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The Poetry of the Medieval Troubadour, William IX of Aquitaine: The
Songs that Built Europe offers a new edition, translation, and
critical discussion of the songs of the first European troubadour,
William IX, Duke of Aquitaine. This book argues that William and
his poetic works manifest the economic, political, and cultural
forces that laid the foundations of modern Europe, including the
subjectivities of modern westerners and the concerns and motifs of
what later became the national literatures of France, Spain,
England, Germany, and Italy. Encouraging personal freedoms,
self-definition, and the pursuit of love and happiness, the culture
of courtly love that William initiated is distinctly modern but can
also be seen to have played a key role in the subjection of
medieval Europeans to the then-emergent market economy, imperialist
ambitions of the Church, and authority of proto-national kingdoms.
As such subjection affected even the highest-ranking aristocrats,
such as William, the road of liberation of desire appears to have
been a fast lane to serfdom for everyone, perhaps the most
pre-modern feature of the modern and postmodern conditions.
People in the Middle Ages and the early modern age more often
suffered from imprisonment and enslavement than we might have
assumed. Incarceration and Slavery in the Middle Ages and the Early
Modern Age approaches these topics from a wide variety of
perspectives and demonstrates collectively the great relevance of
the issues involved. Both incarceration and slavery were (and
continue to be) most painful experiences, and no one was guaranteed
exemption from it. High-ranking nobles and royalties were often the
victims of imprisonment and, at times, had to wait many years until
their ransom was paid. Similarly, slavery existed throughout
Christian Europe and in the Arab world. However, while imprisonment
occasionally proved to be the catalyst for major writings and
creativity, slaves in the Ottoman empire and in Egypt succeeded in
rising to the highest position in society (Janissaries, Mamluks,
and others).
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