Troubadours

troo'ba-doors, a name given to a class of poets who flourished in Provence, France, and in northern Italy from the middle of the tenth to the end of the thirteenth century. In the development of the French language, we find the prevailing dialect of the south called Langue d'oc (language of oc); that of the north, Langue d'oui (language of oui), from the two words for "yes," oc and oui, used respectively in the two dialects. Langue d'oc was also called provencal, and it was in this language that the troubadours sang their songs. They seem to have invented a particular variety of lyric. Love was the special theme of the troubadours, as it was of the minnesingers of Germany. They also sang of war, and songs of expression of religious fervor are common, inspired doubtless by the religious enthusiasm of the Crusades. Public events of importance also furnished subjects for the troubadour. The troubadours to the number of thousands appeared almost contemporaneously. For three centuries such poets held high reputation. Almost suddenly the language declined, the troubadours ceased to sing, and this literature, the outgrowth of an age and in no sense the result of individual genius, entirely ceased, having left an enormous number of poems, many of them pleasing and beautiful, but not a masterpiece among them. See Blondel; Minnesingers; Trouveres