Secular Music: Minstrels, Troubadours & Trouvéres

c.   900?             -   Lower class minstrels begin writing secular Chansons de geste; 

                               epic poems of knighthood bravery set to music.  Numerous texts 

                               survive, but little of the music.

                                The Song of Roland  - Epic tale of Frankish military leader at the 
                                Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778 when Charlemagne's army 
                                defeated the Spanish (Islamic) Moors. (play 3:45)

Troubadours and Trouvéres

                 The popular image of the troubadour or trouvére 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 

        of society.  The troubadours and trouvéres, on the other hand, represent aristocratic 

        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.

                 Troubadours appeared first.  They were from Aquitaine, an independent area in 

        southern France.  Their poetry was in Occitan, a now- extinct language.  Trouvéres 

        came a little later.  They were in northern France, under control of the French crown.  

        They wrote in Old French, a forerunner of modern French.   

(Map of France)

c.   1120   -    Duke William IX of Aquitaine is the first troubadour; upper class lyric poets 
                      with main themes of chivalry and courtly love.

                The term "chivalry" derives from the Old French term chevalerie, which can be translated as 

                "horse soldiery".  Originally, the term referred only to horse-mounted men, from the French 

                word for horse, cheval, but later it became associated with knightly ideals.

 
                Over time, its meaning in Europe has been refined to emphasize more general social and moral  

               virtues.  The code of chivalry, as it stood by the Late Middle Ages, was a moral system which  

                combined a warrior ethos, knightly piety, and courtly manners, all combining to establish a notion  

                of honour and nobility

[play  -  Duke William IX - Farai un vers de dreyt nien]

 "I've made this rhyme completely free of sense" (English text)  (4:30)

c.  1250 - 1300  -   Life of Adam de la Halle, one of the most important Trouvère.  His literary
                               and musical works include chansons and jeux-partis (poetic debates),
                               polyphonic rondel and motets in the style of early liturgical polyphony and
                               a musical play, "Jeu de Robin et Marion" (c. 1282–83), which is the earliest
                               surviving secular French play with music.


                [play Halle's Qui a droit veut amours servir (Who would serve Amor, rightly) - 6 minutes]


     1209 - 1229   -   The Albigensian Crusade wrecks havoc in Aquitaine (southeast 
                                France).  

                    In 1208, Pope Innocent III and the French king Phillip II joined forces to combat  

                    the Cathars, who had developed their own version of ascetic Christian dualism, and 

                    so a heresy considered dangerous by the dominant Catholic Church.  Repression 

                    was severe; many Cathars were burnt at the stake throughout the region. The area, 

                    until then virtually independent, was reduced to such a condition that it was sub-

                    sequently annexed by the French Crown.  The troubadours flee to northern France, 

                    Spain, Italy and Germany, influencing the music there.

     1221 - 1284  -  Life of  Alphonso X of Castile "el sabio" ("the wise")   

         The lyrics are in an old Galician-Portuguese language.

                                    [Play  Cantigas de Santa Maria (Canticles of Holy Mary)]

Minnesänger (essentially, German troubadours - 1150 - 1350)

          Minnesang (German: "love song") was a tradition of lyric- and song-writing in Germany and 
          Austria that flourished in the Middle High German period.  This period of medieval German 
          literature began in the 12th century and continued into the 14th. People who wrote and 
          performed Minnesang were known as Minnesänger, and a single song was called a Minnelied.

         The name derives from minne, the Middle High German word for love, Minnesang's main 
         subject. The Minnesänger were similar to the Provençal troubadours and northern French 
         trouvères in that they wrote love poetry in the tradition of courtly love in the High Middle 
         Ages.