Singing nuns and Ladies around 1200
Concerts combining
women trouvères &
Nôtre Dame-repertoire


Women Trouvères
- Ladies as troubadours

Booking, contact etc.
Repertoire, read more

Starting page (english)
Website: www.ficta.dk

 

 
 
The tradition of noble, courtly song that flourished in France around 1100 and spread considerably over the next 200 years, is usually called troubadour singing. In fact this name refers only to the southern French type, sung in langue d’oc. But there is also a northern French type. Here the singers are called trouvères, and the songs are sung in langue d’oil, the northern dialect of French. We know of several hundred of these song writers, but until recently we have believed the male musicologist's denial of the fact that there should exist female trouvéres. In 2001 a book came out where four American female scholars argued very convincingly for the existence of female authors of texts and in fact also female composers. (See below)
Many of the texts features female I-persons, and view the world from a decidedly female perspective hardly credible to have been written by men. In the sources it is possible to trace as many as eight of these “trouveresses”: Blanche de Castille, la Dame de Gosnai, la Dame de la Chausie, la Duchesse de Lorraine, Lorete, Dame Margot, Maroie de Diergnau and finally Sainte des Prez. At that time, as was also the case in the 1900th century, it belonged to proper upbringing of girls from good families that were educated in singing and in playing instruments. The period where women were kept outside common music life is later, mostly during the 15th and 16th centuries.
Musically the women trouvères songs are naturally similar to their male colleagues’. But often in the texts are revealing glimpses into the restricted lives of young women either forced into arranged very unwanted marriages to old men, or women being “put away” in nunneries for different reasons that should be hidden from the public eye. Besides, these songs are certainly not upholding any serious barriers against very outspoken not speaking of really bawdy language.
Many of the songs are monophonic, but there are several with two or three voices, and a single four-part song. Some are just notated as chant, i.e. with no rhythm, one has to guess. But with a bit of knowledge of the style, it is not so hard to reach a plausible result.
                                                                                                                                Bo Holten

Source:  
Songs of the Women Trouvères, Yale University press, red. Eglal Doss-Quinby, Joan Tasker Grimbert, Wendy Pfeffer, Elizabeth Aubrey