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JBequcst  of 

1Re\>.  1b,  <L  Scabbing,  D.B. 

to  tbc  ILibrarg 
of  tbe 

IDinivereit?  of  Toronto 

1901 


BEQUEST  OF 

REV.  CANON  SCABBING,  D.  D. 
TORONTO.    1901. 


HISTORY 


OF 


PROVENCAL  POETRY: 

BY    C.    C.    FAURIEL, 


LATE  MEMBER  OF  THE  INSTITUTE  OP  FRANCE. 


from  % 


WITH  OCCASIONAL  NOTES  AND  REFERENCES  TO  THE  AUTHORITIES 
CITED  OR  ALLUDED  TO  IN  THE  VOLUME, 

SPECIMENS  OF  YEKSES  IN  THE   ORIGINAL, 

AND  AN  INTRODUCTION  ON  THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF 
PROVENyAL  POETRY. 

BY  G.  J.  ADLER,  A.M., 

LATE  PROFESSOR  OF  THE  GERMAN  LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OP   THE  CITY 

OF  NEW  YORK. 


'Versi  d'amore  e  prose  di  romanzi." 

DANTE. 


NEW    YORK: 
DEEBY  &  JACKSON,  498  BKOADWAY 

I860. 


ENTERED,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1860,  by 

G.    J.    ABLER, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  Southern  District 
of  New  York. 


V\".  H.  TIXSON,  PRINTER  AND  STKBBOTYPER, 
R«nr  of  43  &  46  Centre  St.,  N.  Y. 


LIST  OF  THE  SUBSCRIBERS, 

ALPHABETICALLY  ARRANGED. 


Copies. 

Adee,  G.  T.  ,  N.  Y.  ............................  1 

Alexander,  J.  W.,  D.D.,  N.  Y  ..............  1 

Allen,  W.  M.,  N.  Y       .................  1 

Alofsen,  Hon.  S.,  N.  J  ......................  1 

Alstyne,  John,  N.  Y  ........................  1 

Anderson,  A.  T.,  Esq.,  N.  Y  .................  1 

Amory,  Charles,  Mass  ......................  5 

Anthon,  Charles  E.,  Prof.,  N.  Y  .............  1 

Anthon,  Geo.  C.,  N.  Y  ....................  1 

Anthon,  Henry,  D.D.,  N.  Y  .................  1 

AppletonD.  &  Co.,  N.  Y  ....................  5 

Aspinwall,  W.  H.,  N.  Y  ..................  ...  1 

Aycrigg,  B.  B.,  N.  J  .......................  1 

Aycrigg,  Charles,  N.  J  ......................  1 

Aycrigg,  Mrs.  Jane,  N.  J  ...................  1 

Aycrigg,  J.  G.,  N.  J  ........................  1 

Bancroft,  Hon.  George,  N.  Y  ...............  1 

Barney,  Hiram,  Esq.,  N.  Y  ..................  1 

Bartlett,  C.,  N.  Y  .........................  1 

Beadle,  Edward  S.,  M.D.,  N.  Y  ..............  1 

Bedford,  G.  S.,  M.D.,  N.  Y  ..................  1 

Beekman,  Hon.  J.  W.,  N.  Y  .............  _____  1 

Bellows,  H.  W.,  D  D.,  N.  Y  .................  1 

Benedict,  Hon.  E.  C.,  N.  Y  ..................  1 

Benjamin,  H.  E.,  N.  Y 


,     .     .,     .     ...................... 

Betts,  G.  F.,  Esq  ............................  1 

Blunt,  G.  W.,  N.  Y  ........................  1 

Betts,  William,  L.L.D.,  N.  Y  ................  1 

Bowman,  S.  S.,  N.  Y  .......................  1 

Bowne,  R.  H.,  Esq.,  N.  Y  ..................  1 

Bradford,  A.  W.,  LL.D.,  N.  Y  ...............  1 

Brandis,  H.  M.,  M.D.,  N.  Y  .................  1 

Brevoort,  Hon.  J.  Carson,  N.  Y  .............  1 

Brodhead,  J.  R  ,  N.  Y  ......................  1 

Brooks,  Rev.  C.  T.,  R.  1  ....................  1 

Brown,  D.  T.,  M.D.,  N.  Y  ...................  1 


Copies. 

DePeyster,  J.  P.,  N.  Y ..  1 

Detmold,  William,  M.D.,  N.  Y 1 

Dix,  Chas.  T.,  N.  Y 1 

Docharty,  Prof.  G.  B.,  N.  Y 1 

Donnelly,  Edw.  C.,  N.  Y .  1 

Doremus,  Prof.  R.  0.,  M.D.,  N.  Y 5 


Downer,  P.  W.,  N.  Y. . . 


10 


Drisler,  Prof.  Henry,  N.  Y  ..............  1 

Duyckinck,  E.  A.,  N.  Y  ....................  2 

Duyckinck,  G.  L.,  N.  Y  .....................  2 

Eaton,  D.  J.,  Esq.,  N.  Y  ................  1 

Edgar,  D.  M.,  N.  Y  .........................  1 

Ehninger,  Jno.  W.,  N.  Y  ....................  1 

Emerson,  Wm.,  Esq.,  N.  Y  ..................  2 

Eno,  Amos  P.,  N.  Y  .........................  1 

Evarts,  Wm.  M.,  Esq.,  N.  Y  .................  1 

Everett,  Hon.  Edw.,  Mass  ..............  1 

Farley,F.  K.  A.,  D.D.,  N.  Y  ................  1 

Felt,  W.  L.  Esq.,  N.  Y  ......................  5 

Felton,  Pres.  C.  C.,  Mass  ...................  1 

Ferris,  W.  L.,  N.  Y  .........................  1 

Field,  David  D.,  Esq.,  N.  Y  .................  1 

Folsom,  Hon.  Geo.,  N.  Y  ................  2 

Forbes,  R.  W.,  M.D  ,  N.  Y  ................  1 

Francis,  J.  W.,  M.D.,  N.  Y 


French,  E.,  N.  Y  ......................  1 

Gardner,  Aug.  C.,  M.D.,  N.  Y  ...............  1 

Geisenhainer,  P.  W.,  Esq.,  N.  Y  ..........  1 

Gescheidt,  A.,  M.D.,N.  Y  ...................  1 

Gibbs,  Prof.  Wolcott,  N.  Y  .................  1 


Gillespie,  G.  H.,  N.  Y 1 

Gillespie,  Prof.  W.  M.,  N.  Y 1 

Godwin,  Parke,  N.  Y 1 

Goodrich,  Hon.  S.  G.,  N.  Y 1 

Gould,  Charles,  N.  Y 1 

Gould, Edward  S.,  N.  Y 1 

Brown,  H.  W.,  M.D'.,  N.  Y...  .     2  I  Grant,  S.  H.,  N.  Y 1 

Brown,  Wm.  J.   N.  Y  1  I  Gray,  J.  F.,  M.D.,  N.  Y 1 

Bruce,  Geo.,  N.  Y 1    Green,  Pres.  Horace,  M.D.,  N.  Y 1 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  N.  Y 1  i  Greene,  Prof.  C.  W.,  N.  Y 1 

Burril,  C.  D.,  Esq.,  N.  Y 1  j  Greene,  B.  D.,  Mass 2 

Butler,  W.  A.,  Esq  ,  N.  Y 1  '  Gunther,  C.  G.  &  Sons,  N.  Y 2 


Campbell,  John,  N.  Y 1 

Campbell,  Malcolm,  Esq.,  N.  Y 1 

Carnes,  Fred.  G.,  Esq.,  N.  Y 2 

Carnochan,  Prof.  J.  M.,  M.  D.,  N.  Y 1 

Carpenter,  Rev.  H.  S  ,  N.  Y 1 


Chapin,  Rev.  E.  H.,  D.D..  N.  Y. 

Chauncey,  William,  N.  Y , 

Chichester,  Abn.,  N.  Y 

Child,  Prof.  F.  J.  Ph.  D.,  Mass 

Christern,  F.  W.,  N.  Y 

Clark,  Prof.  N.  G.,  Vt 

Clarke,  Geo.  W.,  N.  Y 

Clarkson  &  Potter,  Esqs.  N.  Y 

Cogswell,  J.  G.,  LL.D.,  N.  Y 

Columbia  College  Library 

Congdon,  Charles,  N.  Y 

Cooper,  Peter,  N.  Y 

Cozzens,  Fred.  S.,  N.  Y , 

Cronkhite,  J.  P.,  N.  Y 

Cummings,  H.  R.,  Esq.,  N.  Y , 

Daly,  Judge  C.  P.,  N.  Y.., 


Jay,  John,  Esq.,  N.Y 


,  .     .,     .      

Davies,  Prof.  C.,  N.  Y 1 

Davies,  Judge  H.  E.,  N.  Y 1 

Davis,Alex.  J.,  N.  Y 1 

Dean,  Hon.  Amos,  N.  Y 1 

De  Forest,  H.  G.,  Esq.,  N.  Y 1 

Dennis,  Edward,  N.  Y 1  , 

De  Peyster.  Fred.,  N.  Y 1    Joslin,  B.  P.,  L.L.D.  N.  Y 2 


Habicht,  C.  E.,  N.  Y  .......................  1 

Hackley,  Prof.  C.  W.,  N.  Y  .................  1 

Haight,  Edward,  N.  Y  ......................  1 

Haight,  Richard,  N.  Y  ......................  1 

Hall,  A.  0.,  Esq.,  N.  Y  ...................  2 

Hall,  Val.  G.,  N.  Y  .........................  1 

Halsted,  W.  M.,  Jr.,  N.  Y  ...................  1 

Harper  &  Brothers,  N.  Y  ...................  1 

Harrington,  T.  B  &  Bro.,  N.  Y  ..............  1 

Hawks,  Rev.  Francis  L.,  D.D.,  N.  Y  .........  1 

Heckscher,  Charles  A.,  N.  Y  ................  1 

Higbee,'Ed.  Y.,  D.D.,  N.  Y  .........  .  .......  1 

Hicks,  Thomas,  N.  Y  .......................  1 

Hix,  W.  F.,  N.  Y  ...........................  1 

Hosack,  Alex.  E.,  M.D,  N.  Y  ...............  1 

Houghton,  Rev.  G.  H.,  D.D.,  N.  Y  ...........  1 

Hubbard,  S.  M.,  N.  Y  ......................  8 

Huntington,  Prof,  D.D.,  Mass  ..............  2 

Huntington,  D.,  N.  Y  .......................  1 

Button,  B.  H.,  N.  Y  ........................  1 

Irving,  Pierre  M.,  N.  Y  .....................  1 


,  .,     .      ..................... 

Irving,  William,  N.  Y  ......................     1 

Irwin,  Richard,  N.  Y  .......................     1 


jay,  tfonn,  r.sq.,  at.  J. 2 

Johnson,  Henry,  N.  Y 1 

Johnston,  J.  T.,  N.  Y 1 

Jones,  Edward,  N.  Y 1 


IV 


List  of  Subscribers. 


Copies. 

Joslin,  B.F.,Jr..  MD,N.  Y 2 

Joy,  Prof.  C.  A.,  N.  Y 2 

Kennedy,  R  L  ,  N.  Y 1 

Kensett,  J.  F.,  N.  Y 1 

Kent,  Judge  William,  N.  Y 1 

Keyser,E.,N.Y  1 

King,  Pres.  Charles,  LL.D,  N.  Y 1 

L ,  C.  M.,  N.  Y 1 

L ,D.W.,  N,  Y 1 

Lane,  Prof.  Ph.D.,  Mass 8 

Lang,  Louis,  N.  Y 1 

Lawrence,  D.  L.,  N.  Y 1 

Lawson,  James,  Esq.,  N.  Y 1 

Lee,  Wm.  P.,  Esq  ,  N.  Y 1 

Le  Roy,  T.  O.,  N.  Y 1 

Leslie,  Frank,  N.  Y 1 

Lester,  C.  E.,  N.  Y 1 

Lewis.Prof.  Tayler,N.Y 1 

Lexow,  Rudolph,  N.  Y 1 

Lieber,  Prof.  Francis,  LL.D.,  N.  Y 1 

Lockwood,  Miss  C.  J.  Conn 1 

Lockwood,  P.  C.,  N.  Y 2 

Longfellow,  Prof.  H.  W  ,  Mass 2 

Lord,  Benj.,  M.D.,  N.  Y 1 

Lowell,  Prof.  J.  R  ,  Mass 1 

Low,  A.  A.,  N.  Y 1 

McClintock,  John,  D.D.,  N.  Y 1 

McElligott,  Jas.  N.,  LL.D.,  N.  Y 1 

Mali,  Cons.  H.  W.  J.,  N.  Y 1 

Mason,  Prof.  Cyrus,  N.  Y 2 

Mannion,  R.  B.,  N.  Y 1 

Martin,  R.  W.,  Esq  ,  N.  Y 1 

Marsh,  Hon.  G.  P.,  Vt 1 

Marshall,  Elliot,  Miss 1 

Martin,  Wm.  R  ,  Esq.,  N.  Y 1 

Matthews,  Cornelius,  N.  Y 1 

Mayo,  W.  S  ,  N.  Y 1 

Melville,  Herman,  Mass 1 

Merc.  Library  Association,  N.  Y 1 

Merc.  Library  Association  of  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.  1 

Merrick,  Thos.  B.,  N.  Y 1 

Minturn,  R.  B  ,  N.  Y 1 

Minelly,  D.,  N.  Y 1 

Mitchell,  J.  P.,  Esq.,  N.  Y 1 

Mitchell,  Judge  Wm.,  N.  Y 1 

Moore,  Frank,  N.  Y 1 

Moore,  Prof.  Geo.  H.,  N.  Y 1 

Morgan,  Mathew,  N.  Y., 1 

Morris,  C.  D.,  A.M  ,  N.  Y 1 

Morris,  F.,  N.  Y 1 

Morris,  Gen.  G.  P.,  N.  Y 1 

Morris,  Richard  L.,  N.Y..'....* 1 

Mount,  R.  E,  Esq,  N.  Y 1 

Nairne,  Prof.  C.  M.,  N.  Y 1 

Norsworthy,  Miss  F.,  N.  Y 1 

Noyes,  W.  C.,  LL.D..  N.  Y 1 

Oakley,  Henry  A.,  N.  Y 1 

Oothout,  H.,  N.  Y 1 

Opdyke,  Geo.,  N.  Y 1 

Orne,  Wm.  W.,  N.  Y 1 

Osgood,  S.,  D.D.,  N  Y 1 

Owen,  Prof.  John,  N.  Y 1 

Parker,  Geo.  S.,  N.  Y 1 

Pell,  Alfred,  N.  Y 1 

Peters,  J.  C.,  M.D.,  N.  Y 1 

Pierrepont,  H  V.,  N.  Y 1 

Pierson,  Henry  L.,  N.  Y 1 

Pignolet,  Louis  H.,  Esq.,  N.  Y 1 


riuuuici'.  MVUAA    u..  «U*MM  - 

Platt,  Jno.  H.,  Esq.,  N.  Y. 
Platt,  W.  H.,  N.  Y... 


Platt,  W.  H.,  N.  Y 1 

Poor,  H.  VM  N.  Y 1 

Post,  Prof.  A.  C.,M.D.,  N.  Y 1 

Post,  Minturn,  M.D.,  N.  Y 1 

Prescott,  Wm.  II.,  Mass 8 

Putnam,  Geo.  P.,  N.  Y 8 

Quackenbos,  G.  P.,  N.  Y 1 

Randolph,  A.  D.  F.,  N.  Y 1 

Read,  T.  B.,  N.  Y 1 

Reid,  James  G.,  N.  Y 1 


Copies. 

Renwick,  Prof.  Jas,  N.  Y .1 

Richards.  P.,  Jr.,  N.  Y..... 

Richardson,  C.  B.,  N.  Y 

Robbins,  G.  S.,  N.  Y 

Roelker,  Bernard,  Esq.,  N.  Y 

Roemer,  Prof.  J.,  N.  Y . 

Rossiter,  J.  P.,  N.  Y .  1 

Russell,  Archd,  N.Y...  1 

Russell,  C.  H,  N.  Y .  1 

Rutherford,  Louis  M.,  N.  Y. . .  .1 

Sands,  A.  L.,  M.D.,  N.Y 1 

Sands,  Chas.  E.,  N.  Y 1 

Sawyer,  Rev.  Thomas  J.,  N.  Y. . . .  .1 

Schmidt,  J.  W.,  C.G.,  N.Y 1 

Schmidt,  Louis  W.,  N.  Y 2 

Schuchardt,  F.,  N.  Y .  1 

Scribner,  Chas.,  N.Y... .                                  .  2 

Scudder,  H.  J.,  Esq.,  N.  Y 1 

Sedwick,  Jno.,  Esq  ,  N.  Y .  1 

Selden,  Hon.  H.  R.,  N.  Y. . .                             .  1 

Seton,  A.  L.,  N.  Y .  1 

Seymoure,  M.  L  ,  N.  Y 1 

Sheldon  &  Blakeman,  N.Y 1 

Schieffelin,  S.  B.,  N.  Y 1 

Slosson,  Judge  John,  N.  Y. . .                           .  1 

Smith,  Rev.  A.  D.,  N.  Y 1 

Smith,  E.  Delafield,  Esq.,  N.  Y 1 

Sneckner,  Wm.  N.  Y....                                    .  I 

Squier,  E.  G.,  N.  Y ....  1 

Stephens,  B.,  Jr.,  Esq.,  N.  Y 1 

Stevens,  J.  A.,  Jr.,  N.Y...                                .  1 

Stillwell,  H.  H.,  N.  Y 1 

Strong,  W.R.  N.  Y 1 

Stuart,  R.  L  ,  N.  Y. . .  .1 

Supple,  P.,  N.  Y .  1 

Swan,  Benj  L.,  N.  Y 1 

Tallmadge,  F.  A.,  Esq.,  N.  Y 1 

Thompson,  J.,  N.  Y 1 

Thompson,  John  H  ,  N.  Y 1 

Ticknor,  Prof.  Geo.,  Mass 2 

Tomes,  Robert,  M.  D  ,  N.  Y 1 

Torrey,  John,  M.D.,  N.  Y 1 

Townsend,  John,  Jr.,  Esq.,  N   Y 1 

Townsend,  Robert,  Esq.,  N.  Y 1 

Townsend,  S.  P.,  N.  Y 1 

Tracy,  Frederic,  N,Y .  1 

Treadwell,  E.,  N.  Y 1 

Tuckerman,  H.  T.,  N.  Y 1 

Vail,  M.  M.,  Esq  ,  N.  Y 1 


Van  Cott,  J?  M  ,  Esq  ,  N.'  Y.'. '. . '. . '. . '. '. '. .'.'.'.'..'.  1 

Vandervoort,  J.  B  ,  N.  Y 1 

Van  Doren,  C.  A,  N.  Y 1 

Van  Doren,  M.  D.,  M.D.,  N.  Y 1 

Van  Renselaer,  H,  N.  Y...  .  1 


Van  Schaick,  H.  Esq.,  N.  Y. . .  .    1 

Van  Schaick,  P.  C.,  N.  Y 1 

Verplanck,  G.  C  ,  N.  Y 1 

Vose,  John  G.  Esq.,  N.  Y 

Ward,  Thomas,  M.D  ,  N  Y., 

Warner,  L.  T.,  M.D.,  N.  Y 

Warren,  Richard,  N.Y 

Waterbury,  L.,  N.  Y 

Watson,  John,  M.D.,  N.Y 

Webb,  J.  Watson,  N.  Y. . . 

Webb,  Mrs.  W.  H.,  N.Y 

Webster,  Pres.  Horace,  L.L.D.,  N.  Y 

Werner,  Jacob  J..  N.  Y 

Westermann,  B.,  N.  Y 

White,  Norman,  N.  Y 

Wight,  0.  W.,  N.  Y 

Willett,  D.  M.,  Esq.,  N.Y  

Williams,  W.  R  ,  D.D.,  N  Y 

Willis,  R.  S.,  N.  Y 

Winthrop,  H.  B.,  Esq.,  N.  Y 

Wolfe,  John  D.,  N.  Y 

Wolfe,  John,  N.  Y 

Woodman,  Webster,  N.Y 

Wynkoop,  M.  B. ,  N.  Y 

Zerega,  A.,  N.  Y 


PREFACE 


THE  preparation  of  the  work  here  offered  to  the  American 
reader  in  his  vernacular  English  was  undertaken  some  six  years 
ago,  and  constituted  the  occupation,  or  rather  the  amusement, 
of  a  temporary  interruption  of  my  professional  existence  by  the 
disorderly  proceedings  of  certain  parties  in  the  city  here. 

It  was  a  subject,  into  which  some  years  before  I  had  made 
some  inquiries,  in  the  country  itself  to  which  it  more  especially 
relates,  and  in  which,  during  the  last  forty  years,  it  has  been 
treated  with  such  distinguished  ability  and  success. 

I  found,  however,  when  I  offered  my  manuscript  for  publi- 
cation, an  utter  indifference  to  my  undertaking,  and  the  appre- 
hension of  too  limited  a  sale  for  a  work  on  a  Jiterature  so  little 
known,  not  only  on  the  part  of  publishers,  but  even  among  cer- 
tain professed  judges  in  their  confidence  or  employ,  frustrated 
every  attempt  I  made  to  get  it  into  type  for  several  years. 

Although  this  indifference  was  not  so  surprising  to  me,  when 
I  recollected,  that  the  subject  of  the  book  was  never  a  popular 
one  in  the  English  language,  as  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact, 
that  nothing  of  any  account  has  ever  been  written  on  it  except 
in  France,  Germany,  and  Italy,  yet  I  could  not  divest  myself 
of  the  impression,  that  there  was  a  sufficient  number  of  edu- 
cated men  and  women  of  the  English  idiom  in  this  part  of  the 
world,  to  warrant  the  publication  of  a  work,  like  the  one  I  con- 
templated giving,  connected  as  it  is  with  one  of  the  most  curi- 
ous and  poetical  periods  of  the  history  of  our  civilization. 


vi  Preface. 

It  was  under  this  conviction,  that  in  the  autumn  of  1858,  I 
announced  in  a  circular  my  intention  to  publish  it  by  subscrip- 
tion. This  notice  was  at  once  responded  to  by  several  gentle- 
men of  distinction  in  letters,  chiefly  from  Massachusetts  and 
this  city,  and  the  encouragement  thus  held  out  induced  me  to 
open  a  subscription-list,  which  through  the  aid  of  some  of  my 
friends  here  I  kept  increasing,  until  I  found  myself  in  posses- 
sion of  a  sufficient  guaranty  for  the  production  of  a  limited 
edition  on  my  own  account.  I  take  pleasure  to  express,  in  this 
connection,  my  obligations  to  a  number  of  my  friends,  and 
more  particularly  to  Messrs.  E.  A.  Duyckinck  and  Willard  L. 
Felt,  of  this  city,  for  a  variety  of  favors  extended  to  me  in 
behalf  of  this  subscription. 

The  occasional  leisure,  afforded  me  by  the  long  delay  of  pub- 
lication, enabled  me  to  institute  some  additional  examinations 
into  the  original  authorities,  from  which  the  author  derived 
the  materials  for  the  composition  of  his  work,  and  the  result  of 
which  I  hoped  might  prove  %  source  of  pleasure  and  profit  to 
the  more  earnest  and  inquisitive  student  of  literary  history.  I 
have  thus  endeavored,  in  the  notes  at  the  foot  of  the  page 
marked  Ed.,  to  trace  the  references  and  allusions  to  other 
authors,  either  literary  or  historical,  to  the  particular  works  or 
passages  in  which  they  may  be  found,  in  order  to  enable  the 
student  to  consult  them  at  his  leisure,  and  I  have  moreover 
given  many  of  the  passages  translated  or  alluded  to,  in  the  ori- 
ginal Latin,  Greek,  German,  Scandinavian,  Provencal,  or  what- 
ever else  it  may  have  been. 

At  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  W.  C.  Bryant,  of  this  city,  a  gentle- 
man who  expressed  himself  very  politely  in  favor  of  my  under- 
taking, I  have  also  added  specimens  of  Provencal  versification 
in  the  majority  of  places,  where  translations  of  poetical  passages 
or  ofentire  pieces  are  given  in  the  text.  In  some  instances,  how- 
ever, I  was  unable  to  do  BO,  on  account  of  the  absence  of  the 


Preface.  vii 

manuscripts,  from  which  the  passages  must  have  been  taken 
by  the  author,  as  they  do  not  occur  in  any  of  the  printed  col- 
lections, to  which  alone  I  could  get  access  here  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic. 

I  have,  lastly,  in  an  introduction  of  some  length,  undertaken 
to  give  a  general  outline  of  the  literature  of  the  history  of  Pro- 
vengal  poetry,  by  tracing  the  principal  writers  on  the  subject 
from  the  time  of  the  decadence  and  final  extinction  of  this 
poetry  near  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century  to  the  present. 
At  the  end  of  this  introduction,  I  have  added  a  list  of  the  most 
important  works,  general  and  special,  relating  to  the  topics 
discussed  in  the  volume,  which  I  hope  maybe  a  useful  aid,  and 
an  incentive  to  further  inquiry  on  the  subject. 

In  regard  to  the  merits  of  the  work  now  for  the  first  time 
offered  in  the  English  language,  I  have  no  room  to  add  any- 
thing here  to  what  I  have  briefly  advanced,  under  the  name  of 
Fauriel,  in  my  introduction ;  and  of  the  rest  I  must  ask  the 
reader  to  judge  for  himself.  It  is  a  book,  which  some  years 
before  had  been  pointed  out  to  me,  by  one  of  M.  Fauriel's  own 
associates  in  office  and  in  honors,  as  the  best  upon  the  litera- 
ture to  which  it  relates,  and  I  have  had  no  occasion,  as  I  hope 
my  Headers  may  have  none,  to  dissent  from  this  opinion,  since 
my  personal  acquaintance  with  its  contents. 

I  have,  in  conclusion,  to  remind  the  Eeader,  that  the  volume 
now  before  him  is  not  the  whole  of  the  original  work,  which  is 
in  three  volumes.  It  contains  only  a  little  over  one  half  of  it, 
that  is  to  say,  the  preliminary  researches  on  the  subject,  his- 
torical and  literary,  and  the  history  of  the  lyrical  poetry  of  . 
the  Troubadours  complete.  The  remaining  half  consists  of  an 
examination  of  the  Provencal  epopee,  which  in  my  prospectus 

I  have  reserved  for  another  occasion. 

G.  J.  ABLER. 

New  York,  May,  1860. 


ERRATA. 

Page  136, 15th  line  from  below,  read  "  assume,"  instead  of  "  assumes." 

"  193, 12th  line  from  below,  read  "  Volsunga  Saga,"  instead  of  "  Vosunga  Saga." 

"  1»4,  llth  line,  the  same  correction. 

"  275,  note,  read  "  as  the  first,"  instead  of  "  at  the  first." 

"  285,  note,  last  line,  read  "  celare  potes,"  instead  of  "  celere  potes." 

"  286,  note,  read  "  bibentes  adeo,"  instead  of  "  bibentesadeo." 

••  861,  25th  line,  "  of  falling  short,"  instead  of  "  in  falling  short." 


CONTENTS. 


PACK 

TRANSLATOR'S  INTRODUCTION  ON  THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE  HISTORY 
OF  PROVENCAL  POETRY, xiii. — xxxiii. 


CHAPTER  I. 

GENERAL  OUTLINE  OF  PROVENCAL  LITERATURE,      ....  1 — 17 

CHAPTER  II. 

INFLUENCE  OF  PROVENCAL  POETRY  ON  THE  SEVERAL  COUNTRIES  OF 

EUROPE, 18 — 34 

CHAPTER  JCTI. 

INFLUENCE  OF  GRECIAN  CIVILIZATION  ON  THE  SOUTH  OF  GAUL,       .  35—54 

CHAPTER  IV. 

GH^ECO-ROMAN  LITERATURE  IN  GAUL, 55 — 73 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  SOUTH  OF  FRANCE  UNDER  THE  BARBARIANS,    ....  74 — 117 

CHAPTER  VI. 
ORIGIN  OF  THE  PROVENCAL  LANGUAGE,          ....  118 — 133 

CHAPTER  VII. 
THE  GRAMMATICAL  FORMATION  OF  THE  PROVENQAL,       .        .        .  134 — 149 


x  Contents. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Pi  OR 

THE  EARLIEST  USE  OF  THE  PROVENQAL  AS  EXHIBITED  IN  THE  LITE- 
EATUEE  OF  THE  MONKS, 150 — 171 

t 

CHAPTER  IX. 

WALTER   OF   AQUITANIA. — I.   ANALYSIS  OF   THE  SCANDINAVIAN 

SONGS, 172—194 

CHAPTER  X. 

WALTER  OF  AQUITANIA. — II.  ANALYSIS  OF  THE  NIBELUNGEN,      .  195-^219 

CHAPTER  XL 
WALTER  OF  AQUITANIA. — III.  ANALYSIS  OF  WALTER,          .        .  220 — 243 

CHAPTER  XII. 
WALTER  OF  AQUITANIA — PROVENQAL  ORIGIN  OF  WALTER,  .        .  244 — 268 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  ARABS, 269 — 288 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
WILLIAM  OF  POITIERS, 289—307 

CHAPTER  XV. 
CHIVALRY  CONSIDERED  IN  ITS  RELATION  TO  PROVENQAL  POETRY,  308 — 350 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  LYRICAL  POETRY  OF  THE  TROUBADOUR — I.  AMATORY  POETRY 
— BERNARD  DE  VENTADOUR, 851 — 375 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE    LYRICAL  POETRY   OF    THE    TROUBADOURS — II.    AMATORY 
POETRY — ARNAUD  DE  MARVEIL  AND  RAMBAUD  DB  VAQUEIRAS,  376 — 400 


Contents.  xi 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

PACK 

THE  LYEICAL  POETEY  OF  THE  TEOUBADOUES —  III.  POPULAE 
FOBM, 401—421 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE  LYEIOAL  POETEY  OF  THE  TEOTTBADOUES — IV.  PIECES  RE- 
LATING TO  THE  CBUSADEBS — WABS  OF  THE  HOLY  LAND,  .  .  422 — 142 

CHAPTER  XX. 

THE  LYEICAL  POETEY  OF  THE  TBOUBADOUBS — V.  PIECES  RE- 
LATING TO  THE  CEUSADES — WABS  AGAINST  THE  AEABS  OF 
SPAIN,  .  443_461 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE  LYEIOAL  POETEY  OF  THE  TEOTJBADOUES — VI.  SATIEE,  MOEAL,  462 — 479 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

THE  LYEICAL  POETEY  OF  THE  TBOUBADOTJBS — VII.  SATIEE,  His- 

TOBICAL, 480 — 196 


INTRODUCTION. 


ON  THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF  PROVENgAL 

POETRY. 

BY     THE     TRANSLATOR. 

I.  THE  TKOUBADOUBS  AND  THEIE  PEOTEOTOES. 

IN  order  to  form  a  correct  conception  of  the  Literature  of  Provencal 
Poetry,  it  is  necessary  to  premise  a  rapid  sketch  of  the  leading  facts  con- 
nected with  its  history,  and  then  to  follow  the  vestiges  of  its  fate  from  the 
time  of  its  origination  to  the  present.  It  will  consequently  be  necessary  to 
anticipate  in  a  measure  its  history  ;  but  this  will  be  done  in  the  most  general 
manner,  and  merely  for  the  purpose  of  showing  the  extent  of  its  existence, 
at  the  time  it  flourished  in  the  South  of  Europe. 

The  poets  of  the  South  of  France  during  the  Middle  Age,  called  themselves 
TroMdors,  that  is  to  say,  "  in  venters "  or  "finders;"  and  they  adapted 
the  langue  d'oc,  also  called  the  Romansh  of  the  South,  or  the  Provengal,  to 
the  expression  of  poetical  sentiments.  It  is  probable  that  poets  of  this 
description  existed  as  early  as  the  formation  of  the  idiom,  in  which  they 
wrote.  At  any  rate,  we  know  that  toward  the  year  1000,  they  already -j 
ejijoyed  considerable  distinction,  although  there  is  scarcely  anything  now 
left  us  from  the  earliest  period  of  their  existence. 

Their  first  productions  were  probably  the  hymns  chanted  in  the  temples, . ' 
of  which  specimens  are  yet  extant,  and  then  too  amatory  songs  composed 
and  sung  for  the  amusement  of  the  people.    And  not  only  was  this  poetry 
in  its  infancy  of  a  popular  character  in  its  tone  and  sentiments,  but  we  have 
every  reason  to  believe  that  it  originated  among  the  people,  and  not  among  t 
the  chevaliers,  who  originally  were  extremely  ignorant,  as  far  as  letters  were 
concerned,  and  who  knew  nothing  but  the  barbarous  trade  of  warfare. 

But  this  state  of  things  did  not  last  long.  The  castellans  and  barons  soon 
became  subdued  by  the  poetry  of  the  vulgar  tongue.  The  poets  became  the 
favorites  of  the  great,  who  drew  them  into  their  society,  flattered  them  and 
loaded  them  with  favors,  until  at  last  the  latter  themselves  became  initiated 


xiv  Introduction. 

into  the  secrets  of  the  nascent  art,  and  after  a  while  they  even  began  to 
appear  as  the  rivals  of  the  minstrels,  who  had  thus  far  only  been  employed 
to  constitute  one  of  the  ornaments  of  their  gallant  festivities. 

It  is  thus  that  we  find  Count  William  of  Poitiers,  King  Richard  of  Eng- 
land, Alphonse  of  Arazza,  the  dauphin  of  Auvergne,  the  counts  of 
Toulouse  and  of  Provence,  Frederic,  prince  of  Orange,  Pierre  III,  of  Aragon, 
and  others,  proud  of  having  their  names  recorded  among  those  of  the  poets 
of  their  times.  Nor  are  the  names  of  women  wanting  on  this  list,  some  of 
which  are  likewise  of  distinguished  rank  either  as  writers  or  as  patrons  of 
the  noble  art,  and  the  old  collections. offer  us  a  variety  of  pieces  from  the 
pens  of  fair  hands,  of  which  some,  however,  are  notorious  for  their  licentious 
character. 

"William  of  Poitiers  is  commonly  called  the  first  of  the  Troubadours,  but 
he  can  only  be  said  to  have  been  one  of  the  earliest.  Several  of  his  pro- 
ductions became  the  models  for  subsequent  efforts,  and  some  have  even 
traced  the  origin  of  the  more  modern  novella,  to  his  invention.  The  most 
distinguished  poetic  talent  of  the  Troubadours  was  displayed  during  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries.  At  that  epoch,  the  Proven9al  was  to  the 
educated  and  refined  society  of  the  courts  and  castles  what  the  French  was 
during  and  after  the  days  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth.  The  chief  seats  of  that 
language  and  literary  culture  were  the  courts  of  the  counts  of  Toulouse  and 
Provence,  but  it  was  held  in  equal  honor  in  other  parts,  as  for  example  by 
the  kings  of  Castile,  Sicily  and  Aragon,  by  the  dukes  of  Ferrara  and  others, 
all  of  whom  vied  in  a  noble  emulation  with  those  counts  in  paying  homage 
to  the  representatives  of  the  gay  saber.  The  consequence  was,  that  invita- 
tions of  these  poets  to  foreign  courts  became  quite  frequent,  and  perpetual 
literary  and  social  communications  were  thus  kept  up  for  a  long  time 
throughout  the  South  of  Europe. 

Although  not  ignorant  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  the  Troubadours  yet 
cannot  be  said  to  have  adopted  anything  directly  from  them.  They  on  the 
contrary  created  a  purely  national  poetry  for  the  society  of  their  times,  the 
exponent  of  the  religious  ideas,  the  chivalric  manners,  the  political  habits 
'  and  even  of  the  prejudices  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  South.  They  excelled 
in  a  great  variety  of  poetic  compositions,  but  more  especially  in  that  species 
of  lyrical  poetry,  which  aims  at  the  expression  of  the  tender  sentiments  of 
the  human  heart ;  and  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  assert,  that  in  the  expression 
of  the  sentiment  of  love  in  all  its  shades  and  hues,  they  exhibit  a  felicity,  a 
naturalness  and  a  charm,  which  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  surpassed  by 
the  productions  of  the  best  Roman  elegists. 

The  varieties  of  poetic  compositions  cultivated  by  the  Troubadours  were 
principally : 

1.  The  canso  (chant  or  chanso}  in  which  they  most  commonly  celebrate  the 
beauty  or  virtue  of  their  ladies,  and  other  sentiments  connected  writh  the 
cultus  of  chivalric  love.  It  is  particularly  in  this  form,  that  these  poets 
sometimes  rise  to  the  elevation  of  the  ancient  ode  of  the  Greeks,  and  on 


Introduction.  xv 

which  they  expended  all  the  invention,  ingenuity  and  talent,  of  which  they 
were  capable. 

2.  The  sirventes  or  satire,  in  which,  like  Horace  and  Juvenal,  they  lash 
the  individual,  social  and  political  vices  of  the  day  with  a  truthfulness  and 
force  rarely  equalled,  and  sometimes  greater  even  than  that  of  the  Ancients. 
It  is  in  this  form,  that  the  poets  of  the  South  are  not  only  great,  but  isolated 
and  unique,  the  German  and  the  French  poets  of  the  North  having  pro- 
duced nothing  of  the  sort  worth  the  name  of  satire. 

3.  The  pastoreta  or  vaqueyra  (pastoral)  a  popular  form,  in  which  they 
remind  us  of  the  idyls  of  the  Ancients. 

4.  The  epistle,  which  approaches  similar  productions  from  the  pen  of 
Horace,  and  abounds  in  truly  lyrical  coloring  and  beauty.    The  subjects  of 
these  epistles  were  extremely  varied.     Their  most  common  theme  was  love, 
friendship,  acknowledgment  for  favors,  solicitations  or  requests — but  they 
were  frequently  also  didactic,  moral   or  religious.     The  donaire,  salutz, 
ensenhamen  and  conte  were  subdivisions  of  this  kind. 

5.  The  serenas  and  albas,  which  were  pieces  destined  to  be  sung  by  night 
or  near  the  break  of  day,   and  are  often  extremely  delicate  and  beau- 
tiful. 

6.  The  lallad  and  the  round,  popular  forms,  were  their  invention,  sung 
generally  to  the  dance,  sometimes  serious,  at  other  times  voluptuous. 

7.  Theplanh  was  a  sort  of  elegy,  in  which  the  poet  was  wont  to  express 
in  the  most  enchanting  manner  the  disappointments  and  sorrows  of  love,  or 
to  honor  the  memory  of  some  fallen  chevalier. 

8.  The  tenson,  a  poetical  dialogue  or  combat,  in  which  two  interlocutors 
defended,  each  in  his  turn  and  in  couplets  of  the  same  measure  and  rhyme, 
opposite  sides  of  different  questions  relative  to  love,  chivalric  gallantry, 
ethics,  etc.    This  was  a  favorite  form  among  the  Troubadours,  and  one  in 
which  they  often  display  all  the  subtilty  and  refinement,  of  which  their  art 
was  capable.    The  partimen  jocx-partitz  or  partia,  and  the  torneyamen  were 
subdivisions  or  varieties  of  this  form. 

9.  Historical  pieces,  generally  with  reference  to  the  grand  events  of  the 
times,  as  for  example  the  crusades,  on  which  there  are  quite  a  number  of 
most  interesting  compositions,  either  from  the  pens  of  the  crusaders  them- 
selves or  from  contemporary  witnesses.     This  species  includes  the  prezi- 
cansa,  or  poetical  exhortation  to  enterprises  of  the  sort.* 

*  The  Troubadours  employed  a  number  of  other  terms,  either  to  denote  other  varieties  of 
poetic  compositions,  or  as  mere  synonyms  of  those  already  enumerated.  Thus  the  terms  son, 
mot,  vers,  sonet  are  frequently  extended  to  lyrical  productions  of  every  kind.  The  word  cdbla 
sometimes  was  equivolent  to  «'  our  couplet  or  stanza,"  but  it  very  frequently  had  the  sense  of 
a  canso  of  the  amatory  kind.  The  ettampada  was  a  piece  composed  to  a  tune  already  made  or 
in  use.  The  torney  and  the  garlambey  turned  on  the  chivalric  sports  of  the  tournaments.  The 
carros  was  an  allegorical  composition  of  the  gallant  sort.  The  retroensa  was  a  poem  commonly 
of  five  couplets  of  different  measures  and  rhymes,  and  terminating  in  a  refrain.  Other  varieties 
were  the  comjat  or  lover's  farewell,  the  d&oinalh  or  poetical  enigma,  the  escondig  or  lover's  de- 
fence against  unjust  accusations.  For  further  particulars  I  must  refer  the  reader  to  Raynouard'a 
Choix  de  poesies  des  Troubadours,  vol.  ii.  p.  155  seqq. 


xvi  Introduction. 

The  epic  or  romantic  compositions  of  the  Troubadours  exhibit  another 
phase  of  the  variety  and  versatility  of  their  talent.    Examples  are : 

1.  The  cansos  of  de  San  Gili,  which  celebrates  the  exploits  of  count 
Kaymond  of  St.  Gilles  in  the  East ;    but  a  fragment  of  it  is  all  that  is 
left  us. 

