Introduction to Occitan Society during the Troubadours (by L. Patterson)

With this post I would like to give an introduction to the Troubadour Culture with the help of a short article.
The Occitan society during the time of the Troubadours from the the book 'The world of the Troubadours" by Linda Paterson.

"At the time of the troubadours, Occitan society is remarkable for its diversity as much as for its distinctive traits. At all levels it manifests a multiplicity of social groups, in variety of regions and geographical environments. But at the risk of over-simplifying, it is perhaps possible to identify certain salient features. One is a relative openness to exchange with foreigners and those of other cultures and faiths. A second is a relative absence of personal subjection. This applies to relations not only between aristocrats, but also between lords and ordinary knights who seem more likely to be waged than bound by vassalic obligations; even for peasants, burdened by taxes but rarely labour services, subjection may seem less immediate than elsewhere. An expanding mercantile economy touches social relations at all levels, producing opportunities for social mobility, and creating new oligarchies and economic casualties, though relatively few violent upheavals. Emphasis lies on practical rather than theoretical concern, whether in warfare, law or medicine. Woman, as elsewhere face misogyny, exclusion and coercion; but in Occitania they have some power and influence, a voice, albeit problematic, and social freedoms less accepted in other parts of Europe. In this courtly rather than chivalrous society, despite some signs of hostility to parvenus, knights show little sign of forming closed socio-juridical class. Taken together with a tolerance of dissident religious opinion, this suggests that Occitan society, rather than being "fractured' , was not subject to serious tensions that provoke the creation of social scapegoats. The most difficult fault line, the crack between clergy and laity, seems to have resulted from the inept authoritarian intrusion of the Gregorian 'Reform'. Occitonia was not Utopia, nor was it free from Original Sin.
But is was the first spectacular causality of the 'formation of a persecuting society', the victim of a desire on the part of outsiders to dominate and control"

It show that a strict feudal system was not present yet and was a product of Northern France.