The world of the troubadours1993

Occitania, known today as the 'south of France', had its own language and culture in the Middle Ages. Its troubadours created 'courtly love' and a new poetic language in the vernacular, which were to influence European literature for centuries; and its Cathar heretics were the first victims of the Inquisition.

There are many books on the troubadours, but this is the first comprehensive study of the society in which they lived. For readers of literature it offers a wide-ranging insight into the realities which lay behind the poetic mystique. For historians it opens up an important and neglected area of medieval Europe, comparable to France, Germany and Catalonia, drawing on sources not readily accessible to those without specialist linguistic and literary expertise.

It addresses issues...