2.  Others  of  a  similar  character,  such  as  the  Gerard  de  Roussillon,  Jaufre, 
fils  de  Davon,  and  Philomena,  which,  latter,  although  in  prose,  nevertheless 
belongs  to  the  same  class  of  literary  compositions. 

3.  The   romance  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term  we  find  in  Bernard  de 
Treviez'  La  bella  Maguelone,  admired  and  reproduced  by  Petrarch  at  the 
time  of  his  residence  in  Montpellier,  and  of  which  Tieck  has  given  us  a  Ger- 
man version  near  the  commencement  of  the  present  century. 

I  pass  now  to  the  examination  of  the  principal  protectors  of  Proven9al 
poetry.     The  feudal  seigniors,  at  whose  courts  the  poets  were  received  and  . 
encouraged  were : 

A.  First  of  all  the  courts  of  Provence,  which  was  the  cradle  of  the  gay 
saber,  and  especially : 

1.  Kaimond  Berenger  II.,  from  1167  to  1181. 

2.  Alphonse  II.,  from  1196  to  1209. 

3.  Eaimond  Berenger  IV.,  from  1209  to  1245. 

'B.  The  second  in  rank  and  importance  were  the  counts  of  Toulouse,  of 
which  the  most  prominent  were  : 

1.  Raimond  de  Saint-Gilles,  who  took  the  cross  in  the  year  1096. 

2.  Kaimond  V.,  from  1148  to  1194. 

3.  Eaimond  VII.,  from  1222  to  1249. 

C.  The  kings  of  Aragon,  and  more  especially : 

1.  Alphonso  IL,  from  1162  to  1196. 

2.  Pedro  IL,  from  1196  to  1213. 

3.  Pedro  III.,  from  1276  to  1285. 

D.  Several  of  the  kings  of  Castile,  such  as : 

1.  Alphonso  IX.,  from  1188  to  1229  ;  and  more  especially 

2.  Alphonso  X.,  surnamed  the  Wise,  who  died  in  1284. 

E.  Other  kings  and  princes,  such  as : 

1.  Kichard  Cceur-de-Lion  of  England,  who  was  himself  a  Troubadour. 

2.  Eleanor,  the  wife  of  Louis  VII.,  and  subsequently  of  Henry  II.  of 

England. 

3.  Ermengard,  the  viscountess  of  BTarbonne. 

F.  Italian  princes,  finally,  such  as : 

1.  Bonifacius,  the  marquis  of  Monferrat,  who  in  1204  became  king  of 

Thessalonica. 

2.  Azzo  d'Este,  from  1215  to  1265. 

3.  The  courts  of  Verona  and  of  Malaspina. 

G.  The  German  emperors  Frederic  I.  and  Frederic  Barbarossa,  who  in 
their  expeditions  and  during  their  residence  in  Sicily  kept  poets  of 
the  Proven9al  school  in  their  retinue,  and  in  fact  first  introduced 
them  into  Italy. 


Introduction.  xvii 

These  indications  furnish  us  the  data  for  determining  in  the  first  place 
the  period,  during  which  the  poetry  in  question  was  in  vogue,  and  secondly 
the  countries,  in  which  it  was  cultivated. 

The  territorial  limits,  within  which  Proven9al  poetry  flourished,  ex- 
tended to  wherever  the  langue  d'oc  was  the  dominant  one,  either  as  a 
popular  dialect  or  as  the  language  of  the  courts.  This  was  the  case, 

1.  In  the  Provence  proper. 

2.  In  Toulouse,  Poitou,  the  Dauphine,  in  a  word,  in  all  the  provinces  of 
France  south  of  the  Loire. 

3.  In  parts  of  Spain,  especially  in  Catalonia,  in  the  province  of  Valencia, 
and  in  a  part  of  Aragon. 

4.  All  over  the  north  of  Italy,  especially  in  Yerona,  Montferrat,  Este,  and 
Malaspina. 

In  regard  to  the  time,  within  which  the  poetry  of  the  Troubadours  was 
in  vogue,  M.  Fauriel  assumes  only  two  periods.  But  it  may  perhaps  be 
more  conveniently  divided  into  three,  as  follows  : 

1.  The  first  commences  with  its  origin,  as  a  popular  poetry,  and  extends 
to  the  time  when  it  became  an  art  and  a  profession,  the  poetry  of  the 
nobles  and  the  courts,  that  is  to  say,  from  about  1090  to  1140. 

2.  The  second  is  the  period  of  its  culmination,  which  extends  from  the 
year  1140  to  1250. 

3.  The  third  is  the  period  of  its  decadence,  from  1250  to  1290. 

Of  these  three  periods  the  first  is  characterized  by  a  conscious  tendency^ 
a  manifest  struggle  to  rise  from  the  primitive  simplicity  of  nature  to  the 
finish  of  art.  The  second  is  the  period  of  its  highest  perfection,  of  the 
complete  realization  of  the  ideals  of  chivalry  and  gallantry,  and  of  the  most 
perfect  development  of  the  poetic  form.  It  also  exhibits  the  honorable  and 
happy  position  of  the  poet  in  the  society,  for  which  he  wrote  and  sung.  The 
third,  lastly,  manifests  a  tendency  toward  the  grave  and  the  didactic,,  a 
gradual  corruption  of  the  form  into  the  insipid  and  affected,  and  a  diminur 
tion  of  respect  for  the  poets,  as  a  consequence  partly  of  their  own  venality 
and  licentiousness,  partly  of  the  increasing  barbarity  around  them..  The 
poetry  of  the  Provengals  arose,  flourished  and  disappeared  kin  close  conr 
nection  with  the  polished  chivalry,  the  refined  manners,  and  the  polite 
culture,  of  which  in  fact  it  constituted  the  very  soul  and  most  enduring 
offspring. 

The  destruction  of  the  county  of  Toulouse,  in  the  year  1271,  was  the 
death-blow  to  the  existence  of  the  Troubadours.  From  that  time  they  ex- 
perienced all  the  disadvantages  of  having  imposed  on  them  a  foreign  rule 
instead  of  a  national  one,  and  in  connection  with  that  rule  a  new  language 
opposed  to  that  of  their  art.  The  langue  (Toil  of  the  North  with  its  poets 
and  its  political  power  advanced  on  them  with  an  annihilating  force,  and  in 
place  of  their  former  munificent  patrons,  they  had  now  only  enemies  to 
check  and  to  control  them.  Is  was  thus,  that  while  their  rivals  in  Oato- 
lonia  and  Valencia  still  cultivated  their  art  in  peace  and  with  success,  the 

B 


xviii  Introduction. 

poets  of  the  cradle  of  the  gay  saber  were  obliged  to  contend  against  a  tide 
of  the  most  disheartening  circumstances. 

This  distressing  situation  induced  them  after  a  while  to  associate  them- 
selves into  a  body,  and  this  movement  gave  rise  to  the  Academy  of  the  Very 
Gay  Company  of  the  Seven  Troubadours  of  Toulouse,  which  was  founded  in 
1323.  At  the  time  of  its  establishment  this  academy  issued  a  poetical  cir- 
cular, in  which  it  invited  all  the  members  of  the  profession  to  an  annual  con- 
vention on  the  first  of  May.*  During  the  sessions  of  this  convention,  literary 
exercises  were  held,  and  prizes  distributed  for  the  best  productions  in  their 
art. 

"We  are  informed,  that  in  1244,  Arnaud  Vidal  took  this  prize  for  the  best 
poem,  which  usually  consisted  either  of  a  silver  eglantine  or  a  violet  of  the 
same  metal. 

These  annual  celebrations  were  kept  up  at  the  expense  of  the  city,  the  poets 
continued  to  be  called  Troubadours,  and  the  Provencal  remained  the  lan- 
guage of  the  proceedings  and  exercises,  until  the  commencement  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  when  the  langue  d'oil,  or  the  French,  was  at  length  admit- 
ted to  the  same  privilege  with  its  southern  rival,  without  however  supplanting 
it  at  any  time.  The  annual  festival  passed  under  the  name  of  the  Jeux 
Floraux,  and  in  1694  the  prize-judges  were  regularly  incorporated  into  a 
college,  with  a  magnificent  endowment  from  Clemence  Isaure.  It  may,  in 
fact,  be  asserted,  that  the  literary  exercises,  instituted  in  1323,  were  kept  up 
with  scarcely  any  interruption,  until  the  time  of  the  first  French  revolution, 
and  we  find  even  an  attempt  to  resuscitate  them  as  late  as  the  year  1806. 

But  the  proceedings  of  this  association  were  but  a  faint  reflection  of  the 
ancient  splendor  of  the  poetry  which  it  undertook  to  perpetuate.  And  yet 
it§  transactions  are  not  without  considerable  interest  to  the  history  of  this 
literature :  for  the  archives  of  the  society,  we  are  told,  contain  prize  essays 
and  poems,  which  are  destined  to  make  their  appearance  in  type.  But  this 
is  not  all.  Not  satisfied  with  the  "Donatus  Provincialis,"  nor  with  the  gram- 
mar composed  by  one  of  the  earlier  Troubadours,  Raimond  Vidal,  the  mem- 
bers of  this  Academy  charged  one  of  their  chancellors,  Molinier  by  name,  to 
prepare  for  their  use  a  new  treatise  on  rhetoric,  which  he  did  with  great 
ability  and  credit  in  his  "Leys  d'amors" — a  work  which  is  yet  extant,  and  has 
recently  been  published  for  the  first  time.  This  manual  contains  the  rules 
for  poetical  composition,  while  "  Las  flors  del  gay  saber  "  by  the  same  author, 

*  This  circular  is  yet  extant,  and  the  reader  may  find  it  in  Crescimbeni's  "  Istoria  della  volgar 
poesia,"voL  a,  p.  210.  It  begins  thus : 

Ala  onorables,  e  als  pros 
Senhers,  amics  e  companhos, 
Als  quals  es  donat  lo  sabers, 
Don  creis  als  bos  gaug,  e  plazers, 
Sens,  e  valors,  e  cortesla ; 
La  Sobregaja  Companhia 
Dels  VII.  Trobadors  de  Tolosa, 
Salut,  e  mais  vida  joiosa,  etc.,  etc. 


Introduction.  xix 

consists  of  an  essay  on  grammar  and  philosophy,  no  less  curious  and  valuable 
than  the  former,  more  especially  in  regard  to  the  language  of  the  Trouba- 
dours. The  date  of  these  compositions  is  supposed  to  be  somewhere  be- 
tween 1324  and  1330. 

The  Proven9al  language  still  exists,  more  or  less  altered  and  modified,  in 
the  different  dialects  of  Valencia,  Catalonia,  Eoussillon,  and  in  fact  in  all  the 
districts  of  the  south  of  France,  as  well  as  in  those  of  Upper  Italy.  (Compare 
Raynouard's  Choix,  vol.  vi.  p.  395).  It  is  even  yet  cultivated  as  a  medium 
of  poetic  composition  ;  and  it  has  been  said  with  great  propriety,  that  there 
still  are,  as  indeed  there  always  have  been,  Troubadours  under  the  charming 
sky  of  Provence  and  of  Languedoc.  Several  of  these  recent  poets  have  even 
acquired  celebrity  in  our  own  day,  and  Jasmin  of  Agen  has  been  ranked 
with  the  great  writers  of  past  centuries. 

III.  THE  TEOUVEEES  OF  THE  NORTH.  ^ 

In  order  to  give  the  reader  something  like  an  adequate  conception  of  the 
extent,  to  which  the  poetic  taste  and  talent  prevailed  throughout  the  en- 
tire country  of  France  during  the  period  under  consideration,  it  is  necessary 
to  take  a  rapid  glance  at  the  Trouveres  of  the  North. 

These  poets  made  their  appearance  considerably  later  than  the  Trouba- 
dours, and  are  on  that  account  commonly  supposed  to  have  caught  the 
poetic  spark  from  the  example  of  the  South.  But  it  is  certain,  that  this 
poetry,  like  every  other,  originated  among  the  people,  and  was  primitively 
of  a  popular  character,  and  on  that  account  the  time  and  place  of  its  earliest 
tentatives  must  remain  open  to  dispute.  All  that  we  know  positively  is, 
that  it  began  to  be  cultivated  with  success  from  the  commencement  of  the 
twelfth  century ;  but  the  period  of  its  finished  productions  did  not  begin  till 
toward  the  close  of  that  century.  We  also  know,  that  it  developed  itself 
almost  simultaneously  in  several  provinces  of  the  North,  as  for  example  in 
Normandy,  Picardy,  Artois,  Flanders,  Champagne,  and  a  portion  of  Armo- 
rica,  without  our  being  able  to  specify  any  one  of  these  provinces  as  the 
cradle  of  the  nascent  art.  The  Anglo-Normans  likewise  had  a  share  in  it 
from  the  beginning. 

The  language  of  this  poetry  of  the  Trouveres  was  the  Komansh  of  the  North, 
the  result  of  a  mixture  of  the  primitive  dialects  of  that  region  with  the  cor- 
rupt Latin  of  the  Gallo-Romans,  and  perhaps  some  of  the  Germanic  idioms, 
and  was  at  that  time  called  the  langue  flail. 

This  poetry  is  in  many  respects,  even  more  original  than  that  of  the  South, 
owing  to  the  fact  of  its  adopting  many  of  the  primitive  traditions  of  the  Bre- 
tons, Gauls,  and  Saxons,  and  of  deriving  next  to  nothing  from  the  Grasco- 
Roman  influences  of  the  South.  In  proof  of  this  it  is  customary  to  cite  the 
romances  of  Brut,  Horn,  Haulaf,  the  Round  Table,  Saint  Graal  and  others, 
all  of  which  are  referred  to  a  primitive  cycle  of  traditions. 

Like  the  poets  of  the  South,  the  Trouveres  employed  every  variety  of 


xx  Introduction. 

rhyme  and  measure  in  their  compositions,  and  they  display  a  great  deal  of 
invention  and  imagination,  partly  in  lyrical  productions  of  a  light  and  grace, 
fal  nature,  but  more  especially  and  preeminently  in  long  epic  romances,  such  as 
the  Perceval,  the  Chevalier  an  Lion,  Launcelot  du  Lac,  and  in  "William  of 
England,  which  we  owe  to  the  distinguished  Christian  de  Troyes.  To  these 
we  must  add  many  others,  such  as  the  Alexandriade,  the  Eoman  du  Rou} 
Tristan,  and  a  host  of  the  so-called  Chansons  de  Gestes,  which  are  regular 
epopees,  and  some  of  them  almost  of  oriental  dimensions.  Many  of  these 
were  reproduced  or  imitated  on  the  other  side  of  the  Rhine  by  the  German 
Minne-singers,  whose  golden  epoch  runs  nearly  parallel  with  that  of  the 
French  Trouveres. 

To  the  poets  of  the  North  we  are  also  indebted  for  a  host  of  shorter 
compositions  of  the  narrative  sort,  called  Fabliaux,  which  were  extremely 
popular  for  a  long  time,  and  subsequently  imitated  or  translated  by  men  like 
Boccaccio,  Rabelais,  Moliere  and  Lafontaine.  They  have  left  us  also  sacred 
poems,  legends  in  verse,  and  satires  in  abundance,  as,  for  example,  their 
Bible-Guiot,  their  Bible  au  seigneur  de  Berge,  La  complainte  de  Jerusalem, 
Le  dit  du  Pape,  and  many  others.  The  Jeux  and  Miracles,  to  which  some 
trace  the  origin  of  the  subsequent  "  mysteries,"  and  of  the  French  stage,  are 
said  to  have  been  the  invention  of  the  Trouv&res. 

In  the  palmy  days  of  their  existence,  the  Trouv&res  lived  in  the  sunshine 
of  the  great  of  the  North,  and  were  fostered  by  the  courts  and  castles  of 
their  country,  as  had  been  their  rivals  of  the  South.  They  have  been  pro- 
nounced the  equals  of  the  latter  in  genius ;  but  they  are  in  many  respects  so 
much  like  them,  that  M.  Fauriel  with  others  has  been  inclined  to  assign  to 
them  the  rank  of  mere  imitators,  and  to  consider  their  poetry  an  off- 
shoot of  the  Provensal.  And  yet  it  cannot  be  contested,  that  they  culti- 
vated by  way  of  preference  different  kinds  of  poetry,  many  of  which  they 
even  invented,  and  that  they  excelled  in  things  of  which  their  rivals  in  the 
South  had  scarcely  any,  or  at  any  rate  btit  a  very  imperfect,  conception. 
Many  of  these  productions  were  extremely  popular  for  a  long  time,  and 
found  imitators  and  translators  in  other  languages,  as  for  example,  in  their 
ovrn  day  among  the  Germans,  who  adopted  next  to  nothing  directly  from 
the  Proven9als,  while  they  borrowed  largely  from  the  epic  compositions  of 
the  Trouveres,  and  then  at  a  later  period  among  the  Italians  and  the  modern 
French. 

In  regard  to  its  material  organization,  we  find  that  the  poetry  of  the  North 
had  quite  a  number  of  points  in  common  with  the  South.  The  Trouveres, 
in  the  first  place,  had  their  Menestrels,  as  the  Troubadours  had  their  Jongleurs, 
to  assist  them,  and  with  the  same  difference.  The  Menestrel  was  only  the 
singer  or  reciter  of  the  poetry  composed  by  the  master  of  the  art,  the 
Trouvere;  and  so  fastidious  was  the  North  in  the  maintenance  of  this 
distinction,  that  the  member  of  the  subordinate  grade  of  the  profession,  who 
undertook  to  transcend  the  limits  of  his  sphere  was  nicknamed  Trover 
lastart,  as  the  plagiarist  was  called  centre  rimorieur.  The  general  rule  was, 


Introduction.  xxi 

that  the  poet  only  composed,  and  sometimes  sung,  by  way  of  exception 
perhaps,  to  the  music  of  the  harp  what  he  himself  had  written,  while  the 
menestrel  was  expected  only  to  sing  or  to  recite  the  poetry  of  his  superiors. 

We  find,  moreover,  that  the  Gours  d'amour  of  the  South  had  a  rival 
institution  in  the  North  in  the  Puys  d'amour  and  Gieux  sous  Vormel  of  the 
Trouveres.  Here,  however,  some  of  the  Puys  d?  amour  gradually  assumed 
the  name  of  Cours  de  rhetor  ique,  and  toward  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century 
the  former  were  entirely  abandoned  and  supplanted  by  the  Palinods,  which, 
like  the  Jeux  Floraux  of  the  South,  consisted  of  literary  exercises  only. 
These  exercises  became  extremely  popular  in  all  the  provinces  of  the  North, 
where  the  poetry  of  the  Trouveres  had  been  in  vogue,  and  especially  in  the 
cities,  nearly  all  of  which  were  proud  to  number  them  among  the  ornaments 
of  their  society.  This  was  particularly  the  case  with  Caen,  Eouen,  Dieppe, 
Beauvais,  Amiens,  Arras,  Valenciennes. 

It  has  already  been  remarked  that  the  poetry  of  the  North  was  originally 
a  popular  one,  like  that  of  the  South ;  that  is  to  say,  its  earliest  poets  sprung 
from  the  people,  and  their  compositions  were  addressed  to  the  masses  at 
large.  But  all  this  was  entirely  changed  in  time.  The  example  of  the 
Troubadours  and  the  fashion  of  chivalric  society  gave  rise  to  a  lyrical  poetry 
in  the  North,  which  was  no  less  ingenious  and  artistic  than  that  of  the 
South,  of  which  it  appears  to  be  an  imitation ;  and  in  the  production  of  this 
new  poetry  of  art,  kings  and  nobles  strove  for  the  honor  of  a  place  among 
the  Trouveres  of  the  age. 

The  first  instance  of  the  kind  was  Thibault  of  Champagne  (1201-1253), 
and  his  example  was  soon  imitated  by  Jean  de  Brienne  (t  1237),  Charles  of 
Anjou  ,(t  1284),  Henry  III,  of  Brabant  (t  1267),  Pierre  de  Dreux,  by  the 
count  of  Dreux,  and  many  other  powerful  seigniors  of  the  North.  But  even 
at  the  time  of  its  culmination,  the  poetry  in  question  did  not  pass  entirely 
into  the  hands  of  the  nobles,  any  more  than  in  the  South,  and  Trouveres 
from  the  Bourgeoisie  were  not  uncommon.  Proficiency  and  distinction  in 
the  art  were  here  too  a  passport  into  the  society  of  the  great,  and  a  source 
of  emolument  and  honor,  as  elsewhere. 

Nor  were  the  protectors  of  the  poetry  of  the  North  any  less  distinguished 
than  those  of  the  South.  It  can  boast  of 

1.  The  courts  of  the  kings  of  France  and  England. 

2.  The  dukes  of  Brabant,  the  counts  of  Flanders,  Champagne,  and  of  other 
districts  of  the  North. 

3.  The  kings  of  Naples  of  the  house  of  Anjou,  who  transplanted  the 
northern  exotic  into  the  south  of  Italy  even. 

4.  Henry  of  Burgundy,  who  carried  it  with  him  into  Portugal. 

The  number  of  rhymers  in  the  langue  d>oil  was  an  immense  one.  The 
making  of  verses  seems  to  have  been  everybody's  business  once  in  the 
districts  of  the  North ;  and  a  business,  in  which  the  monks  too  seem  to 
have  dealt  largely  in  their  way.  Everything,  in  fact,  seems  to  have  at  one 
time  been  recorded  in  rhyme,  which  we  encounter  everywhere,  on  seals, 


xxii  Introduction. 

vases,  church- windows,  walls,  tomb-stones,  pavements,  etc.  As  the  fruit  of  a 
pious  industry,  there  are  still  on  record  piles  of  moralities,  prayers  to  the 
Virgin,  proverbs,  miracles,  lives  of  the  Saints,  etc.,  all  in  the  shape  of 
poetry.  It  thus  appears,  that  the  poetry  of  the  North  was  no  less  exten- 
sively cultivated  than  that  of  the  South,  and  that  its  popular  side  was  even 
a  more  luxuriant  one.  The  number  of  the  strictly  artistical  court  poets 
must  also  have  been  a  very  large  one,  as  we  may  infer  from  the  fact,  that  at 
this  day  we  are  acquainted  with  the  names  and  works  of  upward  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty  Trouv^res,  and  that  the  manuscripts  of  this  poetry,  yet 
extant  in  the  libraries  of  France,  amount  to  several  thousand,  while  those 
of  the  southern  poetry  are  comparatively  few. 

III. — PROVENCAL  POETRY  IN  ITALY  UNTIL  THE  TIME  OF  DANTE  AND  PETRARCH. 

We  have  already  seen,  that  the  petty  courts  of  Upper  Italy  were  among 
the  foyers  of  the  chivalric  culture  connected  with  the  poetry  of  the  Trou- 
badours. This  phenomenon  was  the  result  of  the  long  and  intimate  relations 
of  a  political  and  commercial  nature,  which  had  subsisted  from  a  very  early 
date  between  the  provinces  of  the  south  of  France  and  Italy — relations 
which  were  founded  in  a  similarity  of  institutions,  and  more  especially  in 
the  organization  of  the  cities  of  both  those  countries,  which  was  republican, 
and  full  of  energy  and  vitality. 

The  emperors  of  Germany  of  the  twelfth  century  were  the  intermediate 
agents  of  these  relations  between  the  nobles  of  the  south  of  France  and 
those  of  Italy.  The  two  Frederics  wanted  to  reign  in  Provence  as  kings  of 
Aries,  and  this  attempt  of  theirs  to  establish  a  kingdom  of  Aries,  was 
attended  with  perpetual  military  expeditions  in  those  quarters.  It  is  on 
this  account  that  Frederic  Barbarossa  held  his  court  at  Turin  for  a  time. 

It  is  therefore  extremely  probable,  that  the  first  Prove^al  poets  were 
introduced  into  Italy  in  connection  with  Frederic  I,  and  that  they  were 
among  the  number  of  those  that  followed  this  emperor  in  his  expeditions. 
If  this  is  admitted,  then  the  date  of  that  introduction  would  be  about  the  year 
1162.  At  any  rate  we  are  certain,  that  the  first  Proven9al  poet  in  Italy  was 
Augier  de  Vienne,  who  makes  allusion  to  the  coronation  of  Frederic  Bar- 
barossa, which  took  place  in  1154. 

From  the  year  1180  to  that  of  1200  we  find  in  the  north  of  Italy  at  least 
four  of  the  smaller  feudal  courts,  into  which  the  new  poetry  had  found  its 
way ;  and  these  courts  were  then  habitually  frequented  by  members  of  the 
gay  profession  from  Provence,  and  became  so  many  centres  of  the  new 
culture.  They  were  the  courts  of  Montferrat,  of  Este,  of  Verona,  and  that 
of  Malaspina,  which  at  a  later  date  became  immortal  through  its  hospitality 
to  Dante. 

But  the  poets  that  frequented  these  Italian  courts  were  often  among  the 
most  distinguished,  as  for  example,  Bernard  de  Ventadour  at  Este,  Cadenet 
at  Malaspina  and  at  Montferrat,  Rambaud  de  Vaqueiras  at  the  same. 


Introduction.  xxiii 

Pierre  Vidal  may  also  be  included  in  the  list.  Of  these  poets  Eambaud  de 
Vaqueiras  sometimes  wrote  in  the  dialects  of  Italy,  and  there  is  still  extant 
from  him  a  descort  in  which  several  of  them  are  employed.  But  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind,  that  these  Provengal  poets  in  Italy  were  originally  only 
visitors  and  guests.  The  exact  number  of  them  is  not  known.  The  years 
of  these  visits  extended  from  1150  to  1200. 

"When  the  crusade  against  the  Albigenses  shook  the  civilization  of  the 
south  of  France  (1208-1219),  the  poets  fled  from  their  native  soil,  and 
sought  refuge  in  Italy,  Catalonia,  Aragon,  Castile,  and  in  fact  wherever  they 
had  been  received  as  guests  before.  Some  went  even  into  the  north  of 
France  for  shelter  against  the  storm.  Subsequently  to  that  event  we  find 
quite  a  number  of  them  at  the  courts  of  Italy  already  mentioned,  as  for 
example,  Elias  Cairel,  Elias  de  Barjols,  Albert  de  Sister  on,  Aimeric  de 
Belenoi,  Guillem  de  Figueiras,  Gaucelm  Faydit,  Aimeric  de  Peguilhan  and 
others,  most  of  which  figure  in  our  collections  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

From  the  year  1265  till  1270  the  Troubadours  still  continued  to  cross  the 
Alps  and  to  sing  at  the  Italian  courts  and  in  the  cities,  but  during  the  interval 
between  1270  and  1300  they  all  at  once  begin  to  disappear.  The  fact  is, 
that  subsequently  to  the  year  1250  the  poetry  once  so  full  of  vitality  and 
native  vigor  had  gradually  degenerated  into  a  mere  metier,  a  mechanical 
repetition  of  the  customary  forms,  and  nothing  but  mediocrities  and  plati- 
tudes were  produced. 

The  presence  of  these  Provencal  poets  in  Italy,  which  had  been  an  unin- 
terrupted one  for  more  than  a  century,  gave  rise  to  an  Italian  school  of  the 
gay  saber,  and  the  Italians  themselves  turned  poets  in  imitation  of  the  foreign 
masters  of  the  art.  They  thus  b.ecarae  in  time  the  successors  of  the  Trouba- 
dours at  the  courts  of  their  feudal  chiefs,  and  what  is  quite  remarkable,  they 
wrote  not  in  the  vernacular  dialects  of  their  country,  but  continued  to 
employ  the  acquired  language  of  the  poetry  they  undertook  to  imitate  and  to 
perpetuate. 

They  probably  began  to  do  so  as  early  as  the  year  1150,  but  none  of  them 
became  conspicuous  or  even  known,  until  Alberto  de  Malaspina  made  his 
appearance,  who  flourished  between  the  years  1180  and  1204.  He  may 
therefore  be  considered  as  the  first  of  any  note.  One  of  the  last  of  this 
Italian  school  is  Ferrari  de  Ferrara,  who  wrote  toward  the  year  1300,  or 
thereabout.  During  the  long  interval  from  1180  to  1300,  there  must  have 
been  many  others,  most  of  whom,  however,  are  now  entirely  forgotten,  with 
the  exception  of  a  half  a  dozen  of  some  celebrity.  They  are  Sordello  of 
Mantua,  Lanfranco  Cigala,  Bonifaci  Calvo  of  Genoa,  Lambertino  de  Bualello 
of  Bologna,  Bartolomeo  Zorgi  of  Venice,  and  Lanfranchi  of  Pisa.  All  these 
names  are  considered  part  and  parcel  of  the  old  Provengal  poetry,  and  their 
works  are  included  in  the  manuscript  collections  of  it,  but  scarcely  any  of 
them  rise  above  the  level  of  mediocrity.  Sordello,  mentioned  by  Dante,  is 
perhaps  the  only  exception. 
The  Provengal  was  thus  the  dominant  language  of  the  courts  of  Italy  till 


xxiv  Introduction. 

toward  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  scarcely  a  line  of  Italian 
versification  is  known  from  any  of  its  poets  until  toward  the  commencement 
of  the  fourteenth  century.  After  the  year  1300,  however,  the  reverse  came 
into  vogue,  and  no  Italian  poet  of  that  epoch  is  known  to  have  written  any 
Proven9al  verses,  except  perhaps  incidentally  and  in  connection  with  others 
in  his  own  language,  as  did  Dante  in  the  famous  passage  on  Arnaud  Daniel. 
But  even  after  this  poetry  had  ceased  to  be  a  living  one  in  Italy,  it  still  con- 
tinued to  be  an  object  of  literary  curiosity  and  of  veneration  even,  and  the 
memory  of  its  leading  representatives  remained  respected  for  a  long  time  after 
its  extinction. 

This  was  the  state  of  things  in  Italy,  when  Dante  made  his  appearance, 
whose  name  commences  a  new  era  in  the  polite  literary  culture  of  his 
country,  and  in  fact  of  entire  Europe.  This  poet  was  born  in  1265,  and  lived 
until  the  year  1321.  That  Dante  was  familiar  with  the  Provengals  is  mani- 
fest not  only  from  his  lyrical  productions,  in  which  the  ideal  sentiment  of 
love  is  celebrated,  but  from  direct  reference  to  them  in  other  parts  of  his" 
writings.  In  canto  XXVI.  of  his  Purgatorio  he  not  only  alludes  expressly  to 
several  of  those  poets,  but  the  eight  concluding  verses  of  that  canto,  which 
the  poet  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Arnaud  Daniel,  are  in  the  idiom  of  the  Trou- 
badours— a  proof  that  he  not  only  understood,  but  could  even  venture  to 
write  the  language  of  his  poetical  ancestors.?  Dante,  however,  confounds 
the  Provengal  with  the  Spanish.  He  says  in  his  treatise  "  De  Vulgari  Elo- 
quio,"  lib.  I.  c.  8,  "  The  Spanish,  i.  e.  the  Provengal,  may  boast  of  having 
produced  men,  who  cultivated  the  vernacular  poetry  in  this  as  in  a  sweeter 
and  more  perfect  language ;  among  whom  are  Pierre  d'Auvergne  and  others 
more  ancient."  In  chapter  10th  of  the  same  treatise  he  also  speaks  of  the 
French,  or  the  language  of  the  Trouveres,  which  he  correctly  asserts  to  be 
best  adapted  to  prose  narration,  and  mentions  "books  compiled  in  that 
idiom  on  the  exploits  of  the  Trojans  and  Komans,  the  adventures  of  King 
Arthur,  and  many  other  tales  and  histories,  written  for  amusement  and 
instruction."  Dante  very  strangely  considers  Arnaud  Daniel  as  the  great 
patriarch  of  the  Provengal  muse, — a  judgment,  which  is  entirely  at  variance 
with  the  testimony  of  the  contemporaries  of  the  Troubadours,  and  against 
which  modern  criticism  has  again  considered  itself  called  upon  to  protest. 

*  The  passage  seems  to  have  been  a  source  of  great  embarrassment  to  the  editors  and  com- 
mentators of  Dante,  who  probably  did  not  know  exactly  what  to  make  of  it.  It  is  on  that 
account  very  corrupt,  and  different  in  nearly  every  edition.  The  text  of  Lombard!  ia  as  follows : 

Tan  m'abbelis  votre  cortois  deman, 

Chi  eu  non  puous,  ne  vueil  a  vos  cobrire. 
leu  sui  Arnaut,  che  plor  e  vai  cantan 

Con  si  tost  vei  la  spassada  folor, 

Et  vie  giau  sen  le  ior,  che  sper  denan. 
Ara  vus  preu  pera  chella  valor, 

Che  vus  ghida  al  som  delle  scalina, 

Sovegna  vus  a  temps  de  ma  dolor : 
Poi  s'ascose  nel  fuoco,  che  lo  affina. 


Introduction.  xxv 

Petrarch  repeats  the  opinion  of  Dante  in  his  "  Triumfo  d'Ainore,"  when  he 
says  of  Arnaud : 

Fra  tutti  il  primo  Arnaldo  Danielle, 
Gran  maestro  d'amor  ch'a  la  sua  terra 
Ancor  fa  onor  col  suo  dir  nuovo  e  bello. 

Petrarch  flourished  between  the  years  1304  and  1374,  and  whatever  may 
be  the  value  of  the  opinion  here  advanced,  the  passage  at  any  rate  proves, 
that  in  his  day  the  works  of  the  old  poets  were  still  read  and  appreciated. 
Boccaccio  was  the  contemporary  and  friend  of  Petrarch,  and  one  of  the 
public  expounders  of  Dante.  His  "  Decamerone  "  was  composed  either  after 
Proven9al  models  now  no  longer  extant,  or  perhaps  rather  in  imitation  of  the 
fabliaux  of  the  Troveres  of  the  North. 

Tasso  and  Pulci  likewise  mention  the  Proven9als.  The  latter  speaks  of 
Arnaud  as  the  author  of  a  romance  on  Renaud  (Morgant.  Magg.  canto 
XXVII.  ott.  80).  The  former  makes  their  language  the  same  with  the  Cas- 
tilian,  and  speaks  of  certain  romances  written  in  it.  He  also  cites  the  pas- 
sage of  Dante  on  Arnaud : 

"  Versi  d'amore  e  prose  di  romanzi." 
IV. — THE  MSS.  COLLECTIONS  OF  PRovENgAL  POETRY. 

We  have  already  remarked,  that  with  the  decline  of  chivalry,  its  proudest 
ornament,  the  poetry  of  its  gallant  festivities  gradually  vanished  before  the 
advance  of  a  new  order  of  things,  and  that  after  the  year  1300  no  Provencal 
verses  of  any  account  were  any  longer  written.  But  we  have  also  seen,  that 
this  poetry  did  not  on  that  account  cease  to  be  an  object  of  literary  interest, 
especially  in  Italy,  where  it  merged  itself  into  the  indigenous  literature  of  the 
country.  "We  have  every  reason  to  believe,  that  at  the  period  in  question, 
that  is  to  say  from  1300  to  1400,  a  host  of  MSS.  collections  of  various  di- 
mensions must  have  existed  in  private  and  in  public  hands,  and  freely 
circulated  in  the  south  of  France,  in  Italy  and  in  the  north  of  Spain ;  and 
there  were  doubtless  the  manuscripts,  from  which  the  poets  of  the  time 
derived,  as  we  have  seen,  their  knowledge  of  their  artistic  ancestors,  and 
from  which  the  writers  of  a  later  date,  like  Bembo,  Nostre  Dame  and 
Bastero  drew  the  materials  for  their  works  upon  the  subject.  Many  of  these 
MSS.,  however,  we're  unfortunately  lost  amid  the  political  confusion  of  the 
times,  as  we  may  inter  alia  infer  from  the  fate  of  an  extensive  collection 
known  to  have  been  in  the  hands  of  Nostre  Dame  prior  to  the  composition  of 
his  work ;  and  the  comparatively  few  now  left  us,  which  no  doubt  gradually 
had  found  their  way  from  private  hands  into  the  larger  public  libraries, 
where  they  are  now  preserved,  must  be  the  remains  of  a  much  larger  number 
now  no  longer  extant. 

The  places,  to  which  some  of  the  MSS.  still  existing  are  known  to  have 
formerly  belonged,  are  Caumont,  Toulouse,  Fleury-sur-Loire,  Urfe*,  La 
Valliere  and  Geneva ;  several  of  them  are  from  the  old  library  of  the  Medicis, 


xxvi  Introduction. 

some  from  those  of  private  individuals,  as  for  example,  one  from  Bennedetto 
Varchi  (subsequently  in  the  hands  of  Carolo  Strozzi),  and  two  of  them, 
lastly,  bear  the  name  of  Fulvio  Orsini  (No.  3204  of  the  Imperial  library  at 
Paris,  and  No.  3208  of  the  library  of  the  Vatican).  One  of  these  last  men- 
tioned manuscripts  appears  to  be  a  copy  of  an  older  one,  likewise  still  extant 
and  in  the  same  library  (No.  7225),  and  contains  the  curiosity  of  having 
several  marginal  notes  from  the  hands  of  Petrarch  and  of  Cardinal  Bembo. 
Their  indication  gives  us  some  idea  of  the  age  of  some  of  these  MSS.,  a 
number  of  which  are  doubtless  from  the  golden  period  of  Proven9al  litera- 
ture. 

These  MSS.  with  nearly  all  the  rest  are  now  in  the  larger  libraries  of 
Paris,  Koine,  and  Florence.  Those  of  Paris  alone  (and  chiefly  the  Imperial) 
contain  eight  original  MSS.  and  copies  of  nearly  all  the  rest.  At  Florence 
there  are  seven,  of  which  six  belong  to  the  Laurenziana  and  one  to  the  Ric- 
cardiana.  At  Rome  there  are  six,  viz.,  four  in  the  library  of  the  Vatican, 
one  in  that  of  Chigi,  and  one  in  that  of  Berberini.  Milan  has  also  one ; 
and  Modena  one,  which  bears  the  date  of  1254.  Two  of  them  have  found 
their  way  into  England  even,  and  were,  some  forty  years  ago,  in  the  hands 
of  Messrs.  Richard  Heber  and  Francis  Douce  of  London. 

And  fortunately  the  majority  of  these  MSS.  are  not  mere  fragmentary  co- 
dices of  isolated  poets,  or  otherwise  imperfect  or  mutilated.  They  are  mostly 
extensive  collections,  with  several  hundred  specimens  of  poetry  from  a  large 
number  of  authors,  to  which  are  sometimes  added  biographical  sketches  of 
the  poets,  with  full  indexes  of  the  contents  of  the  volume.  Thus,  for  ex- 
ample, No.  7226,  of  the  Imperial  library,  which  is  considered  as  the  best  and 
adopted  as  the  standard  of  orthography,  contains  no  less  than  three  hundred 
and  ninety-six  folio  leaves,  with  pieces  from  one  hundred  and  fifty -five 
Troubadours,  an  additional  number  of  anonymous  specimens  and  two  in- 
dexes. Biographical  notices  are  found  in  No.  2701  and  No.  7698  of  the 
same  library,  and  in  several  others.  i 

These  manuscripts  constitute  the  principal  sources,  from  which  MSS. 
copies,  the  printed  collections  of  this  poetry,  and  other  works  relative  to  the 
language  and  literary  history  of  the  Troubadours  have  been  made  since  the 
time  of  Sainte-Palaye.  For  additional  particulars  on  this  point,  I  must  refer 
the  reader  to  Raynouard's  "  Choix  de  Poes.  d.  Troub."  vol.  ii.  page  cliv.- 
clixix. 

y. — EAKLIEB  WRITERS  ONPROVENQAL  LITERATURE  :— BEMBO,  NOSTRE  DAME, 
CRESOIMBENI,  SAINTE-PALAYE. 

Subsequently  to  the  epoch  of  Dante  and  Petrarch,  which  extended  from 
about  the  years  1290  to  1375,  we  find  very  little  notice  taken  of  the  Proven- 
£als,  until  about  a  century  after  they  became  an  object  of  historical  inquiry. 
And  among  the  writers,  who  in  the  sixteenth  century  thus  interested  them- 
selves, historically  or  linguistically,  in  the  poetry  of  the  Troubadours,  we 


Introduction.  xxvii 

must  first  of  all  mention  Cardinal  Pietro  Bembo,  who  lived  between  the 
years  1470  and  1547.  But  all  that  he  has  given  us  upon  this  subject  are  a  few 
pages  of  his  treatise  "  Delia  VolgarPoesia,"  in  which  he  endeavors  to  link  the 
earlier  poets  of  his  country  to  the  Proven9als,  by  indicating  certain  words 
and  phrases  borrowed  or  adopted  by  the  former  from  the  idiom  of  the 
latter. 

