Troubadours: Quaint Singers or Purveyor of Male Dominance

Think of a medieval troubadour, and most of us envision a smooth-singing, tight-wearing gent strolling leisurely through ye olde village. The troubadour entertaining the culture-starved townsfolk with ballads about romance and chivalry, valiant knights and courtly maidens. To some degree, this image is true.

The troubadour, or travelling musician, was a popular sight in medieval Europe from the 11th century until the Black Plague in the 1300s. Songs performed by troubadours followed a common pattern and often told fictional tales of heroic deeds and complicated love triangles. But a good performer knows how to play to the crowd, so the theme of these poetic songs could take a vulgar turn, with veiled or overt references to the vagina. In fact, some of these salacious songs portrayed women as horny, sex-fiends.

 But, sadly, these tunes are vastly out-numbered by songs that thrust women into a subservient role as the recipient of men’s sexual aggression, with rape, seduction, and domestic violence as popular themes. The collection of troubadour ballads that remains illustrate the typical male-dominated attitude of the time: men were in the power roles, women were to be dominated and kept in their place.