A senhal is a codename used to address ladies, patrons and friends in the Old Occitan poetry of the troubadours.
[2] Senhals appear in the earliest troubadours works, those of Duke William IX of Aquitaine in the early twelfth century.
[2] Guilhem Molinier's prose Leys d'amors states as a rule that troubadours should adopt their own senhals, which thus functioned more as signatures of the poets than identifiers of others.
It has been linked by Martín de Riquer to classical practice, as in the case of the Lesbia of Catullus or the Cynthia of Propertius.
It has also been linked to the practice of nicknames at the court of Charlemagne and to the kināya of contemporary Andalusi poetry.