But  nearly  at  the  same  time  with  Bembo.  there  arose  in  the  very  cradle 
of  Provengal  poetry  another  man,  who  was  destined  to  resuscitate  the 
memory  of  the  old  poets  much  more  effectually.  This  was  Jean  de  Nostre 
Dame,  a  brother  of  the  celebrated  astrologer  Michael  Nostradamus,  born  in 
1503  at  St.  Eemi  in  Provence.  This  Nostre  Dame  was  a  zealous  collector 
of  manuscripts  relative  to  the  lives  and  works  of  the  old  poets  of  his 
country,  and  is  said  to  have  been  in  possession  of  a  valuable  collection  of 
"  books  written  by  hand,  in  the  Latin,  as  well  as  in  the  Proven9al  style." 
But  in  consequence  of  an  unfortunate  turn  of  events,  he  lost  the  greater  part 
of  these  his  treasures  in  1562. 

Not  disheartened,  however,  by  these  reverses,  Nostre  Dame  resolved  to 
make  the  best  of  the  resources  still  at  his  command,  and  composed  his 
work  on  the  lives  and  writings  of  the  old  Provengal  poets  from  the  docu- 
ments rescued  from  destruction.  His  work  was  published  at  Lyons  in 
1575.  An  Italian  translation  of  it  (which  was  a  French  book)  appeared  in 
the  same  year  and  in  the  same  city.  Another  and  a  much  better  translation 
into  the  same  language  was  published  at  Kome  in  1710,  from  the  pen  of  Cres- 
cimbeni,  the  founder  and  first  custos  of  the  academy  of  the  Arcadians  of  that 
city,  who  enriched  the  original  work  with  many  important  additions,  espe- 
cially the  second  edition  of  1722. 

Nostre  Dame  contains  a  host  of  curious  and  interesting  particulars  rela- 
tive to  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  age  of  chivalry ;  and  as  he  merely 
repeats  the  authorities  of  his  time  without  many  pragmatic  reflections  of 
his  own,  his  statements  are  of  much  greater  value  to  the  literary  historian, 
than  the  imperfect  deductions  or  hasty  generalizations  of  later  writers,  like 
Millot. 

Within  one  generation  after  the  time  of  Nostre  Dame  we  have  another 
work  from  the  pen  of  Cesar  Nostre  Dame,  a  nephew  of  the  former,  who  in  his 
"  Histoire  de  Provence"  undertakes  to  give  an  account  of  the  ancient  poets, 
with  other  illustrious  personages  and  families  that  figured  in  the  history 
of  his  country  for  six  entire  centuries  before  him.  This  work  appeared  in 
1614.  A  similar  history  of  Languedoc  was  published  by  Catel  in  1633,  and 
two  new  works  on  Provence  by  Papon  in  1778-1787,  all  of  which  contain 
some  facts  of  interest  to  the  history  of  this  literature.  Nearly  at  the  same 
time  we  have  from  the  pen  of  another  native  of  the  South,  from  Antonio 
Bastero,  a  new  work  on  the  language  of  the  Troubadours,  which,  as  well  as 
the  book  of  Nostre  Dame,  constitutes  one  of  the  leading  authorities  on  the 
subject,  and  is  frequently  quoted  as  such.  It  is]entitled  "  Crusca  Provenzale" 
and  appears  to  be  an  attempt  to  continue  what  Bembo  had  undertaken  some 


XXV111 


Introduction. 


time  before.  It  appeared  at  Rome  in  1724.  Sundry  other  inquiries  and 
notices  relative  to  the  Provengals  begin  to  make  their  appearance  toward 
and  after  the  commencement  of  the  second  half  of  the  last  century,  and 
several  of  the  earlier  volumes  of  the  "Histoire  litteraire  de  la  France"  (1733- 
1832)  contain  the  outlines  of  a  history  of  that  special  literature. 

But  an  entirely  new  impulse  was  given  to  the  study  of  Proven  gal  poetry 
by  the  enthusiasm  of  Lacurne  de  Sainte-Palaye,  who  was  born  at  Auxerre 
in  1697,  member  of  the  Academy  of  Inscriptions  in  1724,  of  the  Frangaise  in 
1755,  dead  in  1781.  The  memoirs  of  the  Academy  are  indebted  to  him  for 
many  curious  and  useful  contributions  on  various  subjects  connected  with  the 
history  of  France.  He  is  the  first  that  undertook  to  resuscitate  an  interest 
in  the  peculiar  institutions  of  the  Middle  Age,  and  with  immense  industry 
and  zeal  examined  anew  into  the  military  and  political  characteristics  of 
the  long  neglected  system  of  chivalry,  with  reference  to  which  he  instituted 
the  most  laborious  researches  in  nearly  all  the  principal  literary  dep6ts  of 
France  and  Italy.  So  extensive  were  his  collections  of  materials  on  this  sub- 
ject, that  the  manuscripts  containing  them  are  said  to  have  amounted  to  more 
than  one  hundred  volumes  in  folio,  many  of  which  are  yet  preserved  in  the 
libraries  of  Paris,  and  chiefly  in  that  of  the  Arsenal. 

But  very  little  of  all  this  was  ever  arranged  or  published  by  the  collector 
himself,  except  what  he  has  furnished  us  in  his  interesting  work  on  chivalry, 
and  his  extensive  papers  on  the  poetry  of  the  Troubadours  were  never 
turned  to  account  by  himself,  who  was  too  far  advanced  in  life  to  digest 
them,  after  he  was  done  collecting  and  transcribing.  A  work  of  consider- 
able extent  was,  however,  compiled  from  them  by  the  Abbe  Millot,  and  they 
have  remained  a  store-house  for  the  researches  of  others  ever  since  his 
day. 

When  Sainte-Palaye  commenced  his  labors,  the  Royal  library  at  Paris 
contained  but  four  MSS.  collections  of  Provengal  poetry.  The  rest  lay  yet 
buried  in  the  libraries  of  the  South,  and  principally  in  those  of  Italy.  Sainte- 
Palaye's  first  move  was  to  discover  and  inspect  these  curious  remains  of 
olden  times,  and  he  repaired  in  person  to  Italy  for  that  purpose.  An  ac- 
count of  this  literary  expedition  is  given  in  the  "Nouvelles  Litteraires  de 
Florence"  of  1740.  He  there  ransacked  the  libraries  of  the  principal  cities, 
arranged  and  collated  all  the  MSS.  discovered,  of  which  he  added  no  less 
than  twenty  to  the  list  of  those  already  known  at  Paris ;  so  that  the  lit- 
terary  world  now  found  itself  in  possession  of  twenty-four  MSS.  instead  of 
four.  And  these  were  not  mere  fragments,  but  most  of  them  collections  of 
considerable  extent  and  in  excellent  state  of  preservation.  But  he  did  not 
stop  here :  he  had  copies  made  of  all  the  leading  MSS.  exhumed  by  him, 
and  had  them  fitted  out  for  the  use  of  libraries.  The  result  of  all  these 
efforts  was  nothing  less  than  fifteen  folios  of  collections,  containing  four 
thousand  poetical  compositions  of  various  dimensions  and  twelve  f ragmen ta. 
This  corpus  poetarum  is  so  complete,  that  we  are  told  there  is  very  little 
hope  of  any  additional  discoveries  in  that  direction  in  the  libraries  of  Italy 


Introduction.  xxix 

even,  after  these  thorough  and  extensive  explorations  on  the  part  of  Sainte- 
Palaye. 

To  this  enthusiast  then  belongs  the  merit  of  finding  and  arranging,  with 
immense  expenditure  of  time  and  labor,  the  monuments  of  the  ancient  poetry 
of  the  South,  and  of  thus  directing  the  attention  of  other  inquirers  to  the 
subject.  These  monuments  were  now  accessible  to  the  researches  of  the 
historian  or  the  critic,  but  the  man  was  yet  wanting  to  make  them  intelli- 
gible. For  the  glossary  or  lexicon  undertaken  by  Sainte-Palaye  was  never 
completed,  and  the  historical  work  prepared  by  Millot  was  so  inadequate 
to  the  idea  of  the  subject,  as  to  provoke  Schlegel  to  call  it  an  outrage  tres 
mediocre. 

VI. — LATEE  WBITEES  ON  PBOVENQAL  LITEEATUEE  : — EAYNOTTAED,  FAUBIEL, 
SCHLEGEL,  DIEZ,  AND  OTHEES. 

But  such  a  man  really  soon  arose  in  the  person  of  M.  Eaynouard,  another 
native  of  Provence  (born  1761,  died  1836),  whose  name  commences  a  new 
epoch  on  the  subject  of  Provengal  literature.  Tip  to  the  time  of  his  pub- 
lications, the  language  of  the  Troubadours  was  as  yet  but  imperfectly  under- 
stood. For  although  alive  yet  at  this  day  in  the  south  of  France,  and  even 
employed  for  literary  purposes,  it  is  only  so  in  dialects,  and  the  old  Pro- 
ven9al  is  in  many  respects  a  dead  language.  It  was  Raynouard,  that  un- 
dertook the  arduous  task  of  removing  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  a  correct 
appreciation  of  the  ancient  literary  monuments  of  the  South,  by  his  suc- 
cessful examinations  into  the  character  and  structure  of  the  old  Provengal 
from  the  stand-point  of  philological  criticism,  as  represented  during  the 
first  decennia  of  the  present  century. 

After  a  variety  of  literary  efforts  in  other  directions,  and  a  political  career 
of  no  mean  distinction,  Eaynouard  at  last  resolved  to  concentrate  his  richly 
endowed  intellect  upon  the  mediaeval  languages  and  literature  of  his  coun- 
try;  and  as  the  first  result  of  this  new  effort,  he  gave  us  in  1816  his  "Ee- 
cherches  sur  I'anciennete  de  la  langue  romane,"  and  in  the  same  volume  an 
examination  into  the  origin  and  formation  of  that  language,  together  with  a 
grammar  of  it.  After  having  thus  paved  the  way  for  a  better  comprehen- 
sion of  the  poetic  monuments  of  that  idiom,  he  next  proceeded  to  collect 
and  publish  the  earliest  vestiges  of  the  literature  in  one  volume ;  and  this 
was  soon  followed  by  selections  from  the  writings  of  the  most  distinguished 
Troubadours,  in  two  volumes.  To  these  he  added  another  volume  contain- 
ing the  lives  of  upward  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  Provengal  poets,  from 
original  documents,  with  fragmentary  extracts  from  their  writings.  All 
these  researches  are  included  in  the  first  five  volumes  of  his  "  Choix  des 
poesies  originales  des  Troubadours,"  which  he  completed  in  1821  by  the  addi- 
tion of  a  sixth  volume,  the  result  of  immense  industry,  and  this  was  nothing 
less  than  a  "  Grammaire  comparee  des  langues  de  1'Europe  latine." 

But  Eaynouard's  efforts  did  not  stop  here.    There  was  as  yet  no  lexicon 


xxx  Introduction. 

of  the  Romansh  of  the  South ;  and  the  imperfect  glossaries  of  the  idiom 
were  next  to  no  guide  to  the  student  of  his  selections  even.  Raynouard 
resolved  to  remove  this  last  impediment,  and  devoted  nearly  the  whole  of 
the  remainder  of  his  days  to  the  preparation  of  a  work,  which  was  to  be 
the  keystone  to  his  previous  writings  on  the  subject.  But  death  called  him 
from  his  labors,  before  the  public  could  enjoy  the  benefit  of  their  result ; 
and  his  distinguished  "Lexique  Roman,"  though  completed,  did  not  appear 
till  after  his  decease  (1836-45).  In  the  first  volume  of  this  work  we  have  a 
new  examination  into  the  history  and  grammatical  peculiarities  of  the  lan- 
guage, a  new  selection  of  lyrical  pieces  from  a  variety  of  authors,  and  the 
text  of  nearly  all  the  Proven9al  romances  or  epopees,  either  entire  or 
in  part.*  The  sixth  volume  contains  a  complete  vocabulary  of  the  idiom 
of  the  Troubadours,  and  the  four  intervening  volumes  constitute  the 
lexicon  proper,  in  which  the  signification  and  use  of  words  is  illustrat- 
ed by  perpetual  citations  and  references  to  the  classical  writers  of  the  lan- 
guage. 

Although  the  anthologies  given  us  by  this  philologian  are  very  far  from 
being  a  corpus  completum  of  the  poets  in  question,  they  are  yet  sufficiently 
copious,  to  enable  us  to  form  a  tolerably  correct  conception  of  what  that 
curious  literature  of  Provence  really  was ;  and  the  remark  is  consequently  a 
just  one,  that  Raynouard  is  the  first  man  that  with  the  assistance  of  his 
excellent  books,  has  enabled  us  to  read  with  something  like  a  critical  accu- 
racy the  principal  works  of  the  old  poets  of  the  South,  instead  of  being 
obliged,  as  we  were  before  his  day,  to  judge  of  their  merits  from  mere 
hearsay  authority,  or  to  look  for  specimens  of  them  in  dingy  and  illegible 
manuscripts. 

The  service  thus  rendered  to  letters  by  the  author  of  these  books  is  of  so 
distinguished  a  character,  that  it  is  scarcely  extravagant,  what  a  country- 
man of  his  has  remarked  respecting  them :  "It  was  the  first  time,"  he  says, 
"  that  philology  witnessed  an  undertaking  like  this,  which  was  nothing  less 
than  an  attempt,  first,  to  reconstruct  a  language  according  to  its  principles, 
and  to  assign  to  it  its  place  among  the  remaining  languages  descended  from 
the  Latin ;  secondly,  to  produce  and  to  examine  critically  the  numerous 
productions  emanating  from  the  literature  of  that  language;  thirdly,  to 
determine  the  forms  and  the  rules  of  these  productions ;  and  fourthly,  to 
lay  a  solid  foundation  for  an  adequate  knowledge  of  this  literature,  in  a 
comprehensive  critical  lexicon  of  the  language." 

Nearly  at  the  same  time  with  Raynouard's  first  efforts  on  the  subject,  and 
perhaps  even  before  them,  France  had  on  its  literary  list  another  name,  des- 
tined to  shed  additional  light  on  the  poetry  of  the  Middle  Age,  by  linking 
this  literary  culture  of  a  bygone  epoch  to  the  general  history  of  our  modern 
civilization.  This  name  was  that  of  CHAELES  CLAUDE  FAUEIEL  (born  in 
1772, 1 1844). 

*  This  he  called  his  "Nouveau  Choix,"  which  he  intended  to  make  six  volumes,  but 
of  which  unfortunately  only  this  one  was  completed. 


Introduction.  xxxi 

Fauriel  was  educated  at  the  College  of  Tournon,  and  subsequently  at 
Lyons  under  the  auspices  of  the  brethren  of  the  Oratoire.  In  1V92  we  find 
him  a  soldier  in  the  army  of  the  Pyrenees,  in  which,  however,  he  remained 
only  a  year.  During  the  rule  of  the  Directory  he  repaired  to  Paris,  and 
there  entered  the  service  of  Fouch6,  then  minister  of  the  police,  and  for- 
merly of  the  Oratoire.  After  the  establishment  of  the  empire,  Fauriel 
gave  up  all  connection  with  administrative  functions,  and  resolved  to 
abandon  the  idea  of  public  life  forever. 

About  this  time  he  became  a  member  of  the  famous  society  of  ideologists 
at  Auteil,  which  then  met  in  the  salons  of  Madame  de  Condorcet  and  of 
Destutt  de  Tracy.  It  was  in  connection  with  this  society,  that  Cabanais 
addressed  his  celebrated  letter  "Sur  les  causes  premieres"  to  Mr.  Fauriel. 
The  latter  now  began  to  apply  himself  with  great  assiduity  to  the  study  of 
languages,  and  in  the  course  of  these  pursuits  he  undertook  an  examination 
into  the  Komansh  idioms  of  France,  for  the  purpose  of  getting  at  the  ori- 
ginal elements  of  our  modern  literature.  But  this  is  not  all.  He  made  col- 
lections of  the  vestiges  of  the  Celtic  and  the  Basque,  and  in  order  to  extend 
the  horizon  of  his  investigations,  he  applied  himself  to  the  study  of  the 
Arabic  and  the  Sanscrit. 

But  these  first  studies  of  his,  though  varied,  patient  and  profound,  scarcely 
passed  beyond  the  limits  of  his  closet,  and  remained  for  a  long  time  without 
any  result  to  the  public.  For  his  earliest  publications  were  only  translations, 
first  of  a  poem  of  Baggeson  (in  1810),  who  was  one  of  his  friends,  and  then 
in  1823  of  two  tragedies  of  Manzoni,  one  of  which  had  been  dedicated  to 
him  by  the  author. 

During  all  this  long  interval  we  have  nothing  else  from  his  pen,  except 
occasional  articles  on  archeology  and  linguistics,  until  in  1824-25  he  pub- 
lished his  "  Chants  populaires  de  la  Grece  moderne,"  of  which  he  gave  the 
original  text  with  a  translation.  Now  as  this  work  appeared  at  the  very 
moment  of  the  popular  movement  in  favor  of  the  liberation  of  Greece,  and 
as  it  was  admirably  calculated  to  second  the  heroic  struggle  of  that  nation 
against  the  ascendency  of  the  Crescent,  the  author's  name  was  as  it  were 
identified  with  it,  and  Fauriel  became  at  once  known  and  distinguished 
throughout  entire  Europe. 

The  revolution  of  1830  gave  a  new  impulsion  to  his  literary  activity.  It 
carried  certain  friends  of  his  into  power,  who  knew  his  industry  and  abili- 
ties, and  they  created  a  chair  of  modern  literature  for  him  in  connection 
with  the  Faculty  of  Letters  at  Paris.  This  he  filled  with  great  distinction, 
and  it  was  in  this  capacity  of  professor  that  he  gave  us  his  maturest  and 
most  finished  productions. 

Fauriel  considered  the  south  of  France  as  the  cradle  of  all  our  modern 
civilization ;  he  linked  the  mediaeval  literature  of  the  Proven9als  to  the  remi- 
niscences of  Greco-Roman  culture,  and  the  literature  of  Spain  and  Italy  di- 
rectly to  that  of  the  Provengals.  So  great  an  importance  did  he  attach  to 
the  latter,  that  he  considered  the  German  Minnesingers  even  as  the  result  of 


XXX11 


Introduction. 


its  influence,  which  through  the  invasions  of  the  Arabs  had  extended  itself  as 
far  as  the  distant  East.  Under  the  impulse  of  this  idea,  he  conceived  the  plan 
of  writing  a  complete  history  of  this  civilization,  to  trace  it  through  all  the 
phases  of  its  progressive  development.  As  the  first  result  of  this  vast  un- 
dertaking, he  published  in  1836  his  "  Histoire  de  la  Gaule  me"ridionale  sous  la 
domination  des  conquerants  germains,"  in  four  volumes;  a  work  of  immense 
research,  and  rare  historical  sagacity  and  judgment,  which  made  him'a  mem- 
ber of  the  Academy  of  Belles-Lettres  and  Inscriptions.  Soon  after  the  com- 
pletion of  this  elaborate  history,  we  find  Fauriel  engaged  as  one  of  the  editors 
of  "  Histoire  Litte"raire  de  la  France,"  to  which  he  contributed  a  variety  of 
articles  on  literary  history,  among  which  there  is  one  on  the  Trouveres  of 
the  north  of  France,  that  fills  nearly  an  entire  quarto  of  many  hundred 
pages.  The  u  Eevue  des  deux  Mondes  "  also  boasts  of  several  articles  from  his 
pen.  As  assistant  conservateur  of  the  MSS.  of  the  royal  library  he  edited  for 
Guizot's  collection  the  historical  poem  "La  croisade  centre  les  here"tiques  albi- 
geois,"  of  which  he  gave  the  Proven9al  text,  with  a  translation  and  an  intro- 
duction. During  all  this  time  Fauriel  continued  to  lecture  from  his  chair, 
as  professor,  on  the  history  of  modern  literature,  and  delivered  extensive  and 
elaborate  courses,  not  only  on  the  Proven9al,  but  also  on  Italian  and  Spanish 
literature.  But  he  was  removed  by  death,  before  any  of  these  discourses 
were  published,  and  the  present  history  did  not  appear  in  type  until  1846, 
two  years  after  his  decease.  It  was  edited  by  one  of  his  associates — M. 
Mohl,  of  the  Institute.  The  remaining  courses  were  promised  at  the  same 
time,  and  in  1854,  the  same  editor  gave  us  his  "Dante  et  les  origines  de  la 
langue  et  la  litte>ature  italiennes,"  a  work  equally  full  of  original  research  and 
interest.  A  history  of  Spanish  literature  is  yet  to  come. 

And  these  courses  of  Fauriel  are  far  from  being  mere  repetitions  of 
what  had  been  written  before  him,  or  generalizations  founded  on  other 
men's  opinions  or  statements  ;  they  bear  the  imprint  of  original  researches, 
extensive,  unwearied  and  profound  ;  they  contain  a  multitude  of  new  facts, 
new  ideas,  and  new  aspects  of  the  subjects  he  discourses  on.  That  this  is 
really  so,  the  reader  may  convince  himself  by  observing  the  care  with  which 
the  author  traces  the  vestiges  of  Grseco-Koman  influences  on  the  civilization 
of  the  south  of  Gaul  in  several  chapters  of  this  work,  or  the  labor  he  ex- 
pends on  showing  the  close  affinity  subsisting  between  the  literary  traditions 
of  all  the  nations  of  mediaeval  Europe  in  his  examination  of  the  Scandina- 
vian songs,  the  Heldenbuch  and  the  Nibelungen,  with  reference  to  the  curi- 
ous epos  of  Walter,  for  which  he  claims  Proven9al  origin.  His  chapters  on 
the  language  of  the  Troubadours  are  equally  remarkable  and  clear,  and  on 
this  point  too  he  is  so  far  from  indolently  acquiescing  in  the  verdict  of 
others,  that  he  takes  original  ground  against  men  like  Kaynouard  even.  His 
examination  of  the  Provencal  epopee,  which  fills  nearly  the  whole  of  the 
latter  half  of  this  course,  has  been  pronounced  the  first  successful  attempt 
of  the  kind.  In  fact,  nothing  connected  with  his  subject  remains  unex- 
plored or  unarranged,  nothing  escapes  the  searching  test  of  his  keen  intel- 


Introduction.  xxxiii 

lect,  which  bears  every  mark  of  having  been  trained  in  the  best  school  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  and  not  only  familiar  with,  but  oftener  in  advance  of 
everything  known  in  his  day  on  linguistics,  literary  history,  and  criti- 
cism. 

The  new  interest  imparted  to  the  study  of  the  early  literature  of  France 
by  the  labors  of  men  like  Raynouard  and  Fauriel,  gave  rise  to  numerous 
other  attempts  in  the  same  direction,  and  not  only  in  France,  but  also  in 
Italy,  and  more  especially  in  Germany.  Among  the  Italians  Galvani,  Per- 
ticari,  and  the  poet  Monti  have  written  on  this  subject.  In  Germany,  Wil- 
helm  Schlegel  was  among  the  first  that  took  notice  of  the  new  literary 
movement  in  France,  and  has  left  us  a  classical  essay  in  the  shape  of  a  re- 
view of  one  of  Eaynouard's  publications.  Diez  devoted  many  years  exclu- 
sively to  this  study,  and  has  furnished  us  not  only  a  very  spirited  history 
of  Provengal  literature,  but  also  a  comparative  grammar  of  ail  the  five  lan- 
guages derived  from  the  Latin,  and  an  etymological  lexicon  of  the  same. 
Fuchs  has  examined  into  the  relation  between  the  Proven9al  and  the  Latin, 
Mahn  has  published  new  editions  of  some  of  the  writings  of  the  Trouba- 
dours, and  also  the  biographies  of  these  poets  in  the  original. 

In  France  itself,  these  publications  are  still  more  numerous.  The  volumes 
of  the  "Histoire  Litteraire  de  la  France,"  the  "Journal  des  Savants,"  and 
the  "Memoires"  of  the  Academy  of  Belles-Lettres  and  Inscriptions,  abound 
in  articles  and  extracts  relative  to  this  particular  literature.  Sainte-Palaye 
had  already  commenced  a  glossary  of  the  Romansh  in  1788,  but  the  revolu- 
tion had  interrupted  the  publication  of  it,  and  only  a  small  part  of  it  ever 
appeared  in  type.  Roquefort  gave  us  another  in  1808.  In  1819,  Rochegude 
published  an  outline  of  a  third,  and  in  the  same  year  his  "  Parnasse  Occi- 
tanien,"  a  new  anthology  of  Provengal  poetry  in  one  volume.  In  1840, 
Guessard  collected  and  edited  the  MSS.  grammars  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
and  more  recently  Gatien-Arnoult  published  for  the  first  time  Chancellor 
Molinier's  "  Flors  del  gay  saber,"  in  four  volumes.  In  the  year  1846,  two  his- 
tories of  Provengal  literature  appeared  in  Belgium,  one  from  the  pen  of  Van 
Bemmel,  the  other  from  that  of  de  Laveleye.  Other  works  on  the  same 
subject  in  the  French  language  were  written  by  Mandet,  Lafon,  and  Bruce 
White.  The  curiosity  of  philological  inquiry  has  extended  even  to  the 
patois  of  France,  and  we  have  now  several  works  upon  the  subject.  Cabrie 
has  given  us  a  work  on  the  modern  Troubadour,  Jacques  Jasmin.  We  thus 
perceive,  that  the  chivalry  and  the  poetry  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen- 
turies are  no  longer  a  mere  subject  of  empty  declamation  or  indiscriminate 
eulogy.  They  are  before  us  in  living  monuments,  that  claim  our  praise  or 
censure  according  to  their  merit.  And  if  a  knowledge  of  the  past  is  a  les- 
son for  the  future,  and  a  benefit  to  mankind,  then  the  men  who  by  their 
genius  and  industry  have  led  us  to  a  correcter  appreciation  of  its  history, 
must  be  ranked  among  the  benefactors  of  our  race. 


LIST  OF  THE  PRINCIPAL  AUTHORITIES 

AND  OTHER  WORKS 
Relating  to  the  Subjects  Treated  in  this   Volume.  , 


I.  WORKS  ON  THE  PROVENCAL  LANGUAGE. 

1.  MSS.  Grammars.— a)  The  Donatus  Provincialis,  for  an  account  of  which  see  Raynouard's 
Choix  des  poesies,  etc.,  vol.  ii.  p.  cl.  sqq.  b)  The  Grammaire  Provencale  of  the  national  library  of 
Prance  (ancien  fonds  latin,  no.  7534, — c)  Glossaire  Provenjal  of  the  Laurentian  library  at 
Florence. 

2.  Grammaires  romanes  inedites  du  18e  siecle,  par  P.  Guessard.    Paris,  1840. 

3.  Las  flors  del  gay  saber  estier  dichas  Las  leys  d'  amors. — This  Is  a  long  Provencal  treatise  on 
Grammar,  Rhetoric,  Prosody,  etc.,  composed,  between  1324  and  1330,  by  Guilliaume  Molinier, 
chancellor  of  the  academy  of  the  gay  saber  at  Toulouse,  and  recently  published,  for  the  first 
time,  by  Gatien-Arnoult,  in  his  Monumens  de  la  litterature  romane  depuis  le  14e  siecle. 
Paris  et  Toulouse  (without  date),  4  vols.  8vo. 

4.  Delia  Volgar  Lingua,  di  M.  Pietro  Bembo  Cardinale,  (in  the  10th,  llth  and  12th  volumes  of  the 
Opere  del  Cardinale  Bembo).    Milano,  1810.    This  work  contains  a  notice  of  some  of  the  Pro- 
vencal ingredients  of  the  Italian  language,  adopted  by  the  poets  of  the  nation. 

5.  La  Crusca  Provenzale,  overo  le  voci,  frasi,  forme  e  maniere  de  dire,  che  la  lingua  toscana  ha 
presa  della  provenzale,  opera  di  Antonio  Bastero.    Roma,  1724,  fol. — This  is  by  a  native  of  the 
parts  of  the  South,  in  which  the  Provencal  still  exists  as  a  popular  dialect. 

6.  Recherches  sur  la  langue  romane.— OrigSne  et  formation  de  la  langue  romane.— Grammaire 
Romane,  par  M.  Raynouard  (in  the  1st  vol.  of  his  Choix  de  poesies  des  Troubadours).    Paris 
1818. — Resume  de  la  Grammaire  Romane,  by  the  same,  (in  the  1st  vol.  of  his  Lexique  Roman). 
Paris,  1838.    These  are  the  first  attempts  of  a  critical  exposition  of  the  forms  and  structure  of  the 
Provencal  language,  and  are  still  the  leading  authority  upon  the  subject,in  the  French  language. 

7.  Grammatik  der  romanischen  Sprachen,  von  Friedrich  Diez.    Bonn  1836-44,  8  vols.  8vo. — 
This  is  a  grammatical  exposition  of  all  the  languages  derived  from  the  old  Roman,  i.  e.,  of  the 
Provencal,  the  Italian,  the  Spanish,  the  Portuguese,  the  French,  and  the  Wallachian. 

8.  Die    romanische    Sprache   in   ihrem  Verhaltniss    zur   lateinischen,  von  A.   Fuchs.      Halle, 
1849. — On  the  connection  between  the  Romansh  languages  and  the  Latin  we  have  also  learned 
researches  from  Pott  in  Hofer's  Zeitschrift  fiir  die  Wissenschaft  der  Sprache,  vol.  3d ;  in  Aufrecht 
u.  Kiihn's  Zeitsch.  fiir  vergL  Sprachforschung,  vol.  1st,  and  in  the  Zeitsch.  fur  Alterthumswissen- 
schaft,  1838. 

9.  Observations  sur  la  langue  et  la  litterature  provencales,  par  W.  A.  Schlegel  (in  vol.  2d  of  his ' 
(Euvres  ecrites  en  Francais).    Leipzig,  1846. 

10.  Etymologische  Forschungen  auf  dem  Gebiete  der  romanischen  Sprachen,  von  C.  A.  F.  Mahn. 
Berlin,  1855. 

11.  Glossaire  de  1'ancienne  langue  frangaise,  depuis  son  origine  jusqu'au  siecle  de  Louis  XIV., 
par  la  Curne  de  Sainte-Palaye.    Paris,  1788,  fol. 

12.  Glossaire  de  la  langue  romane,  par  B.  de  Roquefort.    Paris,  1808. 

13.  Essai  d'un  glossaire  occitanien,  par  Rochegude.    Toulouse,  1819,  8vo. 

14.  Lexique  Roman,  ou  dictionnaire  de  la  langue  des  Troubadours,  comparee  avec  lea  autres 
langues  de  1'Europe  latine,  pr6cede  de  nouvelles  recherches  historiques  et  philologiques,  d'un 
resume  de  la  grammaire  romane,  d'  un  nouveau  choix  des  poesies  originales  des  Troubadours 
et  d'extraits  de  poemes  divers,  par  M.  Raynouard.    Paris,  1838-44.    6  vols.  8vo. 

15.  Lexicon  etymologicuin  linguarum  romanarum.  italicse,  hispanicae,  gallicse.    Par.  Fred.  Diez. 
Bonn,  1853.    8vo. 

16.  Histoire  de  la  langue  romane,  par  Francisque  Mandet.    Puy  et  Paris,  1840. 

17.  Histoire  des  langues  romanes  et  de  leur  litterature,  par  Bruce- White.    Paris,  1841.    8  vols. 
8vo. 

18.  Altromanische  Sprachdenkmale,  nebst  einer  Abhandlung  uber  den  epischen  Vers,  von  Friedr. 
Diez.     Bonn,  1846. 

19.  Tableau  historique  et  litteVaire  de  la  langue  parlee  dans  le  midi  de  la  France  et  connue  sous 
le  nom  de  langue  proven$ale,  par  Marie  Lafon.    Paris,  1842. 

20.  De  elementis  grammaticis  potissimum  linguae  francogallicaa  scripsit  Ludov.  Schacht.    Berlin, 


xxxvi  List  of  the  Principal  Authorities. 

21.  Grammaire  de  la  langue  d'oil,  ou  grammaire  des  dlalectes  francais  aux  xile  et  xiiie  siecles 
par  J.  F.  Burguy.    Berlin,  1858-54. 

22.  Tableau  des  idiomes  populaires  de  la  France,  par  J.  A.  Schnakenburg.    Berlin,  1840. 

28.  Histoire  litt€raire,  philologique  et  bibliographique  des  patois,  par  Pierquin  de  Gembloux. 
Paris,  1841. 

24.  Articles  on  the  Romansh  languages  in  the  Journal  des  Savants  of  the  years  1855, 1S56, 1857, 
etc.,  and  in  the  Memoirs  of  the  Academy  of  Inscriptions.    Vols.  xv.  xviL  xxiii.  and  xxiv.  (first 
series). 

25.  Glossarium  ad  scriptores  mediae  et  infirnse  latlnitatis,  cura  ac  studio  C.  Du  Cange.    Parish's,  1788. 
6  vols.  fol. — and  Supplementum  ad  auctiorem  Cangiani  editionem,  auct.  D.  J>  Carpentier.    Pari- 
siis,  1766.— New  edition  of  both  these  works  by  Henschel.    Paris,  1840-50.    7  vols.  4to. 

26.  Mithridates,  oder  Allgemeine  Sprachenkunde,  von  Adelung  u.  Vater.    Berlin,  1817.   4  vols.  8vo. 

27.  Das  Wort  in  seiner  organischen  Verwandlung,  von  K.  F.  Becker.     Frankfort,  a.  M.,  1888. 

28.  Organism  der  deutschen  Sprache,  von  K.  F.  Becker.    Frankfort,  1841-42. 

29.  Parallele  des  langues  de  1'  Europe  et  de  1'Inde,  par  F.  G.  Eichhoff.    Paris,  1836.    4to. 

II. — WORKS  RELATING   TO   PROVENCAL   LITERATURE. 

A.  The  oldest  literary  monuments  of  the  Provencal  language  are  certain  law  documents,  from 
the  year  960,  consisting  of  a  barbarous  intermixture  of  Latin  and  Provencal  terms  and  phrases, 
which  the  reader  will  find  printed  in  the  second  volume  of  Raynouard's  Choix  de  poes.  des  Trou- 
badours, and  also  in  Diez'  work  already  mentioned  (I.,  No.  18.) 

B.  The  earliest  work  known  to  us,  deserving  the  name  of  a  literary  composition  in  the  Proven- 
cal language,  is  a  poem  on  Boethius,  from  the  close  of  the  10th  century,  of  which  a  fragment  of 
257  verses  is  still  extant.    This  fragment,  with  some  other  compositions,  chiefly  poetical,  of  a 
somewhat  later  date,  has  been  edited  by  Raynouard  in  his  Cludx  d.  po6s,  d.  Troub.,  and  also  by 
Diez  In  his  Altromanische  Sprachdenkmale. 

C.  MSS.  collections  of  Provencal  poetry,  from  the  golden  age  of  its  existence  in  the  south  of 
France,  when  the  Provencal  was  the  language  par  excellence  of  chivalry  and  of  the  courts  (i.  e., 
during  the  12th  and  13th  centuries),  made  at  different  epochs  and  by  various  hands,  are  preserved 
in  the  different  libraries  of  continental  Europe.    An  account  of  those  manuscripts  is  furnished  us 
by  M.  Raynouard  in  his  Choix  de  pec's,  des  Troub.,  vol.  ii.  page  cliv.-clxiv.,  vol.  vi.  Appendix,  and 
in  the  Index  to  the  5th  volume  of  his  Lexique  Roman.  An  extensive  collection  of  copies  of  foreign 
MSS.  prepared  with  great  care  and  labor  by  M.  de  Sainte-Palaye,  is  deposited  in  the  library  of  the 
Arsenal,  at  Paris. 

D.  Printed  works  relating  to  the  subject  of  Provencal  poetry  and  its  history : 

1.  Les  vies  des  plus  c£lebres  et  anciens  poe'tes  provengaux,  qui  ont  fleuri  du  temps  des  comtes  de 
Provence,  par  Jean  de  Nostre  Dame,  procureur  en  la  cour  du  paiiement  de  Provence.    Lyon, 
1575.    8vo. 

2.  Istoria  della  volgar  poesia,  scritta  da  Giovan  Mario  Crescimbeni.    Roma,  1698,  and  Venezia, 
1730-31.    7  vols.  4to,  of  which  the  second  volume  contains  a  translation  of  the  biographical 
sketches  of  Nostradamus,  with  some  additions,  and  a  number  of  specimens  of  Provencal  poetry 
with  an  Italian  translation  opposite. 

8.  Histoire  litt€raire  des  Troubadours,  contenant  leurs  vies,  des  extraits  de  leurs  pieces,  et  plusieurs 
particularite"s  sur  les  moeurs,  les  usages  et  1'histoire  du  12e  et  du  13e  siecles.  Paris,  1774. 
8  vols.  12mo.  This  work,  which  appeared  without  the  name  of  the  author,  is  from  the  pen  of 
the  Abbe"  Millot,  and  redacted  from  the  papers  of  Sainte-Palaye. 

4.  The  literary  history  of  the  Troubadours,  containing  their  lives,  extracts  from  their  works,  etc. 
By  Mrs.  Dobson.     London,  1807.    12mo — A  translation  and  abridgment  of  the  work  of  Millot. 

5.  Choix  des  poe"sies  originales  des  Troubadours,  par  M.  Raynouard.    Paris,  1816-20.    5  vols.  8vo. 
The  first  printed  collection  of  Provencal  poetry  of  any  note,  including  a  critical  examination 
into  the  formation  of  the  language,  the  earliest  specimens  of  its  literature,  a  grammar,  and  one 
volume  of  biographical  notices  from  Proven§al  sources,  with  an  indication  of  the  number  of 
pieces  yet  extant  in  MSS.  from  the  respective  poets,  of  which  but  a  limited  number  could  be  ad- 
mitted into  the  collection.    This  is  still  the  most  complete  work  on  this  branch  of  the  subject. 

6.  Nouveau  choix  des  poesies  originales  des  Troubadours,  et  d'extraits  des  poemes  divers  par  M. 
Raynouard  (in  the  1st  vol.  of  his  Lexique  Roman).    Paris,  1S38.    This  volume  contains  the 
principal  poetical  romances  of  the  Provencals,  either  entire  or  in  part,  with  a  number  of  other 
pieces. 

7.  Le  Parnasse  Occitanien,  ou  choix  des  poesies  originales  des  Troubadours,  Urges  des  manuscrits 
nationaux  (anonymous,  but  known  to  be  by  Rochegude).    Toulouse,  1819.    8vo. 

8.  A  general  outline  of  the  history  of  Provencal  literature  is  contained  in  the  "  Histoire  LitteYaire 
de  la  France,"  vol.  vii.,  p.  xxx.,  and  vol.  xvi.,  p.  194,  sqq.    Essays  on  the  different  Troubadours, 
with  extracts  from  their  writings,  chiefly  from  the  pen  of  M.  Emeric-David,  in  vols.  xiii.,  xiv., 
xv.,  xvii.,  xviii.,  xix.,  and  xx.    The  whole  of  vol.  xxii.  is  devoted  to  an  examination  of  the 
writings  of  the  Troubadours  and  Trouveres,  and  is  chiefly  from  the  pen  of  C.  Fauriel. 

9.  Die  Werke  der  Troubadours  in  provencalischer  Sprache,  nach  Raynouard,  Rochegude,  Diez  u. 
nach  den  Handschriften,  herausg.  von  C.  A.  F.  Mahn.    Berlin,  1846.    And  by  the  same  editor  ; 
Gedichte  der  Troubadours,  etc.    Berlin,  1856. 

10.  Die    Biographieen    der    Troubadours   in   prov.    Sprache,    herausg.    von   C.  A.   F.    Mahn. 
Berlin,  1858. 

11.  Altfranzosische  Lieder,  bericht.  u.  erlaut.  mit  Bezug  auf  die  provencallsche,  altitalienische  u. 
mittelhochdeutsche  Liederdichtung.    Von  Ed.  Martzner.    Berlin,  1853.    12mo. 

12.  Romanische  Inedita,  auf  italienischen  Bibliotheken  gesammelt.    Von  Paul  Heyse.    Berlin, 
1856.    8vo. 

18.  Pierre  Vidal's  Lieder,  herausgegeben  von  C.  Bartsch.    Berlin,  1857.    12mo. 
14.  Der  Roman  von  Ferabras  provenzalisch  herausgegeben  von  Immanuel  Bekker.      Berlin, 
1829.    4to. 


List  of  the  Principal  Authorities.  xxxvii 

15.  Die  Poesie  der  Troubadours,  von  Friedvich  Diez.    Zwickau,  1827,  and  the  same  French  by 
Roisin.    Lille,  1845.     This  is  a  critical  examination  of  the  poetry  of  the  Proven§als,  and  a  his- 
tory of  it. 

16.  Osservationi  sulla  poesia  dei  Trovatori,  da  G-.  Galvani.    Modena,  1829.    8vo. 

17.  Fiore  di  storia  letteraria  e  cavalleresca  della  Occitania,  da  G.  Galvani.    Milano,  1846.    8vo. 

18.  De  la  langue  et  de  la  poesie  provencales.  par  le  baron  Eugene  von  Bemmel.    Bruxelles  et 
Paris,  1846.     8vo. 

19.  Histoire  de  la  langue  et  litterature  provencale,  par  Emile  de  Laveleye.    Bruxelles  et  Paris, 
1846.    8vo. 

