Love songs that are secretly prayers. A dawn song that started in a monastery. A troubadour who became a bishop and persecuted heretics. Medieval singer Evgeny Skurat and instrumentalist Danil Ryabchikov join me from Montenegro to explore the hidden sacred side of troubadour music, and to perform it.We usually think of the troubadours as poets of courtly love, endlessly pining after women they couldn't have. But of the roughly 260 troubadour songs that survive with their melodies, some are outright prayers, and many more are soaked in monastic and liturgical imagery. Yevgeny and Daniil have spent over fifteen years performing this repertoire, and their latest program takes a radically different approach: soft, intimate, and sung in church acoustics, closer to how the noble and monastic world that produced this music might have heard it.We talk about who the troubadours actually were (and why they weren't wandering bards), why medieval jongleurs were told they had no hope of salvation, troubadour ”rap battles” and female troubadours (the trobairitz), crusade songs, and the enueg, the medieval ”annoyance song.” We get into how troubadour music was notated, how you reconstruct rhythm from poetry, Pythagorean tuning, and how you accompany a melody when the manuscript gives you nothing but the tune, using the citole, chifonie, and guitarra latina.Then we turn to the bigger picture: monasteries as medieval hotels, the conductus and Unicornis captivatur, the Goliards and the 12th-century renaissance, why Kotor in Montenegro sits on the fault line between East and West, Beneventan chant and its Byzantine borrowings, whether the troubadours were secret Cathars, and how songs like Reis glorios use quotations of chant to give a love song a sacred meaning.CHAPTERS00:00 Cold open: Welcome to the Medieval World01:47 Welcome, Evgeny Skurat & Danil Ryabchikov02:03 sacred troubadour music?02:31 Who were the troubadours?04:46 Troubadours vs. trouvères05:24 Not wandering bards: troubadours vs. jongleurs06:54 Can medieval musicians be saved?08:21 Were troubadour songs all about unattainable women?09:04 Pastourelles, trobairitz & troubadour ”rap battles”12:27 Crusade songs & Bertran de Born13:59 The enueg: 13th-century country music14:39 The sacred troubadour project15:37 The alba, an anti-war song & troubadour prayers17:50 How troubadour music was notated19:11 Reconstructing rhythm from the poetry20:27 Modes & Byzantine parallels22:10 Pythagorean tuning23:08 How do you accompany a melody with no accompaniment?26:54 Drones & ”doodles in the margins”29:55 Where do you get medieval instruments?32:18 Vielle, harp & the jongleur's instrument list34:29 Ornamentation & melodic formulas36:03 Was the hurdy-gurdy a monastic instrument?38:08 Monasteries as medieval hotels39:43 A soft, intimate approach in church acoustics41:26 Unicornis captivatur & the conductus43:43 Goliards, Abelard & the 12th-century renaissance45:43 Why Montenegro? Kotor between East & West49:02 Beneventan, Old Roman & the chant traditions52:28 Byzantine melodies in Beneventan chant59:55 Were the troubadours secret Cathars?1:03:59 Marcabru & songs against Rome1:05:54 How text and music fit together1:06:46 Reis glorios & hidden sacred meanings1:09:58 What is an alba? Phebi claro1:12:41 Script vs. performance: music and text as one1:14:45 Performing melismas & proportion1:18:23 Historically informed vs. ”folk medieval”1:19:15 How audiences have received it1:20:20 The Tollite Portas festival & Kotor's Venetian wind bands1:23:17 How Yevgeny & Daniil met1:24:07 What's next: Slavonic chant in Freiberg1:25:11 The legend of the vanishing organ1:27:09 ClosingEVGENY SKURAT: https://chronosart.bandcamp.com/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrWFuo-zMbVXGronlsjuaQDANIIL RABCHIKOV: https://www.danilryabchikov.com/enTOLLITE PORTAS – KOTOR EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL: https://www.tolliteportas.me/