can be found among the tensos -- debate poems -- usually with alternating stanzas by the speakers. A few women trouvres were active in the thirteenth century, but none of their works survive with music. Some scholars have speculated that songs "in a women's voice," that is, songs in which the speaker is identified as a women, may reflect women's contributions to the lyric repertory. At the very least, these songs reflect sentiments and musical styles that seemed to their contemporaries to be appropriate for a woman. Several articles addressing such songs can be found in Vox Feminae.Women as PerformersWomen were active performers of secular music. Many women performed as amateurs, either in the home or in courtly or urban settings. Boccaccio's Decameron identifies women singing and dancing, along with their male companions, as do many of the courtly romances of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (Page, "Owl", pp. 102-106). In the romance Cleriadus et Meliadice (discussed in Page, "Performance"), for instance, girls as well as boys perform for the assembled company by harping or singing. Adults too participated actively in the festivities, first dancing their fill to the music of minstrels, then singing. "There might you have heard men and women singing well!" , says the narrator (Page, "Performance", p. 443)In addition to informal musical participation, however, women were also active as menestrelles and jongleuresses. Performers themselves, they traveled as part of small groups of entertainers, and were often wives or daughters to male minstrels. In some instances, however, women had independent roles; they were granted permission to participate in the Guild of Minstrels in Paris from 1321 to the seventeenth century.Women as PatronsThe role of the patron has often been neglected in histories of music, but a strong patron could form a center of musical production by gathering and supporting musicians of all calibers. The l...
