men of modest beginnings. Idealizing and being
subservient to a noble woman of some wealth or stature then came as no great stretch, as these artists
depended on the generosity of their patrons for their next meal. Often, their subject was the wife of their
employer. Either for the patron’s benefit (getting points with the wife), or the lady’s (influencing the
husband to keep him on).
Occitania was a bit overcrowded and so court was not so regulated to simply the nobility. It was
written, “the knight or baron dwelt in… promiscuous intimacy with his household and retainers, rather like
the captain of a small and overloaded ship on an uneasy sea.” Denys Hays. It was in such environments
that feudalism began it slow, but eventual decline.
“Midons” was a code name that could apply to anyone. This diversity made any song inferable as
suited the performer. This was good for versatility and for plausible deniability.
Bernart de Ventadorn
Fl. 1150-1180
I love Midons and cherish her so much
Fear her and attend to her so much
I have never dared to speak to her of myself
And I ask her for nothing, and I send her nothing.
But she knows my sorrow and my pain,
And when it pleases her, I make do with less
So that no blame should touch her.
In an evolving society, praising women and offering new rights, and in a court where female
idolization was at least in verse praised, women were given a unique ability to share their own voice.
Contrary to the idealized concepts of love the Troubadours spoke of, with their ‘Midons’ and all
applying praises, the Troubaritz spoke frankly and to the point. They often specified their subject and made
it clear their intent that no hypocrisy or vagueness be inferred.
Elias Cairel, I want to know
The truth about the love we two
Once had; so tell me, please
Why you’ve given it to someone else…
Isabella
….nor did a time ever arrive, sweet handsome friend,
When I didn’t want to see you often;
Nor did I ever feel regret,
Nor did it ever come to pass, if you went off angry
That I felt joy until you had come back
Tibors
The voice of the Troubaritz could be the voice of us now, so plain and true to the heart of man,
that is not so changed, are their works.
Some Courtly Styles:
Sirventes – Sounds of heart and feeling. Modern rendition examples, see Bryce’s attached.
Chansons – Love Songs
Tensons - Duets
Works Sited:
Bogin, Meg. The Women Troubadours. 1980.