Troubadourism: Medieval Love, Music, and Satire Explained
- Paulo Pereira de Araujo
- 8 de dez.
- 3 min de leitura
Century Troubadourism: The Platonic Love That Ruled the Middle Ages
They called it Troubadourism. And the name alone already sounds like a lute tuned with someone’s elbow — that crooked twang announcing not just music, but an entire medieval psychology built on sighs, impossible promises, and a horse-sized dose of romantic naïveté.
It was the first literary movement of our Western civilization or at least the first to combine poetry, music, and a bunch of men pining after married women, the most traditional of European traditions.
It began in Provence, land of sunlit castles and wines that probably made troubadours either more inspired or more tearful.
From there it spread like court gossip: a countess whispered something here, a minstrel murmured something there, and soon all of Europe was applauding musical verses about impossible loves. When the whole thing reached Portugal, it gained the rustic charm of Galician-Portuguese, a language officially polished by King Denis, the first multitasker of the Iberian Peninsula — the king who rhymed, sang, wrote, and still found time to govern.
It was in this environment that Paio Soares de Taveirós emerged, author of the famous Cantiga da Ribeirinha, a 12th-century “hey, stranger.” Except instead of being sent via WhatsApp at 11:47 p.m., it was performed with lute accompaniment in front of an inaccessible nobleperson who, by all indications, had much better things to do than listen to melodic whining from professional romantics.
The setting? A feudal, God-centered, and, let us be honest, very smelly world. The Church ruled more sternly than any mother-in-law and regulated everything: from the salvation of your soul to the proper amount of emotion allowed in poems.
Troubadours wandered around with flutes, worn cloaks, and lovesick expressions, singing to unreachable ladies who probably did not even know their names. It was courtly love, love on one’s knees, literally and figuratively, since most declarations included an exaggerated bow that was almost a stretching exercise.
Songs of Satire and Insult in Troubadourism
But it was not all romantic melancholy. Troubadourism also had its cantigas de escárnio e maldizer (satirical and insulting songs) a sort of medieval Twitter: subtle jabs, sharp insults, plenty of sarcasm, and social critique delivered through wordplay. If someone parked their horse in the wrong place, it became a verse. If a noble person thought too highly of himself, a song would promptly expose his theatrics — all recorded in the cancioneiros, the precious manuscripts that worked like poetic diaries of the Middle Ages.
And the most curious part is that amid a harsh world — with plague, crusades, hunger, two spoonfuls of superstition, and zero familiarity with bathing medieval poetry flourished. Tuned, rhythmic, organized poetry full of hidden intentions. It is as if, to survive a brutal reality, humans invented delicacy as a pressure valve. The human soul is puzzling indeed.
By the 14th century, Troubadourism began to fade, making room for Humanism, a movement that preferred talking about real people instead of unattainable love. Nothing against the troubadours — they taught us that even suffering can become art, and that impossible love makes for excellent rhyme. Without them, today we would write only emails far too direct to contain any emotion. They left us with the notion that sentimental exaggeration is also part of literary history.
And let us be honest, if Paio Soares de Taveirós lived today, he would be in the family group chat sending a three-minute voice message full of dramatic pauses and calculated sighs:
“Hey, lady from the Ribeira… thought about you while listening to Lady Gaga. If you do not reply, I will compose another one.”
#Troubadourism #MedievalPoetry #CourtlyLove #MiddleAgesHistory #MedievalLiterature #CantigaDaRibeirinha #GalicianPortuguese #MedievalCulture
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