Troubadours 

Troubadours were poet musicians. They did not write religious poems. They wrote romances about knights and ladies. These romances were told in the form of poems set to music. Their songs were very popular because they were about love and heroes and chivalry. 

Troubadours probably helped to create chivalry. Their stories were so loved that the knights seemed eager to live up to the image they created. The troubadours made it up and the knights made it real. 

These musicians would go from town to town, playing love songs. They might also play drums, harps, and bagpipes, which were all popular instruments of the times. 

Troubadours created and memorized their own music. If they heard a good son, they memorized it and performed it. Credit was not given to the composer of a piece they were playing. The church taught that God would be unhappy if composers took credit for their work. 

But, during medieval times, only religious music was written down and saved. Secular music was not.  The music of the troubadours is lost forever. But their legacy lives on. Thanks to the troubadours, knowledge and development of the code of chivalry was spread, and modern manners were born.

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