Courts of Love, Castles of Hate

Troubadours & Trobairitz in Southern France 1071–1321

Aubrey Burl

• Publisher: Sutton
• Year: 2009
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9780752475318
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

The figure of the troubadour combines the ideals of knighthood with the inspiration of the poet and musician. It created a cultural explosion which influenced the whole course of Western art and civilization. This history traces the story from the birth of the first troubadour in 1071 to the execution of the last Cathar Good Man in 1231 and the close of the distinctive southern French culture that had given rise to it. The tale incorporates the Crusades to the Holy Lands and the Albigensian crusades through the Languedoc as well as the regular incursions from the English.

Table of contents

• Title
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction
• One - The Art of Courtly Love
• Two - Before Troubadours: War-Songs, Wanderers and Wives
• Three - An Occitan Legend
• Four - Guilhem of Poitiers and the Poetry of Sex, 1071–1127
• Five - Jaufré Rudel and Two Loves: Near and Far, to AD 1150
• Six - Cathars and Catholics: Confrontations, Mid-Twelfth Century
• Seven - The Glory of the Troubadours, Late Twelfth Century
• Eight - A Melody of Troubadours, Twelfth Century
• Nine - An Age of Remarkable Women, c. AD 1200
• Ten - Bertran de Born and the Love of War, c. 1140–1200
• Eleven - The Death of Courts and the Loss of Castles, 1209–1229
• Twelve - Troubadours abandon a Hostile Languedoc, 1229–1321
• Appendix One (a) Compact Discs (b) Codification of Troubadours and Trobairitz
• Appendix Two Omar Khayyam, his Rubaiyat and Edward Fitzgerald
• Appendix Three A Love that Never Died. Song and Sorrow in Northern France
• Appendix Four The Ballad of Fair Rosamund
• Bibliography
• Plates
• Copyright