Tracey Warr with Amandine Rey
The Trobairitz: Joy and Blisses and Kisses
presented in the Occitan University Festival[1] in Laguépie 82250, France
on 11 July 2023
Ladies and gentlemen, imagine yourselves back in time, nearly 900 years, to the middle of the 12th century. Imagine that you are in the Great Hall at the court of Raimbaut d’Aurenga in the castle of Courthézon, three days’ ride east of here, on a good horse, a little north of Avignon.
I hope that you have charged your ‘goblets’ with hypocras, a medieval sweet, spiced wine (which is an aphrodisiac), or ordinary wine, or medieval Perrier.
Here, at Raimbaut d’Aurenga’s court, we play the game of trobar. Trobar means to compose or to find poetry. Raimbaut himself is a renowned troubadour and his court is frequented by other poets, musicians and performers, such as yourselves. Two of Raimbaut’s guests tonight are the trobairitz – the female troubadours – the Comtesse de Dia and Azalais de Porcaraigues.
A troubadour’s performance was often prefaced with a razo – an introduction – so this is our razo. As part of their razo, the troubadours might also tell their vida – their biography, to build a little suspense before the song.
I am Tracey Warr, a historical novelist living here in Laguépie. My novels are inspired by the landscapes, castles, and histories of this region.
Amandine Rey: And, I am Amandine Rey, a singer from Cajarc in the Lot and an Occitan teacher, and I am going to sing you a few songs by the Occitan female troubadours.
Imagine that the Comtesse de Dia steps forward now to sing. She is rumoured to be in love with Raimbaut d’Aurenga. In her song, she says she has been betrayed by the man she loves because she wouldn’t sleep with him. She describes this as her mistake, and wishes she could caress him in her bare arms and send him into ecstasy. She says she would give almost anything to have him in her husband’s place but only if he swears to do her bidding, to be in her power.
Amandine sings:
Comtesse de Dia, ‘I’ve lately been in great distress’ / ‘Estat ai en greu cossirier’[2]
The identity of the Comtesse de Dia is not certain. She may have been Beatrice, wife of William II of Poitiers, count of Valentois, or she may have been Isoarde, daughter of the count of Die.[3]
Amandine: Tracey, how did you first come across the trobairitz?
I was living in Ambialet in the Tarn Valley and writing a novel about Almodis de La Marche, who was an 11thcentury countess of Toulouse.[4]
Almodis owned the castle and land around Ambialet. I came across Meg Bogin’s book on the female troubadours[5] and decided to create a character in my novel who was a trobairitz. In my fiction, I am interested in medieval women who disrupt our assumptions.
Amandine: Can you tell us something about the troubadours?
The troubadour poetry of the 11–13th centuries was the first poetry in medieval Western Europe to be written in the vernacular language – in Occitan – rather than in Latin.
The troubadours composed their own music and poetry and were not wandering entertainers. Many troubadours were noblemen and women, such as Guillaume IX, Duke of Aquitaine; Jaufre Rudel, Prince of Blaye; Richard the Lionheart, King of England; Raimbaut d’Aurenga; and the Comtesse de Dia. Some troubadours were less exalted and travelled from court to court, seeking patronage. An example is Bernart de Ventadorn, who was probably the son of a baker. One of Bernart’s patrons was Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen, first of France, and then of England. Her patronage of troubadour music spread their cultural influence to England.
Some troubadour poems were bawdy, some were political, but the majority were love songs of joy and bliss and kisses. The troubadours used a variety of instruments that were easy to travel with, such as lutes, small harps, and rebecs, which were bowed, stringed instruments, a little like violins.
Troubadour poetry was composed for an audience of connoisseurs (such as yourselves), who could appreciate its difficult forms, complex rhymes, and literary references. The troubadours were listening and singing to each other, responding to and reinventing each other’s songs. The game of trobar began in southern France, in Occitania, and spread across Europe to Spain, northern France, England, Germany, Italy. Its themes and motifs continue to echo now throughout contemporary poetry and song lyrics.
Amandine: And what about the trobairitz?
