Women Troubadours – Educated Women in the Middle Ages?

Authors

• Susanna Niiranen Jyväskylän yliopisto

Abstract

Education plays an essential role when depicting an ideal man or woman in Medieval literature. Education was also often associated with Occitan women troubadours, the trobairitz, active from around 1170 to approximately 1260. The word ensenhamen, in its general meaning, means instruction given or received, but it becomes one of the specialized terms in the troubadours’ and trobairitz’ vocabulary, representing new values of courtly society as well as its social and cultural rearrangement. This article does not deal with institutions of Medieval learning and schooling, but rather with concepts and attitudes towards women’s learning and education among various Occitan writers including the women troubadours themselves. What made ‘education’ so appreciated in the troubadour culture? Why was it so crucial for a (noble) woman to be not only beautiful and well-born, but also cultivated?