20.  Histoire  de  1'  6popee  du  moyen  age  : — Romans  provencaux,  par  C.  Fauriel  (in  the  Revue  des 
deux  Mondes  of  1832.) 

21.  M^moires  sur  1'ancienne  chevallerie,  par  la  Curne  de  Sainte-Palaye.      Paris,  1781.    3  vols., 
12mo.,  and  2d  ed.,  avec  une  introduction  et  des  notes  historiques,  par  C.  Nodier.     Paris,  1826. 
2  vols.,  8vo.    English:  Memoirs  of  ancient  chivalry,  etc.,  by  the  translator  of  the  Life  of 
Petrarch.    London,  1784.    8vo. 

22.  Document!  d'amore,  del  Francisco  Barberino.    Roma,  1640. 

23.  Erotica,  seu  Amatoria,  Andreae  Capellani  regii,  vetustissimi  scriptoris,  ad  venerandum  suum 
ainicum  Gualterum  scripta,  etc.,  in  publicum  emissa  a  Dethmaro  Mulhero.     Dorpmundas,  1610. 
8vo.    A  notice  of  this  book  in  Raynouard's  choix,  vol.  2d,  and  in  the  Hist,  litter,  de  la  France, 
vol.  xxi.,  p.  820. 

24.  Ausspriiche  der  Minnegerichte,  aus  alten  Handschriften,  herausg.  u.  mit.  ein.  hist.  Abhandl. 
iiber  d.  Minnegerichte  begleitet,  von  C.  Freih.  v.  Aretin.    Munchen,  1803. 

*  #  #  #  #  •  *•          •  $  *  *  * 

25.  Monuments  de  la  litterature  romane,  depuis  le  14e  siecle,  publics  par  M.  Gatien — Arnoult. 
Paris  et  Toulouse  (without  date),  4  vols.,  8vo.  (of  which  the  4th  vol.  contains  the  prize  poems 
of  the  academy  of  the  gay  saber  at  Toulouse.) 

26.  Notices  et  extraits  de  quelques  ouvrages  ecrits  en  patois  du  midi  de  la  France.    Paris,  1840. 

27.  Le  Troubadour  modern  (i.  e.,  Jacques  Jasmin),  par  M.  Cabrie.    Paris,  1840. 

III.   WORKS  RELATING  TO  THE  LITERATURE  OP  THE  TROUVERES  AND  TO  THAT  OF 
THE  MIDDLE  AGE  IN  GENERAL. 

1.  Fabliaux  et  contes  des  poetes  francais  de  xie,  xiie,  xiiie,  xive  et  xve.  siecles,  par  Barbazan. 
Paris,  1756.     3  vols.  8vo.— New  edtition  by  Meon.     Paris,  1808.    4  vols.  8vo. 

2.  Fabliaux  et  contes,  etc.,  du  xiie,  et  du  xiiie  siecle,  par  Legrand  d'  Aussy.    Paris,  1829.    5  vols. 
8vo. 

3.  Nouveau  recueil  de  fabliaux  et  contes  ine"dits,  public's  par  M.  Meon.    Paris,  1823.    2  vols.  8vo. 
— This  is  also  the  editor  of  the  Roman  de  la  Rose,  du  Renart  and  of  several  others. 

4.  De  la  chanson  de  Roland,  du  roman  de  Tristan,  de  la  Violette,  de  comte  de  Poitiers,  de  Horn, 
etc.,  par  Francisque  Michel.     Paris,  1830-37  (in  separate  volumes). 

5.  Lais  inedits  des  xiie  et  xiiie  siecles,  d'apres  les  MSS.  de  France  et  d'  Angleterre,  publics  p>r 
Francisque  Michel.     Paris,  1836. 

6.  Jongleurs  et  Trouveres,  ou  choix  des  saluts,  epitres,  etc.,  des  xiiie  et  xive  siecles,  par  Achille 
Jubinal.    Paris,  1835.    8vo. 

7.  Nouveau  recueil  des  contes,  dits,  fabliaux  et  autres  pieces  inedites  des  xiiie,  xive,  et  xve 
siecles,  par  A.  Jubinal.    Paris,  1839-42.    3  vols  8vo. 

8.  Essais  historiques  sur  les  bardes,  les  jongleurs  et  les  trouveres  normands,  et  anglo-normands, 
par  1'Abbe  G.  Delarue.    Paris,  1834.    3  vols.  8vo. 

9.  Trouveres,  jongleurs  et  me"nestrels  du  nord  de  la  France  et  du  midi  de  la  Belgique,  par  Arthur 
Dinaux.    Valenciennes  et  Paris,  1837-43.    3  vols.  8vo. 

10.  Les  romans  en  prose  des  cycles  de  la  table  ronde  et  de  Charlemagne,  par  J.  W.  Schmidt. 

11.  Poe'mes  des  bardes  bretons  du  vie.  siecle,  par  Villemarque.    Paris,  1850. 

12.  Histoire  des  lettres  au  moyen-age,  par  Amedee  Duquesnel.    Paris,  1842.    4  vols.  8vo. 

13.  Des  fetes  du  moyen  age,  civiles,  militaires  et  religieuses,  par  A.  de  Matronne. 

14.  Poesies  populaires  latines  anterieures  au  xiie  siecle. — And:   Poesies  populaires  latines  au 
moyen  age,  par  E.  du  Meril.    Paris,  1849.     8vo. 

15.  Poesies  inedites  du  moyen  age,  par  E.  du  Meril.    Paris,  1854.    8vo. 

16.  Exempla  poeseos  latinae  medii  aevi,  edita  a  M.  Hauptio  lusato.    Vindobonae,  1834. 

17.  Latina  quae  msedium  per  aevum  in  triviis,  necnon  in  monasteriis  vulgabantur,  carmina  sedulo 
iterum  collegit  E.  du  Meril.    Paris,  1847. 

18.  Hymni  latini  medii  aevi,  e  codd.  MSS.  edidit  et  annotationibus  illustravit  F.  J.  Mone.    Friburgi 
Brisgoviae,  1855.    3  vols.  8vo. 

19.  Specimens  of  Latin  poetry,  secular  and  religious,  from  every  century  of  the  middle  age  will  be 
found  in  Migne's  Patrologise  Cursus  Completus,  in  Bolland's  and  in  Mabillon's  Acta  Sanctorum, 
in  Bouquet,  Pertz  and  other  historical  collections,  indicated  in  No.  V.  of  this  list. 

20.  Etudes  sur  les  mysteres,  par  Onesime  Le  Roy.    Paris,  1887.    8vo. 

21    Mysteres  inedits  du  xve  siecle,  par  A.  Jubinal.    Paris,  1837.    2  vols.  8vo. 

22.  Les  MSS.  franjais  de  la  bibliotheque  du  Roi,  par  Paulin  Paris.    Paris,  1842.    4  vols.  8vo. 

IV. — WORKS   ON   SCANDINAVIAN  AND  GERMANIC  LITERATURE,  EXAMINED  OR 
REFERRED  TO  IN  THIS  VOLUME. 

1.  Edda  Saamundar  bins  Froda,  sive  Edda  rhythmica  seu  antiquior,  vulgo  Szemundina  dicta. 
Hafnise,  1787-1828.  3  parts,  4to.  The  same  from  the  text  of  Rask,  edited  by  Afzelius.  Hoi- 
mis:,  1818.  8vo. 


xxxviii  List  of  tJie  Principal  Authorities. 

2.  Edda  Islandorum  per  Snorronem  Sturlae  conscripta.     Ed.  P.  J.  Resenius.    Hauniae,  1665.    4to. 
(The  original  text  of  the  younger  Edda,  with  a  Danish  and  Latin  translation). 

3.  Snorra-Edda  asamtSkaldu,  etc.jUtgefin  af  R.  K.  Rask.   Stockholm!,  1818.   8vo.  (Younger  Edda, 
critical  text). 

4.  Die  Lieder  der  alteren  Edda  erklart  durch  die  Briider  Grimm.    Berlin,  1815.    2  vols.  8vo. 

5.  Die  Edda,  nebst  einer  Einleitung  iiber  nord.    Poesie  u.  Mythologie,  von  Friedr.  Riihs.    Berlin, 
1812.    8vo. 

6.  Die  altere  u.  jungere  Edda,  nebst  den  mythischen  Erzahlungen  der  Skalda,  iibersetzt  von  Karl 
Simrock.     Stuttgart,  1855.    8vo. 

7.  Lieder  der  Edda  von  den  Nibelungen,  iibersetzt  von  E.  M.  L.  Ettmiiller.     Zurich,  1887. 
8vo. 

8.  Mallet's  Northern  Antiquities,  translated  from  the  French  by  Bishop  Percy.    New  edition 
edited  by  Blackwell.    London,  1S47.    12mo.    (This  contains  an  account  of  both  Eddas,  with 
some  extracts  from  them). 

9.  Manual  of  Scandinavian  Mythology,  by  G.  Pigott.    London. 

10.  Fornaldar  Sogur  Nortlanda  eptir  Gomlin  handritum  utgefnar  af  C.  C.  Rafn.    Kaufmannahofn, 
1829.    8  vols.  8vo.— (Text  of  the  Vosunga-Saga  in  vol.  1st,  p.  114-184). 

11.  Wilkina-Saga :    give   Historise  Wilkinensium,  Theodorici  Veronensis,  ac  Niflungorum,  etc., 
opera  Job.  Peringskiold.    Stockholmis,  1715.    (Original,  with  a  Swedish  and  a  Latin  trans- 
lation). 

12.  Saga-Bibliothek,  by  P.  S.  Miiller.    Copenhagen,  1816.    8  vols.  8vo.    (An  account  of  the  differ- 
ent sagas,  with  a  sort  of  commentary  upon  them). 

18.  Nordische  Heldenromane,  tibersetzt  von  F.  H.  v.  d.  Hagen.  Berlin,  1814-28.  5  vols.  12mo. 
(These  volumes  contain  a  German  version  of  the  Volsunga  and  Wilkina  Sagas  ^. 

14.  Ulfilas  :  veteris  et  novi  testament!  gothice  fragmenta,  quae  supersunt,  ed.  H.  G.  de  Gabelentz 
et  J.  Losbe.    Lipsise,  1848-46.    2  vols.  4to. 

15.  Die  beiden  altesten  Gedichte  aus  dem  8ten  Tahrh.  I.  e.    Das  Lied  von    Hildebrand  u.  das 
Wessebrunner  Gebet,  herausg.  von  Jac.  Grimm.    Cassel,  1812.    4to. 

16.  The  Anglo-Saxon  poem  of  Beowulf,  edited  by  J.  M.  Kemble.    London,  1885.    2  vols.  12mo.— 
The  same,  edited  by  B.  Thorpe,  Oxford,  1855  ;  and  by  Ettmiiller,  Ziirich,  1840. 

17.  Altdanische  Heldenlieder,  Balladen  u.  Marchen,  iibersetzt  von  W.  K.  Grimm.    Heiderberg, 
1811. 

18.  Das  Heldenbuch  in  der  Ursprache,  herausgegeben  von  F.  H.  v.  d.  Hagen  u.  Anton  Primisser. 
Berlin,  1820.    2  theile,  4to. 

19.  Deutsche  Heldensage,  von  Wilhelm  Grimm.    Gottingen.  1829.    8vo. 

20.  Heldenbilder    aus   den   Sagenkreisen   Karl's    des    Grossen,   Artus,   der  Tafelrunde  u.    des 
Grals,  Attila's,  der  Amelungen  u.  Nibelungen,  von  F.  H.  v.  d.  Hagen.    Breslau,  1813.    2  vols. 
12mo. 

21.  De  prima  expeditione  Attilae  regis  Hunnorum  in  Gallias,  ac  de  rebus  gestis  Waltharii,  Aqui- 
tanorum  principis,  ed.  F.  K.  I.  Fischer.     Lipsiae,  1780. 

22.  Lateinsche  Gedichte  aus  dem  lOten  Jahrhundert,  herausg.  von  Jacob  Grimm  u.  Schmeller, 
Guttingen,  1888,  8vo.     (This  volume  contains  the  text  of  the  poem  of  Walter,  the  Aquitanian 
hero,  with  a  critical  examination  of  its  contents  and  history). 

23.  Walter,   PrSnz  von  Aquitanien;    ein  Heldengedicht  aus  dem  6ten  Jahrhundert,   aus  dem 
lateinischen  Codex  iibersetzt  von  F.  Molter.    Karlsruhe,  1818. 

24.  Das  Nibelungen  Lied  in  der  altesten  Gestalt,  herausg.  von  F.  H.  v.  d.  Hagen.    Breslau,  1810, 
2d  ed.,  1816. 

25.  Der  Nibelungen  Noth  mit  der  Klage,  herausg.  von  Carl  Lachmann.    Berlin,  1826.    4to. 

26.  Der  Nibelungen  Lied,  Abdruck  der  Handsch.  des  Freih.  v.  Lassberg.     Leipzig,  1840.    4to. 
Modern  German  versions  or  translations  of  this  epos  by  Pfitzer,  Biisching,  Simrock,  Marbacb, 
Hinsberg,  Zeune,  etc. 

27.  The  Lay  of  the  last  Nibelungers,  translated  into  English  verse,  by  Jonathan  Birch.    Berlin, 
1848.    8vo. 

28.  Illustrations  of  Northern  Antiquities,  from  the  earliest  Teutonic  and  Scandinavian  romances, 
by  H.  Weber  and  R.  Jamieson.    Edinburgh,  1814.    4to.     This  volume  contains  an  abstract  of 
the  Nibelungen  Lied,  by  Weber,  with  occasional  metrical  versions  of  passages.    In  it  the  reader 
will  also  find  an  account  of  the  Hildebrandslied  and  of  the  Heldenbuch,  with  a  number  of  other 
valuable  notices  relative  to  the  subject  of  Northern  and  Germanic  literature.    An  elaborate  and 
spirited  examination  of  the  great  Teutonic  epos  of  the  middle  age  is  furnished  us  by  Thomas 
Carlyle,  in  his  Critical  and  Miscellaneous  Essays.     Boston,  1838-39. 

29.  Uber  die  ursprungliche  Gestalt  des  Gedichtes  von  der  Nibelungen  Noth,  von  Carl  Lachmann. 
Berlin,  1816.     8vo. 

30   Des  Nibelungen,  saga  merovingienne  de  la  Neerlande,  par  Louis  de  Baecker.    Paris  et  Cam- 

brai,  1858.     8vo. 
81.  Minnesinger,  oder  Deutsche  Liederdichter  des  xiiten,  xiiiten  u.  xivten  Jahrhunderts,  aus  den 

Handschriften  u.  friiheren  Drucken  gesammelt,  etc.,  von  F.  H.  v.  d.  Hagen.    Leipzig,  1888. 

3  vols.,  4to.    Earlier  edition  of  the  same,  by  Bodmer,  in  2  vols.,  4to. 
32    Lays  of  the  Minnesingers  or  German  Troubadours,  by  Edgar  Taylor,  London. 
-I.  Minnelieder  aus  dem  Schwabischen  Zeitalter,  von  Ludwig  Tieck.    Berlin,  1803.    8vo. 
ot.  Tableau  de  la  litterature  du  Nord  au  moyen  age  en  Allemagne  et  en  Angleterre,  en  Scandina- 

vie  et  en  Slavonic,  par  F.  G.  Eichhoff.    Lyon  et  Paris,  1853.    8vo. 

V. — CLASSICAL  AND  HISTORICAL  WORKS,  COLLECTIONS  OF  MEDIEVAL  CHRONICLES, 

ETC.,    REFERRED   TO    IN   THIS    VOLUME. 

1.  Valpy's  edition  of  the  Delphin  Classics  of  the  Latin  language.  London,  1821-28.  141  vols., 
8vo.  Ausonius,  Cjesar,  Cicero,  Julius  Florus,  Justinus,  Livius,  Lucanus,  Plinius,  Suetonius, 
Tacitus,  Valerius  Maximus. 


List  of  the  Principal  Authorities.  xxxix 

2.  Lemaire's  Collection  of  Latin  Classics.    Paris.  1819-26.    140  vols.,  8vo.    Juvenal,  Quintilianus, 

Seneca,  etc. 
8.    Julian!   imperatoris   opera   quae   supersunt    omnia    et  St.   Cyrilli  libri  x.      Lipsiae,    1796. 

2  vols.,  foL 

4.  Plutarchi  Vitae,  secundum  codd.  Parisinoa   recognovit   Theod.    Doehner.     Parisiia,   1847. 
2  vols.,  8vo. 

5.  Strabonis  geographicarum  rerum  libri  xvii.    Ed.  J.  P.  Siebenkees.    Lipsise,  1746.    6  vols.,  8vo. 

6.  jfiliani  de  varia  historia  libri  xiv.    Venetils  1550,  fol.  and  ed.  Coray.    Paris,  1805,  8vo. 

7.  Scriptorum  historiae  Byzantinorum  corpus,  ed.  G.  Niebuhr  (continued   by  the  Academy  at 
Berlin.)    Bonn,  1828-53.    48  vols.,  8vo.    Cedrenus,  Ephorus,  etc. 

8.  Isagoge  in    notitiam   soriptorum    historic  Gallic®,  etc.     Studio  J.  Fabricii.      Hamburg*, 
1708.    12mo. 

9.  Bibliotheca  Latina  mediae  et  infimaa  aetatis,  ed.  J.  Fabricius.    Hamburgae,  1784-46.    6  vols., 
12mo.,  and  new  ed.,  by  Ernesti,  Leipzig.    3  vols.,  8vo. 

10.  Historise  Francorum  Scriptores  coetanei  ab  ipsius  gentis  origine  ad  regis  Philippi  IV.  tempora, 
opera  ac  studio  Andreas  et  Francisci  Du  Chesne.    Lutetiae  Paris.      1639-49.    5  vols.,  fol. 

11.  Rerum  Gallicarum  et  Francicarum  Scriptores  :  seu  Recueil  des  historiens  des  Gaules  et  de  la 
France,  par  D.  Bouquet  et  autres  be"n6dictins  (and  from  the  13th  vol.  by  M.  Brial  and  other 
members  of  the  Institute  of  France.)    Paris,  1738-1841.    20  vols.  folio.— Eginhard,  Nigellus, 
Chionicon  Gaufredi  prioris  Vosiensis,  Oderic  Vitalis,  Rigord,  William  of  Malmesbury,  etc. 

12.  Monumenta  Germaniae  historica,  inde  ab  anno  D.  usque  ad  annum  MD.,  etc.    Ed.  G.  H.  Pertz. 
Hannoverss,  1826-52.    12  vols.   fol. — Eginhard,  Charlemagne's  capitularies,  Carlovingian  and 
other  chronicles,  Fabulas  de  Caroli  M  Expeditione  Hispanica,  Nigellus,  Ekkard's  Casus  Sancti 
Galli,  Chronicon  Novaliciense,  etc.,  etc. 

13.  Nova  bibliotheca  manuscriptorum,  ed.  Philippus  Labbeus.    Parisiis,  1657.     Ganfredi  prioris 
Vos.  chronicon,  etc.,  etc. 

14.  Rerum  Italicarum  Scriptores,  ed.  L.  A.  Muratori.    Mediolani,  1723-51.    29  vols.  fol.    Chroni- 
con Novalicience,  etc. 

15.  Rerum  Italicarum  Scriptores,  ex  Florentinarum  bibliothecarum  codicibus.    Florent.  1748.    2 
vols.  fol.    Gauthier  Vinisauf  s  Itinerarium,  etc. 

16.  Germanicarum  rerum  iv.    celebres   vetustioresque    chronographi.    Francofurti,    1566,    fol. 
Joannis  Turpini  chronicon. 

17.  Rerum  Sileciacarum  Scriptores,  ed.  F.  W.  Sommersberg.    Lipsise,  1730.    6  vols.  fol.     Bogu- 
phali  chronicon  Poloniae. 

18.  De  Getarum  sive  Gothorum  origine  et  rebus  gestis,  scrips.  Jornandes.    Hamburg!,  1611.    4to. 

19.  Capitularia    regum   Francorum   et   pactus    legis    Salicaa,    ed.    E.  Baluze.     Parisiis,    1780. 
2  vols.  fol. 

20.  Recueil  des  anciennes  lois  franchises,  depuis  Pan  420  jusqu'  a  la  revolution  de  1789,  par  MM. 
Jourdan,  Decrusy,  Isambert  et  Taillandier.    Paris.    29  vols.  8vo. 

21.  Collection  des  M6moires  relatifs  a  1'histoire  de  France,  depuis  la  fondation  de  la  monarchic 
Franchise  jusqu'au  13e  Siecle,  etc.,  par  M.  Guizot.    Paris,  1823-35.    31  vols.  8vo. 

************ 

22.  Patrologias  Cursus  Completus,  sive  Bibliotheca  universalis  o-mnium  SS.  patrum,  doctorum, 
scriptorumque  ecclesiasticorum,  qui  ab  aevo  apostolico  ad  Inmx;entii  tempora  floruerunt,  etc. 
Accurante  J.  P.  Migne.    Parisiis,  1839-54.    217  vols.  Svo.    The  works  of  Gregorius  Turonensis, 
Sidonius  Apollinaris,  St.   Augustinus,  Cassiodorus,  St.  Caesarias,  St.  Fortunatus,  St.  Hierony- 
mus,  St.  Carolus  M.,  Mamertus  Claudianus,  etc.,  etc. 

23.  Bibliotheca  veterum  patrum  antiquorumque  scriptorum  ecclesiasticorum,  ed.  A.  Gallandius. 
Venetiis,  1765-81.    14  vols.  fol.    St.  Agobard,  Sulpicius  Severus,  Sidonius  Apollinaris,  Salvianus, 
Lactantius,  Mamertus  Claudianus,  etc. 

24.  Sacrosancta  Concilia,  edita  studio  Philippi  Labbei  et  Gabrielis  Cassartii.    Parisiis,  1672.    18 
vols.  fol.    Canons   of  the  Councils  of  Aries,  Maintz,  Narbonne,    Orleans,    Rome,  Toledo, 
Tours,  etc. 

25.  Acta  Sanctorum  omnium,  collecta  et  illustrata,  cura  Joannis  Bollandi  et  aliorum.    Antwerpiae, 
Tongarloae  et  Bruxellis,  1643-1845.    54  vols.  fol.    Account  of  St.  Fides  of  Agen,  etc. 

26.  Acta  Sanctorum  ordinis  sancti  Benedicti,  in  saeculorum  classes  distributa,  cura  D.  J.  Mabillon. 
Parisiis,  1668-1702.    9  vols.  fol.    And  by  the  same  :  Annales  ordinis  sancti  Benedicti.    Pariaiis, 
1703-39.    6  vols.  fol.    Account  of  St.  William  the  Pious. 

27.  Gallia  Christiana.    Parisiis,  1716. 

VI. — GENERAL   AND  .MISCELLANEOUS  WORKS  RELATING  TO   THE  SUBJECT  OF  THIS 

VOLUME. 

1.  Dell'  origine,  de'  progress!  et  dello  stato  attuale  di  ogni  letteratura,  del  Abbate  Giov.  Andres. 
Prato,  1806-21.    20  vols.  8vo.,  and  Pisa,  1829.    8  vols.  Svo. 

2.  Storia  della  letteratura  Italiana,  del  Cav.  Abate  Tiraboschi.    Firenze,  1806.    16  vols.  Svo. 

8.  De  la  litterature  du  midi  de  1'Europe,  par  J.  C.  D.  S.  de  Sismondi.      Paris,  1840.    4  vols.  Svo. 
English  by  Roscoe.    London.    2  vols.  12mo. 

4.  History  of  Spanish  Literature,  by  George  Ticknor.    Boston,  1849.    3  vols.  Svo. 

5.  Histoire  litteraire  de  la  France,  commenced  par  des  Benedictins  de  la  congregation  de  Salnt- 
Maur,  continuee  par  des  membres  de  1'Institut.    Paris,  1733-1852.    22  vols.  4to. 

6.  Geschichte  der  Poesie  u.  Beredsamkeit  seit  dem  Ende  des  13ten  Jahrhunderts,  von  F.  Bouter- 
weck.     Gottingen,  1801-12.     9  vols.  Svo. 

7.  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Dichtung,  von  G.  G.  Gervinus.    Leipzig,  1853.    5  vols.  Svo. 

8.  History  of  English  poetry,  from  the  llth  to  the  18th  century,  by  T.  Warton.    London,  1775.    4 
vols.  4to.— New  edition,  London,  1824,  4  vols.  Svo. 

9.  Geschichte  der  rb'mischen  Litteratur,  von  J.  C.  F.  Baehr.    Carlsruhe,  1828.    Svo. 


xl  List  of  tJie  Principal  Authorities. 

10.  History  of  the  literature  of  ancient  Greece,  by  0.  Miiller.    London,  1840.    8vo. 

11.  Litteraturgeschichte  der  Araber,  von  dem  Beginne  bis  zu  dem  Ende  des  12ten  Jahrh.  der 
Hidschrets,  von  Hammer-Purgstall.    Wien,  1850-66.    7  vols.  8vo. 

12.  Geschichte  der  alten  u.  neuen  Litteratur,  von  Priedr.  Schlegel.    Wien.  1846.    8vo. 
18.  La  France  liU6raire,  etc.,  par  de  Laport  et  Guiot.    Paris,  1T78-84.    6  vols.  8vo. 

14.  Melanges  de  critique  et  de  philologie,  par  Chardon  de  la  Rochette. 

15.  Dante  et  les  origines  de  la  langue  et  la  literature  italiennes,  par  C.  Pauriel.    Paris,  1854. 

16.  Journal  Asiatique,  par  la  societg  asiatique.    (lere  S€rie).    Paris,  1822-87.    10  vols.  8vo. 

17.  Ancient  English  metrical  romances,  edited  by  Price  and  Ritson.    London,  1802. 

18.  Vite  ed  elogi  d'  illustri  Italiani,  da  Galeani  Napione.    Pisa,  1818.    8  vols.  12mo. 

19.  Critical  and  miscellaneous  essays,  by  Thomas  Carlyle.    Boston,  1888-89.    4  vols.  12mo. 

20.  Fueros  y  observancias  del  reyno  de  Aragon.    Saragossa,  1628.    4to. 

21.  Las  siete  partidas  del  rey  Don  Alfonso  el  Sabio,  por  la  real  Academia  de  la  historia.    Madrid, 
1807.    8  vols.  4to. 

22.  Histoire  litteraire  d'  Italie,  par  P.  L.  Ginguene.    Paris,  1811-23.    10  vols.  8vo 

23.  Histoire  des  croisades,  par  M.  Michaud.    Paris,  1831-82.     5  vols.  8vo.— Bibliographic  des 
croisades,  contenant  1'analyse  de  toutes  les  chroniques  d'orient  et  d'occident,  qui  parlent  des 
croisades,  par  M.  Michaud.    Paris,  1822.    2  vols.  8vo. 

24.  Extraits  des  historiens  arabes  relatifs  aux  guerres  des  croisades,  par  J.  T.  Reinaud.    Paris 
1829. 

25.  Invasions  des  Sarrazins  en  France,  Savoie,  la  Suisse,  etc.,  par  J.  T.  Reinaud.    Paris,  1836. 
8vo. 

26.  Histories  of  the  crusades,  by  contemporary  Christian  writers,  in  the  9th,  10th  and,  in  16-24th 
volumes  of  Guizot's  Collection  of  Memoirs  (v.  No.  21). 

27.  Histoire  des  r6publiques  italiennes  du  moyen  age,  par  J.  C.  D.  S.  de  Sismondi.    Paris,  1840. 
10  vols.  8vo. 

23.  Historic  des  Francois,  par  J.  C.  D.  S.  de  Sismondi.    Paris,  1832-43.    81  vols.  8vo. 

29.  Histoire  des  Gaulois,  depuis  les  temps  les  plus  recul6s  jusqu'  a  1'entiere  soumission  de  la  Gaule 
a  la  domination  romaine,  par  Amedee  Thierry.    Paris,  1835.    8  vols.  8vo. 

30.  Histoire  de  la  Gaule  meridionale  sous  la  domination  des  conquurants  germains,  par  C.  Fauriel. 
Paris,  1836.    4  vols.  8vo. 

81.  Memoires  de  1'  histoire  de  Languedoc,  recueillis  de  divers  auteurs,  etc.,  par  Guill.  de  Catel. 
Tolose,  1638,  fol. 

82.  Histoire  g6n<§alogique  de  la  maison  d'Auvergne,  par  Baluze.    Paris,  1807.    2  vols.  fol. 

83.  Histoire  generate  de  Provence,  par  J.  P.  Papon.    Paris,  1777-86.    4  vols.  4to.— Voyage  litte- 
raire de  Provence,  par  le  meme.    Paris,  1787.    2  vols.  12mo. 

84.  Dictionnaire  historique  et  topographique  de  la  Provence,  ancienne  et  moderne,  par  M.  Garcin. 
Dagrignan,  1883.    2  vols. 

85.  Histoire  de  la  ville  Marseille,  par  Ant.  de  Ruffi.    Marseille,  1696.    2  vols.  fol. 

86.  Geschichte  der  Hohenstaufen  und  ihrer  Zeit,  von  Friedrich  von  Raumer.    Leipzig,  1823-25. 
6  vols.  8vo. 

87.  L'  histoire  et  chronique  de  Provence,  ou  passent  de  temps  en  temps,  et  en  belle  ordre,  les 
anciens  poe'tes,  personnages  et  families  illustres,  qui  ontfleuri  depute  six  cent  ans,  etc.,  par  Cusar 
de  Nostre  Dame.    Lyon,  1614,  fol. 

38.  Archiv  der   Gesellschaft  fiir  altere  deutsche  Geschichtskunde.      Herausg.  von  Buchler  u. 
Dumge.    Frankfort,  a.  M  ,  1820-22.    4  vols.  8vo. 


HISTORY   OF   PROVENCAL   POETRY. 


CHAP  TEE  I. 

GENERAL  OUTLINE  OF  PROVENCAL   LITERATURE. 

THE  history  of  Provencal  literature  divides  itself  naturally 
into  two  parts:  the  first  comprising  the  revolutions  of  this 
literature  within  the  limits  of  the  country  itself,  in  which  it 
originated  and  flourished ;  the  second  treating  of  its  influence 
on  the  literatures  of  the  foreign  nations,  among  which  it  was 
introduced.  In  this  chapter  I  shall  confine  myself  to  contem- 
plating it  on  its  native  soil,  and  independently  of  its  popularity 
in  other  quarters. 

The  history  of  Provencal  literature,  restricted  as  it  ordinarily 
is,  to  the  poetry  of  the  Troubadours,  would  only  embrace  a 
period  of  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  years ;  from  the  end  of 
the  eleventh  to  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  centuries.  But  I 
think  I  can  trace  the  origin  and  the  first  tentatives  of  this  litera- 
ture to  a  much  remoter  antiquity.  I  date  its  birth  from  the 
eighth  century — from  the  epoch  at  which  I  suppose  (as  I  shall 
endeavor  to  prove)  the  Eomansh  idioms  of  the  South  to  have 
been  substituted  for  the  Latin. 

I  shall  therefore  divide  the  history  of  Provencal  literature 
into  two  great  epochs,  of  which  the  one  extends  from  the 
second  half  of  the  eighth  century  to  the  year  1080,  and  the 
other  from  1080  to  1350. 

Of  these  two  epochs  the  first  is,  as  we  can  easily  presume,  by 
far  the  most  obscure,  the  one  from  which  the  smallest  number 
of  monuments  are  left  us,  and  concerning  which  history  fur- 
nishes us  the  scantiest  information.  It  still  however  offers  us 
many  curious  and  interesting  facts — facts,  by  which  the  litera- 
ture of  the  South  is  linked,  on  the  one  hand  to  the  culture  of 

1 


2  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  on  the  other  to  the  glorious 
epochs  of  the  Middle  Age. 

The  fundamental  fact,  to  be  examined  in  this  first  epoch  of 
Provencal  literature,  is  the  origin  and  formation  of  the  idiom 
which  was  destined  to  become  its  organ.  The  creation  of  every 
language  presents  to  us  certain  obscure  and  mysterious  phases 
which  will  not  admit  of  an  absolute  explanation.  But  this 
being  granted,  there  is  perhaps  no  idiom  in  the  world  which 
furnishes  us  so  many  data  for  the  construction  of  its  history,  as 
does  the  ancient  Provencal ;  and  from  this  circumstance  alone, 
it  is  entitled  to  a  particular  attention.  A  careful  and  critical 
examination  of  it  enables  us  to  distinguish  the  various  ingredi- 
ents, which  have  successively  entered  into  its  composition,  and 
the  different  languages  to  which  these  ingredients  respectively 
belong.  In  the  Latin  substratum,  which  constitutes  its  basis, 
we  find  still  enough  of  Greek  to  attest  the  long  residence  of  a 
Grecian  population  in  the  countries  in  which  it  originated. 

("We  also  discover  considerable  traces  of  the  three  most  ancient 
languages  of  Gaul,  all  of  which  are  still  alive  in  barbarous  or 
remote  countries,  which  have  served  them  as  places  of  refuge. 
One  of  these  languages  is  spoken  in  France  by  the  inhabitants 
of  Lower  Brittany,  and  in  England  by  the  Welsh ;  the  other  in 
the  mountains  of  Scotland,  and  in  the  interior  of  Ireland ;  the 

I  last  in  the  Pyrenees  by  the  Basques. 

Thus,  then,  the  Provencal,  independently  of  the  interest 
which  it  claims  of  itself  alone,  as  a  literary  idiom  of  great 
refinement,  and  one  which  contributed  largely  to  the  formation 
of  the  French,  is  moreover  possessed  of  a  veritable  historical 
importance  from  the  fact  of  its  including  various  authentic  indi- 
cations respecting  the  different  races  of  men,  which  in  the 
course  of  centuries  occupied  successively  or  simultaneously 
the  soil  of  Gaul. 

The  first  attempt  to  polish  the  Romano-Provengal,  and  to 
render  it  capable  of  expressing  objects  and  ideas  above  the 
wants  and  sentiments  of  ordinary  life,  was  made  by  the  priests 
and  by  the  monks.  During  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries,  and 
even  much  later,  the  inhabitants  of  the  south  of  Gaul  still 
clung  to  usages  which  they  had  derived  from  the  paganism  of 
the  Greeks  or  Romans,  to  gross  reminiscences  of  the  antique 
arts,  and  their  ancient  public  amusements.  Hankering  after 

\  emotions,  enjoyments  and  occasions  for  common  reunions  and 
mutual  exaltations,  these  people  preserved  a  very  lively  relish 
for  certain  diversions,  for  certain  dramatic  farces — degenerate 
remnants  of  the  theatrical  representations  of  former  times. 
They  were  passionately  addicted  to  certain  dances,  which  had 
been  transferred  from  the  temples  to  the  churches,  from  the 


General  Outline  of  Provengal  Literature.  3 

pagan  cultus  to  the  Christian.  They  still  continued  to  celebrate 
their  funeral  rites  with  an  admixture  of  profane  formalities  and 
ceremonies ;  their  popular  poetry,  their  songs  of  love  still 
breathed  that  pagan  freedom,  from  which  the  austere  purity  of 
Christianity  revolted. 

The  church  had  already  repeatedly  but  vainly  attempted  to 
abolish  directly  these  onerous  remnants  of  the  ancient  cultus, 
when  the  ecclesiastics  of  the  South  resolved  upon  attempting 
the  same  reform  in  a  manner  more  indirect  and  popular.  With- 
out flattering  themselves  with  being  able  to  eradicate  those 
inveterate  pagan  habits  which  had  survived  the  system,  they 
imagined  that  they  were  sanctifying  them  by  adapting  them  to 
the  ceremonies  of  the  Christian  cultus.  They  fitted  pious  sub- 
jects into  pantomimes  and  dramas,  which  were  represented  in 
the  churches.  They  permitted  or  tolerated  in  honor  of  their 
saints,  the  dances  and  choruses  which  formerly  had  been  insti- 
tuted in  honor  of  the  pagan  divinities.  Among  the  songs  con- 
secrated by  the  church,  they  admitted  popular  songs  in  the 
Romansh  idiom  or  in  a  Latin  but  little  superior  to  the  Romansh, 
which  the  people  were  yet  able  to  comprehend.  Finally,  they 
composed  or  translated  into  the  vulgar  tongue  pious  legends 
more  marvellous  and  more  touching  than  the  ancient  fables  of 
which  some  traditions  might  yet  be  left. 

There  is  yet  extant  a  great  number  of  these  monastic  pieces, 
composed  between  the  ninth  and  the  eleventh  centuries,  in  the 
Komano-Provengal  or  in  a  corrupted  Latin,  and  composed  with 
the  intention  of  humoring  the  people,  and  of  imposing  them  as 
an  equivalent  for  its  pagan  reminiscences.*  It  is  my  purpose 
to  produce  some  specimens  of  them ;  they  will  aid  us  in  com- 
prehending to  what  extent,  and  in  what  manner,  the  ecclesias- 
tics of  the  South  contributed  to  the  origination  of  a  popular 
literature.  By  thus  admitting  the  Eomano-Provencal  into  the 
Christian  liturgy,  by  converting  certain  popular  spectacles  into 
ceremonies  of  the  church,  by  paganizing,  if  I  may  so  express 
myself,  the  cultus  of  Christianity,  the  clergy  of  the  South  can- 
not be  said  to  have  attained  its  purpose ;  but  it  rendered  a 
service  which  it  had  neither  desired  to  render,  nor  even  fore- 
Been.  By  bringing  religious  motives  to  bear  on  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Komansh  idiom  of  the  South,  which  was  as  yet 
unsettled  and  uncouth,  it  contributed  to  fix  it  and  to  polish  it. 

But  this  monkish  poetry,  these  pious  songs  in  vulgar  Latin, 
authorized  to  be  chanted  in  the  churches,  were  far  from  satisfy- 
ing the  imagination  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  South  ;  and  as  their 
language  became  more  supple,  it  was  not  long  before  they  them- 

*  On  these  pieces,  and  on  monastic  literature  in  general,  see  chapter  vii — Ed. 


4  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

selves  began  to  apply  it  to  compositions  of  a  less  austere 
description. 

The  South  had  been  the  theatre  of  grand  events  during  the 
eighth  and  ninth  centuries.  The  inhabitants  of  Aquitania  and 
of  Provence  had  shaken  off  the  yoke  of  the  Merovingian  con- 
quest. Assailed  anew  by  the  Carlo vingians,  they  had  fought 
long  and  bravely  before  being  subjected  anew.  This  animated 
contest  between  the  Franks  and  the  Gallo-Romans  of  the  South 
had  become  still  more  complicated  by  the  more  terrible  strug- 
gle of  both  these  nations  against  the  Arab  conquerors  of  Spain. 
One  of  the  results  of  this  war  had  been  to  exalt  the  imagina- 
tion, the  vanity,  the  bravery  and  the  religious  spirit  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  South.  These  nations  then  began  to  feel  the 
want  of  a  poetry,  bv  which  they  might  celebrate  the  heroic 
events,  which  had  left  so  powerful  an  imprint  on  their  memory. 
The  monuments  of  this  primitive  poetry  of  the  southern  parts 
mediaeval  Gaul  are  rare ;  they  are,  however,  not  entirely  want- 
ing, and  those  of  them  which  remain  are  deserving  of  our  par- 
ticular notice. 

There  is  one  of  them  especially  of  which  I  shall  have  to 
speak  with  considerable  detail,  and  in  behalf  of  which  I  shall 
endeavor  to  enlist  the  curiosity  and  the  attention  of  the  reader. 
This  is  a  poem  of  which  we  have  but  one  version,  made  by^ 
a  monk  in  very  bad  Latin  verses,  and  in  which  a  prince  of 
Aquitania,  bv  the  name  of  Walter,  figures  as  the  hero.* 

The  work  is  full  of  poetical  beauties,  but  these  are  perhaps 
not  its  most  remarkable  feature.  This  consists  in  the  fact  of  its 
being  linked,  both  by  its  subject  and  by  its  many  familiar 
allusions,  to  the  ancient  poetic  traditions  of  Germany.  In  the 
absence  of  precise  data  with  reference  to  the  real  origin  of  this 
work,  the  German  scholars  have  connected  it  with  their  ancient 
national  poetry.  It  will,  however,  be  easy  for  me  to  prove, 
when  I  shall  have  arrived  at  that  part  of  my  subject,  that  the 
poem  in  question,  the  moment  we  wish  to  seek  a  historical 
motive  for  it,  must  be  considered  as  an  inspiration  of  the  Aqui- 
tanian  spirit  of  the  eighth  or  ninth  century,  and  as  a  poetical 
indication  of  the  national  opposition  of  the  inhabitants  of  Gaul, 
south  of  the  Loire,  to  the  dominion  of  the  Franks.  There  was 
nothing,  however,  which  contributed  so  largely  to  awaken  the 
poetic  instinct  of  the  populations  of  the  South,  as  their  wars  and 
their  relations  with  the  Arabs  of  Spain.  Those  valiant  Sara- 
cens, those  terrible  Moors,  who  passed  the  defiles  of  the  Pyrenees 
on  so  many  occasions,  soon  took  a  much  stronger  hold  on  the 
imagination  of  the  inhabitants  of  Narbonne,  ot  Toulouse  and 

*  On  this  poem  of  Walter,  the  Aquitanian,  see  chaps,  ix.,  xi.,  xii.,  and  xiii.— Ed. 