A significant number of poems by women have survived. There are around 21 named trobairitz with poems preserved in the manuscripts. That compares to some 400 named male troubadours. Between 26 and 46 songs have been attributed to women. A further 17 trobairitz are mentioned in other texts but none of their work survives. Only one poem by a woman has survived with its musical notation – ‘A chantar m’er’ by the Comtesse de Dia.[6]
The majority of trobairitz were women of the court, from the nobility. These women were well educated in reading, writing and music. The term, trobairitz comes from Flamenca, the only surviving medieval novel in verse in Occitan.
Let’s go back to the court of Raimbaut d’Aurenga, where Azalais de Porcaraigues is going to present a song. Azalais was from a village just north of Beziers and may have lived at Raimbaut’s court. She was in love with his cousin, Gui Guerrejat. In her song, it is bleak winter, and she is in pain because she has argued with the man she loves. She asks him not to ask too much of her, not to ask her to transgress.
Amandine sings:
Azalais de Porcaraigues, ‘Now we are come to the cold time’ / ‘Ar em el freg temps vengut’
Amandine: Tracey, wasn’t it unusual for women to be writing at this time?
Not really. In the late 8th century, Charlemagne issued a decree forbidding nuns to write winileodas, women’s songs of love-longing, so obviously a lot of them were doing it.
There were many other medieval women writers, including Radegund who was a 6th-century princess and abbess in Poitiers who wrote poetry and Dhuoda, a 9th century duchess, who wrote a learned and moving manual for her son. Marie de France was writing romances and poetry in the 12th to 13th centuries and Christine de Pizan was writing in the 14th century.[7] But the trobairitz are an exceptionally large group of literary women.
Amandine: Why do you think there were a significant number of female troubadours working in Occitan?
The South had a different language, a different culture, and different laws from northern France. The laws in Occitania were based on Visigothic rather than Roman traditions and afforded women more status than women in other regions. An assessment of the surviving charters from the 11th and 12th centuries shows 10–12% of the southern lords or vassals were women acting in their own right.[8] Our preconceptions about the Middle Ages need to be nuanced by knowledge about specific times and specific places.
A significant number of Occitan women were female lords. A few women ruled in their own right as heiresses, when there was no surviving male heir – such as Ermengard of Narbonne and Philippa of Toulouse (who features in the novel series I am currently writing). Many women became regents when their husband died and their sons were still children. In the crusades, there was a loss and absence of men, who were killed or staying on in the Holy Land, leaving many women as domnas – female lords. Examples of these Occitan domnas include Ermessende of Carcassonne, who ruled Barcelona for at least 16 years; Almodis de La Marche (the subject of my novel) who was countess of Toulouse and then co-ruled Barcelona with her husband; her sister Lucia de La Marca, who was regent in Pallars Sobira in the Pyrenees; Marie of Montpellier, and Ermengard of Carcassonne.
The link between power and love and the interplay between desire and control are recurring themes in both male and female troubadour poetry. The troubadour’s lady or the trobairitz exercises power over her lover and this is often expressed in the language of lord and vassal. The poems frequently refer to the domna – the female lord. The image of a man kneeling to his domna was not merely a game of courtly love. In Occitania, it was drawn from reality. The slides that you saw at the beginning[9] showed images of Occitan female lords, female musicians, and portraits of the trobairitz from medieval manuscripts.
Amandine: So, was the South a feminist utopia?
I wouldn’t say it was a feminist utopia, but the South of the 11th and 12th centuries was a particular historical moment when women were not excluded, as they were in other places and in later centuries.
Visigothic practices gave equality to all the children of a marriage and split inheritance between them. By the 12th century, matrimonial and inheritance customs were gradually changing toward Roman principles, which disinherited daughters and concentrated inheritance in the oldest son. The rate of this change in the South was gradual, happening over a couple of centuries, and varying from family to family.
Let’s visit another troubadour court. This time, it is the court of Dalfi d’Alvernha, Count of Clermont, about three days’ ride north of here. The female troubadour Castelloza steps forward to sing. Her husband is away fighting in the crusade. She sings of a man who has treated her badly. She wonders if she would have more success with him if she were mean or treacherous. She asserts her right to court him. If he doesn’t love her, she will die, and it will be his fault.
Amandine sings:
Castelloza, ‘Friend, if I had found you kind’ / ‘Amics,s’ie.us trobes avienen’
Amandine: Do you think the works of the trobairitz are different from the poems of the male troubadours?
