Folquet de Marseille was a 12th-century troubadour and Cistercian monk who later became the bishop of Toulouse. Born into a wealthy merchant family in Marseille, he first gained fame as a poet and composer of love songs. Following a religious conversion around 1195, he renounced his secular life to join the Cistercian Order. As a prelate, he played a central role in the Albigensian Crusade and worked closely with the early Dominicans to combat heresy in the Languedoc region.