Francis received some elementary instruction from the priests of st. george 's at assisi , though he learned more perhaps in the school of the troubadours , who were just then making for refinement in italy .
From the animal fables that are as old as we are able to imagine , and the parables of the bible ; from sagas and epics , from the songs of troubadours and trouveres , all the way to our most characteristic form , the novel , we have used stories and storytelling .
Moreover , the enormous national tragedy ( and national guilt ) of stalinism has never been fully explored and atoned for , corrupting the entire moral enterprise , just as the glasnost troubadours so passionately warned .
Outside the structured confines of church music the secular troubadours of provence the trouveres of northern france and southern england the story-telling jongleurs among the peasantry and the minnesingers in germany also made valuable contributions to the art .
