The World of the Troubadours

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. 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 that lay behind the poetic mystique. For historians it opens up an important and neglected area of medieval Europe.
'This is a book of major importance to all medievalists ... The world of the troubadours successfully challenges or at leaxst questions many of the received orthodoxies about the South of France ... Dr Paterson's erudition and grasp of her subject are enviable, and she has produced a book which will certainly become a classic in its field.' The Times Literary Supplement