Pel Doutz Chan:

Troubadours and Trouveres Theorizing the Psychological Effects of Song

In attempting to study the art of the troubadours, musicologists and literary scholars alike have sought to isolate the song: to separate the lyric from the dangerous speculations as to the psychological state of the composer or hypothetical effects on listeners’ mental states, and this is nothing less than good scholarship.  However, considering what the troubadours themselves say about lyric and mental states, sound scholarly practice means leaving unattended that very area which these poet-lovers highlight: the interlacing of the subject’s emotions, the song produced, and the desired reception. 

The troubadours and trouvères explicitly discuss the way their songs are born, the nature of their art form, and the effects they expect their lyric to have on the listener.  Regardless of the veracity of their claims— that is, does it really work the way they say—there is much to learn from examining those places where these composers discuss their own idea of what the relationship between their art and experience is.