TROUVERE, the name given to the mediaeval poets of northern and central France, who wrote in the langue d'oil or langue d'oui. The trouveres flourished abundantly in the 12th and 13th centuries. They were court-poets who devoted themselves almost exclusively to the composition and recitation of a particular kind of poetry, the subject of which was some refinement of love.
The first appearance of trouveres seems to date from 1137, when Eleanor of Aquitaine, herself the granddaughter of an illustrious troubadour, arrived in the court of France as the queen of Louis VII., speaking the Poitiers dialect of the langue d'oc. She was queen for I5 years (1137-52), the period during which the south ern influence was strongest in the literature of northern France, and the successive crusades tended to produce relations between the two sections of poetical literature. The northern poets rarely approach the grace and delicacy of the troubadours, while their verse shows less ingenuity and less variety. The earliest trouveres, like Conon de Bethune and Hugues de Berze, in writing their ama tory lyrics, were, however, certainly influenced by what trouba dours had written.
The poetical forms adopted by the trouveres bore curious and obscure names, the signification of which is still in some cases dubious. The rotruenge was a song with a refrain; the serventois was, in spite of its name, quite unlike the sirventes of the trouba dours and had a more ribald character ; the estrabot was allied to the strambotto of the Italians, and was a strophic form "com posed of a front part which was symmetrical, and of a tail which could be varied at will" (Gaston Paris).
The court poetry of the trouveres particularly flourished under the protection of three royal ladies. Marie, the regent of Cham pagne, was the practical ruler of that country from 1181 to 1197, and she encouraged the minstrels in the highest degree and dis cussed the art of verse with Chretien of Troyes. Her sister, Aelis or Alice, welcomed the trouveres to Blois; she was the protector of Gautier d'Arras and of Le Chatelain de Coucy. Another Aelis, who became the second queen of Louis VII. in 1160, received Conon de Bethune in Paris, and reproved him for the Picard accent with which he recited his poetry. At the end of the 12th century the refinement and elegance of the court-poets was recognized in the north of France by those who were responsible for the educa tion of princes. A trouvere, Gui de Ponthieu, was appointed tutor
to William III. of Macon, and another, Philippe of Flanders, to Philippe Auguste. The vogue of the trouveres began during the third crusade ; it rose to its greatest height during the fourth cru sade and the attack upon the Albigenses. The first 4o years of the 13th century was the period during which the courtly lyrical po etry was cultivated with most assiduity. At first it was a purely aristocratic pastime, and among the principal trouveres were princes such as Thibaut IV. of Navarre, Louis of Blois and John, king of Jerusalem. About 1230 the taste for court poetry spread to the wealthy bourgeoisie, especially in Picardy, Artois and Flan ders. Before its final decline, and after the courts of Paris and Blois had ceased to be its patrons, the poetry of the trouveres found its centre at Arras, where some of the most skilful of all the trouveres, such as Jacques Bretel and Adam de la Halle, exercised their art. About 1280 the poetical system suddenly disappeared.
The poet was invariably a lover, devoted to a married lady who was not his wife, and to whose caprices he was bound to submit blindly and patiently. The progress of this conventional courtship was laid down according to certain strict rules of ceremonial ; love became a science and a religion, practised by the laws of precise etiquette. The rondel of Adam de la Halle (published in E. de Coussemaker's edition, 187 2) beginning "A Dieu courant amouretes, Car je m'en vois Souspirant en terre estrange !" marks perhaps the highest point to which the delicate, frosty art of the trouveres attained. Music took a prominent place in all their performances, but little is known of the melodies which they used. But enough has been discovered to justify the general statement of Tiersot that "we may conclude that the musical movement of the age of the trouveres was derived directly from the most ancient form of popular French melody." A precious ms. in the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier contains the music of no fewer than 345 part-songs attributed to trouveres.