The Troubadours of Aquitaine were among the most remarkable cultural developments of the Middle Ages. The playing of music at aristocratic European courts first became widespread in their time, and they contributed to much wider performance of music and songs outside of religious venues than had been the case since the Fall of Rome. The troubadours were the first poets on record to write in the vernacular, rather than the Latin and Greek which had dominated the writing of Western Europe for over a millennium. They composed and performed lyric poetry in Old Occitan, or the “Langue d’Oc,” the now defunct language of medieval southern France which resembles Provencal, for royalty, lords and nobles. The tradition emerged in the late 11th Century, a time which many see as the emergence of Western Europe out of its ‘Dark Ages,” and spread from Aquitaine and Provence to Spain and Italy. Troubadour songs deal mainly with themes of chivalry and courtly love, and sometimes also of far-off lands and major events. The earliest troubadour whose work survives is none other than “Guilhèm de Peitieus”, Eleanor of Aquitaine’s grandfather, Guillaume IX Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitiers (1071–1126).
The “Golden Days” of Troubadours came in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, as their works became known and their performances more in demand. Almost half of all troubadour works that survive are from the period 1180–1220. No venue rivaled that of the fabled Court of Eleanor in Poitiers. The Palace of the Dukes of Aquitaine where she presided was luxurious, spacious and grand. The Great Hall of the Palace which one may visit today was only built in the 1190s, so until her final years the venue of Eleanor’s Court would either have been a predecessor of the Great Hall, or the hall of Tour Maubergeon. In any case it was also, by all accounts, the most sophisticated court of its time, with the poetry and song of the troubadours as an essential centerpiece. Eleanor’s son, Richard the Lion-Hearted, followed in the family tradition and composed and performed some troubadour ballads. Another name it came to have was “the Courts of Love.” One noted troubadour, Bernard de Ventadour, a man with a sketchy reputation, dedicated many of his songs to Eleanor. In his verses, he declares her the most beautiful of all women, and his feelings for her to be stronger than any that ever existed. By the 14th century the genre had begun to die out, in part due to the destruction of many Occitan courts during the Albigensian Crusade.
Whether the stories that the well-known medieval author Andreas the Chaplain tells, in his contemporary and famous book The Art of Courtly Love, of Eleanor and other ladies of the Aquitaine nobility sitting and listening to the quarrels of lovers and pronouncing “judgements of love” are accurate is unclear. What is clear is that the court at Poitiers was a magnet for singers and performers as well as the nobles of the region. It is also clear that the 12th century was a time when attitudes evolved, interest grew in beautiful objects, elegant manners, poetry and music, while tales of romantic love took their place alongside those of prowess in battle. The Tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, along with the Song of Roland cycle about Charlemagne and his knights, became central to evenings of entertainment. Eleanor’s Court at Poitiers was a key player in this evolution. On festive days, the Palace must have been the place to be.
