The geographical range of the Troubadours was from northern Spain
eastward to Venice, and from the Mediterranean northward in France to
Lyons and Poitiers. The headquarters was in the basin of the Garonne
and the lower valley of the Rhone—the region of which Toulouse is the
centre.
The first celebrated name among the Troubadours is that of William, Count of Poitiers (d. 1127), and conspicuous later were princes like Alfonso II. of Aragon (d. 1196), Richard I. of England (d. 1199), and Thibaut IV. of Navarre (d. 1253), with Queen Eleanor of France, later of England (d. 1204), not to speak of scores of others with every kind of lordly title. At the outset, then, the movement was confined to the leisurely and elegant class, though its influence speedily spread to other classes.
In a peculiar sense the songs of the Troubadours embodied
one side of the idea of chivalry or knightliness. They especially
expressed the sentiment of love, but the form of love
chiefly magnified was one almost impossible for modern thought
to accept as wholesome, since it was the praise and even adoration
of married women by others than their husbands. While
doubtless this notion was fantastic and often ran to lawless
extremes, yet it was by no means essentially or inevitably base.
It was the effort of an age not fully emerged from barbarism
to glorify the attraction of sex and even to etherealize it. It
exalted womanhood as perhaps never before, and it unlocked
the door of literary expression for intense feeling of every kind.
The style of poetry thus generated was not only sentimentally
extravagant, but often stilted and manneristic.
The themes most chosen were the beauty and worth of the lady to
whom the knight gave his homage, the exploits of gallantry, labor or
peril on her behalf, the joy of meeting or the pain of absence, the many
phantasies and yearnings of the lover, the look of nature in all its aspects
to the eye that love had quickened, and sometimes flights of martial,
heroic or even religious ecstasy.
Certain forms were favorites, like the canson or stanza-song in general, the tenso or dialogue, the sirvente or narrative, with many special varieties, like the alba or morning-song, the serena or evening-song, the balada or dance-song, the planh or complaint, etc. Great ingenuity was shown in the elaboration of curious verse-forms, with reiterated rhymes, studied effects in assonance and the like, and highly complicated stanzas. Yet, in spite of the tendency to mere technique, the lyric impulse was so strong that in these efforts was the source of the entire modern art of lyric verse. The impetus thus given lasted long after the Troubadour period ended, explaining many a feature of poetry in Italy, France, Spain and England. In Italy, for example, the style of Dante (d. 1321) and of Petrarch (d. 1374) is clearly based on Provençal originals.
