trouvères

Trouvère , sometimes spelled trouveur , is the Northern French (langue d'oïl) form of the langue d'oc (Occitan) word trobador. It refers to poet-composers who were roughly contemporary with and influenced by the troubadours (composers and performers of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages) but who composed their works in the northern dialects of France. The first known trouvère was Chrétien de Troyes (fl. 1160s-80s) (Butterfield, 1997) and the trouvères continued to flourish until about 1300. Some 2130 trouvère poems have survived; of these, at least two-thirds have melodies.