"The complication of opinions and ideas, of affections and habits, which prompted the chevalier to devote himself to the service of a lady, and by which he strove to prove to her his love, and to merit hers in return, was expressed, in the language of the Troubadours, by a single word, by the word domnei, a derivation of domna, which may be regarded as an alteration of the Latin domina, lady, mistress."
--C. C. FAURIEL, History of Provencal Poetry.