Secular Monophony

First western troubadour, a monk in Italy who mostly wrote hymns and poems.

professional entertainers in France, considered lowest of low, not protected by church law. They took preexisting songs and performed them, probably with some changes made.

Mostly students from European universities, protested contradictions within the church with satirical, crass poetry.

Wrote cantigas, all of which surviving are about the Virgin Mary. They are written in Medieval Gallican language, with 280 different formats.

flourished from 1140-1220, S. France (langue d'oc)
Canso was most important song, but had many genres; most famous canso is de Ventadorn's Can vei la lauzeta. Other genres include formal debates (Partimen) and a dawn song for parting lovers (Alba). Songs were heterophonic in performance if accompanied, had occasional melismas.

She was a countess in Southern France and her song A chantar m'er is one of the only surviving trobairitz songs, which is stropic, monophonic, stepwise, with a modal melody and no regular meter.

Widely popular composer of troubadour songs in France, including Can vei la lauzeta. He wrote many songs about love, and his compositions were well received. His work is mostly syllabic with the occasional melisma and short phrases.

When men went to fight in the crusade women took over, and wrote somewhat more realistic songs than men.

German equivalent of a troubadour, much more serious and less obscene than French. Minnelied was the equivalent of the canso, Streitgedicht the equivalent of the tenso, Tagelied the equivalent of the alba, and Frauenstrophe the equivalent of the chanson de toile. They also had guilds formed of multiple Meistersinger. An example of a German Minnesinger is Ulrich von Lichtenstein, known for his Frauendienst (poetry collection of courtly love) and Frauenbuch (a dialogue about the decline of court chivalry).

Started the decline of the troubadours, since many knights went off to fight and not a lot of composing was being done in that time.