General  Outline  of  Pro\>enqal  Literature.  5 

of  Bordeaux  than  did  the  barren  chronicles  of  their  monks. 
They  figured  at  an  early  date  in  the  fabulous  legends  and  in  the 
historical  songs,  which  served  as  the  nucleus  for  the  romantic 
epopees  of  a  subsequent  period. 

These  songs  and  legends  are  mostly  lost;  nevertheless  we 
still  find,  and  I  have  collected,  here  and  there,  a  fragment,  a 
specimen,  a  notice  which  suffices  to  establish  their  ancient  exist- 
ence. I  shall  give  an  extract  from  a  curious  fiction,  a  real 
romance,  from  the  commencement  of  the  eleventh  century,  the 
hero  of  which  is  a  seignior  from  the  vicinity  of  Toulouse.  This 
seignior  suffered  shipwreck  on  his  voyage  to  the  Holy  Land. 
Thrown  into  the  midst  of  the  Arabs  of  Spain  and  Africa,  he 
wanders  about  among  them  for  a  long  time,  encountering  a 
series  of  perpetual  adventures.  It  is  a  singular  feature  of  these 
narratives  that  some  of  them  have  reference  to  clearly  estab- 
lished facts  from  the  contemporary  history  of  the  Arabs  of 
Spain,  while  the  rest  are  evidently  borrowed  from  the  Odyssey 
of  Homer.  This  strange  composition,  of  which,  unfortunately, 
but  one  rapid  and  ill-selected  extract  remains,  seems  to  indicate 
in  a  tangible  manner  the  point  in  history,  at  which  the  antique 
poetry  of  the  Greeks  and  Komans,  and  the  romantic  poetry  of 
the  Middle  Age,  approximated  each  other  once  more  for  a 
moment  in  order  to  separate  agjain  forever. 

This  rapid  glance  at  the  origin  and  the  first  epoch  of  Proven- 
gal  literature  will  suffice,  I  hope,  to  justify  the  more  extended 
development  which  I  propose  to  institute  in  regard  to  it.  The 
condition  of  Provencal  literature  at  the  end  of  this  epoch  may 
be  briefly  represented  as  follows : 

1st.  The  idiom  of  this  literature,  the  Eomansh  of  the  South,  I 
was  a  language  grammatically  determined,  and  already  capable 
of  adapting  itself  to  the  movements  of  thought  with  a  certain 
degree  of  suppleness. 

2d.  This  language  contained  poetical  compositions  of  various 
kinds.  Some  of  these  were  based  upon  the  more  or  less  dis- 
torted reminiscences  of  certain  popular  forms  of  poetry,  which 
had  descended  from  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Komans.  Others 
were  the  more  or  less  uncouth,  but  original  and  spontaneous 
expression  of  whatever  there  was  most  remarkable  or  striking 
in  the  religious  beliefs  or  in  the  historical  traditions  of  the  age. 

3d.  The  word  trobar,  to  find  or  invent,  was  already  sanc- 
tioned by  usage  to  denote  the  particular  act  or  effort  of  the 
mind  of  which  poetry  was  the  result.  This  word  may  be  said 
to  be  the  first  monument  of  this  poetry  ;  the  first  authentic  evi- 
dence of  its  originality. 

4th.  There  had  already  been  invented,  for  the  behoof  of  this 
same  poetry,  a  system  of  versification,  founded  on  a  combina- 


6  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

tion  of  the  rhyme  with  the  syllabic  accent — a  system  which 
has  since  been  adopted  by  all  the  nations  of  Europe. 

5th.  The  poets  had  probably  already  commenced  to  be  desig- 
nated by  the  name  of  Troubadours.  There  is  indeed  no  indica- 
tion that  at  that  time  they  constituted  a  particular  class  of 
society,  which  was  exclusively  devoted  to  the  cultivation  of 
poetry,  and  organized  with  reference  to  this  end.  But  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  Jongleurs,  a  class  of  men  concerning  which  I  shall 
have  many  things  to  say  hereafter,  were  then  already  exercis- 
ing the  profession  of  itinerant  reciters  and  singers  of  poetic 
compositions. 

Such  are,  reduced  to  their  most  general  terms,  the  results  of 
the  first  epoch  of  Provencal  literature ;  or,  in  other  words,  such 
are  the  antecedents  of  the  poetry  of  the  Troubadours. 

Considered  in  its  most  original  and  most  brilliant  phases,  the 
l  poetry  of  the  Troubadours  might  be  defined  to  be  the  expression 
of  the  ideas,  the  sentiments  and  the  acts  of  chivalry.  Its  history 
is  therefore  essentially  connected  with  that  of  chivalry,  from 
which  it  receives,  and  on  which,  in  return,  it  sheds  a  great  deal 
of  light.  A  cursory  survey  of  the  institution,  the  character,  the 
motives  and  the  object  of  chivalry  will,  therefore,  be  the  indis- 
pensable preliminary  to  all  our  researches  concerning  the  poetry, 
which  constituted  tne  more  or  less  naive,  the  more  or  less  ideal 
expression  of  it. 

The  origin  of  that  singular  assemblage  of  institutions  and 
customs,  which  is  generally  designated  by  the  name  of  chivalry, 
is  one  of  the  most  curious  problems  in  the  history  of  the  Middle 
Age.  I  shall  not  expressly  search  after  its  solution ;  my  object 
does  not  require  it ;  but  I  shall  perhaps  find  it  in  the  course  of 
my  route. 

This  system  of  chivalry  I  shall  have  to  consider  principally 
as  it  existed  in  the  south  of  France,  and  in  some  countries  bor- 
dering on  Spain — in  Catalonia  and  Ara^on.  Now,  it  is  pre- 
cisely in  these  countries  that  those  chivalric  institutions  present 
themselves  the  earliest,  and  with  the  most  consistency — that 
they  have  the  appearance  of  having  grown  out  of  the  very  foun- 
dation of  society  itself,  and  that  they  afford  the  largest  number 
of  historical  data  for  the  explanation  of  their  origin ;  it  is  also 
there  that  chivalry  and  Provencal  poetry  exhibit  the  most  inti- 
mate union  and  mutual  interpenetration ;  and  all  these  conside- 
rations will,  perhaps,  induce  us  to  presume  that  both  of  them 
originated  simultaneously  in  those  countries. 

It  was  in  the  various  kinds  of  lyrical  composition  that  Pro- 
vencal poetry  first  delineated  the  sentiments  peculiar  to  chi- 
valry. The  songs,  in  which  the  Troubadours  celebrated  their 
ladies,  are  the  most  numerous  of  their  productions,  and  the  best 


General  Outline  of  Provencal  Literature.  7 

known ;  and  they  were  those  in  which  they  prided  themselves 
the  most  on  exhibiting  proofs  of  skill  and  talent.  In  the  system 
of  gallantry,  of  which  these  songs  are  a  faithful  picture,  love  is 
a  sort  of  cultus.  It  is  the  principle  of  all  honor  and  of  all  merit, 
the  motive  for  every  noble  action ;  its  desires  and  its  enjoy- 
ments are  only  legitimate  so  far  as  they  constitute  an  incentive 
to  the  arduous  duties  and  to  the  virtues  of  chivalry. 

This  system  was  founded,  in  a  great  measure,  on  certain  defi- 
nitely established,  and,  at  the  same  time,  very  subtle  conven- 
tions. Everything  was  subjected  to  a  rigid  and  fixed  cere- 
monial. The  individualities  of  character  and  passion  could, 
therefore,  have  but  very  little  room  or  free  play  in  the  amatory 
songs  inspired  by  chivalry.  These  songs  could  differ  but  little 
among  themselves,  except  by  the  various  degrees  of  eloquence 
in  their  accessories  and  their  details ;  and  a  monotony  of  sub- 
ject was  the  inevitable  consequence.  Indeed,  a  very  small 
number  of  the  amatory  poems  of  the  Troubadours  will  enable 
one  to  form  an  adequate  conception  of  them  all.  But  reduced 
with  critical  judgment  and  taste  to  a  slender  volume,  the  ama- 
tory poetry  of  the  Troubadours  will  perhaps  appear  as  one  of 
the  most  original  and  most  curious  poetic  monuments  of  modern 
times. 

It  is  a  law  of  our  nature,  that  every  sentiment,  when  pushed 
beyond  certain  limits,  provokes,  by  a  sort  of  reaction,  an  oppo- 
site sentiment,  which  appears  as  its  corrective  or  its  contradic- 
tion. There  were  connected  with  this  chivalric  love  certain 
exaggerated  subtleties  and  pretensions,  which  naturally  chal- 
lenged irony  and  parody,  and  which  gave  rise  to  a  class  of 
poetic  compositions  very  different  from  those  in  which  the 
ladies  were  treated  like  divinities.  There  are  specimens  of  one 
kind  still  extant.  There  are  some  in  which  the  irony  is  too 
gross  and  too  bold  to  admit  of  being  quoted  here.  But  there 
are  others  in  which  it  does  not  transgress  the  limits  of  pro- 
priety, and  which  are  nothing  more  than  a  tart  expression  of 
reality ;  and  these  deserve  to  be  made  known. 

The  satire  of  the  Provencals,  like  all  their  other  kinds  of 
poetry,  was  wholly  conceived  in  the  spirit  of  chivalry.  For  it 
was  trom  the  idea  that  had  been  formed  of  the  duties  of  a 
knight,  that  the  more  general  idea  of  virtue  and  of  vice  was 
derived.  Now,  as  the  principles  of  chivalry  were  very  fre- 
quently violated  in  practice,  the  Troubadours  were  never  in 
want  of  subjects  for  satire,  nor  were  they  ever  disposed  to  suffer 
such  opportunities  to  escape.  This  is,  in  fact,  one  of  the  finest 
phases  of  Provencal  poetry ;  and  I  shall  have  occasion  to  point 
out  many  an  example  of  tne  courage  and  the  talent  with  which 
the  Troubadours  were  accustomed  to  lash  the  ambition,  the 


8  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

avarice,  the  violence  and  the  vices  of  the  feudal  chiefs  and  of 
the  clergy. 

As  it  was  one  of  the  duties  of  the  chevalier  to  fight  for  the 
defence  of  the  Christian  faith,  so  it  was  one  of  the  functions  of 
the  poet  to  urge  him  to  the  fulfillment  of  that  duty.  Several  of 
the  Trovencal  songs  on  the  crusades  against  the  Mussulmans, 
and  especially  against  those  of  Africa  and  Spain,  are  pervaded 
by  the  most  genuine  enthusiasm  for  religion  and  for  war.  The 
struggle  against  the  latter  was  the  one,  in  which  the  Trouba- 
dours took  the  liveliest  and  the  most  direct  interest,  and  to 
which  were  linked  their  most  poetic  reminiscences.  As  late  as 
the  twelfth  century  this  struggle  had  still  its  critical  moments, 
full  of  peril  to  the  Christian  kingdoms  of  Spain ;  and  on  these 
occasions  Troubadours  of  great  celebrity  gave  utterance  to  noble 
accents,  which  we  have  reason  to  believe  were  not  without  their 
effect  on  the  cause  of  Christianity. 

Independently  of  those  pieces,  in  which  they  celebrated  the 
union  of  martial  prowess  and  of  faith,  the  Provencal  poets  often 
sung  of  war  simply,  in  the  abstract  and  apart  from  every  parti- 
cular locality  or  motive.  They  lauded,  with  a  sort  of  oacchic 
transport,  its  tumults,  its  alarms,  its  dangers,  as  the  true  enjoy- 
ments of  the  knight.  There  were  distinguished  Troubadours, 
who  became  so  solely  through  the  zeal,  with  which  they  in- 
spired the  warlike  propensities  of  their  seigniors.  Such  was, 
among  others,  the  famous  Bertrand  de  Born,  nearly  all  of 
whose  pieces  were  a  sort  of  martial  dithyrambs,  full  of  ardor,  of 
high-mmdedness  and  of  a  certain  savage  impetuosity,  which 
admirably  characterizes  the  undisciplined  and  adventuresome 
spirit  of  chivalry,  as  it  exhibited  itself  among  the  lower  orders 
of  the  feudal  chiefs. 

Among  these  various  kinds  of  lyric  compositions,  the  Trouba- 
dours made  a  singular  but  a  characteristic  distinction,  which 
divided  them  into  two  classes.  Love  alone  appeared  to  them 
to  be  essentially  poetical,  expressly  made  to  be  sung  and  to 
inspire  the  desire  of  singing.  All  other  themes,  such  as 
morality,  war,  religion  even,  seemed  to  them  to  be  less  natural, 
less  elevated  subjects  for  poetic  inspiration.  Every  composition 
which  had  not  love  for  its  motive,  and  particularly  those  of  a 
satiric  or  sportive  type,  were  comprised  under  the  common 
denomination  of  Sirventesc.  This  term  was  derived  from  the 
word  Sir  vent,  by  which  they  designated  the  men-at-arms,  who 
were  no  chevaliers,  and  which  the  latter  took  along  with  them 
in  their  wars.  Sirventesc^  therefore,  signified  a  piece  of  sirvent 
— that  is  to  say,  one  of  an  inferior  order,  compared  with  the 
songs  of  love,  which  were,  properly  speaking,  the  songs  of 
chivalry,  though  they  were  not  ordinarily  called  so. 


General  Outline  of  Provencal  Literature.  9 

The  lyrical  pieces  of  the  Troubadours,  however,  whether  they 
were  chivalric  or  sirventesque,  did  not  differ  in  any  way  with 
reference  to  their  form.  They  were  all  divided  into  symme- 
trical strophes  ;  they  were  all  alike  destined  to  be  sung  to  a 
music  which  was  composed  by  the  poet  himself.  But  in  a 
general  survey  like  this  I  cannot  explain  the  mechanism  of 
Provencal  versification.  All  that  I  can  say  of  it  here  in 
advance  is,  that  in  point  of  refinement,  and  in  point  of  intricate 
difficulties,  it  surpasses  that  of  any  and  of  every  other  modern 
poetry  of  Europe.  No  other  nation,  except  the  Arabs,  has 
carried  the  taste  for  rhyme  to  such  an  extent  as  the  Provencals 
have  done.  It  might  be  said  of  their  poetry,  that  is  preemi- 
nently the  poetry  of  rhyme,  the  one  in  which  this  means  of 
producing  an  effect  on  the  ear  has  been  used  and  abused  the 
most. 

Another  characteristic,  common  to  all  the  lyrical  productions 
which  we  have  thus  far  considered,  is  that  they  were  written  in 
the  purest  Provencal,  and  with  all  the  resources,  with  all  the 
elaborate  refinements  of  which  the  art  of  the  Troubadours  was 
susceptible.  Considered  as  a  whole,  they  constituted  a  refined 
and  subtle  poetry,  which  required  and  presupposed  experienced 
and  skillful  judges  to  appreciate  it.  It  was  a  poetry  of  courts 
and  castles,  and  not  one  of  public  places  or  of  the  streets — a 
poetry  which  contained  a  multitude  of  things  which  the  people 
could  not  comprehend,  or  in  which  they  could  hardly  take  any 
interest,  even  if  they  did  comprehend  it.  There  was,  therefore, 
either  no  popular  poetry  at  all,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the 
term,  in  the  south  of  France,  or  else  this  poetry  was  different 
from  the  ordinary  poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  The  first  of  these 
suppositions  is  not  very  probable ;  it  is  contrary  to  all  we  know 
concerning  the  character  and  the  imagination  of  the  people 
which  spoke  the  Provencal  tongue,  and  contrary  to  all  I  have 
said  concerning  the  commencement  of  their  literature.  In  fact, 
those  pious  legends,  those  hymns  in  vulgar  Latin,  which  from 
an  early  date  were  sung  in  the  churches  and  in  the  streets, 
those  romantic  histories  of  Christian  knights  in  search  of 
adventures  among  the  Saracens — all  these  were  incontestably 
popular,  both  in  regard  to  form  and  contents.  Finally,  it  was 
among  the  people  and  in  popular  sentiments,  that  the  poetry 
of  these  countries  had  originated  ;  and  there  is  no  evidence  that 
while  polishing  and  ennobling  itself  in  the  castles,  this  poetry 
had  entirely  vanished  from  the  towns. 

But  laying  aside  the  arguments  derived  from  probability,  we 
may  directly  aifirm  that  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries 
there  existed  in  the  south  of  France  a  poetry  which  was  essentially 
popular.  This  is  a  fact  which  will  appear  more  obvious  in  the 


10  History  of  Provengal 

sequel,  but  concerning  which  at  present  I  may  give  a  few  hints. 
Some  of  these  are  furnished  us  by  the  history  and  by  the  works 
of  the  Troubadours  themselves. 

Weary  of  the  effort  which  they  were  obliged  to  make,  in 
order  to  excel  in  the  artificial  poetry  of  the  castles,  these  Trou- 
badours, by  a  sort  of  instinct  wThicn  was  intimately  connected 
with  their  very  talent,  and  which,  in  fact,  constituted  a  proof 
of  it,  would  sometimes  return  to  nature,  and  in  these  occasional 
visitations  of  simplicity,  they  sung  for  the  people  of  the  towns 
and  country.  The  collections  of  the  best  Troubadours  offer  us 
some  pieces  of  this  kind,  which  are  easily  distinguished  from  all 
the  rest.  In  the  poetic  whole  of  which  they  constituted  a  part, 
they  form  a  particular  class,  which  will  deserve  a  special  exami- 
nation. 

According  to  a  generally  prevalent  and  strongly  accredited 
opinion,  all  the  poetry  of  the  Provencals  would  be  included  in 
the  classes  I  have  just  enumerated ;  it  would  be  essentially  and 
exclusively  lyrical.  It  would  contain  nothing  of  the  epic  kind, 
either  great  or  small,  and  the  countries  of  the  Provencal  tongue 
would  have  remained  entire  strangers  to  the  invention  and  the 
culture  of  the  romantic  or  chivalric  epopee,  which,  in  fact,  was 
the  characteristic  product  of  the  poetry  of  the  Middle  Age. 

This  fact,  if  it  were  true,  would  have  something  strange  about 
it ;  and  it  should  have  been  a  matter  of  greater  astonishment 
than  it  has  been.  A  poetry  entirely  lyrical — that  is  to  say, 
entirely  consecrated  to  the  expression  of  the  personal  sentiments 
or  ideas  of  the  poet — would,  in  my  opinion,  be  a  phenomenon 
without  example  in  the  history  of  poetry  ;  and  the  phenomenon 
would  be  a  matter  of  still  greater  surprise  in  a  country  which 
has  had  great  wars  of  independence  and  of  religion,  among  a 
people  which  was  constantly  in  motion,  and  more  disposed  to 
be  carried  away  by  its  impressions  from  without  than  to  reflect 
its  thoughts  and  sentiments  for  any  length  of  time  upon  itself. 

The  hypothesis  has  not  a  shadow  of  probability  in  its  favor ; 
and  the  fact  is  that  the  Provengals  not  only  had  epic  composi- 
tions, but  that  they  had  a  surprising  quantity  of  them,  of  every 
dimension  and  of  every  kind.  More  than  this  :  if  we  wish  to 
attribute  the  invention  of  the  romantic  epopee  to  any  one  of  the 
nations  of  Europe  exclusively,  the  honor  must  be  given  to  the 
Provencals. 

I  think  I  can  adduce  conclusive  proofs  of  this  assertion,  some 
of  which,  however,  require  researches  and  discussions  out  of 
proportion  with  a  summary  survey  like  this.  I  shall,  for  the 
present,  limit  myself  to  offering  a  very  few  general  considera- 
tions on  the  history  of  the  Provencal  epopee,  on  which  I  pro- 
pose to  bestow  all  the  necessary  developments  in  the  sequel. 


General  Outline  of  Provencal  Literature.  11 

In  this  species  of  poetic  compositions,  as  in  all  the  others,  the 
taste  of  the  Provencals  had  its  epochs  and  its  revolutions, 
marked  by  the  diversity  of  the  subjects,  which  successively 
prevailed.  The  most  ancient  epic  compositions  of  a  certain 
length  were  based  either  on  the  ensemble  or  on  the  most 
memorable  episodes  of  the  first  crusade.  The  siege  of  Antioch, 
for  example,  a  stupendous  event,  and  remarkable  for  the  strange 
variety  of  its  incidents,  was  celebrated  apart  in  a  poetic  narra- 
tive, probably  intermingled  with  fictions,  and  which  was  still 
popular  toward  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

The  system  of  chivalry  existed  already  at  the  epoch  of  the 
first  crusade ;  but  none  of  the  compositions  to  which  it  gave 
rise  have  come  down  to  us,  and  we  are  unable  to  say  under 
what  colors,  or  in  what  measure,  the  spirit  of  chivalry  mani- 
fested itself  in  them.  It  is,  however,  very  probable  that  it 
manifested  itself,  such  as  it  then  still  was,  that  is  to  say,  in  a 
purely  religious  and  martial  form,  and  that  the  truth  of  the 
recent  events,  well  known  and  marvellous  in  themselves,  was 
not  subjected  to  any  very  serious  alterations. 

Soon  after — that  is  to  say  from  the  commencement  of  the 
twelfth  century — the  Provengal  poets  began  to  exaggerate  and 
to  adorn,  to  the  best  of  their  ability,  the  historical  songs,  the 
legends,  and  the  traditions,  which  had  grown  out  of  the  wars 
of  the  Christians  against  the  Saracens  of  Spain,  and  out  of  the 
rebellions  of  the  different  feudal  chieftains  of  the  South  against 
the  Carlovingian  monarchs.  They  converted  them  into  truly 
epic  romances.  In  these  romances  the  spirit  of  chivalric 
gallantry  begins  to  make  its  appearance ;  love  begins  to  play  a 
prominent  part  in  them,  and  to  exhibit  itself  with  all  those 
niceties  and  refinements  which  already  constituted  its  cha- 
racter.* 

Nevertheless,  the  prevailing  element  of  these  romances  is  a 
certain  crudity  and  a  certain  savage  vigor  of  the  imagination. 
Eve^thing  is  there  painted  with  the  boldest  dashes,  without 
details,  without  any  shades,  without  the  slightest  appearance 
of  elegance  or  study.  The  marvellous  does  not  yet  occupy  any 
very  conspicuous  place  in  them  ;  everything  is  undertaken, 
everything  is  achieved,  by  the  force  and  energy  of  the  cha- 
racters alone. 

The  so-called  romances  of  the  Round  Table  commence 
another  epoch  of  the  romantic  epopee.f  They  furnish  us  a 

*  Specimens  of  these  romances  are  given  by  Raynouard,  in  his  "  Lexique  Roman,"  vol. 
1st.  An  examination  of  them  by  M.  Fauriel,  in  the  2d  and  3d  volume  of  this  work,  and 
also  in  the  "  Revue  des  deux  Mondes,"  of  1832.— Ed. 

t  Compare  Schmidt :  Les  Romans  en  prose  des  cycles'  de  la  table  ronde  et  de  Charle- 
magne.—-fid. 


12  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

picture  of  chivalry  after  it  had  arrived  at  the  utmost  limit  of 
its  exaggeration  and  extravagance — in  other  words,  of  knight- 
errantry,  in  which  the  quest  of  dangers,  of  adventures,  of 
wrongs  to  redressed,  constitute  the  beau-ideal  of  the  institutions, 
and  the  highest  glory  of  the  knight.  Here  the  characters  are 
more  polished  and  better  shaded,  the  events  more  varied  and 
complex,  the  expenditure  of  art  is  more  ingenious,  and  the 
pretensions  more  manifest;  but  it  is  also  true  that  here  the 
imagination,  free  from  every  restraint,  and  divorced  from  every 
historical  reminiscence,  has  already  lost  itself  in  the  mazes  of 
the  marvellous  and  capricious. 

The  romances,  which  succeeded  those  of  the  Round  Table, 
have  the  history  or  the  mythology  of  the  Greek  and  Romans  for 
their  subject.  They  will  not  occupy  any  of  our  attention  here. 
They  are  a  caricature  of  antiquity  which  indicated  the  poetic 
exhaustion  of  the  Middle  Age. 

I  must  now  say  a  word  on  the  deficiencies  of  Provencal  poetry ; 
for  this  poetry,  rich  as  it  is  on  some  subjects,  is  nevertheless  far 
from  being  a  complete  one.  Itjias  no  dramatic  composition^  ; 
and  it  is  perhaps  so  much  the  more  astonishing  not  to  find  at 
least  attempts  of  this  kind  in  the  thirteenth  century,  when  we 
already  meet  with  them  in  the  eleventh.  The  earliest  of  these 
crude  dramas,  which  have  since  been  denominated  mysterjgs, 
can  in  fact  be  traced  back  as  far  as  this  latter  epoch  of  P*x>¥e«- 
§al  literature.  According  to  certain  documents  of  equivocal 
authority,  there  were  Provencal  works  entitled  comedies  and 
tragedies  in  the  fifteenth  century  and  before.  But  as  none  of 
these  works  have  come  down  to  us,  we  are  unable  to  decide  to 
what  extent  or  with  what  propriety  they  could  lay  claim  to  such 
an  appellation. 

It  is  certain,  and  we  shall  see  hereafter,  that  in  the  Middle 
Age  there  existed  throughout  the  whole  of  the  South  of  Europe 
certain  fetes,  which  consisted  of  a  sort  of  allegorical  panto- 
mimes, dramatizations  of  certain  ideas  of  gallantry  or  of  chi- 
valric  courtesy.  It  is  possible  that  language  and  the  dialogue 
sometimes  came  to  the  assistance  of  the  gestures  and  of  the 
pantomime  employed  in  these  representations.  This  is  a  point 
which  deserves  some  investigation,  and  I  shall  return  to  it  again. 

To  conclude  this  rapid  glance  at  the  history  of  Provencal 
literature,  it  only  remains  for  me  now  to  mention  the  existence 
of  certain  productions  of  a  peculiar  order,  curious  as  indications 
of  the  transition  from  the  purely  poetical  epochs  to  the  com- 
mencement of  serious  curiosity  and  of  science. 

To  these  productions  belong  certain  collections  of  pieces,  com- 
posed at  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century,  which  were  desig- 
nated by  the  name  of  Treasuries.  This  title  is  undoubtedly  a 


General  Outline  of  Provencal  literature.  13 

somewhat  ostentatious  one,  but  it  shows  what  an  importance  ? 
began,  at  that  time,  to  be  attached  to  knowledge.  These  were 
the  encyclopedias  of  the  age,  the  repertories  of  everything 
that  was  then  known  of  physical  science,  of  natural  history,  of 
astronomy  or  of  astrology,  of  philosophy,  moral  or  specula- 
tive, etc.,  etc. 

These  works  are  still  allied  to  poetry  not  only  by  their  form, 
they  being  composed  in  verse,  but  also  by  their  numerous 
ingredients  of  popular  fictions  of  every  kind.  Nevertheless, 
they  properly  belong  to  the  history  of  the  sciences,  to  which 
they  might  perhaps  furnish  some  particulars  worth  collecting. 
The  most  curious  work  of  this  description  in  the  Provencal  lan- 
guage was  composed  in  the  year  1298  by  a  monk  of  Beziers, 
whose  name  was  Matfred  or  Mainfroi.*  It  contains  frequent 
quotations  from  the  learned  Arabs,  particularly  from  the  astro- 
nomers or  astrologers. 

Among  the  Provencal  works,  which  mark  the  transition  from 
poetry  to  science,  must  also  be  numbered  histories  or  chronicles 
both  in  verse  and  in  prose.  Among  these  chronicles  there  is 
one  in  verse,  which  deserves  to  be  spoken  of  in  detail  and  on 
which  I  propose  to  bestow  some  consideration,  when  I  shall 
have  arrived  at  that  point  of  the  history  of  Provencal  literature. 
The  chronicle  relates  to  the  war  against  the  Albigenses  ;  f  it  is 
strictly  historical  in  substance,  and  its  style  sometimes  rises  to 
an  elevation,  a  liveliness  and  a  metaphorical  elegance  and  power, 
which  are  (juite  homeric. 

Considering  the  degree  of  culture  to  which  the  Troubadours 
had  attained,  it  would  be  a  matter  of  astonishment,  if  they  had 
not  formed  some  theory  of  their  art.  It  is  an  established  fact 
that  they  had  such  a  theory,  and  it  would  be  worth  while  to 
know  what  it  was.  Its  exposition  will  be  the  natural  comple- 
ment to  the  history  of  their  poetry.  Unfortunately,  nothing  is 
left  us  of  these  literary  doctrines  of  the  Provencals  except  a 
few  scattered  hints,  to  be  found  here  and  there  in  short  biogra- 
phical or  historical  notices,  written  in  the  thirteenth  century. 
But  isolated  and  scattered  as  they  are,  these  hints  are  neverthe- 
less extremely  valuable.  I  shall  collect  them  carefully  and  the 
occasion  for  making  them  known  will  present  itself  most  natu- 
rally in  connection  with  my  discussions  on  the  poets  or  the 
particular  forms  of  poetry  to  which  they  relate. 

We  shall  then  be  able  to  convince  ourselves  that  the  public 

*  On  this  Matfre  Ermengaud,  see  Raynouard's  Choix  des  poesies  des  Troubadours,  vol. 
v.,  p.  259. — For  a  specimen  of  his  Breviaire  d"  amour  see  1st  vol.  of  Raynouard's  Lexique 
Roman,  p.  515,  sqq.  An  account  of  another  one  by  Brunetto  Latini  is  given  by  Paulin 
Paris  in  the  2d  vol.  of  "  Les  MSS.  Fran<jais  de  la  Bibliotheque  du  Roi."— Ed. 

t  This  chronicle  is  printed  in  Raynouard's  Lexique  Roman,  vol.  1st,  p.  225-289. — Ed. 


14  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

to  which  the  Troubadours  addressed  themselves,  was  possessed 
of  a  corrector  taste  and  a  more  delicate  discrimination  than  we 
might  be  disposed  to  give  them  credit  for.  We  shall  see  that 
they  were  accustomed  to  make  grave  and  marked  distinctions 
between  pieces,  which  appear  to  us  modern  critics  to  resemble 
each  other  even  to  monotony. 

It  is  this  same  public  that  had  proclaimed  the  Troubadour 
Giraud  de  Borneil  the  greatest  master  in  his  ait.  Dante  appealed 
from  this  decision ;  he  invalidated  it,  and  he  transferred  the 
palm  of  Provencal  poetry  from  its  acknowledged  chief  to 
Arnaut  Daniel.  These  two  Troubadours  are  of  the  number  of 
those  which  will  occupy  our  attention  hereafter;  it  will  then  be 
easy  for  us  to  satisfy  ourselves,  that  the  ancient  Provencal 
opinion  was  the  correct  and  true  one.  I  have  thus  far  presented 
the  poetry  of  the  Provencals  only  in  its  purely  intellectual 
relations,  as  an  ensemble  of  more  or  less  ingenious  compositions, 
fulfilling  with  more  or  less  completeness  certain  conditions  of 
the  poetic  art.  But  I  shall  have  to  exhibit  it  under  other  aspects, 
which  are  no  less  interesting  in  regard  to  the  history  of  civili- 
zation. 

f  In  the  Provence,  as  formerly  in  Greece,  every  poetic  produc- 
tion, of  whatever  kind  it  may  have  been,  was  destined  to  be 
sung  with  an  instrumental  accompaniment,  and  sometimes  with 
mimic  gesticulations.  Now  it  was  the  poet  himself  who  com- 
posed the  music  for  his  verses.  The  musical  invention  was  the 
necessary  complement  of  the  poetical ;  the  two  arts  were  united 
into  one.  There  is  also  reason  to  believe,  that  the  earliest 
Troubadours  sung  their  pieces  themselves  and  that  at  every 
epoch  of  their  art,  there  were  those  who  continued  to  sing 
them. 

But  since  the  music  and  the  mimic  action  contributed  greatly 

to  the  effect  of  the  poetry,  there  soon  sprung  up  a  particular 

class  of  men,  whose  profession  it  was  to  set  off  these  poetical 

productions  by  their  vocal  and  instrumental  execution.    These 

^  men  were  called  dongleuxs. 

Of  these  Jongleurs  some  were  free  and  lead  an  itinerant  life, 
reciting  the  poems,  which  they  knew  by  heart,  in  the  streets 
and  in  public  places.  Others  were  attached  to  the  personal 
service  of  distinguished  Troubadours,  whom  they  accompanied 
everywhere  to  the  castles  and  the  courts  for  the  purpose  of 
singing  their  verses. 

It  is  thus  that  regular  poetical  professions  were  formed  in 
society,  and  clearly  defined  and  intimate  relations  established 
between  these  classes  and  those  of  the  feudal  nobles ; — relations 
which  exerted  a  double  influence :  on  the  one  hand  on  the  social 
condition,  and  on  the  other  on  the  literature  of  the  country. 


General  Outline  of  Provencal  Literature.  15 

The  accessories,  the  method  and  the  variety  of  these  poetic 
recitations  in  the  chateaux  as  well  as  in  the  public  places,  are 
a  subject  of  curious  and  interesting  research,  not  only  in  regard 
to  the  history  of  Provencal  poetry,  but  of  poetry  in  general. 

This  poetry,  so  original  and  so  brilliant,  was  not  destined  to  I 
last  very  long.    It  declined  rapidly  amid  the  horrors  of  that  war 
against  the  Albigenses,  which  subverted  the  whole  of  the  south 
of  France  and  annihilated  the  higher  classes  of  its  society.   The 
teaching  of  the  Justinian  code  having  become  more  and  more 
important  and  general  in  the  country,  and  the  establishment  of  1 
a  university  at  Toulouse*  rendered  the  study  of  the  Latin  more 
and  more  necessary,  and  the  Provencal  was  consequently  more ' 
and  more  neglected. 

The  clergy  detested  this  language,  in  which  so  many  auda- 
cious reproaches  had  been  heaped  upon  them.  In  a  bull  of 
1245,  Pope  Innocent  IV.  qualifies  it  as  the  language  of  the 
heretics  and  interdicts  its  usage  to  the  students.f  From  the 
second  half  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  decadence  of  Proven- 
gal  poetry  is  irreparable,  and  it  is  only  by  way  of  exception, 
that  one  then  still  finds  here  and  there  some  Troubadour  of 
genius,  who  has  preserved  the  traditions  of  his  art.  In  the 
fourteenth  century,  there  is  nothing  more  in  the  whole  of  the 
South,  that  can  be  said  to  have  any  resemblance  to  poetry.  It 
is  true,  that  in  1323,  or  perhaps  earlier,  there  was  founded,  at 
Toulouse,  a  Provengal  Academy  of  the  gai  savoir  (Le,,  of  the 
gay  science^  and  which  adopted  regulations,  which  it  entitled 
the  laws  of  love.  But  I  believe  that  these  two  designations, 
which  were  a  mere  isolated  tradition  of  the  civilization  already 
extinct,  are  all  that  there  was  of  poetry  or  of  the  poetic  science 
in  this  academy.;): 

Such  are  the  principal  facts  which  I  propose  to  develop  in 
the  order  in  which,  in  my  opinion,they  will  shed  most  light 
upon  each  other.  But,  after  all  these  facts  shall  have  been 
established  in  their  detail,  and  in  proportion  to  their  importance 
or  their  novelty,  there  will  yet  remain  another  to  be  discussed, 
and  this  will  not  be  the  least  interesting  one. 

In  all  that  I  have  thus  far  advanced  or  indicated  concerning 
the  literature  of  the  Provencals,  and  the  system  of  civilization, 
of  which  it  constituted  a  part,  I  have  made  no  allowance  for 
any  foreign  influences.  I  have  considered  this  civilization  and 

*  This  institution  was  founded  in  1229.— Ed. 

t  See  the  life  and  letters  of  Innocent  IV.,  in  Labbeus'  Sacros.  Council,  vol.  iv., 
p.  1-36.— Ed. 

$  For  an  account  of  this  Academy  see  La  France  Litte'raire,  vol.  1st.,  p.  133,  sqq — 
"En  1323,  elle  n'e'tait  composee  que  de  sept  Academiciens,  qu'on  appelait  lea  Sept 
Trobadors.  Us  ne  distribuaient  qu'un  prix,  qui  e"tait  une  violette  d'or,  dont  le  pre- 
mier fut  adjuge"  a  Arnaud  Vidal."— Ed. 


16  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

this  literature  as  the  result  of  causes,  all  of  which  preexisted  in 
the  places  where  both  of  them  originated.  But  perhaps  this 
view  of  the  subject  has  to  be  modified  in  some  respects,  in  order 
to  become  the  correct  and  true  one,  otherwise  it  will  conflict 

I)  against  a  strongly  accredited  opinion,  which  attributes  the  ori- 
gin of  the  poetry  of  the  Provencals,  and  of  their  culture  in  gene- 

j  ral,  to  the  influence  of  the  Arabs  of  Spain. 

It  is  true  that  this  opinion  has  thus  far  remained  a  mere  sup- 
position ;  but  I  believe  that  there  are  facts  to  be  adduced  in  its 
favor,  and  I  regard  it  as  certain  that  the  Arabs  did  exer- 
cise a  certain  influence  on  the  civilization  of  the  Provencals. 
The  essential  and  the  difficult  part  of  the  question  is,  to  produce 
some  specific  proof  of  this  enect,  to  indicate  some  points  on 
which  the  supposed  influence  was  brought  to  bear.  I  shall  en- 
deavor to  solve  this  problem ;  I  shall  enter  into  some  considera- 
tions on  the  civilization  of  the  Arabs  in  general,  and  on  that  of 
the  Arabs  of  the  Spanish  Peninsula  in  particular ;  and  we  shall 
see  that  in  more  than  one  respect  it  presents  striking  analogies 
to  that  of  the  Provencals. 

,  i  Thus  we  shall  find,  for  example,  among  the  Arabs  of  Anda- 
lusia, that  same  ingenious  exaltation  of  honor,  of  prowess  and 
of  humanity,  which  constitutes  the  fundamental  characteristic 
of  chivalry.  We  shall  find  there  a  religious  order  of  knights, 
devoted  to  the  defence  of  Islamism  against  the  Christians,  more 
than  a  century  before  the  institution  of  the  Templars  in  the 
south  of  France.  We  shall  find  a  poetry  entirely  consecrated, 
as  was  that  of  the  Proven  gals,  to  the  object  of  celebrating  the 
sentiment  of  love  and  military  courage,  having  the  same  social 
importance  and  the  same  material  organization,  its  poets  of  the 
court  and  its  poets  of  the  people,  its  Raoui  and  its  Jongleurs. 

It  is  in  the  refined  and  accomplished  courts  of  Cordova  and 
of  Seville,  that  we  find  the  first  examples  of  those  pantomimes, 
those  half  scenic  representations,  by  means  of  which  the  Pro- 
vengals  imparted  a  dramatic  effect  to  their  ideas  of  chivalric 
gallantry.  Finally  we  shall  see,  that  a  number  of  the  usages 
and  several  of  the  most  characteristic  traits  of  chivalric  etiquette 
were,  in  the  south  of  France,  designated  by  names  which  are 
derived  from  the  Arabic. 

These  points  of  resemblance,  and  others,  which  it  would  be 
superfluous  to  indicate  in  advance,  will  appear  so  much  the 
more  real  and  striking,  the  more  completely  they  shall  have  been 
exposed  to  view.  We  will  come  to  the  conclusion,  that  they 
could  only  have  been  the  result  of  frequent  communications 
between  the  inhabitants  of  the  south  of  France  and  the  Arabs 
of  Spain.  Now,  in  these  communications  it  was  necessarily  the 
latter  that  gave  the  example,  and  the  former  that  followed  it. 


General  Outline  of  Provencal  Literature.  17 

We  shall,  however,  see  that  this  influence  of  the  Arabs  on  the 
culture  of  the  Provencals,  incontestable  as  it  may  be,  was  never- 
theless restricted  to  certain  clearly-defined  and  rather  narrow 
limits  ;  that  it  was  rather  indirect  and  general  than  special  and 
immediate;  that  it  affected  rather  their  manners  than  their 
tastes  and  their  ideas ;  and  it  will  be  curious  to  observe,  even  in 
the  most  accidental  comparisons  between  the  genius  of  the 
Arabs  and  that  of  the  "West,  the  struggle  and  the  inherent  an- 
tagonism of  the  two. 


18  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


CHAPTER  n. 

INFLUENCE  OF  PEO VENC.AL  POETRY  ON  THE  SEVEBAL  COUNTRIES  OF 

EUROPE. 

THE  rapidity  with  which  the  taste  for  Provencal  literature 
spread  through  the  rest  of  Europe,  constitutes  one  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  that  literature,  and  an  important  fact  in  the  history 
of  European  civilization. 

