A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word troubadour is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz.
The troubadour Perdigon playing his fiddle.
William IX of Aquitaine portrayed as a knight, who first composed poetry on returning from the Crusade of 1101
Musicians in the time of the Cantigas de Santa Maria. These were in the court of the king, two vielle players and one citoler.
Courtly love was a medieval European literary conception of love that emphasized nobility and chivalry. Medieval literature is filled with examples of knights setting out on adventures and performing various deeds or services for ladies because of their "courtly love". This kind of love was originally a literary fiction created for the entertainment of the nobility, but as time passed, these ideas about love spread to popular culture and attracted a larger literate audience. In the high Middle Ages, a "game of love" developed around these ideas as a set of social practices. "Loving nobly" was considered to be an enriching and improving practice.
Warfare imagery: the Siege of the Castle of Love on an ivory mirror-back, possibly Paris, ca. 1350–1370 (Musée du Louvre)
Courtly vignettes on an ivory mirror-case, first third of the 14th century (Musée du Louvre)