Married Women in Troubadour Lyric

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Recommended: Women in preindustrial Europe

Sex sells. It’s the clichéd advertising motto that pops into your head every time you turn on the television, and it’s true. From soap operas glorifying the drama of an affair to day-time talk shows mediating spurned spouses to news shows exposing philandering politicians, the more illicit the relationship, the better. The same maxim applied to medieval Occitania and the lyrics of the troubadours. Married women were frequently the subject of these songs, depicted as the neglected wife, the frightened victim of a jealous husband, the passionate lover, but always an idolized by the voice of the troubadour. With stolen moments and secret glances, the noble woman plays coy and resists the advances of her suitor. Or does she? Absent her husband, what is to stop our noble heroine from falling into the arms of a smooth talking performer? While adultery is not always explicitly referenced, vivid descriptions of sensual rendezvous do more than suggest illicit activity. This fascination with unavailable women is curious but not inexplicable, regardless of any truth behind the songs.
To understand the interest in married women we must first understand what marriage meant to the nobility. Far from the happily-ever-afters of romantic fairy tales, marriage in Occitania was a business arrangement with very little –if any- thought given to the emotions of the couple involved. “On the whole, marriage for them was merely an economic and political venture: its goals were the expansion of the fief, consolidation of power, and continuation of their lineage.” Land and power was accumulated and passed down within the family and as such the ability of a wife to bear legitimate children was tremendously important. “…[T]he aristocracy, which in the twelft...

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...Paden, William D., and Frances Freeman Paden. Troubadour Poems from the South of France. Cambridge, UK: D.S. Brewer, 2007.
Paden, William D. "The Beloved Lady in Medieval Galician-Portuguese and Occitan Lyric Poetry." La Corónica: A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures 32, no. 2 (2004): 69-84. Accessed April 2014. doi:10.1353/cor.2004.0031.
Paden, William D., Jr., Mireille Bardin, Michele Hall, Patricia Kelly, F. Gregg Ney, Simone Pavlovich, and Alice South. "The Troubadour's Lady: Her Marital Status and Social Rank." Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 11, no. 2 (1999): 221-44. Accessed April 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4173861.
Paden, William D. "The Troubadour's Lady as Seen through Thick History." Exemplaria 11, no. 2 (January 01, 1999): 221-44. Accessed April 2014. doi:10.1179/104125799790497060.

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