From  the  moment  the  countries  of  the  ProvenQal  tongue  had 
detached  themselves  from  the  Carlovingian  monarchy,  in  order 
to  form  independent  seigniories,  they  had  ceased  to  maintain 
any  connection  with  that  monarchy.  But  the  title  of  King  of 
the  Franks  having  passed  to  the  descendants  of  Hugh  Capet, 
the  chiefs  of  the  larger  seigniories  of  the  South  gradually 
entered  again  into  communication  with  a  monarchy,  which, 
feeble  and  decrepit  as  it  was,  could  not  be  the  cause  of  any  ap- 
prehension. From  that  time  we  see  the  counts  of  Toulouse,  of 
Barcelona,  of  Provence  and  of  Poitiers,  successively  contracting 
family  alliances  with  the  different  sovereigns,  which  again 
brought  the  south  of  France  into  contact  with  the  rest  of  Eu- 
rope. 

Toward  the  year  1000,  the  King  of  France,  Eobert,  married 
Constance,  the  daughter  of  William  Taillefer,  the  count  of  Pro- 
vence, a  princess  who  had  been  educated  alternately  at  Tou- 
louse and  in  the  county  of  Aries.  In  1043,  the  emperor  of 
Germany,  Henry  HI.,  married  Agnes,  the  daughter  of  William 
YHL,  the  count  of  Poitiers.  In  1080,  Raymond  Berenger, 
count  of  Provence,  gave  his  daughter  Matilda  in  marriage  to 
Roger,  the  count  of  Sicily.  Other  alliances  of  the  same  kind 
were  contracted  in  the  course  of  the  same  century. 

We  shall  see,  in  the  sequel,  that  before  the  end  of  that  century 
there  already  existed  Troubadours  and  a  Provencal  poetry; 
compositions  in  verse,  in  which  the  expression  of  love  was 
already  strongly  tinged  with  chivalric  gallantry,  and  men 
whose  profession  it  was  to  sing  those  pieces  in  the  cultivated 
Bociety  of  the  country.  One  of  the  princesses  which  I  have 
just  enumerated,  Agnes  of  Poitou,  was  the  sister  of  the  famous 


Its  Influence  on  the  several  Countries  of  Europe:      19 

William  IX.,  count  of  Poitiers,  who  is  reputed,  though  impro- 
perly, to  have  been  the  most  ancient  of  the  Provencal  poets. 
The  supposition  would  therefore  not  be  an  absurd  one,  that  the 
countries  and  the  courts,  where  the  above-named  princesses 
established  themselves,  must  necessarily  have  acquired  on  those 
occasions  some  general  acquaintance  with  this  Provencal  poetry, 
which  at  a  somewhat  later  date  was  destined  to  become  the 
subject  of  universal  interest  and  admiration.  It  is  true  that 
history  says  nothing  of  the  sort ;  but  the  facts  of  this  kind  are 
among  those  to  which  historians,  like  those  of  the  Middle  Age, 
paid  the  least  attention,  and  which  they  were  the  readiest  to 
neglect. 

It  is,  however,  no  mere  supposition,  that  in  consequence  of 
the  above  mentioned  alliances  the  nobles  of  Aquitania  and  of 
Provence  gave  the  tone,  and  we  may  say  a  new  code  of  eti- 
quette to  the  courts  where  they  made  their  appearance.  They 
did  so  especially  at  the  court  of  King  Robert.  Rigord,  the  his- 
torian of  these  epochs,  gives  a  curious  portrait  of  the  men  of 
Aries  and  of  Toulouse,  who  accompanied  Constance,  the 
daughter  of  their  seignior,  and  he  briefly  describes  the  effect  of 
their  presence  in  France. 

He  represents  them  as  excessively  vain  and  frivolous  men, 
extremely  particular  and  showy  in  their  dress,  in  their  arms 
and  in  the  ornaments  of  their  horses,  in  the  cut  of  their  hair,  and 
in  their  mode  of  shaving  the  beard,  and  as  odd  in  their  appear- 
ance as  they  were  corrupt  in  their  morals,  as  they  were  desti- 
tute of  probity  and  fealty. 

"  They  are  men,"  he  finally  exclaims,  disconsolate — "  they 
are  men  who  have  so  far  seduced  the  nation  of  the  Burgun- 
dians,  and  that  of  the  Franks,  which  heretofore  was  the  most 
regular  of  all,  that  it  has  become  entirely  like  them  in  perversity 
and  turpitude;  and  if  some  pious  soul  were  to  attempt  to 
oppose  the  corrupt  men  who  set  such  examples,  he  would  be 
treated  like  a  man  of  unsound  mind."  * 

Rigord  was  a  monk  and  a  man  of  very  limited  ideas ;  he 
appeared  to  have  been  of  Frankish  origin,  and  a  zealous  parti- 
san of  their  primitive  austerity.  His  words  therefore  stand 
in  need  of  some  explanation.  They  simply  mean,  that  the  Pro- 
ven§al  nobles  were  already  distinguished  for  a  certain  elegance 
of  manners,  for  certain  habits  of  social  refinement,  for  gaiety  of 

*"  Quorum  itaque  nefanda  exemplaria,  heu!  proh  dolor!  tola  gens  Francorum, 
nuper  omnium  honestissima,  ac  Burgundiorum  sitibunda  rapuit,  donee  omnis  foret 
nequitise  et  turpitudinis  illorum  conformis.  Si  quislibet  vero  religiosus  ac  timena 
Deum  talia  gerentes  compescere  tentavisset,  ab  eisdem  insania  notabatcr."  This  pas- 
sage, however,  is  not  from  Rigord's  life  of  Philip  Augustus,  but  from  Glabri  Rodulphi 
Historiarum  sui  temporis  libri  v.,  of  which  the  1st  book  is  printed  in  Bouquet's  Recueil, 
vol.  x.,  p.  1,  sqq.,  and  this  passage  on  p.  42.— Ed. 


20  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

life,  for  a  certain  intermixture  of  civil  and  military  luxury.  They 
were  undoubtedly  also  already  remarkable  for  tliat  general  and 
disinterested  alacrity  to  please  the  fair  sex,  which  always 
presupposes  a  certain  degree  of  culture  and  of  moral  authority 
in  the  latter. 

We  perceive  from  this,  that  if  the  communications,  which 
from  the  eleventh  century  had  commenced  to  exist  between  the 
south  of  France  and  the  other  countries  of  Europe,  did  not 
then  go  so  far  as  to  impart  to  the  latter  a  knowledge  of  Proven- 
cal literature,  they  at  any  rate  disposed  them  to  relish  it  by 
spreading  in  advance  the  sentiments  and  manners  of  which  it 
was  the  portraiture. 

Before  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  there  was  scarcely  a 
country  in  Europe,  into  which  the  fame  of  the  Troubadours  had 
not  penetrated,  where  their  productions  were  not  admired,  and 
where  to  imitate  them  was  not  the  highest  pretension  of  art. 
The  poetry  of  the  Provencals  had  become  the  poetry  of  France, 
of  Italy,  and  of  a  part  of  Spain.  It  had  entered  through  several 
avenues  into  England  and  into  Germany.  It  was  Known  in 
Bohemia,  in  Hungary  and  in  Greece.  Even  in  the  northern 
countries,  as  far  as  Iceland,  it  shared  the  popularity  of  the 
Scandinavian  traditions,  the  sagas,  the  songs  of  the  Eddas,  and 
those  of  the  Skalds. 

I  shall  not  endeavor  to  trace  its  progress  in  all  those  countries ; 
I  shall  confine  myself  to  examining  its  effect  on  the  litera- 
tures which  have  a  stronger  claim  on  our  interest,  and  which 
will  occupy  our  attention  in  the  sequel.  They  are  the  litera- 
tures of  Spain,  of  England,  of  Germany,  and  of  Italy.  The 
literature  of  the  north  of  France  is  excluded  from  my 
researches ;  nevertheless  it  is  by  its  origin  so  closely  linked  to 
that  of  the  South,  that  it  will  be  impossible  for  me  not  to  say 
something  about  it  in  the  course  of  my  remarks.  I  shall  com- 
f  mence  with  EjpaJp- 

During  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  the  Christian  part 
of  the  Peninsula  contained  three  distinct  countries;  each  of 
which  had  its  little  states,  its  peculiar  dialect  and  its  literature. 
They  were  Catalonia  and  Aragon  in  the  east ;  Castile  in  the 
interior,  and  Galicia  and  Portugal  in  the  west.  In  each  of 
these  countries  the  literature  of  tne  Provencals  had  its  particu- 
lar destiny,  and  was  productive  of  different  effects. 

The  court  of  the  kings  of  Castile  was  one  of  those  which  the 
Troubadours  frequented  the  most,  and  were  they  met  with  the 
best  reception.  They  there  sung  their  poetical  productions  of 
every  kind,  which  were  all  more  or  less  applauded,  and  which 
thence  spread  into  the  smaller  courts  of  the  country  or  among 
the  people.  The  first  Castilian  writers  who  have  investigated 


Its  Influence  on  the  several  Countries  of  Europe.      21 

the  origin  of  their  own  poetry  have  not  hesitated  to  pronounce 
it  an  offshoot  of  the  Provencal,  or,  as  they  term  it,  of  the  poetry 
of  Limousin.  But  this  is  a  general  assertion  which  teaches  us 
nothing,  unless  it  is  somewhat  specified  and  examined  in 
detail. 

The  various  kinds  of  Provencal  poetry  were  not  in  equal 
favor  among  the  Castilians,  nor  were  they  productive  of  the 
same  eifect  on  their  imagination.  Among  the  ancient  monu- 
ments of  their  literature  we  cannot  find  anything,  which  might 
be  regarded  as  even  a  vague  or  distant  imitation  of  the  amatory 
poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  One  might  be  tempted  to  believe 
that  the  noble  Castilians,  grave  as  they  naturally  were,  and 
always  at  war  with  the  Arabs,  could  have  but  little  taste  for 
those  subtle  conventions,  with  which  the  Proven£als  had  over- 
burdened their  gallantry.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  cause, 
whether  it  was  their  national  character  or  the  particular  cir- 
cumstances of  their  political  and  social  condition,  their  chivalry 
did  not  generally  develop  itself  into  the  systematic  gallantry  of 
the  south  of  France.  It  there  remained  what  it  had  been  ori- 
ginally, faithful  to  its  purely  religious  and  martial  principle. 
The  songs  of  love,  therefore,  were  not  the  portion  of  Provengal 
poetry  which  it  adopted  or  imitated,  but  the  heroic  narratives, 
the  legends,  the  romantic  epopees,  in  which  this  poetry  had 
celebrated  the  wars  of  the  Christians  against  the  infidels,  or  the 
voluntary  quests  of  perilous  adventures.  Moreover,  the  Cas- 
tilian  imagination  did  not  even  adopt  these  narratives  in  their 
original  form  or  entire.  It  cut  them  up,  it  parcelled  them  out, 
and  disengaged  their  most  salient  parts,  in  order  to  convert 
them  into  popular  songs,  which  were  generally  short  enough  to 
be  sung  at  one  time;  in  fine,  it  changed  them  into  historical! 
ballads  or  rojftqnzqS)  as  they  were  then  called,  and  as  we  still 
term  them  in  our  day.* 

The  majority  of  these  romanzas  do  not  go  as  far  back  as  the 
earliest  epochs.  But  in  the  extremely  varied  and  unequal 
ensemble,  which  they  now  form,  there  are  some,  who  through 
their  various  successive  modifications  of  language  as  well  as 
of  composition,  may  doubtless  be  traced  as  far  back  as  the  first 
half  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Now  these  are  mostly  based 
on  Provencal  romances  of  every  age  and  of  every  kind. 

Some  of  them  turn  on  the  incidents  of  the  first  crusade, 
others  on  the  expeditions  of  the  Paladins  of  Charlemagne  in 
Spain,  several  on  the  heroes  of  the  Eound  Table,  and  some, 
which  it  is  curious  to  observe  among  the  rest,  are  derived  from 

*  A  history  and  characterization  of  these  Spanish  romanzas  (more  properly  romances), 
or  popular  ballads,  is  furnished  by  Mr.  Tickaor,  in  his  Hist,  of  Spanish  Lit.,  vol,  i.,  chaps. 
5th  and  6th.— Ed. 


22  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

unknown  or  lost  romances,  which  however  were  likewise  Pro- 
vencal, as  their  subject  indicates. 

The  Castilian  imagination  did  not  rest  content  with  merely  bor- 
rowinojthe  subjects  for  its  romanzas  from  these  different  branches 
of  the  Provencal  epopee.  Some  of  these  poetic  narratives  con- 
tained pretensions  which  were  repugnant  to  the  national  pride 
of  the  Castilians ;  as  for  example,  the  one  which  had  reference 
to  the  conquest  of  a  part  of  Spain  by  Charlemagne.  The 
Spaniards  composed  a  multitude  of  romanzas,  expressly  for  the 
purpose  of  contradicting  the  Troubadours  and  the  Trouveres 
of  France  on  this  point  of  their  history.  They  created  national 
heroes,  by  whom  they  made  Roland  and  his  companions  van- 
quished. They  represented  Charlemagne  as  defeated  on  the 
banks  of  the  Ebro,  and  as  repassing  with  great  difficulty  the 
defiles  of  the  Pyrenees  for  the  purpose  of  returning  to  his  own 
states.  Some  of  the  pieces  which  they  composed  on  these 
events  are  very  beautiful,  and  have  also  the  additional  merit  of 
coming  much  nearer  to  the  truth  of  history  than  the  Pro- 
vencal romances.  They  are  a  more  faithful  echo  of  the  ancient 
traditions,  relative  to  that  famous  expedition  of  the  Franks, 
which  terminated  in  the  disaster  at  Roncevaux. 

So  long  as  the  attention  of  the  Castilians  was  occupied  with 
the  Arabs,  the  Provencal  romances  had  no  other  circulation  in 
Spain,  except  in  the  form  of  these  popular  rhapsodies.  And 
after  the  Arabs  had  been  vanquished,  and  society  had  become 
established  on  a  firmer  basis,  the  people  continued  to  sing  its 
romanzas  ;  it  made  new  ones  like  them,  and  without  any  design 
or  even  a  suspicion  of  the  kind,  it  may  be  said  to  have  gradually 
changed,  re-touched  and  re-created  the  old  ones.  The  nobles, 
who  were  then  at  leisure,  had  also  their  literature  by  them- 
selves ;  they  translated  entire  romances  from  the  Provencal  or 
from  the  French ;  they  imitated  them,  they  exaggerated  and 
subtilized  the  primitive  facts  still  further,  and  they  became  so 
extravagant  in  this  respect,  as  to  provoke  the  sublime  irony  of 
the  Don  Quixotte. 

These  observations  will  suffice,  I  presume,  to  prove  in  a 
general  manner  the  influence  of  Provencal  poetry  on  the  first 
developments  of  the  poetry  of  the  Castilians.  It  belongs  to 
the  special  history  of  the  latter  to  show  how  it  employed,  trans- 
formed and  varied  the  fictions  and  the  traditions,  which  it  had 
adopted  from  the  former,  and  from  what  causes  and  by  what 
degrees  this  primitive  poetry  became  altered,  modified  and 
extinct,  in  order  to  make  room  for  a  learned  and  polished  poetry, 
which  had  neither  its  genius  nor  its  grace. 

Portugal  and  Galicia  are  the  parts  of  the  Spanish  Peninsula 
''  concerning  whose  relations  with  the  south  of  France,  during 


Its  Influence  on  the,  several  Countries  of  Europe.      23 

the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  we  know  the  least.  The 
Provencal  documents  mention  but  a  single  Troubadour,  who 
frequented  the  courts  of  Portugal,  and  I  presume  that  the  Por- 
tuguese documents  have  not  much  more  to  say  about  the  Pro- 
ven §al  poets. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  impossible  to  question  the  influence  of 
Provencal  poetry  on  the  ancient  poetry  of  Portugal.  The 
library  of  the  advocates  at  Lisbon  contains  considerable  frag- 
ments of  a  precious  manuscript  from  the  fourteenth  century, 
which  has  recently  been  printed  in  an  edition  of  twenty-five 
copies  only.  This  manuscript  has  pieces  of  poetry,  which  are 
manifestly  anterior  to  the  age  of  the  manuscript,  and  which  for 
the  most  part  belong  to  the  thirteenth  century.  These  pieces, 
to  the  number  of  about  two  hundred  and  fifty,  are  all  without 
exception  songs  of  love,  composed  in  the  style  and  tone  of  those 
of  the  Provencals.  To  say  that  they  are  an  imitation  of  the 
latter  is  not  enough ;  we  must  add  that  they  are  a  perpetual 
imitation,  and  often  a  mere  translation.  Their  authors,  like 
those  of  the  second,  style  themselves  Trovadors  /  among  the 
one,  as  among  the  others,  the  composition  of  such  works  was 
called  "  finding  or  inventing."  The  only  difference  to  be  ob- 
served, is,  that  the  system  of  gallantry,  as  expressed  in  the  Por- 
tuguese songs,  is  but  a  mutilated  copy,  a  sort  of  an  abstract  of 
that  which  is  contained  in  the  amatory  songs  of  the  Trouba- 
dours proper. 

As  to  the  epic  romances  of  the  Provencals,  we  are  ignorant 
of  the  epoch  at  which  they  began  to  be  known  in  Portugal. 
The  fact  is,  that  we  do  not  find  any  trace  of  them  there  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  either  in  entire  translations  or  cut  up  into 
romanzas,  as  among  the  Castilians.  It  appears,  indeed,  that 
the  Portuguese,  as  well  as  the  latter,  had  their  historical  roman- 
zas at  an  early  date.  But  scarcely  any  of  these  romanzas  have 
come  down  to  us ;  and  judging  from  these  of  those  which  are 
lost,  they  would  all  have  been  of  a  less  epic  and  less  elevated 
tone  than  the  Castilian  romanzas ;  they  would  imply  less  apti- 
tude to  decompose  and  to  concentrate  poetically  a  long  roman- 
tic narrative  into  a  small  number  of  detached  rhapsodies  or 
songs. 

Catalonia  and  Aragon  were  in  more  intimate  relations  with 
the  south  of  France  than  the  other  parts  of  the  Peninsula,  and 
this  intimacy  made  itself  particularly  conspicuous  in  its  litera- 
ture. In  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  the  Catalonians 
had  no  other  literary  idiom  but  the  Provencal,  and  their  litera- 
ture at  the  epochs  in  question  cannot  be  distinguished  from  that 
of  the  Provencals ;  it  constitutes  an  indivisible  part  of  it. 
Several  of  the  kings  of  Aragon  and  many  Catalonian  nobles 


24:  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

figure  in  the  general  list  of  the  Troubadours,  and  in  the  Pro- 
vencal collections  their  poetry  is  found  mixed  up  with  that  of 
the  national  Troubadours.  Some  of  these  poems  deserve  even 
to  be  distinguished  from  the  mass  of  those,  of  which  they  con- 
stitute a  part,  and  are  among  the  number  of  those  compositions 
which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  of  hereafter.  The  identity 
of  the  poetic  system  of  the  Catalonians  and  the  Provencals  is 
an  evidence  that  the  civilization  of  both  these  nations  "was  fun- 
damentally the  same,  and  that  the  institution  of  chivalry  had 
developed  itself  in  the  same  manner  among  both.* 

This  literary  union  survived  the  poetry  of  the  Provencals  for 
a  considerable  length  of  time.  In  1388,  the  academy  of  the 
gay  science,  which  I  have  mentioned  before  as  having  been  insti- 
tuted or  reorganized  at  Toulouse  in  1323,  still  enjoyed  a  certain 
degree  of  distinction.  John  of  Aragon,  ambitious  of  the  glory 
of  establishing  a  similar  academy  in  his  own  States,  sent  a 
solemn  deputation  to  France,  for  the  purpose  of  inducing  two 
academicians  of  Toulouse  to  found  poetic  colonies  of  the  gay 
saber  in  Catalonia.  The  first  academy  of  the  kind  was  estab- 
lished at  Barcelona,  and  some  time  afterward  a  body  of  deputies 
from  that  city  went  to  Tortosa,  to  found  a  second  academy 
after  the  model  of  the  first.  The  works  of  several  of  these 
Catalonian  academicians  are  yet  extant,  some  of  them  in  a 
printed  form,  and  the  majority  in  manuscript.  They  are  writ- 
ten in  the  dialect  of  the  country,  and  are,  I  believe,  the  first 
poetic  essays  in  this  dialect.  This  new  poetry,  which  pretended 
to  be  a  revival  of  the  Provencal,  is  linked  to  it  only  by  feeble 
reminiscences  ;  the  Troubadours  of  the  preceding  centuries  are 
everywhere  lauded  and  quoted,  but  Dante  and  Petrarch  are 
still  more  so,  and  better  imitated.  Love  speaks  no  longer 
any  other  than  a  sombre  and  a  mystic  language,  which  ill 
accords  with  the  name  of  the  gay  science.  This  new  poetry  of 
Catalonia  is  however  remarkable  in  an  artistic  point  of  view,  and 
in  respect  to  its  diction.  It  will  in  the  sequel  appear  to  us  still 
more  remarkable,  as  the  first  in  Europe,  in  which  we  see  the 
influence  of  Provencal  poetry  disappear  entirely  before  that  of 
the  Italian. 

The  Christian  inhabitants  of  Spain  were  separated  from  the 
countries  of  the  Provencal  tongue  by  the  Pyrenees.  But 
between  the  latter  and  the  north  of  France,  properly  so  called, 
there  was  nothing  which  deserved  the  name  of  a  barrier.  The 
inhabitants  of  the  two  countries  belonged  mostly  to  the  same 
race ;  they  spoke  dialects  which  were  closely  related  to  each 

*  On  the  connection  of  the  Provencals  with  Catalonia  and  Aragon,  compare  Tick- 
nor's  Hist,  of  Spanish  Lit.  vol.  i.  p.  231-284.— Ed. 


Its  Influence  on  the  several  Countries  of  Europe.      25 

other ;  they  had  on  several  occasions  been  united  by  the  same 
political  ties,  and  were  naturally  destined  to  become  so  again ; 
mutual  communications  had  already  existed  between  them  for  a 
long  time.  In  fine,  the  respective  situations  of  the  two  countries 
were  of  such  a  nature,  that  the  one  could  scarcely  make  any 
considerable  progress  in  civilization  without  affording  the  other 
a  speedy  opportunity  for  participating  in  it  more  or  less. 

From  the  commencement  of  the  twelfth  century,  the  Romansh 
idiom  of  the  North,  which  had  already  become  the  French, 
began  to  be  cultivated  with  consistency  and  with  success. 
Several  more  or  less  remarkable  works  were  composed  in  this 
idiom,  or  translated  into  it,  among  which  the  Chronicles  of 
Wace  were  by  far  the  most  important.*  Nearly  all  these  works 
were  composed  in  verse ;  but  they  had  none  of  the  essential 
requisites  of  a  poem.  It  is  not  till  toward  the  end  of  tho 
twelfth  century,  that  we  see  the  French  language  exhibit 
works  which  were  conceived  in  a  poetic  spirit  and  for  a  poetic 
end,  and  which,  considered  as  a  whole,  constitute  a  system  of 
poetry. 

A  mere  glance  at  this  poetry  of  the  north  of  France  is 
enough  to  strike  any  one  with  its  resemblance  to,  and  I  had 
almost  said  its  identity  with,  that  of  the  South.  Both  in  the 
one  and  in  the  other  the  same  poetic  forms  are  employed  to 
give  expression  to  the  same  subjects.  In  the  epopee  we  find 
the  same  traditions,  the  same  adventures,  and  the  same  heroes. 
The  general  tone  and  the  character  of  the  narration  are  the 
same. 

In  the  lyrical  forms,  the  system  of  chivalric  gallantry  is  the 
same ;  love  speaks  the  same  language,  produces  itself  in  the 
same  costume,  proceeds  with  the  same  armory. 

In  the  poetry  of  both  nations,  the  metrical  forms  and  the 
mechanism  are  the  same.  The  same  things  are  designated  by 
the  same  names.  At  the  North  as  in  the  South,  the  whole  of 
the  poetic  art  is  summed  up  in  the  word  trouver  (to  find,  invent), 
and  the  poets  are  Trouveres  or  finders,  having  as  their  associates 
or  servants  the  Jongleurs,  who  sing  their  verses  from  city  to 
city,  from  court  to  court,  f  In  both  countries  this  art  of  find- 
ing is  cultivated  alike,  not  only  by  those  who  are  Trouveres  by 
profession,  but  by  all  the  classes  of  the  feudal  order.  In  a 
word,  between  these  two  poetries  there  appears  at  first  sight  to 

*  An  account  of  this  chronicle,  and  of  other  works  of  Robert  Wace,  is  furnished  by 
the  editors  of  the  "  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France,"  vol.  xvii.  p.  615-635,  and  vol.  xiii.  p. 
518-530.— Ed. 

t  For  an  account  of  these  Trouveres,  see  Sismondi's  "Lit.  of  the  South  of  Europe," 
voL  1st.  Special  examinations  of  their -writings  in  ''Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France,"  vols. 
xv.-xxii.  Compare  also  works  of  De  la  Rue,  Dinaux,  Jubinal,  Barbazan,  Michel,  Le- 
grand  d'Aussy  and  others  indicated  at  the  beginning  of  this  volume.— Ed. , 


26  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

be  scarcely  any  other  difference  than  that  of  the  dialect  which 
they  employed,  and  this  difference  even  is  not  a  very  con- 
siderable one;  but  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  one  of  these 
dialects,  in  so  far  as  it  constitutes  a  literary  idiom,  was  modelled 
after,  and,  as  it  were,  copied,  from  the  other. 

But  in  spite  of  all  these  resemblances,  a  more  attentive 
examination  will  soon  disclose  to  us  important  differences.  In 
the  poetry  of  the  South,  the  ideas  of  chivalric  gallantry  form  a 
mucn  completer  system  than  in  that  of  the  North.  The  first 
includes  a  truer  idea  of  society  than  the  second  ;  in  a  word,  the 
common  elements  of  both  these  poetries  are  more  prominent, 
more  clearly  developed  and  more  coherent,  in  that  of  the  South 
than  in  the  other ;  and  this  fact,  demonstrated  and  established, 
as  it  is  susceptible  of  being,  would  suffice  to  prove,  if  there 
were  any  need  of  it,  that  the  first  is  an  original  type  and  an 
invention,  while  the  second  is  but  an  imitation  and  a  copy. 

But  there  are  simpler  and  more  direct  means  for  establishing 
the  truth  of  this  assertion.  The  mere  approximation  of  dates 
is  enough.  At  the  epoch  of  the  appearance  of  Christian  of 
Troyes,  who  is  the  first  Trouvere  to  whom  we  can  with  certainty 
attribute  lyrical  pieces  in  the  style  of  the  Troubadours,  the 
latter  had  already  flourished  for  nearly  a  century,  and  had 
already  carried  their  art  to  its  highest  perfection. 

In  regard  to  the  romantic  epopees,  there  is  no  doubt  but  that 
the  majority  of  those  of  the  north  and  of  the  south  of  France 
are  translations,  imitations  and  variations  of  each  other.  But  it 
is  more  difficult  to  determine  which  of  them  are  the  originals 
and  which  the  copies.  This  is  a  literary  question  of  great 
importance  and  of  extreme  complexity.  All  that  I  can  do 
here  is  simply  to  state  it.  I  shall,  however,  endeavor  to  solve 
it  hereafter,  and  I  shall  reclaim  for  the  Provencals  more  than 
one  famous  production,  which  has  habitually  been  produced 
to  enhance  the  glory  of  other  literatures. 

I  now  pass  on  to  England,  which  will  occupy  our  attention 
but  for  a  short  time. 

After  the  Normans  had  introduced  the  Romansh  idiom  of 
the  north  of  France  into  that  island,  there  sprung  up  an  Anglo- 
Norman  literature,  which  may  be  considered  as  a  branch  of 
the  literature  of  the  French. 

This  Anglo-Norman  literature  had  two  points  of  contact  with 
the  literature  of  the  Provencals,  one  of  which  was  furnished  by 
its  general  and  indirect  relations  to  France,  the  other  directly 
through  the  kin^s  of  England,  who  had  becomes  dukes  of 
Guienne,  and  who  kept  up  habitual  communications  with 
several  of  the  provinces  of  the  South.  The  literature  of  the 
Provencals  had  thus  two  avenues  open,  by  which  to  penetrate 


Its  Influence  on  the  several  Countries  of  Europe.      27 

into  Great  Britain.  Henry  II.  and  his  sons  distinguished 
themselves  by  their  zeal  for  the  encouragement  of  the  Trouba- 
dours. His  queen,  Eleanor  of  Guienne,  drew  several  of  them 
after  her,  and  among  others  one  of  the  most  distinguished — 
Bernard  de  Yentadour. 

But  in  spite  of  these  favorable  circumstances,  the  poetry  of 
the  Provencals  exercised  but  a  very  limited  influence  on  the 
poetry  of  the  Anglo-Normans.  The  latter  can  show  nothing 
which  might  be  compared  with  the  lyrical  productions  of  the 
first.  As  to  poetical  romances,  the  Anglo-Normans  composed 
some  of  them,  they  translated  others,  and  they  were  acquainted 
with  several  more  through  French  translations  ;  but  there  are 
writers  who  have  wished  to  attribute  to  them  the  invention  of 
nearly  all.  This  is  an  assertion  which  it  will  not  even  be 
necessary  for  me  to  refute  expressly ;  it  will  vanish  of  itself 
before  the  facts,  as  they  will  be  announced. 

By  the  side  of  this  Anglo-Norman  literature,  which  was 
properly  that  of  the  court  and  of  the  conquerors,  there  arose 
another  in  the  language  of  the  country,  and  this  was  the  litera- 
ture of  the  people.  The  Provencal  influence  is  more  apparent 
in  the  latter  than  in  the  former.  It  contains  several  imitations 
or  translations  of  epic  romances  from  the  Provencal,  of  which 
I  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  hereafter.* 

I  now  proceed  to  broach  a  question  of  great  interest  in  the 
literary  history  of  the  Middle  Age,  and  for  the  solution  of 
which  we  have  principally  to  look  to  Great  Britain. 

It  is  a  generally  admitted  opinion,  that  the  original  authors 
of  the  romances  of  the  Round  lable  have  borrowed  the  subject 
from  British  (or  rather  Breton)  traditions.  Now,  there  are 
two  countries  which  are  regarded  as  the  primitive  centres  of 
these  traditions — Armorican  Brittany  in  France,  and  the  princi- 
pality of  Wales  in  England. 

As  far  as  Armorican  Brittany  is  concerned,  there  is  nothing 
to  be  found  there,  either  orally  or  in  writing,  which  has  any 
resemblance  to  the  traditions  in  question,  nothing  that  could 
have  served  as  the  basis  for  such  fictions.  All  that  has  been, 
advanced  or  conjectured  on  this  subject  is  a  pure  chimera,  a 
hypothesis  which  could  not  be  refuted,  since  it  is  not  sustained 
by  any  argument,  not  even  by  a  bad  one. 

In  regard  to  the  country  of  Wales,  it  is  another  matter. 
This  country  has  preserved  its  ancient  language  and  its  national 
traditions  much  more  carefully  and  completely  than  Armorica. 
It  has  written  documents;  and  these  ought  to  contain  the 

*  On  the  old  English  metrical  romances,  the  reader  may  consult  Warton's  "Hist,  of 
English  Poetry,"  vol.  1st.— -Ed. 


28  History  of  Provengdl  Poetry. 

proofs  of  the  opinion  advanced,  if  any  such  exist — and,  in  fact, 
these  documents  do  make  mention  of  King  Arthur,  of  Merlin 
the  Enchanter,  of  Tristran,  of  Queen  Iseult,  and  of  other 
romantic  personages  of  the  Round  Table.  But  can  the  state- 
ments of  these  "Welsh  monuments  in  regard  to  those  personages 
be  regarded  as  the  basis  or  the  germ  of  the  romances  in 
question  ?  This  problem  is  a  precise  one,  and  it  is  not  difficult 
to  solve  it.  We  shall  see,  that  the  original  authors  of  these 
romances,  whoever  they  may  be,  have  borrowed  nothing  from 
the  traditions  of  the  primitive  Britons,  except  it  be  some  proper 
names  and  a  few  vague  facts.  We  shall  see,  that  all  the 
developments  of  these  romances,  and  whatever  relates  to  their 
character  and  poetical  merit,  was  either  derived  entirely  from 
the  imagination  of  the  inventors  themselves,  or  else  from  mo- 
numents which  have  no  longer  any  existence  anywhere.* 

Germany,  like  England,  had  a  double  point  of  contact  with 
the  countries  of  the  JProvencal  tongue — an  indirect  one  in  the 
north  of  France,  and  an  immediate  and  direct  one  in  the  king- 
dom of  Aries,  which  included  the  whole  of  the  Provence  of  the 
Middle  Age — that  is  to  say,  all  the  country  from  the  Isere  to 
the  sea,  and  from  the  Rhine  to  the  Alps.  Several  emperors  of 
the  house  of  Hohenstaufen  attempted  to  establish  their  authority 
in  this  kingdom.  Frederic  Barbarossa  had  himself  crowned 
king  of  it  in  1133  ;  Otho  IV.  kept  a  sort  of  lieutenant  there 
with  the  title  of  marshal ;  Frederic  II.  made  various  attempts 
to  get  up  a  party  in  his  favor  within  its  limits.  The  literary 
communications  naturally  followed  the  political,  and  wre  can 
point  out  quite  a  large  number  of  Troubadours,  who  frequented 
the  camps  and  the  courts  of  these  emperors  in  Italy.f 

The  effects  of  all  these  direct  and  indirect  communications 
soon  began  to  manifest  themselves  in  the  literature  of  the 
Germans.  This  literature,  which  had  hitherto  been  confined  to 
ideas  of  Christian  origin  and  to  its  ancient  national  traditions, 
assumed  now,  all  at  once,  a  wider  expansion  and  a  new  ap- 
pearance. It  had  a  lyric  poetry,  the  various  forms  of  which 
were  more  or  less  constructed  after  the  models  of  the  Proven- 
cals, and  among  them,  as  well  as  among  the  latter,  the  noblest 
form  was  consecrated  to  the  apotheosis  of  chivalric  love.  The 
writers  who  cultivated  this  new  poetry,  assumed  a  name  which 
indicated  the  prominent  character  and  object  of  their  pro- 


voce  Meister  Konrad  von  Strassburgh. — Ed. 

f  An  account  of  the  Italian  wars  of  these  emperors  is  given  by  Von  Raumer,  in  his 
"  Geschichte  der  Hohenstaufeii,"  q.  v.  On  the  kingdom  of  Aries,  see  vol.  v.  p.  7«. — 


Ed. 


Its  Influence  on  the  several  Countries  of  Europe.      29 

fession.  They  called  themselves  Minnescenger,  or,  in  other 
words,  singers  of  love.  These  Minnesaenger  began  to  flourish, 
nearly  simultaneously  with  the  Trouveres  of  the  north  of  France 
— that  is  to  say,  toward  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century — and 
they  likewise  continued  to  sing  until  the  thirteenth.  There  is, 
perhaps,  not  a  single  one  of  them,  in  whom  we  do  not  distin- 

fuish  traces  of  Provencal  influence,  and  that  even  in  the  minutest 
etails  of  thought  and  style,  and  yet  we  shall  find  the  ex- 
pression of  ehivalric  gallantry  even  less  complete  among  them 
than  it  was  among  the  Trouveres  of  France*.  The  more  it 
receded  from  its  proper  centre,  and  the  further  it  advanced 
from  the  South  toward  the  North,  the  more  the  poetry  of  the 
Provencals  lost  of  its  peculiar  spirit,  and  of  its  character  as  a 
whole. 

The  revolution,  which  was  brought  about  in  the  literature  of 
Germany  by  the  introduction  of  the  ideas  and  sentiments  of 
chivalry,  is  perhaps  still  more  remarkable  in  the  epopee  than  it 
is  in  the  lyric  forms.  All  the  ancient  national  traditions  which, 
this  poetry  had  thus  far  preserved,  were  then,  as  it  were,  cast 
in  a  new  mold.  The  uncouth  heroism  of  the  barbarous  times . 
was  tempered  by  some  traits  of  the  kindlier  and  more  generous 
heroism  of  chivalry.  It  was  in  the  thirteenth  century  that  an 
unknown  Minnesgenger  redacted,  in  the  form  in  which  we 
now  possess  it,  the  poem  of  the  Nibelungen — a  poem  of  vast 
celebrity,  concerning  which  I  shall  have  to  speak  more  than 
once  hereafter,  and  in  which  we  shall  see  the  strangest  associa- 
tion of  the  ancient  pagan  barbarity  with  the  beliefs  and  senti- 
ments of  Christianity  and  the  manners  of  chivalry. 

The  same  motive,  which  induced  the  Germans  of  the  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  centuries  to  modify  their  ancient  heroic  poetry- 
according  to  the  ideas  and  manners  of  chivalry,  prevailed  on 
them  to  translate  the  majority  of  the  Provencal  and  French 
romances.  German  literature  furnishes  us  on  this  point  many 
valuable  facts  relative  to  the  history  of  the  Provencal.  There 
exist,  in  fact,  in  the  German  long  poems,  which  are  nothing 
more  than  translations,  and,  according  to  the  confession  of  the 
writers  themselves,  translations  from  the  Provencal.  These 

*  Gervinus  makes  the  Troubadours  two  generations  anterior  to  the  Minnesingers,  and 
concedes  to  them  a  decided  superiority  over  the  latter,  not  only  on  account  of  the 
greater  variety  of  their  lyrical  compositions,  but  more  particularly  on  account  of  the 
manly  independence  of  character  exhibited  by  them,  both  in  their  writings  and  in  their 
political  relations  (Gesch.  d.  deutschen  Dichtung,  vol.  L  p.  291).  But  a  direct  imi- 
tation of  the  poets  of  the  Romansh  idioms  can  be  shown  only  in  a  very  few  of  the  Min- 
nesingers, i.  e.  in  four  or  five,  who  lived  on  the  confines  of  Prance,  either  in  Switzerland 
or  Belgium  (Cf.  V.  d.  Hagen's  Minnesinger,  vol.  ii.  p.  50) ;  the  rest  wrote  portions  of  an 
original  national  poetry,  which  in  point  of  delicacy,  intensity  and  ideality  of  sentiment, 
is  not  surpassed  by  any  of  the  epoch.  But  they  scarcely  wrote  any  sirventes  or  tcnsons, 
and  only  number  about  one  hundred  and  sixty,  while  the  Proven9al  list  shows  over  three 
hundred  aud  fifty  poets. — Ed. 


30  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

versions,  therefore,  represent,  if  not  "by  their  form  and  in  their 
details,  at  least  in  their  general  arrangement  and  in  the  funda- 
mental conception,  the  Provencal  works,  from  which  they  were 
originally  taken,  and  which  are  now  lost. 

There  are  also  poems  in  the  German  language,  which  furnish 
us  no  indication  whatever  respecting  their  authors,  but  which 
contain  in  themselves,  and  in  their  very  substance,  incontesta- 
ble marks  of  their  Provencal  origin.  These  are  not  only 
curious  vestiges  of  the  influence  of  the  literature  of  southern 
France,  but  they  are  constituent  and  interesting  parts  of  that 
literature  itself,  which  we  are  sure  of  finding  reproduced  in  the 
German  literature  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries. 

It  remains  now  to  investigate  the  traces  of  Provencal  poetry 
in  Italy.  This  is  the  country,  to  which  I  confess  I  shall  follow 
it  with  most  curiosity.  It  is  there,  where  I  think  I  see  its  influ- 
ence manifesting  itself  in  its  totality  and  with  the  greatest 
effect,  and  blending  in  the  most  intimate  and  in  the  most 
striking  manner  with  the  spirit  and  the  tendencies  of  the  coun- 
try. 

From  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century,  new  relations  of  every 
kind  began  to  spring  up  between  the  south  of  France  and 
Italy.  The  principal  cities  of  the  two  countries  gave  them- 
selves constitutions  nearly  equally  liberal,  and  constructed  after 
nearly  the  same  model. 

These  cities  allied  themselves  to  each  other  by  treaties  of 
amity  and  of  commerce ;  they  formed  a  coalition  in  order  to 
carry  on  mutually  the  war  against  the  Arabs  of  Spain,  the 
common  enemy  of  their  faith  and  of  their  industry ;  they  drove 
them  from  several  islands  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  they  even 
took  several  of  their  most  important  cities  in  Spain  itself. 
These  political  and  commercial  relations  gave  rise  to  others  of 
a  social  character,  so  that  each  of  the  two  nations  could  adopt 
from  the  other  whatever  it  found  for  its  advantage. 

It  was  during  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century,  that  the 
institutions  and  manners  of  chivalry  were  introduced  from  the 
south  of  France  into  Italy.  They  were  from  the  outset  adopted 
with  avidity  by  the  nobles  of  the  country,  and  along  with  them 
the  whole  poetic  system,  which  constituted  part  and  parcel  of 
them.  The  Provencal  then  became  the  literary  language  of 
all  the  smaller  courts  of  Italy, which  prided  themselves  on  their 
chivalric  etiquette.  The  Provencal  Troubadours  visited  these 
courts ;  they  there  gave  lessons  in  their  art,  and  poets  sprang 
up  among  the  Italians  themselves,  who  sung  in  the  Provencal 
idiom  of  love  and  courtesy.  History  makes  mention  of  no  less 
than  thirty  of  them,  and  among  that  number  there  are  some 
who  were  distinguished  for  their  rank  and  talent. 


