Finding the Female Troubadours
I was introduced to the trobairitz in the book, The Women Troubadours by Meg Bogin. Like many others, I thought that troubadours were only men, and was delightfully surprised to find out about the trobairitz through Bogin’s work, which was the first full-length book on the subject. It now sits in a place of honor on my bookshelf.
Bogin’s book sent me down a rabbit hole to discover the trobairitz — female medieval singer-poets (female troubadours) who hailed from the south of France. Only a handful of their works — which include poems and dialogues set to music — have been translated and studied. The only study of trobairitz prior to Bogin’s work dates to 1888.
Fascinated, I searched for the names of these women online. I stumbled upon A chantar m’er de so qu’eu no volria, a 12th century Occitan language song by Comtessa de Dia, which you can listen to in the video below.
The translated lyrics read:
Of things I’d rather keep in silence I must sing:
So bitter do I feel toward him
Whom I love more than anything.
With him my mercy and fine manners are in vain,
My beauty, virtue, and intelligence.
For I’ve been tricked and cheated
As if I were completely loathsome.
There’s one thing, though, that brings me recompense:
I’ve never wronged you under any circumstance,
And I love you more than Seguin loved Valensa.
At least in love I have my victory,
Since I surpass the worthiest of men.
With me you always act so cold,
But with everyone else you’re so charming.
I have good reason to lament
When I feel your heart turn adamant
Toward me, friend; it’s not right another love
Take you away from me, no matter what she says.
Remember how it was with us in the beginning
Of our love! May God not bring to pass
That I should be the one to bring it to an end.
The great renown that in your heart resides
And your great worth disquiet me,
For there’s no woman near or far
Who wouldn’t fall for you if love were on her mind.
But you, my friend, should have the acumen
To tell which one stands out above the rest.
And don’t forget the stanzas we exchanged.
My worth and noble birth should have some weight,
My beauty and especially my noble thoughts;
So I send you, there on your estate,
This song as messenger and delegate.
I want to know, my handsome noble friend,
Why I deserve so savage and so cruel a fate.
I can’t tell whether it’s pride or malice you intend.
But above all, messenger, make him comprehend
That too much pride has undone many men.
The Comtessa de Dia — Beatritz de Viennois — was the daughter of Count Isoard II of Dia, a town in the south of France. Though she married another, Beatritz was in love with Raimbaut of Orange. Five of her works survive, with the A chantar m’er de so qu’eu no volria (above) being the only canso by a trobairitz to survive with its music intact, having been found in the Le manuscript di roi composed in 1270 for Charles of Anjou (Prince of France).
What did trobairitz write about?
Like their male counterparts, trobairitz were among the first to express what we know as “romantic love” — a love and affinity that is distinct from sexual passion. As Bogin stated, to the troubadours, “Love was proclaimed the supreme experience of life, and the quest for love, with the lady as its guiding spirit, became the major theme of Western literature” due to their influence. Most of the poems written by troubadours were addressed to women of the high nobility — for example, a queen, duchess, or lady. Often, the troubadour was in pursuit of the lady. These poems talked about the troubadour’s quest for his lady’s love and admiration. In exchange, he pledged his eternal loyalty and obedience to her.
Troubadour poetry was also one of the first times that a vernacular — or common — language was given equal status to literary languages. The troubadours as a whole spurred the development of poetry in other common languages, and had a profound influence on Western relationships and thought even into the present day.
Yet the troubadours— with their emphasis on women holding the reigns of power in relationships and patronage — were in direct contrast to women’s real-life status. Troubadour idolatry gave ladies of the high nobility more power than they held in law and custom. This could have spurred the trobairitz to start their own practice, taking the power troubadours had given them in order to finally express themselves as women publicly and in a manner that is almost a response to the men who claim to adore them. It was a way for women to express their desires and needs in a socially acceptable performance.
Female Voices
Trobairitz songs are one of the first times we have female witnesses from the medieval period who tell us their stories in their own voices. There are very few sources directly from women otherwise, and the subject matter of the trobairitz is distinct from their male counterparts. They are exceptional in musical history as the first known female composers of Western secular music — all earlier known female composers wrote sacred music — and exceptional because their voices are completely unedited by male hands.
To date, about twenty trobairitz have been identified. All of them hailed from the south of France in a region known as Occitania and were among the high nobility as wives or daughters of the lords. They likely knew male troubadours as family members, friends, or members of their courts. Even more so, at least a third of the trobairitz were patrons of troubadours themselves.
