[OF. trovere, -eur, truveur (12th c. in Godef.), F. trouvère, trouveur (= Prov. trobaire), f. trouver: cf. TROUBADOUR.] One of a school of poets who flourished in Northern France from the 11th to the 14th c., whose works are chiefly epic in character. They produced the chansons de geste, fabliaux, etc. Cf. TROUBADOUR.
1795. Southey, Joan of Arc, IV. 175. Meantime the Trouveur struck the harp; he sung Of Lancelot Du Lake.
1833. Longf., Outre-Mer, Prose Wks. 1886, I. 94. The great mass of the poetry of the Trouvères is of a narrative or epic character.
1838. Hannah Lawrance, Queens of England, I. Pref. v. The poetry of the trouvère, listened to and patronized, both by the beautiful Adelais and Elinor of Aquitaine, seemed imperatively to claim admission into a work devoted alike to the early literature, and the queens of England.
1887. Lowell, Old Eng. Dram. (1892), 7. One French Miracle Play of the thirteenth century, by the trouvère Rutebeuf.
1889. Doyle, Micah Clarke, 208. A king of bards and trouveurs.