Its  Influence  on  the  several  Countries  of  Europe.      81 

During  this  first  epoch  of  the  Provencal-Italian  poetry — that 
is,  during  the  interval  between  1150  and  1220,  or  thereabouts 
— Italy  cannot  be  said  to  have  as  yet  had  any  poetry  of  its 
own ;  at  least  no  poetry  which  was  cultivated  as  an  art,  and 
constructed  on  some  artistic  principle.  The  Italian  scholars 
have  instituted  many  researches,  and  have  taken  a  great  deal 
of  pains,  in  order  to  discover  in  their  language  verses  ante- 
rior to  the  thirteenth  century.  But  all  that  they  have  found 
are  two  inscriptions  of  such  a  character,  that  thousands  of 
pieces  like  them  would  not  constitute  the  first  word  of  a 
poem. 

The  fact  is,  that  before  the  thirteenth  century,  there  was  no 
other  poetry  in  Italy  but  that  which  exists  everywhere,  and 
which  is  never  written :  the  poetry  of  nature  and  of  the  people ; 
and  surely,  beneath  a  sky  like  that  of  Italy,  and  among  a 
people  of  so  happy  an  organization,  this  poetry  of  nature  ought 
at  all  times  to  have  produced  things  more  worthy  of  being  col- 
lected and  prized  than  all  the  mediocrities  of  art. 

In  regard  to  the  written  Italian  poetry,  it  is  generally  agreed, 
that  the  first  attempts  of  the  kind  were  made  in  Sicily  and  by 
Sicilians,  at  the  court  and  under  the  auspices  of  Frederic  II. 
But  no  satisfactory  reason  has  as  yet  been  assigned,  why  the 
authors  of  these  essays  employed,  instead  of  the  Sicilian,  the 
Tuscan  idiom  of  the  country,  which  at  this  epoch  exhibits  as 
yet  no  vestige  of  any  literary  supremacy.  However  that  may 
be,  the  attempts  in  question  are  all  of  them  imitations  of  the 
amatory  songs  of  the  Provencals,  and  these  imitations  even  are 
uncouth,  insipid  and  servile,  little  calculated  to  supplant  in 
Italy  the  foreign  poetry  from  which  they  are  derived. 

This  was  the  state  of  affairs,  when,  toward  the  commence- 
ment of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  ideas  and  usages  of 
chivalry,  which  had  heretofore  been  confined  to  the  smaller 
courts  of  Italy,  were  introduced  into  its  republics.  The  mo- 
ment of  this  introduction  is  one  of  great  interest  in  the  history 
of  Italian  civilization. 

By  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century,  the  majority  of  the  cities 
of  Lombardy,  of  Romagna  and  of  Tuscany  made  themselves 
independent  of  their  feudal  sovereigns,  and  they  continued 
their  struggles  against  the  feudal  order  generally,  against  the 
nobles  who  had  remained  within  their  walls,  and  against  the 
seigniors  of  the  boroughs  and  the  castles,  until  the  fourteenth 
century.  It  was  in  the  course  of  these  wars,  and  in  order  to 
become  triumphant  in  them,  that  these  Italian  republics 
exerted  all  the  energy  and  heroism  of  which  they  were  capa- 
ble, and  that  they  gave  themselves  a  military  organization 
which  was  quite  peculiar,  and  which,  in  the  cities  of  Tuscany, 


32  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

and  particularly  at  Florence,  attained  its  highest  development 
toward  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century.* 

Nothing  can  be  more  curious  than  this  organization  and  the 
customs  and  manners  which  it  exhibits  or  implies.  It  breathes 
a  generosity  which  borders  on  ostentation,  an  enthusiasm  of 
honor  and  of  loyalty,  which  is  very  frequently  superior  to 
party  interests — strong  and  impassioned,  as  these  interests  were 
at  the  time.  I  will  mention  a  single  instance,  because  it  can 
be  done  in  a  few  words.  It  would  have  been  considered  dis- 
graceful to  take  an  enemy  by  surprise.  They  consequently 
kept  an  alarm-bell,  which  they  called  Martinella,  and  which 
was  rung  day  and  night  for  a  whole  month,  in  order  that  every 
enemy  of  the  republic  might  prepare  to  defend  himself.  Every- 
thing else  was  conceived  in  the  same  spirit.  Everything  was 
based  upon  the  principles  and  usages  of  chivalry.  It  was  a 
chivalric  democracy  to  the  whole  extent,  and  in  the  full  sense 
of  the  term. 

Institutions  and  manners  like  these  are  sufficient  evidence  of 
the  effect  which  Provencal  poetry,  and  more  especially  the  epic 
romances — those  of  Charlemagne,  as  well  as  those  of  the  Round 
Table — produced  on  the  imagination  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Italy.  These  romances  had  been  introduced  into  Italy  since 
the  close  of  the  twelfth  century;  they  had  rapidly  become 

nular ;  they  were  publicly  sung  in  the  theatres ;  there  were 
ian  translations  of  them  in  verse,  and  fragments  of  these 
versions  were  sung  by  the  people  as  a  sort  of  romanzas. 

The  popular  imagination  transferred  the  scene  of  several  of  the 
events  celebrated  in  these  romances  into  Italy.  There  is  a  cave 
at  Fiesole,  three  miles  from  Florence,  which  is  called  the  Cavo 
of  the  Fairies.  It  is  there  where  Roland  was  said  to  have  been 
fairied,  that  is  to  say,  rendered  invulnerable,  and  where  the 
enchanter  Maugis,  the  cousin  of  Renaud  de  Montauban,  had 
learnt  the  art  of  necromancy.  It  was  pretended  that  the  sword 
of  Tristan  had  been  found  in  Lombardy.  Mount  -^Etna  was 
converted  into  one  of  the  seats  of  King  Artus,  who,  according 
to  the  romances  written  about  him,  was  not  dead,  but  had  mira- 
culously disappeared  from  Britain,  where  he  was  expected  to 
reappear,  and  to  reign  again  at  some  future  day.  Everywhere 
we  meet  with  personages  who,  instead  of  the  names  of  the  saints, 
assumed  the  names  of  the  heroes  of  knight-errantry,  as  for  ex- 
ample, those  of  Merlin,  Tristan,  Meliadus,  of  Launcelot  and 
Gauvain.  In  short,  there  was  nothing  in  the  romances  of  chivalry, 
which  the  Italians  did  not  attempt  to  translate  into  actual  life. 

A  poetry,  which  influenced  the  manners  of  the  Italians  so 

*  On  the  organization,  manners  and  customs  of  these  Italian  cities,  compare  Von 
Jteumer'a  "  Geschichte  der  Hohenstaufen,"  vol.  Y,  p,  83,  eqq.— Ed. 


Its  Influence  on  the  several  Countries  of  Europe.      33 

forcibly,  might  be  expected  to  have  been  imitated  in  their 
national  language.  It  was  so  in  Tuscany.  Besides  the  roman- 
ces translated  from  the  Provencal,  the  Florentines  had  original 
romances,  in  which  they  reproduced,  and  embellished  with  a 
sort  of  chivalric  costume,  their  ancient  national  traditions  con- 
cerning the  founding  of  Florence,  and  concerning  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  ancient  Etruscan  city  Fesules,  or  Fiesole.  The  his- 
tory of  these  fictions  may,  at  some  future  day,  become  a  new 
and  curious  subject  of  research  for  us. 

As  the  chivalry  of  the  courts  had  its  lyric  poetry  at  Palermo, 
so  the  chivalry  of  democracy  had  its  own  in  the  cities  of  Tus- 
cany, at  the  head  of  which  we  must  put  Florence.  A  laborious 
and  timid  imitation  of  the  Proven£al,  this  new  Tuscan  poetry 
was  wholly  devoted  to  the  expression  of  the  tender  sentiment, 
like  the  former ;  and  still  it  differed  from  it  by  various  pecu- 
liar characteristics.  In  the  republics  of  Tuscany,  the  manners  •-. 
and  usages  of  chivalry  were  simple,-  grave,  austere,  and  their 
gallantry  naturally  assumed  the  tinge  of  these  manners.  Their 
love  was  still  more  ideal,  more  disinterested,  and  more  like  a  / 
religious  cultus  than  that  of  the  courts  of  Provence.* 

Poets  arose  in  every  part  of  Tuscany  to  celebrate  this  new 
sentiment  of  love.  At  least  fifty  of  them  are  known  to  have 
flourished  between  the  years  1220  and  1265,  the  epoch  at  which 
Dante  was  born.  Their  poetry  exhibits  many  fine  characteris- 
tics, but  also  much  that  is  as  yet  uncouth  and  monotonous.  It 
was  Dante  who  converted  this  early  Tuscan  poetry,  which  was 
still  more  than  half  Provencal,  into  an  independent,  a  vigorous, 
an  Italian  poetry.  Dante  is  scarcely  ever  mentioned  as  a  lyric 
poet.  This  is  a  proof  that  he  is  not  yet  sufficiently  known.  To 
be  properly  appreciated,  he  must  be  considered  in  connection 
with  all  that  preceded,  and  in  the  midst  of  that  which  sur- 
rounded him — as  the  poetic  representative  of  Italy,  at  one  of 
the  most  brilliant  and  most  remarkable  epochs  in  the  history  of 
that  country. 

Without  surpassing,  perhaps  without  equalling  Dante,  Pe- 
trarch did  even  more  than  the  former  had  done  for  the  advance- 
ment of  Tuscan  poetry.  He  elevated  the  poetry  of  love,  accord- 
ing to  the  ideas  of  the  Middle  Age,  to  the  highest  degree  of 
elegance  and  sweetness,  of  charm  and  purity ;  he  added  to  it  all 
that  art  and  taste  could  add.  Under  this  general  point  of  view, 
the  works  of  Petrarch  may  be  regarded  as  the  complement  and 
consummation  of  the  amatory  poetry  of  the  Provencals.  By 
considering  them  in  this  point  of  view,  and  by  comparing  them 

*  On  the  details  of  this  subject  the  reader  may  consult  the  works  of  Andres,  Crescim- 
beni,  Tiraboschi,  Ginguene".  de  Sismondi,  Bouterweck,  and  more  especially  Fauriel'a 
learned  work  :  "  Dante,  et  les  origines  de  la  litte'rature  italienne."  Paris,  1854.—  Ed. 

3 


34:  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

with  those  of  the  better  Troubadours,  we  shall  find  a  new  occa- 
sion to  convince  ourselves  of  the  influence  and  of  the  genius  of 
the  latter. 

At  the  epoch  when  Dante  and  Petrarch  wrote,  Provencal 
poetry  was  already  extinct,  and  there  were  no  longer  any  Trou- 
oadours ;  but  their  fame  was  still  alive.  Their  productions 
were  constantly  studied  and  imitated.*  The  heroic  romances 
on  the  exploits  of  Charlemagne,  and  of  his  Paladins,  and  those 
on  the  adventures  of  the  Knights  of  the  Round  Table,  still  cir- 
culated under  various  forms  among  the  people  and  in  the 
castles,  as  the  monuments  of  an  age  and  of  manners  which  had 
passed  away,  but  the  fresh  and  vivid  reminiscence  of  which  still 
exerted  a  powerful  influence  on  their  imaginations* 

The  great  literary  revolution  occasioned  by  the  taking  of 
Constantinople,  consigned  the  remains  of  Provencal  poetry 
everywhere  to  oblivion.  No  one  now  thought  any  longer  of 
the  amatory  songs  of  the  Troubadours,  and  the  ancient  roman- 
ces of  chivalry  were  abandoned  to  the  people,  which  preserved, 
but  at  the  same  time  altered  and  mutilated  them.  No  other 
epop'ees,  but  those  whose  subjects  and  whose  forms  were  of  the 
antique  type,  were  now  demanded.  All  the  taste  and  elegance 
which  the  study  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  models  had  been  able 
to  impart,  were  now  employed  in  re-producing  from  the  Greek 
and  Latin. 

Still  Italy  persevered  in  its  noble  destiny  of  purifying  and 
perfecting  all  the  branches  of  the  poetry  of  the  Middle  Age. 
What  Dante  and  Petrarch  had  done  for  the  lyric  forms,  other 
men  of  a  cultivated  but  of  an  independent  genius,  and  faithful  to 
the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Age,  did  for  the  romantic  epopee.  They 
took  up  the  rough  poetic  sketches,  which  the  Provencal  roman- 
cists  had  drawn,  of  the  long  struggle  between  Christianity  and 
Islamism  on  the  frontiers  of  the  Pyrenees,  and  they  converted 
them  into  epopees,  which  with  the  merit  of  an  ingenious  com- 
position, combined  all  the  elegance  and  graces  of  a  finished 
style.  The  "  Orlando  Amoroso  "  of  Boiardo  and  of  Berni,  the 
"Morgante"of  Pulci,  the  "  Orlando  Furioso"  of  Ariosto,  replaced 
as  living  epopees  and  classics  of  a  European  fame,  those  old 
romances  on  the  exploits  of  Charlemagne,  which  could  no 
longer  satisfy  the  taste  of  any  one.  I  think,  however,  that  at 
the  present  time  we  may  assume  a  sufficiently  elevated  point 
of  vision  to  compare  those  primitive  epopees  with  the  master- 
works  by  which  they  were  supplanted,  or  we  shall  perhaps  dis- 
cover, in  some  of  them,  beauties  which  are  destined  to  live  again. 

*  Dante,  on  encountering  Arnaud  Daniel,  whom  he  regarded  as  the  patriarch  of  the 
Provencal  muse,  expresses  the  prayer,  addressed  to  him  by  the  latter,  in  eight  Proven- 
cal verses — (Purgatory,  xxvi.) — a  proof,  that  he  himself  not  only  read,  but  could  even 
write,  the  language  of  his  poetic  ancestors.  Crescimbeni,  in  his  translation  of  Notre 
Dame's  work,  called  the  Provencals  ikepadri  della  delta  potsia  volgare.—Ed. 


Influence  of  Grecian  Civilization  on  the  South  of  Gaul.   35 


CHAPTEE  IE. 

INFLUENCE  OF  GRECIAN  CIVILIZATION  ON  THE  SOUTH  OF  GAUL. 

THE  rapid  survey,  which  I  have  just  taken  of  the  history  of 
Provencal  literature,  involves  as  one  of  its  results  a  general 
fact  of  great  importance,  to  which  I  now  return,  in  order  to 
set  it  forth  more  explicitly  and  completely  than  I  have  thus  far 
been  able  to  do. 

The  poesy  of  the  Troubadours,  that  brilliant  phenomenon  of 
the  Middle  Age  in  the  south  of  France,  was  by  no  means  an 
isolated  phenomenon  in  that  country.     It  was  but  one  of  the 
results  of  a  general  and  an  energetic  movement  in  favor  of 
social  restoration — of  an  intense  enthusiasm  of  humanity,  react-  i 
ing  on  every  side  against  the  oppression  and.  the  barbarity  of  \ 
the  epoch. 

The  same  sentiment,  the  same  want,  that  had  prompted  the 
men  of  these  times  to  seek  and  to  find  a  new  poetry,  impelled 
them  to  seek  and  to  find  a  new  type  and  new  effects  in  the  \ 
other  arts,  particularly  in  architecture.     Side  by  side,  and  in  I 
conjunction  with  the  poetic  monuments,  there  arose  churches  | 
and  palaces,  which  were  only  another  manifestation  of  the  same 
sentiment  of  vigor  and  of  moral  exaltation,  which  had  inspired 
the  former. 

We  have  already  learnt  that  the  development  of  chivalric 
heroism,  which  was  for  some  time  regarded  as  the  first  and 
almost  the  only  human  virtue,  coincided  with  the  epochs  of 
these  new  inspirations  of  art.  It  was  at  the  same  time  that  the 
inhabitants  of  the  cities,  while  struggling  for  their  liberty  under 
the  name  of  franchises,  organized  themselves  into  communities, 
for  the  purpose  of  self-defence,  and  that  in  these  efforts  they, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  acted  a  part  which  was  chivalric 
in  every  sense  of  the  term.  Finally,  all  these  social  revolutions 
were  acompanied  by  corresponding  religious  revolutions,  still 
bolder  and  more  venturesome  than  all  the  others. 

Now,  were  these  changes,  whether  actually  accomplished  or 
only  attempted,  from  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  to  the  middle 
of  the  twelfth  century — were  they  a  mere  modification  of  the 


36  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

previous  state  of  things,  the  direct  and  simple  product  of  preex- 
isting causes,  more  or  less  ancient  ?  or,  were  they  rather  the  ac- 
cidental result  of  the  unexpected  intervention  of  some  external 
influence  in  the  course  of  the  ideas  and  the  events  of  the  time  ? 

These  are  important  questions,  which  I,  however,  cannot 
think  of  solving,  or  even  of  seriously  propounding  at  present. 
If  their  solution  is  possible,  it  must  proceed  from  data  which 
are  yet  to  be  established,  and  from  facts  which  are  yet  to  be 
explained.  But  these  questions  are  closely  related  to  a  remark- 
able fact,  to  which  I  think  I  can  now  give  the  attention  which 
it  deserves. 

From  whatever  point  of  view  we  may  consider  the  revolu- 
tions of  which  I  have  spoken,  to  whatever  cause  or  influence 
we  may  attribute  them,  the  most  immediate,  the  most  positive 
and  the  best  established  antecedents  of  these  revolutions  appear 
to  have  been  nothing  more  than  alterations,  regrets  and  remi- 
niscences of  the  state  of  things  anterior  to  the  German  con- 
quest, or,  in  other  words,  of  the  Gallo-Rornan  civilization. 

Thus  it  is  very  probable,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  and  as 
I  hope  to  show  more  clearly  in  the  sequel,  that  several  kinds  of 
the  poetry  of  the  Troubadours  were  nothing  more  than  a  refine- 
ment, or  a  chivalric  modification  of  certain  popular  forms  of  the 
antique  poetry,  the  motive  and  idea  of  which  had  probably 
been  preserved  by  tradition. 

The  language  of  this  new  poetry,  the  Provencal — that  idiom, 
so  polished  and  so  original  in  some  of  its  accessories — is  at  bot- 
tom but  a  new  form,  and,  as  it  were,  a  new  phase  of  the  Latin. 
That  fantastically  sublime  and  bold  taste  for  architecture,  which 
led  to  the  invention  and  adoption  of  the  style  called  the  Gothic, 
was  at  first  directed  to  the  extension  and  the  embellishment  of 
the  Roman  type,  which  had  thus  far  been  more  or  less  followed. 
This  taste,  however,  did  not  confine  itself  to  the  Gothic;  it 
sometimes  aimed  at  elegance,  variety  and  grace,  and  then 
returned  to  the  genius  ana  the  traditions  of  the  architecture  of 
the  Greeks.  The  municipal  government  of  the  principal  cities 
of  the  South — that  government  so  energetic  and  so  enterpris- 
ing, that  achieved  so  many  heroic  deeds  which  history  has  un- 
fortunately not  yet  attempted  to  bring  to  light — appears  to  have 
been  merely  a  reorganization  of  the  Roman  curia  or  munici- 
pality, which  had  survived  the  wreck  of  ancient  civilization, 
and  which,  modified  more  or  less,  according  to  the  variations  of 
time  and  places,  had  maintained  itself  up  to  that  time.  As  to 
the  new  religious  ideas  which  sprung  up  in  the  South,  they 
were  nothing  more  than  the  reproduction,  in  the  costume  of 
the  age  and  country  •  of  some  of  the  primitive  heresies  of  Christ- 
ianity. 


Influence  of  Grecian  Civilization  on  the  South  of  Gaul.   37 

It  is  more  difficult  to  discover  anything  in  the  system  of  civil- 
ization, prior  to  the  Germanic  conquest,  which  might  be  said 
to  be  like  the  manners,  the  ideas  and  pretensions  of  chivalry ; 
and  I  do  not  flatter  myself  to  have  made  any  such  discovery. 
Nevertheless,  the  accounts  which  history  furnishes  us  concern- 
ing the  character  and  the  usages  of  the  Gallic  chiefs,  and  of  the 
Gallo-Romans  of  the  South  in  general,  toward  the  latter  days 
of  the  empire,  contain  certain  traits  which  have  a  stiiking 
resemblance  to  the  salient  traits  of  the  chivalric  character. 

I  shall  not  pursue  these  indications  any  further,  this  being 
neither  the  occasion  nor  the  place  for  doing  so.  From  all  that 
I  have  thus  far  said  on  this  point,  I  wish  for  the  present  to 
draw  but  one  conclusion,  and  it  is  this :  it  is  impossible  to  give 
an  adequate  and  just  conception  of  the  civilization  (whether 
general  or  literary)  of  the  south  of  France  during  the  Middle 
Age,  without  first  considering  in  what  manner  and  to  what  ex- 
tent it  is  linked  to  the  civilization  which  preceded  it.  In  order 
to  appreciate  properly  whatever  original  or  spontaneous  ele- 
ments the  former  may  contain,  we  must  have  first  become 
acquainted  with  those  which  were  derived  from  the  second.  I 
am,  therefore,  obliged  to  link  the  Middle  Age  of  southern 
France  to  its  antiquity. 

This  obligation  being  established,  there  are  two  ways  of  ful- 
filling it.  I  might  have,  in  the  first  place,  investigated  the  be- 
ginnings of  Provencal  literature,  I  might  have  given  an  idea 
of  its  first  attempts,  and  thence  ascended  to  its  antecedents, 
which  would  have  seemed  to  me  to  explain  and  to  determine 
its  origin  and  character. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  appeared  to  me,  that  in  setting  out 
from  the  classical  antecedents  of  Provencal  literature,  my 
course  would  be  an  easier  one,  and  I  should  be  more  at  liberty 
to  dwell  on  such  of  these  antecedents  as  have  the  greatest  inter- 
est for  us ;  and  for  this  reason  I  have  decided  to  adopt  this  latter 
method. 

I  propose,  therefore,  to  give,  as  an  introduction  to  the  history 
of  Provencal  literature,  a  sketch  of  that  which  already  existed 
at  the  anterior  epochs  of  Gallic  culture,  and  I  shall  begin  with 
the  moment  when  the  Gauls  were  first  subjected  to  the  influ- 
ence of  other  nations  of  a  different  and  a  superior  civilization. 
The  interval  is  a  great  one,  but  I  shall  run  over  it  rapidly. 

Every  one  knows,  that  at  the  epoch  of  the  Germanic  inva- 
sions, Gaul  was  the  most  civilized  and  the  most  Koman  of  all 
the  provinces  of  the  Western  Empire.  Every  one  also  knows, 
that  long  before  the  subjugation  of  that  country  by  the  Romans, 
a  Greek  tribe,  the  Phocseans,  had  there  founded  the  celebrated 
colony  of  Massilia,  or  of  the  modern  Marseilles.  It  was  by  the 


38  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

action  of  these  two  people,  which  at  first  was  isolated  and  dis- 
tinct, and  afterward  combined  or  blended,  that  the  primitive 
condition  of  the  Gauls  was  changed  in  every  point.  The  part 
which  the  Romans  took  in  this  great  revolution,  having  been 
by  far  the  most  conspicuous,  is  also,  on  that  account,  the  best 
known ;  and  I  shall,  therefore,  be  able  to  be  briefer  in  my  ex- 
position of  it.  That  of  the  Phocseans,  or  of  the  early  settlers  of 
Marseilles,  real  and  interesting  as  it  is,  has  as  yet  scarcely 
been  estimated.  I  shall,  therefore,  endeavor  to  examine  its 
details  with  more  minuteness,  in  order  to  give  a  correcter  idea 
of  it. 

All  that  can  at  present  be  known  concerning  the  history  of 
the  Massilians,  concerning  their  laws,  their  culture  and  their 
manners,  is  reduced  to  a  few  isolated  notices,  scattered  through 
a  large  number  of  Greek  and  Latin  works.  To  collect  these 
notices,  to  discuss  and  to  arrange  them,  would  be  a  task  which 
would  too  far  transcend  the  limits  of  my  design.  I  shall,  there- 
fore, confine  myself  to  a  mere  statement  of  their  results,  as  far 
they  relate  to  my  subject. 

From  the  year  600,  before  our  era,  which  is  the  epoch  of 
the  foundation  of  Massilia,  to  about  the  time  when  this  city 
disappeared  from  history  as  an  independent  Greek  municipality, 
there  is  an  interval  of  eight  or  nine  hundred  years,  which  I 
divide  into  three  principal  epochs.*  During  the  first  of  these 
epochs  the  Massilians,  liaving  once  established  themselves  on 
the  coast  of  Gaul,  maintained  and  extended  their  power  by 
their  own  resources,  by  their  own  energy,  and  without  any 
foreign  support.  During  the  second,  they  contracted  intimate 
relations  with  the  Romans,  by  whose  favor,  and  under  whose 
auspices,  they  raised  themselves  to  the  maximum  of  their 
power  and  prosperity.  The  third,  which  commences  with  the 
taking  of  Massilia  by  Caesar,  is  that  of  their  sudden  decline. 

The  first  extends  to  the  second  Punic  war ;  it  is  the  one,  con- 
cerning which  we  have  the  least  information,  and  vet  it  is  the 
most  interesting  of  the  three.  It  was  during  this  interval  of 
three  hundred  and  eighty  years,  that  the  Massilians  had  the 
most  frequent  opportunities  for  exhibiting  the  activity  and  the 
constancy  of  tneir  character,  that  they  repelled  the  many 
attacks  of  the  semi-barbarous  tribes  in  their  vicinity :  those  of 

*  Massilia  was  founded  by  a  Phocsean  colony  of  merchants,  Olymp.  XLT.,  A.  Gh. 
598,  according  to  Eusebius'  Chronol.  p.  124.  Symnus  of  Chios,  vs.  210  sqq.  and  Solinus, 
ii.  52,  do  not  differ  much  from  this  statement.  Plutarch,  Solon,  c.  iii.  asserts  Protis, 
a  merchant,  to  have  been  the  leader  of  the  colony  and  the  founder  of  the  city,  and  to 
have  been  extremely  popular  and  honored  among  the  Celts  about  the  Rhone.  Justin 
makes  Simos  and  Protis  the  joint  founders.  Livy,  v.  34,  gives  us  the  same  fact,  without 
the  name  of  any  leader.  An  excellent  account  of  the  early  growth  of  the  colony,  and 
of  its  influence  on  the  surrounding  Barbarians,  is  given  by  Justin,  Lib.  xliii.  c.  3,  4,  5. 
Bee  also  Strab.  Geograph.  lib.  iy.  c.  5.— Ed. 


Influence  of  Grecian  Civilisation  on  the  South  of  Gaul.   39 

the  Carthaginians  and  of  the  Etruscans,  who  were  jealous  of 
their  settlement ;  that  they  founded  their  principal  colonies,  and 
extended  their  commerce  to  the  limits  of  the  then  known  world. 
It  was,  moreover,  during  this  same  period,  that  after  many  revo- 
lutions their  political  constitution  assumed  the  definite  form,  in 
which  it  afterward  continued  with  a  fixedness  of  purpose, 
which  attracted  the  admiration  of  antiquity. 

Toward  the  year  218  before  our  era,  Massilia  was  destined 
to  commence  a  new  career.  This  republic,  though  from  its 
very  origin  an  ally  of  Rome,  had  never  yet  sustained  any  other 
than  transient  and  general  relations  toward  the  latter.  But  at 
the  commencement  of  the  second  Punic  war,  it  entered  with 
ardor  and  at  its  own  risk  into  the  cause  of  the  Romans,  to 
whom  it  rendered  distinguished  services. 

Half  a  century  after  this  event,  the  Massilians  were  assailed 
by  the  Oxybii  and  the  Deciates,  Ligurian  tribes  from  the 
neighborhood  of  Nicaea  and  Antibes,  and  they  applied  to  Rome 
for  assistance.  This  war  led  to  others,  in  which  the  victorious 
Romans,  conquered  this  portion  of  Gaul,  to  which  they  thence- 
forth gave  the  name  of  Gallia  Narbonensis,  or  of  the  Provinda. 
The  rebellion  of  Sertorius  involved  that  of  the  Narbonensian 
Gauls ;  and  it  was  necessary  to  subject  them  anew.  Caesar 
came  shortly  afterward  and  completed  the  conquest  of  Gaul. 

In  all  these  wars,  which  they  nad  in  a  measure  provoked  and 
determined  by  their  first  appeal  to  the  Romans  against  the 
populations  of  Gaul,  the  Massilians  were  the  zealous  and  disin- 
terested auxiliaries  of  the  conquerors,  who  rewarded  them  most 
munificently  for  their  services.  It  was  a  part  of  the  policy  and 
the  usage  of  the  Romans,  to  surrender  a  portion  of  their  con- 
quests to  those  who  had  aided  them  in  mating  them,  and  they 
pursued  this  conduct  toward  the  Massilians. 

After  the  war  against  the  Deciates  and  the  Oxybii  had  been 
brought  to  a  close,  the  Roman  Senate  ceded  to  Massilia  the 
two  principal  cities  of  those  tribes,  together  with  a  portion  of 
the  adjacent  territory.  Some  time  after,  it  relinquished  to  the 
same  city  the  long  ana  narrow  strip  of  land,  which  extends  along 
in  a  meandering  course  between  the  sea  and  the  mountains, 
from  Genoa  as  far  as  the  mouth  of  the  Yar.  After  the  death  of 
Sertorius  and  the  defeat  of  his  party,  Rome  again  transferred 
to  the  Massilians  its  rights  of  conquest  over  the  Helvians  and 
the  Yolcae  Arecomici,  who  had  been  among  the  number  of 
those  that  had  revolted.  Finally,  Caesar  gave  them  advantages 
over  the  portion  of  Gaul  conquered  by  him,  which  were  superior 
to  all  those  they  had  heretofore  obtained  from  Rome.  The 
picture  I  propose  to  draw  of  the  power  and  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  Massilians  appertains  to  this  epoch  of  their  highest 


40  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

prosperity.  After  having  thus  established  what  they  could 
accomplish,  it  will  be  easier  to  convince  ourselves  of  what  they 
actually  did  accomplish. 

From  the  preceding  facts  it  follows  that  their  territorial 
domain  was  composed  of  two  distinct  portions  ;  of  that  which 
they  had  received  from  the  Romans,  and  of  that  which  they 
had  acquired  themselves.  This  latter  portion  extended  princi- 
pally along  the  sea-coasts,  from  the  rock  of  Monaco,  formerly 
celebrated  for  its  temple  of  Hercules,  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Segura,  near  the  middle  of  the  eastern  coast  of  Spain.  Within 
this  area,  which  comprised  five  degrees  of  latitude,  Massilia 
ruled,  either  by  right  of  conquest,  or  as  the  metropolis  and 
colony-mother,  over  twenty-four  or  twenty-five  different  cities. 
Some  of  these  cities  still  exist  under  their  ancient  names,  more 
or  less  altered  ;  as,  for  example,  Monaco,  Nice,  Antibes,  Agde, 
Ampurias,  Denia.  But  the  majority  of  them  have  disappeared 
without  leaving  us  any  vestige  of  their  former  existence,  as 
Trcezen,  Olbia,  Athenopolis,  Tauroentium,  and  several  others. 

We  are  not  acquainted  with  any  purely  Grecian  or  Phocsean 
city  in  the  interior  of  these  countries,  or  even  at  a  short  dis- 
tance from  the  coast.  But  the  Massilian  population  extended 
itself  into  the  Ligurian  and  Celtic  cities  wnich  were  nearest  to 
the  sea,  where  it  gradually  increased  in  number  and  in  power 
to  such  an  extent,  that  the  historians  and  geographers  of  anti- 
quity designated  these  cities  by  the  name  of  Massilian  colonies. 
Avignon  and  Cavaillon  were  of  that  number.  The  small  town 
of  Saint-Henri,  which  was  anciently  called  Glanum,  likewise 
belonged  to  the  domain  of  the  Massilians.  This  fact  is  authen- 
ticated by  a  precious  medal,  recently  found  in  the  territory  of 
Saint-Henri,  with  the  type  of  those  of  Massilia. 

In  every  part  of  Provence  monuments  have  been  discovered, 
and  are  still  discovered  daily,  which  go  to  show  that  this 
country  was  once  inhabited  and  governed  by  the  Massilians. 
But  their  dominion  or  their  influence  in  this  country  was  cer- 
tainly not  the  result  of  a  military  conquest.  There  is  every 
indication  that  they  introduced  themselves  there  gradually, 
and,  as  it  were,  by  stealth,  in  the  capacity  of  merchants,  of 
cultivators,  or  of  ingenious  innovators  in  matters  appertaining 
to  the  wants  or  the  luxuries  of  life. 

The  country  of  the  Helvii,  and  that  of  the  Volcse  Are- 
comici,  the  sovereign  power  over  which  Rome  had  ceded 
to  the  Massilians,  were  both  conjointly  about  equal  in  extent 
to  the  Provincia,  from  which  they  were  only  separated  by  the 
Hhone.  That  of  the  Helvians,  which  was  afterward  called 
Vivarais,  and  which  now  constitutes  the  department  of  Ardeche, 
i$  mostly  a  mountainous  and  wild  country ;  and  it  appears  that 


Influence  of  Grecian  Civilization  on  the  South  of  Gaul.  41 

the  Massilians  did  not  attach  any  very  great  value  to  its  pos- 
session. At  any  rate,  there  is  no  monument  or  historical  evi- 
dence of  any  kind  in  proof  either  of  their  sojourn  or  their 
dominion  in  that  country. 

This  is  not  the  case  with  the  territory  of  the  Yolcse  Are- 
comici,  which  was  richer,  more  fertile  and  more  accessible  to 
these  settlements;  it  contained,  moreover,  several  cities,  the 
three  most  important  of  which  were  Aries,  Nimes  and  Beziers. 
The  Massilians  eagerly  embraced  the  opportunity  for  establish- 
ing themselves  in  these  cities.  This  is  a  fact  which  is  sustained 
by  incontestable  proofs.  We  still  have  coins  from  Beziers, 
which  resemble  those  of  Massilia.  The  Celtic  name  of  Aries 
was  changed  into  Thelini,  by  which  the  Massilians  intended  to 
indicate  the  fertility  of  its  territory  ;  and  the  use  of  the  Greek 
language  became  so  general  in  that  city,  that  it  continued  to  be 
spoken  there  until  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Barbarians. 
~N imes  became  likewise  almost  a  Greek  city.  From  inscrip- 
tions, which  were  found  among  its  ruins,  we  learn  that  it  had  a 
Greek  theatre  under  the  Romans,  and  that  it  made  use  of  the 
Greek  on  monuments  erected  in  honor  of  the  emperors. 

Whether  the  different  countries  belonging  to  the  domain  of 
the  Massilians  were  ever  comprised  under  one  common  desig- 
nation or  not  I  am  unable  to  determine.  But  the  primitive 
portion  of  this  domain,  which  is  situated  between  the  Rhone 
and  the  Alps,  and  which  corresponds  to  the  modern  Provence, 
is  frequently  called  Massaliotis,  or  Massilia,  by  the  historians 
and  geographers  of  the  Greeks,  and  these  ancient  authors  ex- 
pressly remark  that  the  latter  of  these  names,  Massilia,  was  not 
only  that  of  a  city,  but  of  a  country. 

This  summary  account  of  the  ancient  geography^  of  Massi- 
lia would  admit  of  many  developments  of  great  importance 
and  interest  in  a  historical  point  of  view,  which,  however,  I  am 
obliged  to  dismiss  as  irrelevant  to  my  subject.  What  I  have 
said  will  be  sufficient  to  establish  the  fact,  that  none  of  the 
Greek  republics  had  a  territory  of  wider  extent  than  that  of 
Massilia.  If,  therefore,  anything  was  wanting  to  this  republic, 
in  order  to  exercise  an  influence  on  Gaul,  it  certainly  was 
neither  authority  nor  space. 

The  Greeks  did  not  always  civilize  the  barbarous  tribes, 
among  which  they  settled.  It,  on  the  contrary,  happened 
more  than  once,  that  they  became  as  barbarous  as  those  by 
whom  they  were  surrounded.  History  has  recorded  a  striking 
instance  of  the  kind.  The  Greeks,  who  had  established  them- 
selves in  the  mountainous  districts  of  lower  Italy,  had  lost,  in 
that  isolated  situation,  the  manners  and  the  culture  of  their 
native  country.  A  vague  and  confused  recollection  was  all 


42  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

that  they  had  preserved  of  them.  They  are  said  to  have  met 
together  once  a  year,  for  the  purpose  of  lamenting  that  they 
were  no  longer  Greeks. 

It  was  not  so  with  the  Phocaeans,  who  had  been  transplanted 
into  Gaul.  They  there  preserved  the  genius,  the  manners,  the 
laws  and  the  arts  of  their  native  land  in  all  their  purity.  The 
testimony  of  antiquity  on  this  point  is  unanimous  and  solemn ; 
and  it  will  not  be  useless  to  adduce  some  instances.  The  fol- 
lowing, in  the  first  place,  is  a  passage  from  a  discourse  which 
Livy  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Rhodian  deputies,  pleading  in  the 
presence  of  the  Roman  Senate,  for  the  liberty  of  the  Greek 
cities  of  Asia,  against  the  usurpations  of  King  Eumenes,  who 
claimed  sovereignty  over  them.  "  These  cities,"  says  the  Roman 
orator,  "  are  not  so  much  colonies  from  Greece,  as  they  are 
purely  Grecian  cities.*  The  change  of  country  has  affected 
neither  the  mariners  and  customs,  nor  the  genius  of  the  na- 
tion. Each  of  these  cities,  animated  by  a  glorious  emula- 
tion, has  dared  to  vie  in  point  of  talent  and  virtue  with  its 
founders.  The  majority  of  you  have  seen  the  cities  of  Greece ; 
they  have  seen  those  of  Asia.  The  latter  are  further  away  from 
you;  and  in  this  consists  the  whole  of  their  disadvantage. 
Surely,  if  the  inherent  endowments  of  nature  could  be  con- 
quered by  soil  and  climate,  the  Massilians  would  have  become 
Barbarians  long  ago,  surrounded  as  they  are  on  every  side  by 
nations  of  ferocious  savages.  But  they  have  preserved  not 
only  their  language,  not  only  the  costume  and  tne  usages,  but 
what  is  better  still  than  all  this,  they  have  preserved  the  laws, 
the  manners  and  the  genius  of  Greece  in  all  their  purity  and 
free  from  every  defilement  from  their  neighbors  ;  and  you  have 
good  reason  for  bestowing  on  them  the  same  honor  and  the 
same  regard,  as  if  they  inhabited  the  very  heart  of  Greece." 

Whether  the  orator,  who  uses  language  of  this  description,  be 
Livy  himself  or  the  deputy  from  Rhodes,  whether  he  be  a 
Roman  or  a  Greek,  is  a  matter  of  very  little  importance ;  the 
historical  conclusion  to  be  derived  from  this  testimony  in  favor 
of  the  Massilians  remains  about  the  same  in  either  case.  Twenty 
passages  might  be  quoted  from  Cicero  in  support  of  my  asser- 
tion ;  I  will  give  but  one,  which  I  derive  from  the  orator's 
defence  of  Flaccus.  "  I  shall  invoke,"  says  he,  "  in  favor  of 

*  "  Non,  quae  in  solo  modo  antique*  stint,  Grecse  magis  urbea  stint,  quam  colonise 
earum,  illmc  quondam  profectac  in  Asiam.  Nee  terra  mutata  rautavit  genus  aut  mores. 
Certare  pio  certamine  cujuslibet  bonae  artis  ac  virtutis  ausi  sumus  cum  parentibus 
qureque  civitas  et  conditoribus  suia.  Adistis  Gracciae,  adistis  Asiae  urbes  plenque.  Nisi 
quod  longius  a  vpbis  absumus,  nulla  vincimur  alia  re.  Massilienses,  quos,  si  nature 
insita  velut  ingenio  terrse  vinci  posset,  jam  pridem  efferassent  tot  indomitae  circumfusae 

gentes.  in  eo  nonore,  in  ea  rnerito  dignitate  audimus  apudvos  ease,  ac  si  medium  uinbi- 
cum  GrKciee  incoherent."— Liv.  Hist.  lib.  xxxvii.  c.  54 — Ed. 


Influence  of  Grecian  Civilization  on  the  South  of  Gaul.  43 

Flaccus,  a  city  which  has  seen  him  in  the  capacity  of  a  soldier 
and  of  a  quaestor  ;*  it  is  Massilia — a  city  which,  in  consideration 
of  its  discipline  and  the  gravity  of  its  manners,  I  am  inclined  to 
prefer  not  only  to  Greece,  but  to  every  other  nation — the  city 
which,  though  far  removed  from  the  countries  in  which  the 
language  and  the  arts  of  Greece  are  cultivated,  surrounded  on 
every  side  by  the  tribes  of  Gaul  and  assailed  by  floods  of  bar- 
barity, is  nevertheless  governed  by  the  best  of  its  fellow-citizens 
and  in  such  a  manner,  that  it  is  easier  to  admire  than  to  imitate 
its  example."  It  is  impossible  to  produce  proofs  more  convinc- 
ing than  these,  that  the  Massilians  remained  Greeks  in  the  midst 
of  the  Gauls. 

