Songs of the Women Troubadours

by Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, Laurie Shepard, Sarah White

An edition and translation of some 30 poems by the trobairditz, a remarkable group of women poets from the 12th and 13th centuries, who composed in the style and language of the troubadours.

Genres: Poetry, Medieval, History

284 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1995

Reviews

[Claudia Keelan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very useful prosodical study of the poetry.

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first significant movement of notated secular song in medieval Europe apparently originated in Occitan (now southern France along with bits of Spain and Italy). Because the Catholic church was not powerfully influential in that region, secular music flourished among Occitan’s educated. Of course, nonreligious song was always prevalent among Europe’s lower classes via unwritten folk music—one did not have to be literate to be one of the “folk” who had a hand in creating music passed through generations sans notation.

But Occitan's educated songsmiths wrote about a variety of topics, most famously love, which is why the image we associate with their name—troubadour--is a man strumming a lute while serenading a lady with love songs written specifically for her. But what if the gender roles in this scenario were switched? That is, what if the lady was the singer and the man the object of her amorous musical compositions? Meet the troubairitz, the female lyricists of Occitan, whose original poesy has been collected in the Routledge title, Songs of the Women Troubadours.

I am not Occitan-literate, but even so, a casual glance reveals the original lyrics to be at least end-rhymed. The English translations on each facing page are not so, which is a good thing—the translators were obviously more interested in distilling the essence of each lyric rather than distorting its meaning for the sake of rhyme.

A song written by one La Comtessa de Dia contains the following stanzas:

I feed on joy and youthfulness
And joy and youthfulness content me;
Since my friend is the most cheerful
I am cheered and charmed by him,
And because I’m true to him,
It’s well that he be true
to me; I never stray from loving him
nor do I have the heart to stray

The lady who has faith in virtue
surely ought to put her faith
in a knight of heart and worth;
since she knows how worthy he is,
let her dare reveal she loves him;
a lady who reveals her love
hears virtuous, pleasant people
say only pleasing things about her.

Most of the lyrics I encountered in Songs of the Women Troubadours focus on relationships and it's quite fascinating to read about medieval knights from the perspective of their ladies, who obviously had original thoughts and were not necessarily easy romantic prey. Case in point: Castelloza’s lyric from a song whose first line/title is translated “I should never have the wish to sing”:

I know knights who harm themselves
When they plead
With ladies more than ladies plead with them,
For no further rank
Or power is gained by it;
So when it happens that a lady
Loves, she ought to court
The knight if she sees
Prowess and knightly worth in him.

Here’s one of my favorites, a bit of a jab at the troubairitz's male counterparts:

I can’t help it: I must speak my mind
about the thing that is confounding my heart,
and it will give me pain and grief to write,
for I say those old-time troubadours,
who are dead now, gravely sinned,
putting the world in confusion,
when they openly spoke ill of women;
and all who hear their speech believe them
and rant that such things seem true;
thus they have plunged the world in error.

It may not come as a shock to learn that one of the most famous medieval females, Eleanor of Aquitaine--a woman skilled in both matters of the state and the heart--grew up in the heady atmosphere of the Occitanian troubairitz. And it was she who transported their traditions to England when she married Henry II in 1152.

Especially when placed within its historical context, Songs of the Women Troubadoursis well worth a read.

[Josefine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did I only read the poems? Why, yes, yes I did. I liked some of them, but most were just cheesy "he loves me, he loves me not" poems, which aren't really my thing.

[Michelle Monagin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really interesting book. History is generally written by men, about men. But there were also women in history--women doing many things other than merely acting as brood-mares--and it is good to learn something about them.