Trobairitz

[6] The trobairitz were part of courtly society, as opposed to their lower class counterparts the joglaressas.

[8] The names of about twenty female poets from the 12th and 13th centuries survive, with an estimated thirty-two works attributed to the trobairitz.

It was only in later Italian and Catalan chansonniers that the works of the trobairitz were found in different sections than those of their male counterparts.

[11] Throughout the 13th century, women of the court were expected to be able to sing, play instruments, and write jocs partis, or partimen (a debate or dialogue in the form of a poem).

[12] The trobairitz may also have arisen due to the power women held in southern France during the 12th and 13th centuries.

Nevertheless, this society was not "feminist", nor was fin' amor, which exalted women while at the same time circumscribing many aspects of their lives and behavior.

[16] Judging by what survives today, the trobairitz wrote no pastorelas or malmariee songs, unlike their troubadour counterparts.

Comtessa de Dia demonstrates this in her poem Fin ioi me don'alegranssa, stating that "Fin ioi me dona alegranssa/per qu'eu chan plus gaiamen," translated as "Happiness brings me pure joy/which makes me sing more cheerfully.

In the courtly love tradition it was common for poems to be written as an exchange of letters, or a debate, as in a tenso.

There is some debate as to whether or not the poems by the trobairitz represent genuine feminine voices, since they worked within the highly circumscribed conventions of the troubadours.

By manipulating the strict constructs of troubadour lyric, the trobairitz were able to create their own "fictions of the female voice".

Some controversy surrounds the works of the Bieiris de Romans, as scholars have suggested that her canso expresses "lesbian desire.