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Updated: May 28, 2025
He was right; the troubadours were his most devoted friends; Bertram de Born was bewailing him, and Blondel de Nesle, guided by his faithful heart, sang his King's own favorite lays before each keep and fortress, until the unfinished song was taken up and answered from the windows of the Castle of Triefels.
The minstrels and troubadours were at that time a privileged race in Europe, belonging generally to the south of France, although produced in all lands. They traveled over Europe singing the lays which they themselves had composed, and were treated with all honor at the castles where they chose to alight.
In the days of romance, this country must have been the Utopia of Troubadours, where each might in the compass of a short walk have taken morning draught, breakfast, nooning, dinner, and supper, at the strong holds of different barons.
But when, on the lifting of the morning haze, he saw that the horse bore two children and one a girl, he called another man to look. "Troubadours, by the sound," said the newcomer. For the Fool was singing to cheer his lack of breakfast. "Coming empty of belly, as come all troubadours." But the sentry was dubious. Minstrels were a slothful lot, averse to the chill of early morning.
He was the grandson of Raimon Berengar III. and united to Barcelona by marriage and diplomacy, the kingdom of Aragon, Provence and Roussillon. His continual visits to the French part of his dominions gave every opportunity to the troubadours to gain his favour: several were continually about him and there were few who did not praise his liberality.
The Troubadours themselves were often men of great rank; they wrote for an exclusive audience, people of much leisure and great refinement, and they came to value a type of personal beauty which has in it but little of the influence of the open air and sunshine.
It must not be supposed that the wife of a great baron occupied an easy position, however, and had many leisure hours, as her wifely duties took no little time and energy, and it was her place to hold in check the rude speech and manners of the warlike nobles who thronged the castle halls, as well as to put some limit to the bold words and glances of the troubadours, who were often hard to repress.
English poetry has inclined more to the style of Milton than to that of Spenser, who was thoroughly embued with the romantic spirit of the Teutons and the Troubadours, though, like Milton, he was influenced by Tasso; and unlike him, by Ariosto. His Faerie Queene, Gloriana, is supposed to be the beloved of the courtly Arthur of the British legends.
The narrative is unhistorical; Henry II. was not present in person at the siege of Hautefort; but the fact is certain that he regarded Bertran as the chief sower of discord in his family. Mention must now be made of certain troubadours who were less important than the three last mentioned, but are of interest for various reasons.
He went to the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the granddaughter of the first troubadour, Guillaume IX. of Poitiers, who by tradition and temperament was a patroness of troubadours, many of whom sang her praises. She had been divorced from Louis VII. of France in 1152, and married Henry, Duke of Normandy, afterwards King of England in the same year.
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