{"id":547,"date":"2017-01-28T23:38:07","date_gmt":"2017-01-28T23:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/vccs-tcc-music-rford\/?post_type=chapter&p=547"},"modified":"2020-04-11T21:51:19","modified_gmt":"2020-04-11T21:51:19","slug":"secular-music-troubadors","status":"web-only","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/vccs-tcc-music-rford\/chapter\/secular-music-troubadors\/","title":{"raw":"Troubadours","rendered":"Troubadours"},"content":{"raw":"Traditionally music for worship was written down, and secular music outside of worship was not.\u00a0 Much secular music in the early Middle Ages was improvised. However, as the era progressed, a tradition of courtly music developed.\r\n\r\nKings and nobles wanted entertainment, certainly, but many also\u00a0wanted their courts to be known as places of culture. This led to the composition of poetry and songs that was performed in many cases by members of the court themselves rather than by itinerant minstrels. These educated musicians had different names depending on the region in which they lived and worked, but the name we most commonly associate with them is troubadour<\/em>.\r\n\r\n\r\n

Introduction - Troubadours<\/h2>\r\nA troubadour<\/b>\u00a0was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100\u20131350).\u00a0The troubadour school or tradition began in the late eleventh\u00a0century in Occitania, but it subsequently spread into Italy and Spain. Under the influence of the troubadours, related movements sprang up throughout Europe: the Minnesinger\u00a0 in Germany, the\u00a0\u00a0trovadorismo<\/i> in Galicia and Portugal, and\u00a0 the trouv\u00e8res in northern France.\u00a0 The troubadours declined \u00a0after the \"classical\" period around the turn of the thirteenth\u00a0century \u00a0and eventually died out around the time of the Black Death (1348).\r\n\r\nThe texts of troubadour songs deal mainly with themes of chivalry and courtly love.\u00a0 Many had humorous or vulgar satires. There were many genres, the most popular being the canso.\u00a0<\/i>\r\n

Who They Were<\/h2>\r\nThe 450 or so troubadours came from a variety of backgrounds. They \u00a0lived and traveled in many different places, and were actors in many types of social context. Typically, they stayed in one place for a lengthy period of time under the patronage of a wealthy nobleman or woman. However, many did travel extensively,\u00a0 sojourning at one court and then another.\r\n\r\n\u00a0https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Troubadour<\/span>\r\n\r\n\r\n

Status<\/h3>\r\nThe earliest troubadour, the Duke of Aquitaine, came from the high nobility. Many troubadours are described in their vidas<\/i> as poor knights - one of the most common descriptors of their status.\u00a0Later troubadours especially could belong to lower classes, ranging from the middle class of merchants and \"burgers\" (persons of urban standing) to tradesmen and others who worked with their hands.\u00a0Many troubadours also possessed a clerical education. For some this was their springboard to composition, since their clerical education equipped them with an understanding of musical and poetic forms as well as vocal training.\r\n

Troubadours and Joglars (history)<\/h3>\r\nThe Occitan words trobador<\/i> and trobaire<\/i> are relatively rare compared with the verb trobar<\/i> (compose, invent), usually applied to poetry. It signified\u00a0 a poem\u00a0 original to an author (trobador<\/i>) - not merely sung or played by one. \u00a0Sometime in the middle of the twelfth\u00a0century a distinction was made between an inventor of original verse and the performers of others' verse. These performers were called joglars<\/i>, from the Latin ioculatores<\/i>, giving rise also to the French jongleur<\/i>, Castilian juglar<\/i>, and English juggler, which has come to refer to a more specific breed of performer.\r\n\r\nThe medieval jongleur\/joglar<\/i> is really a minstrel. It is clear, for example from the poetry of Bertran de Born, that jongleurs<\/i>\u00a0 did not usually compose.They often performed the troubadour's songs: singing, playing instruments, dancing, and even doing acrobatics.\r\n\r\nTrobairitz\r\n<\/strong>The <\/span>trobairitz<\/i> were the female troubadours, the first female composers of secular music in the Western tradition. Out of a total of about 450 troubadours and 2,500 troubadour works, the trobairitz and their corpus form a minor but interesting and informative portion.<\/span>\r\n<\/strong>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_153\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"170\"]\"Religious<\/a> Figure 1. Castelloza[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe trobairitz were in most respects as varied a lot as their male counterparts, with the general exceptions of their poetic style and their provenance. \u00a0 Only two have left us more than one piece: the Comtessa de Dia, with four, and Castelloza, with three or four.\r\n\r\n \r\n
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