"ai, las! tan cuidava saber / d'amor, e tan petit en sai"

(alas! how much I thought I knew / about love, and how little I know)
-Bernart de Ventadorn, "Can vei la lauzeta mover," 12th c. (ll. 9-10)

There are countless works discussing the troubadour and trouvere movements of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, so I will not regurgitate that information here. I have, however, included a number of worthwhile websites on the external resources page that one can peruse for further study in that area. I highly recommend the works of Marcabru and Bertran de Born, myself.

Several notes about the mindset I take to the composition of troubadour songs:

1) Far more troubadour song lyrics exist than melodies. Several theories exist regarding this: (a) that tunes were shared; (b) that the tunes were 'known' more than the lyrical aspect of the works, and so did not require transcription; (c) that melodies were secondary in importance next to lyrics, and thus were delegated to joglars/jongleurs to worry about in regards to the performance of these songs..

2) Utilizing existing tunes for new works was an extremely common practice. In the SCA and other groups, rewriting an existing song (ie. a new set of lyrics to the same tune) to fit the theme of one's particular group is termed filking. In the Middle Ages, this was called contrafactum and was an extremely popular practice.

The songs below are listed in reverse-chronological order; that is, the newest pieces are closest to the top.