Tibors de Sarenom
The first known trobairitz was Tibors de Sarenom, one of the sisters of the troubadour Raimbaut d’Orange. Unfortunately, Raimbaut had two sisters named Tibors, so historians still debate which one is the trobairitz, with most preferring the elder sister who married Bertran dels Baus. She lived from around 1130 to 1198 CE. According to a Lombard chansonnier now held in the Biblioteca Vaticana, “Tibors was a lady of Provence, from a castle of En Blacatz called Sarenom. She was courtly and accomplished, gracious and very wise. And she knew how to write poems. And she fell in love and was fallen in love with, and was greatly honored by all the good men of that region, and admired and respected by all the worthy ladies…”.
Only a single stanza of a canso survives, and it reads:
Sweet handsome friend, I can tell you truly
That I’ve never been without desire
Since it pleased you that I have you as my courtly lover;
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
Yet curiouser than their brief vidas (biographies) is the subject matter that trobairitz addressed in their songs. The trobairitz wrote about love, but in very different terms from their male counterparts. They preferred the more straight-forward speech of conversation (as opposed to rhyming) and wrote about relationships that we recognize almost immediately. Two primary themes emerge from their songs:
- To be acknowledged for who they are as women and as individuals.
- To have a determining voice in their lives and relationships.
Castelloza
One example is this excerpt from a canso by the trobaritz Castelloza, born around 1200 CE in Auvergne. She was the wife of Turc de Mairona, a lord of Meyronne, whose ancestors had participated in the Crusades. Like the Comtessa de Dia, Castelloza was in love with someone other than her husband — a man named Arman de Brion, who was above her social rank and for whom she wrote several songs. Castelloza’s vida states she was “very gay, learned, and beautiful.” Only three of her cansos survive. All address courtly love, including this one:
You stayed a long time, friend,
And then you left me,
And it’s a hard, cruel thing you’ve done;
For you promised and you swore
That as long as you lived
I’d be your only lady:
If now another has your love
You’ve slain me and betrayed me,
For in you lay all my hopes
Of being loved without deceit.
Handsome friend, as a lover true
I loved you, for you pleased me,
But now I see I was a fool,
For I’ve barely seen you since.
I never tried to trick you,
Yet you returned me bad for good;
I love you so, without regret,
But love has stung me with such force
I think no good can possibly
Be mine unless you say you love me.
As we can see from Castelloza’s canso, the trobaritz wrote as women — in a direct, unambiguous, highly personal language like that of a journal or conversation. This shows us that they wrote for personal, not professional, reasons.
Bieiries de Romans
It also demonstrates that love occupied a central place in women’s emotional lives. There might have even been lesbian love, as demonstrated in this canso by Bieiries de Romans from around the first half of the 13th century. It reads:
Lady Maria, in you merit and distinction,
Joy, intelligence and perfect beauty,
Hospitality and honor and distinction,
Your noble speech and pleasing company,
Your sweet face and merry disposition,
The sweet look and loving expression
That exist in you without pretension
Cause me to turn toward you with a pure heart.
Thus I pray you, if it please you that true love
And celebration and sweet humility
Should bring me such relief with you,
If it please you, lovely woman, then give me
that which most hope and joy promises
For in you lie my desire and my heart
And from you stems all my happiness,
And because of you I’m often sighing.
And because merit and beauty raise you high
Above all others (for none surpasses you),
I pray you, please, by this which does you honor,
Don’t grant your love to a deceitful suitor.
Lovely woman, whom joy and noble speech uplift,
And merit, to you my stanzas go,
For in you are gaiety and happiness,
And all good things one could ask of a woman.
Unlike the other trobairitz highlighted, Bieiries does not have a contemporary vida detailing her life or personality. Scholars have pieced some aspects of her life together. Bieries was from Romans-sur-lsere, and only one manuscript preserves her surviving canso, placing her lifetime sometime in the early 1200s. While some scholars argue that Bieiries is a man, others assert that Bieries is a woman and her canso is evidence of poetry addressed between women as manifestations of tenderness, to be understood within the dialogue of troubadours and courtly love.
A Rapid Decline
Unfortunately, the troubadours and trobairitz did not last long. In 1209, Pope Innocent III proclaimed a crusade against the “heretics” of Occitania, known as the Albigensian Crusade, which targeted the troubadours and their courts of love. Within fifty years, the great cities and centers of the troubadour movement lied in ruins. Women had lost their rights — both in poems and songs as well as law and custom — and fell into a status more in line with the rest of European women of the time. Troubadour poetry, the ultimate symbol of the southern French way of life, had been the first casualty — the troubadours were forced into silence or exile, and the women they so adored had been silenced forever.
It is only through the work of scholars like Meg Bogin that we know the trobaritz lived, loved, and — ultimately — sought a better world for women much the same as we do today.
“The voices of the women troubadours are as complicated as the voices of real people, and as earth-bound. They sound like women any of us could know. Unlike the men, who often wrote in the persona of the knight, the women wrote in no one’s character but their own.”
— Meg Bogin
