Trouvères

Medieval poets composing narrative and, especially, lyric verse in the langue d'oïl [see Langue d'oc] until the late 14th c. They were the northern French equivalents of the troubadours, responsible inter alia for continuing the remarkable vogue of the love-lyric within and outside France both in the 13th c., when the canso took second place to the sirventes in the Midi, and in the 14th c., when the southern successors of the troubadours were less widely known or appreciated. Sociolinguistic factors played a part here, the growing status of the langue d'oïl, particularly as used by predominantly aristocratic poets, enhancing the appeal of poetry expressing fin'amor.

Generalizations about the trouvères require more than one caveat. Evidence about their lives is very often extremely thin. Unlike the troubadours, almost all lack the doubtful benefit of a medieval biography. At least eight late trouvères worked in southern courts. Also, the proportion of anonymous lyrics or lyrics of doubtful attribution is far higher for trouvères than for troubadours, impeding historical assessment from internal evidence. Nevertheless extant lyrics can be ascribed to 276 trouvères.

The earliest known trouvère may well be Chrétien de Troyes, to whom song-books plausibly ascribe two lyrics. Though at least one anonymous lyric (c.1146) pre-dates his activity, trouvères seem to have started composition somewhat later than the troubadours, probably following contacts made in northern French courts after the marriages of Eleanor of Aquitaine and her offspring. Picardy, Wallonia, Lorraine, and Champagne were prominent areas of trouvère activity.

Few trouvères were evidently low-born professionals seeking patronage from the nobility (exceptions are Colin Muset, Rutebeuf). One or two (Adam de la Halle, Guillaume de Machaut), while not necessarily seeking patronage, certainly found it. But most trouvères were aristocrats, knights or members of the gentry (e.g. Blondel de Nesle, Le Chastelain de Couci, Conon de Béthune, Gace Brulé, Gautier de Dargies, Thibaut de Blaison); four were monarchs (e.g. Richard Cœur-de-Lion, Thibaut de Campagne); some were monks or churchmen (e.g. Gautier de Coinci, Hélinand, Le Reclus de Molliens, Richard de Fournival, Machaut); others represented the growing bourgeoisie (e.g. Jehan Bretel, Adam de la Halle, Baude Fastoul, Jean Bodel), even if the last two suddenly became social outcasts. Two chansons de femme and three jeux partis are attributed to ladies. Almost all these were amateur poets, but may nevertheless have performed their own compositions in courts or puys. The time-honoured distinction between author and interpreter is as questionable for trouvères and jongleurs as for troubadours and joglars. [See Lyric Poetry, I].

[Peter Davies]