Only a small number of works have survived and there is little, certain information on the lives of the trobairitz, which has led to contradictory interpretations. In the male troubadour poetry, women, often women married to other men, were idealised as objects of desire and adoration. The trobairitz wrote in similar styles and structures as the male poets. The themes of trust, betrayal, abandonment, and infidelity are there in the women’s poems too.
Women sang about romance and their high expectations of their lovers, but they often tried to humanise their own gender and to balance out the idealised versions of women with lyrics that were very personal and considerably more ‘down-to-earth’. The trobairitz poems have a sincere and passionate tone, and a sensuous expression of desire.
These apparently adulterous songs were not private. They were performed in public and frequently expressed anxiety or irritation with the lauzengiers, the jealous gossips.
For this audience of aristocrats and castellans, fidelity, service and reward were paramount. The Comtesse de Dia writes an amorous song, but it is also a song to remind a man of his duty of fidelity and love to his lord (who may be female). These poets used the language of lordship to talk of romantic sentiment and the language of eroticism to talk of lordship, because the sentiment of ‘love’ was central to both romance and lordship.[10]
Troubadours and trobairitz were operating within a lyric fiction that claimed to speak truthfully from the heart in the game of trobar. But it is hard to know how much we are listening to the expression of a real woman’s voice and how much we are listening to a game, a fiction. Much troubadour documentation disappeared with the suppression of the southern culture and Catharism in the 13th-century Albigensian Crusade. As with many aspects of troubadour literature, the trobairitz remain an enigma.
Thanks
Enormous thanks to Amandine Rey. Thanks also to Claude Sicre, Sandrine Thouron, Arne d’Avignon, Baptiste and David from the Occitan University. And thanks to my friends here who helped with the event: Carlos, Madeleine, John, and Dave. Thanks to Martine Michard for putting me back in touch with Amandine Rey. And many thanks to Tom for the recording of Amandine Rey singing Castelloza’s ‘Amics, s’ie.us trobes avinen’ and for the photo of Lou Viel Castle in Saint Martin Laguépie.
Tracey Warr
[1] Lenga Viva – Universitat Occitana de La Guépia takes place every year in July in Laguépie 82250, France https://www.lengaviva.com/ .
[2] Amandine Rey performed three of the trobairitz poems at this event. You can find the Occitan and English versions of the three poems here: http://traceywarrwriting.com/?p=4275.
[3] See Matilda Bruckner, Laurie Shepard and Sarah White, eds (2000) Songs of the Women Troubadours, Routledge.
[4] Tracey Warr (2023) Almodis: The Peaceweaver, Meanda Books. https://meandabooks.com/historical-fiction/almodis-the-peaceweaver/.
[5] Meg Bogin (1980) The Women Troubadours, W.W. Norton.
[6] See Comtesse de Dia, ‘A chantar m’er de so’, performed by Jordi Savall on the album Le Royaume Oublié (The Forgotten Kingdom), 2010,
.
And see Nicholas Breeze Wood for a lively, instrumental version:
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[7] See Peter Dronke (1984) Women Writers of the Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press and (1968) The Medieval Lyric, D.S. Brewer.
[8] See Hélène Débax (2013) ‘Le lien d’homme à homme au féminin: Femmes et féodalité en Languedoc et en Catalogne (XIe–XIIe siècles)’, Etudes roussillonnaises: Les femmes dans l’espace nord-méditerranéen, vol. XXV, pp. 71–82. Also see Frederic L. Cheyette (2001) Ermengard of Narbonne and the World of the Troubadours, Cornell University Press.
[9] You can see the slides presented at the event here: http://traceywarrwriting.com/?p=4275.
[10] See Catherine Leglu, ‘Gaucelm Faidit : Amours, voyages et débats, Trobada tenue à Uzerche les 25 et 26 juin 2010),’ Cahiers de Carrefour Ventadour, 2010 (Moutiers-Ventadour:Carrefour Ventadour, 2011), pp. 149-166. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/3776304/Lamant_tenu_par_la_bride_itinéraires_dun_motif_dans_la_poésie_du_troubadour_Gaucelm_Faidit_et_un_coffret_en_émail_œuvre_de_Limoges_du_douzième_siècle_finissant.