Chansons de Toile, songs from women’s room in Middle Ages - Ensemble Ligeriana, Dir. Katia Caré

Ensemble: Ligeriana, Dir. Katia Caré Album: Chansons de Toile, tales of belles ‘Aiglentine, Beatris, Ysabiauz’ (XIIth et XIIIth centuries) • In the late twelfth and early thirteenth century the trouvères, musicians and poets from the north of France, devise the Chanson de toile, a genre of narrative old French lyric poetry. Typically, the lyrics of the compositions tell the story of a young, often married woman pining for a lover, with a happy ending. The genre’s name derives from toile; that is, they are supposed to have been sung by women who were weaving, and the female main characters also sew as they relate their stories. Some fifteen of them remain; five were written by Audefroi le Bastart, the others are anonymous, it also suggests that since the woman’s voice in the chanson de toile is so prominent some of them may have been composed by women. Musically some of them are quite ornate, considering the relatively simple narrative.