Parody marks the troubadour lyric from the outset, informing composition, performance and reception. This ground-breaking study moves away from courtliness, the focus of most previous studies, and places troubadour parodic practice in the context of the social and spiritual debates of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Occitania. Leglu analyses the complex relationship between troubadour verse and the Aquitainian para-liturgical Latin corpus. She charts the development of a chain of texts linked by a common formal model derived from this Latin sequence and traces patterns of rewriting, ranging from scurrilous attacks, through playful competition, to recuperation of the sacred content in serious parody.