Courtly Love and Troubadour Poetry in Feudal Society
Courtly Love in Troubadour Poetry
Courtly love: Troubadour poetry reflected the feudal society that generated it. Spread through music, literature was made and consumed by the nobility who lived in the court. Thus, it soon became a symbol of class: courtly love became an element of courtesy, or a set of virtues related to the aristocratic and feudal, and totally opposed to villainy. Courtly love, so different from that practiced by the villains and rustic, is a true love—loyal, generous, selfless, and loving. It is associated with good behavior and good manners, seeking fun and pleasure, and it explodes in jubilation if it is reciprocated joy. All these ideas about love come from the literature of courtly love troubadours.
Basically, courtly love is a kind of game that transfers the feudal code to the experience of love. The reactions between feudal lord and vassal are characteristic of feudalism, and a parallel is established between the claimant and his love, using similar steps. In troubadour love poetry, the troubadour plays the role of the lover with a noble lady. Only a married woman could have vassals in real life and in the songs. This process involved a code, and as such, it had a vocabulary in Provence. Hence, the troubadour lover became the vassal or server of a lady.
The lady was always a married woman. This is why the troubadour could not clearly state the name of the lady to whom he dedicated the song, but instead used a senhal, a disguised pseudonym. As for the husband, he could easily become a gelós (jealous) if he had been warned by maldients (gossips), who spied on them. This loyal love used to take place in a locus amoenus, always in spring. The lover’s goal was to make love with the lady. This concept brings together some topics of courtly love from the Greco-Latin tradition, such as the various stages through which the process of falling in love happens. The Occitan troubadours related the different attitudes adopted before the love of that lady, which often corresponded to their feelings and showed a distant: shy lover, begging, tolerated, and finally, a lover in all senses.
Troubadour Genres and Catalan Troubadours
All troubadours were quite educated, and some had even received ecclesiastical training. For songwriting, musical studies and rhetoric were necessary. Most troubadours used to have a hired minstrel, who was dedicated to faithfully performing their songs accompanied by string instruments. This perfectionist poetry, both in terms of poetic form, adopted different genres depending on the subject matter: if it was love, we talk about songs, the most popular genre of troubadour poetry; and if it was warrior-like, about sirventesos. The idea was to develop gradually and orderly, and it was essential that the song had its own music. As for the sirventes, it was a composite of satire or slander.
Beyond these large genera, there were others, mostly related to the topic of love and sometimes with influences from popular literature. There were also some with a clear Latin tradition, such as the cry, used to lament the death of the lady, a friend, or a noble protector of the troubadour.
Vocabulary
- Epic: A genre linked to the origin of literature that involves a collective aspect, both in terms of authors and what is told. Usually a long narrative in verse, of oral transmission, which sometimes ended up being written down to prevent memory from being lost. Epic tales tell of heroism.
- Lyric: A poetic form that expressed the personal feelings of the author since antiquity. From Romanticism, poetry can also be associated with folk poetry.
- Allegory: A description or narrative that brings a real sense and a figurative one, so that the two correspond and, fully developed, refer to the same thing.
- Fable: A narrative in verse or prose, usually brief, involving animals and representing human conditions, now showing a moral purpose through fantastic events that exemplify vices and virtues.
- Apologue: A narrative in verse or prose, in simple language, the aim of which is to deduce a moral or didactic consequence. The apologue is inserted within a wider set, and its value tends to be more didactic than narrative.
- Prosopopoeia: The action of attributing human qualities to inanimate beings, or to discuss missing or deceased persons, or animals or inanimate things.
- Exemplum: A brief narrative of moral and didactic content, which has the virtue of entertaining the reader or listener in the midst of a heavier doctrinal exposition.