If the romantic era left us with the image of troubadours as pale and cutesy characters, itinerant poets and the lute on their shoulders, the reality is quite different. The first of the known troubadours is a high-ranking character since it is the ninth Duke of Aquitaine, Guillaume, grandfather of Aliénor, lord of an immense territory and more powerful than the King of France himself. . A rich and complex personality, William IX was excommunicated several times for his insolence and the lightness of his morals. This did not prevent him from devoting himself to poetry and music, and he was apparently the first poet to raise the langue d'oc to a high literary level. William IX also "invents" the fin'amor, this code of courtly love where the "lady" becomes the "suzerain" of the poet in love and where feelings are now dictated by the "service of love".

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This program is certainly far from being exhaustive: more than twenty troubadours were born and worked on a territory which corresponds to current Aquitaine; they have sung for almost a hundred and fifty years, in a warm and sensual language, their veneration for women, for domna.