trouvère

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun One of a class of poet-musicians flourishing in northern France in the 1100s and 1200s, who composed chiefly narrative works, such as the chansons de geste, in langue d'oïl.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun One of the medieval poets or northern France, whose productions partake of a narrative or epic character, and thus contrast broadly with the lyrical, amatory, and more polished effusions of the troubadours.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun One of a school of poets who flourished in Northern France from the eleventh to the fourteenth century.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A medieval lyric poet using the Northern langue d’oïl (precursor dialects of modern French), as opposed to their older, southern example, the original troubadours, who used langue d’oc (Occitan)