The Greatest Literary Emblem of the Middle Ages

In order to study the troubadours, it is of high importance to understand the context in which they flourished and developed, which was the Medieval Era. The Middle Ages is the period of European history that goes from the collapse of the Roman civilization to the beginning of the Renaissance, and it extends from about 500 to 1500 ca. (“Middle Ages”). This period is called the “Dark Ages” since it is regarded by the Renaissance scholars as a long interval of superstition, ignorance, barbarism, and social oppression due to the fact that the Medieval era was a fight to establish a new society independent from the Roman standards and philosophy. However, it is now acknowledged that it was a dynamic period, in which Europe built a new distinct cultural unit. Moreover, it profoundly reorganized the European political, social, economic, and most importantly cultural structures (“History of Europe”), but its effects greatly differ from country to country, and one of the most influenced countries was France, mainly because of its cultural, artistic (painting, architecture, literature), and…