The  fact,  however,  though  a  remarkable  one,  contains  nothing 
extraordinary  and  would  not  require  any  further  explanation. 
But  as  the  reasons,  which  account  for  it,  are  interesting  in 
themselves,  relating  as  they  do  to  the  very  foundation  of  the 
history  of  Massilia,  I  think  it  incumbent  on  me  to  take  a  rapid 
glance  at  some  of  them. 

The  first  of  these,  and  perhaps  the  most  important,  relates 
to  the  origin  of  the  Massilians.  The  city  of  Phocsea,  from  which 
they  originally  came,  was,  as  every  one  knows,  one  of  the  twelve 
cities  which  constituted  the  Ionian  confederation  on  the  coast 
of  Asia  Minor.  It  was  one  of  the  least  powerful  of  them ;  but 
it  had  always  been  distinguished  among  the  other  states  of  the 
same  league  for  an  austerity  of  manners  and  for  an  energy  of 
character,  which  formed  a  strong  contrast  to  the  commonplaces 
of  the  historians  in  regard  to  the  effeminacy  of  the  lonians. 
The  Phocseans  figure  in  all  the  great  revolutions  of  Asiatic 
Greece,  and  they  always  figure  in  a  heroic  manner.  This  is 
perhaps  the  only  tribe  of  the  Greeks,  concerning  which  history 
recounts  none  but  magnanimous  actions,  none  but  daring  enter- 
prises; the  only  one,  in  which  we  find  the  energy  and  ^gravity 
of  the  Dorians  united  with  the  polish  and  the  vivacity  of  the 
lonians.  A  colony  sprung  from  such  a  people,  and  at  the  finest 
period  of  its  historv,  must  evidently  have  had  the  best  possible 
chances  for  remaining  Greek,  wherever  it  might  establish  itself. 

In  the  second  place,  the  same  necessity  which  made  mer- 
chants and  navigators  of  the  Massilians,  permitted  them  also  to 
keep  up  habitual  communication  of  every  description  with 
Greece  and  with  the  countries  occupied  by  the  Greeks. 

*  "  Neque  veto  te,  Massilia.  prsetereo,  quae  L.  Flaccum  militem  qnaestoremque  cog- 
nosti ;  cujus  ego  civitatis  disciplinam  atque  gravitatem  non  solum  Grseciae,  sed  baud 
Bcio  an  cunctis  gentibus  anteponendam  dicam ;  quse  turn  procul  a  Graecorum  omnium 
regionibus,  disciplinis  linguaque  diyisa,  cum  in  ultimis  terns  cincta  Gallorum  gentibua, 
barbariae  fluctibus  alluatur,  sic  optimatum  consilio  gubernatur,  ut  omnes  ejus  institute 
laudare  facilius  possint  quam  emalari." — Cicero  pro  Flacco,  c.  26. — Ed. 


44:  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

The  Greeks  had,  as  we  know,  conceived  the  happy  idea 
of  making  their  coins  symbolical  monuments  destined  to 
perpetuate  the  memory  of  their  domestic  life,  and  of  their 
public  transactions  with  foreign  countries.  The  coins  of  the 
Massilians  are  particularly  interesting  in  this  historical  point 
of  view.  They  bear  numerous  and  certain  indications  of  the 
relations  and  alliances  with  a  multitude  of  Greek  cities — all  of 
which  were  more  or  less  celebrated — and  particularly  with 
Rhodes  and  Athens,  with  Yelia  and  with  the  majority  of  the 
other  cities  of  Magna  Grsecia. 

The  religion  of  the  Massilians  furnished  them  another  motive 
for  keeping  up  such  connections  with  Greece,  as  were  favorable  to 
the  maintenance  of  their  national  genius.  Their  cultus  was  a  dou- 
ble and  as  it  were  a  complex  one,  like  that  of  all  the  lonians, 
who,  besides  their  properly  Grecian  divinities,  worshipped 
Cybele  and  the  Diana  of  Ephesus,  Asiatic  divinities  which  they 
had  found  in  honor  among  the  inhabitants  of  Ionia,  and  which 
they  had  adopted  among  their  own.  In  the  Asiatic  part  of  their 
cultus,  the  Massilians  were  dependent  on  Ephesus,  which  was 
the  chief  seat  of  it.  It  was  to  this  city  that  they  went  to  look 
for  the  chief  priestess  of  their  Ephesion,  a  name  by  which  they 
designated  the  temples  of  their  Asiatic  Diana.  They  likewise 
kept  up  an  obligatory  connection  of  a  religious  nature  with 
the  mother  city.  Still  existing  inscriptions  prove  that  almost 
down  to  the  time  of  our  own  era,  they  received  the  priests  and 
priestesses  for  some  of  their  temples  from  Phocsea.  But  the 
most  solemn  religious  rendezvous  of  the  Massilians  was  Delphi. 
They  went  there  for  the  purpose  of  depositing  in  the  temple  of 
Apollo  their  spolia  opinta,  or  the  first  fruits  of  the  spoils  which 
they  had  gained  in  war,  and  they  there  erected  monuments  in 
commemoration  of  their  victories.  When  Pausanias  visited 
the  temple  at  Delphi  in  the  first  century  of  our  era,  he  still 
found  several  statues  which  they  had  there  consecrated  to  Apollo 
from  the  earliest  time  of  their  existence.  These  relations  of 
the  Massilians  with  the  principal  religious  and  political  centres 
of  Greece  undoubtedly  contributed  to  keep  alive  in  them  the 
sentiment  and  the  love  of  whatever  was  of  Greek  origin. 

Now  the  knowledge,  which  we  have  thus  far  acquired  respect- 
ing the  character  of  the  Massilians,  already  tends  to  the  pre- 
sumption, that  the  sojourn  of  such  a  people  among  the  Gauls 
could  not  be  without  its  effect  upon  the  latter.  And  this  is 
another  point  in  regard  to  which  history  does  them  ample  jus- 
tice. 

In  the  second  century  of  our  era,  at  an  epoch  when  Home 
had  already  become  the  mistress  of  the  world,  and  when  Greece 
was  no  longer  an  independent  country,  the  tradition  of  what 


Influence  of  Grecian  Civilisation  on  the  South  of  Gaul.  45 

the  Phocseans  had  done  for  the  civilization  of  the  barbarians 
had  not  yet  ceased  to  be  a  living,  and  to  some  extent  a  popular, 
tradition  among  the  Greeks.  The  rhetoricians,  who  undertook 
to  celebrate  the  ancient  glory  of  Athens,  the  cradle  of  the 
lonians,  did  not  hesitate  to  enumerate  among  the  services 
it  had  rendered  to  the  cause  of  humanity,  that  of  its  having 
civilized  the  entire  coast  of  the  Mediterranean,  from  Cadiz  to 
Massilia.  But  the  most  classical  testimony  on  this  subject  is 
that  of  Justin.  "  The  Gauls,"  says  this  writer,  "  laying  aside 
their  barbarity,  learnt  the  usages  of  civil  life  from  the  Massi- 
lians  ;  they  learnt  the  art  of  cultivating  their  fields  and  of  sur- 
rounding their  cities  with  walls.  They  then  began  to  be 
governed  no  longer  by  the  force  of  arms,  but  by  laws  ;  to  cul- 
tivate the  vine  and  to  plant  the  olive.  So  great  was  the  lustre 
shed  on  men  and  things,  that  one  might  have  said  that  Gaul 
had  been  transplanted  into  Greece,  rather  than  that  Greece  had 
been  transplanted  into  Gaul."  * 

It  is  very  probable  that  Justin,  in  abridging  this  passage 
from  Trogus  Pompeius,  has  made  of  it  what  it  really  is,  a  some- 
what declamatory  passage  of  rhetoric,  that  can  teach  us  but  a 
vague  and  general  fact,  which  it  is  indispensable  to  illustrate  in 
detail.  History  and  the  monuments  fortunately  furnish  us  some 
means  for  doing  so.  It  was  particularly  by  their  commerce,  by 
their  religion  and  their  arts,  that  the  Massilians  acted  upon  the 
inhabitants  of  Gaul ;  it  is  therefore  with  reference  to  these,  that 
we  must  examine  and  ascertain  their  means  of  influence. 

No  point  in  ancient  history  is  better  established  than  the 
celebrity  of  the  Massilians  as  navigators  and  as  merchants. 
They  are,  perhaps,  the  only  Greeks,  who  in  this  respect  might 
be  compared  to  the  Carthaginians.  Their  vessels  pushed  their 
way  beyond  the  Propontis,  and  probably  as  far  as  the  Black  Sea. 
They  frequented,  or  at  any  rate  had  acquired  a  knowledge  of,  the 
western  coast  of  Africa,  as  far  as,  and  even  beyond,  the  mouths 
of  the  Senegal.  Those  of  their  coins  which  contain  the  impress 
of  the  giraffe  and  of  the  hippopotamus,  are  perhaps  the  monu- 
ments, which  were  intended  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  their 
discoveries  along  these  coasts,  and  of  the  great  river  which 
there  discharges  itself  into  the  ocean.  Toward  the  north  they 
had  passed  far  beyond  the  known  limits  of  the  Phoenician  navi- 
gators. They  had  advanced  at  least  as  high  as  Norway.  The 
nrst  geographical  notice  of  the  Germanic  nations,  some  of 

*  "Ab  his  igitur  Galli  et  usum  vitae  cnltioris,  deposita  et  mansuefacta  barbaria,  et  agro- 
rnm  cultus,  et  urbes  moenibus  cingere  didicerunt.  Tune  et  legibus,  non  armis  vivere  ; 
tune  et  vitem  putare,  tune  olivam  serere  consueverunt :  adeoque  magnus  et  hominibua 
et  rebus  impositus  est  nitor,  ut  non  Grsecia  in  Galliam  emigrasse,  sed  Gallia  in  Grseciam 
translata  videretur."— Justin,  Hist.  Philipp.  lib.  xliii.  c. 


46  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

which  were  scattered  along  the  shores  of  the  Baltic,  is  based  on 
certain  notions  in  regard  to  the  famous  voyage  of  Pytheas 
along  these  coasts. 

But  while  they  were  thus  devoting  themselves  to  distant  ex- 
plorations, the  Massilians  had  not  neglected  the  interior  of 
Gaul;  they  had  traversed  it  in  every  direction.  They  had 
opened  a  road  along  the  Rhone  and  the  Loire,  as  far  as  the 
coast  of  Armorica.  It  was  there  where  they  obtained  their  tin 
and  other  productions  from  Great  Britain,  which  they  trans- 
ported by  the  same  way  to  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean. 
They  had  also  communications  with  the  northeast  of  Gaul,  and 
to  all  appearances  with  Germany.  But  it  was  especially  with 
the  tribes  of  their  immediate  vicinity,  and  with  those  of  the 
valley  of  the  Rhone,  that  they  kept  up  habitual  commercial 
relations.  The  direct  effect  of  tnese  relations  on  the  culture  and 
the  social  condition  of  these  tribes  is  not  of  a  nature  to  be 
appreciated  or  measured.  But  with  this  general  effect  there 
were  connected  others  of  a  more  specific  nature,  which  are 
more  susceptible  of  a  precise  historical  enumeration. 

No  regular  communications  between  the  Phocaeans  and  the 
aboriginal  Gallic  tribes  could  ever  take  place,  except  with  the 
aid  of  a  common  language.  Now  in  this  particular  case,  as  in 
the  majority  of  similar  cases,  the  most  intelligent  and  the  most 
polished  were  the  men,  who  gave  their  idiom  to  those  that  were 
less  so.  Strabo,  speaking  of  the  population  in  the  vicinity  of 
Massilia,  informs  us  that  they  had  adopted  the  use  of  the  Greek 
in  their  contracts,  that  is  to  say,  in  all  their  voluntary  transac- 
tions between  one  individual  and  another.*  This  fact  attests, 
as  expressly  as  possible,  the  social  ascendant  of  the  Massilians 
over  the  aboriginal  tribes  of  their  vicinity. 

The  introduction  of  alphabetic  writing  into  the  central  parts 
of  Gaul  was  another  result  of  the  communications  between  these 
countries  and  the  city  of  Massilia.  The  system  of  Druidical 
doctrines  was  transmitted  orally,  and  was  preserved  through 
the  memory  alone.  Caesar  says  expressly,  that  the  only  writing 
in  use  among  the  Druids,  both  for  the  purposes  of  personal  and 
of  public  affairs,  was  the  Greek.  When  he  came  into  Hel- 
vetia, in  order  to  check  the  population  which  was  already  on 
its  way  of  emigration  to  the  west  of  Gaul,  he  there  found  tab- 
lets of  a  census  in  Greek  characters. 

I  am  unable  to  say  whether  these  Gallic  tribes  had  money, 
coined  by  themselves  and  for  their  own  use,  previously  to  the 
arrival  of  the  Phoca3ans.  I  should  be  inclined  to  doubt  it,  and 


*  Strabon.  Geograph.  lib.  iv.  c.  6  :  "  Kort  ^AeAA^vo?  KareaKevaae 
,  uare  Kal  TO,  ffvpfiohcua  'EMijvtorl  ypu<j>eiv."—Ed. 


Influence  of  Grecian  Civilisation  on  the  South  of  Gaul.  47 

to  believe  that  the  branch  of  industry  in  question  was  one  of 
those  which  they  had  learned  from  the  Greeks.  But  what  is 
beyond  a  doubt,  is,  that  the  inscriptions  on  their  most  ancient 
coins  are  in  the  Greek  characters.  Now,  from  whom  could 
these  Gauls  have  learnt  the  use  of  those  characters,  unless  it  was 
from  the  Massilians  ?  These  facts  are  among  those  which  hav6 
their  weight  in  the  history  of  civilization. 

There  is  something  more  complex  and  more  singular  in  cer- 
tain circumstances  connected  with  the  religious  influence  of  the 
Massilians  on  the  Gallic  tribes  in  the  immediate  proximity  of 
the  Mediterranean.  I  have  already  spoken  of  the  religion  of 
the  Massilians,  but  I  must  here  return  to  the  same  subject  for  a 
moment,  in  order  to  account,  if  possible,  for  the  facility  with 
which  this  religion  of  theirs  appears  to  have  spread  at  an  early 
date  throughout  the  southern  parts  of  Gaul. 

Besides  Cybele  and  the  Ephesian  Diana,  the  Massilians  wor- 
shipped most  of  the  divinities  and  deified  heroes  of  Greece.  The 
divinities,  for  which  they  appear  to  have  had  a  peculiar  vener- 
ation, were  Apollo,  Minerva,  the  Diana  of  the  chase,  Bacchus  and 
Yenus  ;  and  among  the  heroes,  Hercules.  The  cultus  of  the  lat- 
ter was  one  of  the  first  of  those  introduced  into  several  Gallic 
cities,  where  the  Massilians  were  in  power.  The  tradition, 
which  attributes  the  founding  of  Kimes  to  a  son  of  Hercules, 
appeared  to  be  an  indication  of  the  existence  of  that  cultus  in 
this  city.  Avignon  had  likewise  adopted  Hercules  as  one  of  its 
tutelary  deities,  and  had  built  him  a  temple,  as  is  proved  from 
an  inscription  which  was  found  among  the  ruins  of  that  temple. 
But  the  Massilian  divinity,  whose  cultus  was  most  generally 
adopted  by  the  aboriginal  tribes,  which  had  submitted  to  the 
power  or  the  influence  of  the  Massilians,  was  the  Diana  of 
Ephesus.  Strabo  states  expressly,  that  the  inhabitants  of  the 
southern  coast  of  Spain  learnt  from  them  the  art  of  sacrificing, 
after  the  manner  of  the  Greeks,  in  honor'  of  this  favorite  divi- 
nity.* The  traditions  of  the  south  of  Gaul,  which  attribute  to 
Diana  the  majority  of  the  pagan  temples,  of  which  the  ruins 
still  exist,  appear  to  be  an  indication  of  the  ancient  popularity, 
which  the  cultus  of  this  deity  enjoyed  among  the  Gauls  in  the 
vicinity  of  Phocaean  towns.  Other  Greek  divinities  were  wor- 
shiped in  places  quite  remote  from  any  of  the  possessions  of  the 
Massilians,  and  between  which  and  the  latter  we  cannot  sup- 
pose any  other  relations  to  have  existed  than  those  of  commerce 
and  of  amity. 

There  is  a  curious  medal,  which  has  thus  far  been  found  only 


*  Strabon.  Geograph.    lib.  iv.  c.^5.  :  "Toic'lpjjpfftv,  oZ?  /ca2  ra  iepti  r;/f  ' 
'Apre/uJof  Trapedoaav  rd  Trarpia,  ware  'EXXrjviffTt  tfuav."  —  Ed. 


48  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

in  the  environs  of  Toulouse,  where  it  is  even  common.  These 
circumstances  seem  to  indicate  that  it  belongs  to  that  locality. 
This  medal,  the  inscription  of  which  is  in  the  Greek  character 
and  language,  bears  on  one  of  its  faces  a  tripod,  the  ordinary- 
symbol  of  the  cultus  of  Apollo,  and  could  only  have  been  struck 
by  a  people,  among  whom  this  cultus  was  established.  That 
this  was  not  a  Greelc  people  is  evident,  both  from  the  name  and 
from  the  barbarous  fabric  of  the  medal. 

Now,  in  order  to  explain  the  facility  with  which  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  south  of  Gaul  adopted  the  objects  and  the  ceremo- 
nial of  the  Grecian  cultus,  it  is  indispensable  to  enter  into  some 
general  considerations  with  reference  to  the  nature  and  the  for- 
malities of  this  cultus. 

The  religion  of  the  Greeks,  taken  as  a  whole,  was  but  a  suc- 
cession of  riant  festivities,  which  vied  with  each  other  in  point 
of  animation  and  poetic  beauty.  The  finest  productions  of  their 
national  poetry,  from  the  drama  to  the  epic  or  lyric  hymn,  were 
composed  with  reference  to  the  celebration  of  these  fetes.  Some 
hymn  in  honor  of  the  deity,  to  which  the  festival  was  dedicated, 
constituted,  ordinarily,  an  essential  and  a  characteristic  part  of 
it.  But  it  is  impossible  to  form  any  conception  of  the  spectacle 
and  the  effect  produced  by  these  hymns,  unless  we  have  pre- 
viously acquired  at  least  some  vague  notion  of  the  general  na- 
ture of  the  poetic  execution  among  the  Greeks. 

The  poetry  of  the  Greeks  was  not,  like  that  of  modern  nations, 
an  isolated  art,  independent  of  every  other,  and  producing  its 
effect  by  being  merely  read  or  recited.  It  required  the  indis- 
pensable concurrence  of  two  other  arts,  distinct  from  and  yet 
intimately  and  necessarily  connected  with  it.  These  arts  were 
in  the  first  place  music,  and  then  what  the  Greeks  called 
orchesis  (op^at^)  and  the  Latins  saltatio — terms  for  which  our 
word  "  dancing  "  would  be  but  a  very  imperfect  equivalent. 
This  saltation  (if  we  may  be  permitted  to  retain  its  Latin  name), 
was  a  sort  of  gesticulation,  a  characteristic  pantomime,  by 
which  it  was  intended  to  represent  to  some  extent,  to  the  eye, 
that  which  the  words  of  the  poetry  conveyed  to  the  mind.  It 
is  thus  that  every  poem  was  sung,  and  sung  not  only  with  an 
appropriate  accompaniment  of  instrumental  music,  but  with 
the  additional  accompaniment  of  imitative  and  descriptive  ges- 
tures. The  invention  of  these  gestures,  as  well  as  that  of  the 
music,  constituted  a  necessary  part  of  the  talent  of  the  poet, 
and  the  poetic  execution  was  thus  composed  of  three  distinct  arts, 
or  perhaps  rather  of  three  indivisible  branches  of  one  and  the 
same  art,  aspiring  in  concert  after  one  and  the  same  effect. 

The  character  of  this  execution  and  of  each  one  of  the  several 
concurrent  arts,  varied  ad  infinitum.  But  all  these  differences 


Influence  of  Grecian  Civilisation  on  the  South  of  Gaul.   49 

and  varieties  were  reduced  to  three  fundamental  types  or  forms : 
a  noble,  calm  and  grave  form,  called  the  tragic ;  a  humorous, 
burlesque  and  familiar  form,  called  the  comic ;  and  finally,  an 
agitated,  impassioned  and  enthusiastic  form,  or  the  dithyrambic. 

The  religious  hymns  partook  of  all  these  forms.  They  were 
executed  by  a  more  or  less  numerous  body  of  performers,  com- 
posed either  of  men  or  of  women  exclusively,  or  of  a  mixture 
of  men  and  women  both.  These  companies  were  called  choruses ; 
and  the  organization  of  these  choruses  varied  according  to  a 
multitude  of  circumstances,  of  which  I  can  only  indicate  a  few 
of  the  most  general.  There  were  instances,  in  which  the  choruses 
acted  under  the  direction  of  the  priest.  But  often,  and  even 
most  generally,  they  were  composed  of  personages  elected  by 
the  magistrates  for  this  special  purpose,  and  directed  by  a  leader 
called  a  choragus  (XopT/yo^).  In  that  event,  it  was  the  civil 
authority  which  intervened  in  the  exercise  of  the  cultus. 

It  would  take  up  too  much  of  our  time  here,  to  give  even  an 
imperfect  conception  of  all  the  varieties  of  religious  hymns  in 
use  among  the  Greeks.  I  shall  only  distinguish  two  principal 
classes  of  them.  The  theme  or  argument  of  one  of  these  con- 
sisted of  a  particular  action  or  determinate  trait  from  the  life 
of  some  divinity.  In  these  the  mimic  accompaniment  of  the 
words  must  have  been  a  special  pantomime,  appropriate  to  the 
action  expressed  by  the  poem.  The  hymn  was  then  a  sort  of 
drama  acted  by  the  chorus.  The  hymns  of  the  second  class 
were  only  general  praises  of  the  gods,  or  the  more  or  less  detailed 
expression  of  their  attributes.  The  mimic  accompaniment, 
with  which  they  were  executed,  was  limited  to  a  simple  dance, 
of  a  character  analogous  to  that  of  the  words  and  of  the  music, 
and  without  any  pretension  to  a  dramatic  imitation  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  term.  It  was  most  generally  a  circular  dance, 
which  had  many  points  in  common  with  that  of  the  theatrical 
chorus  on  the  stage.  This  vague  and  imperfect  sort  of  choral 
pantomime  was  to  all  appearances  the  most  frequent  and  the 
most  popular  of  them  all.  It  did  not  require,  like  the  others, 
an  especial  apprenticeship  on  the  part  of  the  choragus,  and  the 
public  in  general  could  take  part  in  it.  However,  all  the  choral 
performances  of  any  and  of  every  kind,  were  regarded  by  the 
people  as  a  spectacle,  and  as  one  of  its  most  animated  and  most 
agreeable  diversions.  It  is  therefore  not  to  be  wondered  at,  if 
the  inhabitants  of  the  south  of  Gaul,  especially  those  who  pro- 
fessed Dniidism,  abandoned  the  sombre  and  barbarous  rites  of 
that  religion,  in  order  to  adopt  the  more  cheerful  cultus  of  the 
Greeks.  In  attributing  to  these  people  that  passionate  thirst 
for  pleasure,  that  vivacity  of  imagination,  and  that  promptitude 
of  enthusiasm,  for  which  they  were  distinguished  at  a  later  date 

4 


50  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

and  for  which  they  are  still  remarkable,  we  can  easily  conceive, 
that  they  must  have  been  very  sensible  to  the  attractions  and 
the  magnificence  of  those  religious  festivals  of  Greece,  to 
which  the  most  charming  and  the  most  potent  of  the  arts  con- 
tributed their  choicest  gifts. 

It  remains  now  to  give  some  idea  of  the  culture,  the  arts  and 
the  literature  of  the  Massilians,  and  to  see  what  influence  they 
could  have  exercised  by  means  of  them  on  the  Gauls  of  their 
neighborhood. 

Tlie  Massilians  were  in  the  habit  of  sending  statues  to  Delphi ; 
they  made  them  for  their  temples  and  for  their  monuments. 
A.  large  number  of  those  which  have  been  discovered,  or  which 
history  mentions  as  having  existed  in  different  parts  of  Gaul, 
were  in  all  probability  the  works  of  their  artists.  But  by  a 
sort  of  fatality,  none  of  those  that  have  come  down  to  us  bear 
any  certain  mark  of  having  been  produced  by  them,  A  few 
bass-reliefs,  a  few  small  figures  in  bronze,  and  their  coins  or 
medals,  are  the  only  monuments  of  art,  that  can  be  attributed 
to  them  with  certainty.  Several  of  these  monuments  are 
remarkable  for  their  beauty  and  the  exquisite  finish  of  their 
workmanship.  If  we  were  to  infer  from  them  the  general 
character  of  the  arts  of  design  at  Massilia,  we  should  have  to 
say,  that  their  characteristics  were  rather  grace  and  elegance 
than  boldness  and  vigor. 

Some  monuments  of  another  kind,  if  they  may^  also  be 
regarded  as  the  works  of  the  Massilians,  would  likewise  go  to 
sustain  this  conclusion,  and  they  would  prove  that  the 
Phocaeans  had  preserved  the  riant  imagination  of  Ionia  on  the 
coasts  of  Liguria  even.  The  learned  Peiresc  has  left  us  a 
description  of  a  cameo,  found  in  his  time  near  Frejus,  among 
the  ruins  of  a  small  Massilian  temple.  The  subject  of  the 
cameo  is  a  sort  of  parody — and  a  parody  of  the  most  graceful 
description — of  the  gathering  of  olives,  which  is  a  subject  quite 
frequently  represented  by  the  Greeks.  A  company  of  young 
maidens,  whom  Peiresc  (for  reasons  which  I  am  at  a  loss  to 
explain)  calls  the  nymphs  of  Homer,  are  assembled  under  a 
tree,  and  by  means  of  long  poles  knocking  down,  by  way  of 
fruit,  some  little  amourettes,  perched  here  and  there  upon  the 
branches. 

The  literary  and  poetical  remains  of  the  Massilians  are  still 
scarcer  than  their  graven  or  sculptured  monuments,  and  there 
is  less  to  be  said  about  them.  They  are  reduced  to  inscriptions 
and  epitaphs,  which  merely  confirm  what  has  already  been 
attested  by  history,  to  wit,  that  the  dialect  of  the  Massilians 
was  closely  related  to  the  general  dialect  of  Ionia.  Several  of 
these  inscriptions,  and  particularly  the  epitaphs,  still  breathe  all 


Influence  of  Grecian  Civilization  on  the  South  of  Gaul.   51 

the  purity  and  the  simplicity  of  the  Hellenic  taste.  I  can- 
not refrain  from  the  pleasure  of  quoting  two  of  them.  One  of 
them  was  engraven  on  the  tomb  of  an  unknown  couple,  and  is 
remarkable  lor  its  sentimental  conciseness:  "There  are  here 
two  bodies  and  one  soul."  But  perhaps  this  touching  inscrip- 
tion was  not  made  expressly  for  the  Massilian  tomb  from  which 
it  was  copied ;  it  was  perhaps  rather  a  sort  of  sepulchral  formula 
in  general  use  among  the  Greeks.  This,  however,  is  not  the 
case  with  the  following  one,  which  was  engraven  on  a  sort  of 
cippus.  The  monument  to  which  it  belongs  is  undoubtedly  a 
local  one.  Independently  of  its  poetic  interest,  it  is  curious  for 
certain  allusions  to  neo-Py  thagorean  ideas,  which  were  undoubt- 
edly in  vogue  among  the  Massilians  at  the  unknown  epoch  to 
which  it  belongs.  It  is  the  epitaph  of  a  mariner,  who  is  sup- 
posed to  address  himself  to  the  passers-by  in  the  following 
terms :  "  Along  the  shore  which  echoes  the  booming  of  the 
waves,  I  address  myself  to  thee,  O  traveller — I,  a  young  man  and 
a  stranger  to  hymen,  beloved  of  God,  no  longer  now  a  mortal, 
and  by  my  age  like  the  young  gods  of  Amy  else,  the  guardians 
of  mariners.  Myself  a  mariner,  I  led  a  wandering  life  on  the 
floods  of  the  sea,  and  now  within  this  tomb,  which  I  have 
obtained  from  the  piety  of  my  masters,  I  am  forever  exempt 
from  sickness  and  from  toil,  from  sorrow  and  fatigue — miseries 
to  which  my  body  was  subject  among  the  living.  The  dead 
are  divided  into  two  classes.  Some  return  to  wander  over  the 
earth  ;  but  others  join  in  the  dances  of  the  stars  of  heaven.  I 
am  one  of  the  latter  army,  having  taken  God  for  my  guide."* 

It  is  perhaps  the  most  striking  feature  of  this  little  piece,  so 
elevated  in  its  tone,  so  graceful  and  so  pure,  that  it  was  made 
for  the  monument  of  a  simple  sailor  who  had  worked  for  wages. 

It  has  often  been  remarked,  and  it  is  even  commonly  believed, 
that  the  Massilians  had  no  theatre,  and  that  they  were  unac- 
quainted with  dramatic  representations.  The  fact  would  be  a 
surprising  one ;  for  the  theatre  and  the  drama,  from  the  time  of 

*  The  original  of  this  inscription,  with  a  disquisition  on  its  contents,  may  be  found 
in  Chardon  de  la  Epchette's  Melanges  de  Critique  et  de  Philologie,  vol.  i.  p.  121-143. 
The  first  verse  of  it  is  restored  by  Rochette.  It  is  also  reprinted  in  the  Histmre  LiUe- 
raire  de  la  France,  vol.  xxi.  p.  xxvi.  It  is  as  follows : 

Tax'tvoiffi  irapepxzv  'xvecri  rvpftov,  dfara, 
iyw  KoKeu  ae,  9e<jj  ^Aof,  OVKETL  dvrjrbf, 
Kovpotatv  6(t7]hiKiy  iravojuoio?, 
cjv  auTfjpaiv,  ' AfivKJiaiovai  VEOIOIV. 
Kavrbc  euv,  TTOVTOV  Y  £vi  xvfiaai  vaadrjv 
Tpoyeuv  6£  ylo^ow  rode  cr/pa,  TriTrav[j,ai 
Noucrwv  KOI  KapaToio  not  o^tfeof  j?d£  TTOVOIO' 
Tavra  yap  kv  faolaiv  d/ueiAixa  cap/cef  e%ovfftv* 
'Ef  62  TS  reOveitiatv  6/JUjyvpiEt  ye  r:i\ovaiv 
Aoial,  TUV  Mpr]  n£v  iiuxdovin  TreQopijTai 
H  6'  ETeprj  reipecroi  cvv  alftepiotat  yop 
T 


52  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

their  invention,  were  one  of  the  characteristic  passions  of  the 
Greeks.  Moreover,  their  tragedy,  which  had  originated  in  the 
cultus  of  Bacchus,  always  constituted  a  part  of  it ;  and  this 
cultus  was  one  of  those  which  were  honored  in  Massilia. 
Finally,  there  existed,  as  we  shall  see,  theatres  in  several  of  the 
cities  which  were  subject  to  the  Massilians  ;  and  we  cannot  see 
why  the  latter  should  have  tolerated  in  their  colonies,  what  they 
did  not  allow  in  their  metropolis. 

But  it  would  be  superfluous  to  combat  any  longer  an  asser- 
tion which  is  without  any  foundation,  based  as  it  is  on  a  single 
misapprehended  passage  from  a  Roman  author.  This  author  is 
Valerius  Maximus,  who,  in  eulogizing  the  characteristic  gravity 
of  the  Massilians,  simply  says :  "  that  they  did  not  allow  mimic 
representations  on  the  sta^e."  *  The  mimics  were,  as  I  propose 
to  show  with  more  detail  hereafter,  a  species  of  short  dramas, 
peculiar  to  the  Eomans  rather  than  to  the  Greeks,  and  the 
argument  and  execution  of  which  gradually  degenerated  into 
a  revolting  indecency.  Now,  to  say  that  the  Massilians  did 
not  permit  this  particular  kind  of  scenic  representations,  is  sim- 
ply saying  that  they  had  a  theatre,  and  that  in  that  theatre  they 
acted  pieces  of  a  character  that  had  been  consecrated  by  the 
usage  and  the  genius  of  the  Greeks. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  and  the  best  authenticated  facts 
in  the  history  of  the  ancient  Massilians,  is  the  zeal  with  which 
they  devoted  themselves  to  the  preservation  and  the  study  of 
the  poems  of  Homer.  This  zeal  was  the  natural  consequence 
of  their  Phocaean  origin.  Phocsea  was  one  of  the  Grecian 
cities  of  Asia,  which  claimed  the  honor  of  having  given  birth 
to  the  author  of  those  poems.  At  any  rate,  the  most  ancient 
traditions  assert  that  he  had  resided  there  for  a  long  time,  and 
that  he  had  composed  several  of  his  works  there.  Besides, 
when  the  legislators  of  Greece  had  recognized  Homer  as  the 

Soet  and  the  historian  of  Greece,  Phocsea  was  one  of  the  cities 
i  which  his  memory  and  his  works  became  the  object  of  a 
particular  veneration  ;  and  this  veneration  must  naturally  have 
transmitted  itself  to  the  Massilians,  together  with  the  traditions 
on  which  it  was  based. 

Solon  was  the  first  Greek  legislator  who  conceived  the  idea 
of  purifying  and  establishing  the  text  of  the  Iliad  and  of  the 
Odyssey,  and  who  enjoined  their  solemn  rehearsal  at  the  public 
festivals.  The  most  enlightened  of  the  Greek  cities,  following 
his  example,  had  editions  of  these  poems  made,  the  authorized 

*  "  Eadem  civitas  severitatis  cnstos  acerrima  est:  nullam  aditum  in  scenam  mimia 
dando,  quorum  argnmenta  majore  ex  parte  stuprorum  continent  actns ;  ne  talia 
spectandi  consuetude  etiam  imitandi  licentiam  sumat."  Val.  Mas.  Lib.  ii.,  c.  6.  7. — 
Ed. 


Influence  of  Grecian  Civilization  on  the  South  of  Gaul.   53 

text  of  which  served  not  only  as  the  basis  of  those  legally  pre- 
scribed recitals  on  public  occasions,  but  also  of  that  of  the 
voluntary  and  everyday  rehearsals  of  the  Rhapsodists,  whose 
profession  it  was  to  sing  them  to  the  multitude.  These  ancient 
editions  of  Homer  were  known  under  the  name  of  Political 
or  City  Editions,  in  order  to  distinguish  them  from  the  editions 
of  the  professed  grammarians,  which  are  of  a  much  later  date. 
Massilia  was  among  the  first  of  the  Grecian  cities  to  furnish  one 
of  these  editions,  which,  under  the  title  of  the  Massiliotic,  en- 
joyed a  particular  celebrity.  The  Alexandrian  commentators 
of  Homer  quote  it  frequently,  and  in  a  manner  which  leads  us 
to  presume,  that  they  regarded  it  as  one  of  the  most  ancient  and 
best  accredited  of  its  kind.  From  this  fact  we  may  infer,  that 
Massilia  had  at  an  early  date  its  rhetoricians  and  grammarians, 
whose  business  it  was  to  expound  scientifically  the  letter  and  the 
spirit  of  the  poems  of  Homer,  and  its  itinerant  rhapsodists,  who 
sung  them  in  those  cities  of  Gaul  which  were  founded  or  gov- 
erned by  the  Phocaeans. 

The  Gallic  tribes,  in  the  midst  and  in  sight  of  which  the  Mas- 
silians  thus  cultivated  the  arts  and  the  literature  of  Greece,  did 
not  on  that  account  become  a  literary  or  a  very  civilized  people. 
This  change  required  time  and  impulsions,  which  it  was  not  in 
the  power  of  the  Massilians  to  give  them.  It  was  accomplished 
at  a  later  date  and  subsequently  to  the  fall  of  Massilia — that  is, 
toward  the  commencement  of  our  era. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  revolution  produced  at  this 
latter  epoch  in  the  civilization  of  the  Gauls,  this  revolution 
neither  was,  nor  could  have  been,  a  sudden  or  an  abrupt  one.  It 
had  been  prepared  long  ago  by  previous  communications  be- 
tween the  Gauls  and  the  Massilians.  It  was  in  consequence  of 
these  communications,  that  a  portion  of  Gaul  had  learned  of  its 
Phocsean  instructors  to  live  in  communities  with  greater  regu- 
larity and  comfort ;  that  it  had  exchanged  the  gloomy  and  bar- 
barous religion  of  the  Druids  for  the  smiling  cultus  of  Ionia ; 
that  it  had  learnt  the  Greek.  A  multitude  of  considerations 
lead  to  the  presumption,  that  this  early  period  was  the  one,  dur- 
ing which  the  language  of  the  southern  Gauls  adopted  that 
host  of  Greek  words  and  expressions,  a  number  of  which  it  has 
retained  until  the  present  day. 

This  moral  and  social  influence  of  the  Massilians  on  the  Gal- 
lic population  of  their  vicinity  is  so  much  the  more  easily  ac- 
counted for,  as  the  latter  were  generally  predisposed  in  its  favor. 
This  is  the  unanimous,  though  perhaps  a  somewhat  exaggerated 
testimony  of  all  the  Greek  and  Latin  historians  of  antiquity. 
Ephorus  characterized  the  inhabitants  of  Gaul,  and  particularly, 
no  doubt,  those  of  the  South,  by  the  epithet  of  Philhellenes. 


54  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

Symnus  of  Chios,  who  wrote  a  century  before  our  era,  assures 
us  in  still  more  explicit  terms,  that  the  Celts  observed  many  of 
the  usages  of  the  Greeks,  and  that  they  had  a  particular  liking 
for  all  that  was  peculiar  to  them.  After  all  these  indications 
we  shall  perhaps  be  less  surprised  when  we  come  to  find,  at 
already  far  advanced  epochs  of  the  Middle  Age,  traces  of  a  still 
vivid  recollection  of  the  ancient  impression  which  the  Mas- 
silians  had  produced  on  the  manners  and  the  imagination  of 
the  southern  Gauls. 


Grceco-Roman  Literature  in  Gaul.  55 


CHAPTEK  IV. 

LTTERATUBE   DT   GAUL, 


AFTER  having  thus  shown,  how  by  establishing  themselves  in 
Gaul,  by  increasing  in  number,  by  acquiring  riches  and  power, 
the  MassiHans  had  attained  to  a  position,  in  which  they  were 
both  able  and  destined  to  disseminate  the  germs  of  civilization, 
I  have  now  to  give  a  sketch  of  the  epoch  at  which  these  germs 
developed  themselves,  and  when  this  nascent  civilization,  till 
then  as  yet  confined  to  a  few  countries  of  the  South,  began,  by 
the  concurrence  of  a  force  superior  to  the  one  with  which  it  had 
commenced,  to  expand  and  spread,  until  it  became  commen- 
surate with  the  entire  extent  of  Gaul.  This  is  the  epoch,  at 
which  the  Massilians  interfered  in  the  literary  education  of  the 
Romans,  and  at  which  their  influence,  thenceforth  subordinate 
to  the  interests  and  the  ascendant  of  the  latter,  was  limited  to 
literature  and  to  the  arts, 

No  cultivated  nation  has  perhaps  had  »o  long  a  literary 
infancy  as  the  Romans.  For  more  than  three  centuries  their 
orators  and  writers  were,  in  the  judgment  of  their  most  eminent 
men  of  genius,  nothing  more  than  semi-barbarous  novices.  But 
about  a  hundred  and  fortv  years  before  our  era,  the  idea 
occurred  to  some  of  them  who  happened  to  be  in  Greece,  of  fre- 
quenting the  schools  of  grammar  and  of  rhetoric  which  they 
found  flourishing  there.  These  became  eloquent  in  Greek, 
No  one  would  as  yet  have  ventured  to  attempt  to  be  so  in 
Latin. 

Some  years  later,  a  number  of  Greek  grammarians  and  rheto- 
ricians opened  a  school  for  instruction  in  their  art  at  Rome, 
But  the  Roman  aristocracy,  hostile  to  every  innovation  and  to 
knowledge,  for  which  it  had  neither  taste  nor  genius,  did  every- 
thing in  its  power  to  oppose  the  establishment  of  these  schools. 
Nevertheless,  the  party  which  demanded  them,  which  was  the 
plebeian  or  the  popular  party,  insisted  on  having  them  and  had 
them.  The  study  of  grammar  was  first  admitted  ;  that  of  rhe- 
toric with  greater  difficulty,  and  at  a  somewhat  later  date.  But 
both  the  one  and  the  other,  and  more  especially  the  latter, 


56  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

remained  for  a  long  time  an  object  of  suspicion  on  the  part  of 
the  authorities,  and  the  schools  where  they  were  taught  had  but 
a  precarious  existence. 

The  precepts  of  the  art  of  composition  and  of  oratory  were  at 
first  imparted  in  Greek  and  applied  to  the  Greek  exclusively. 
But  they  were  gradually  extended  to  the  Latin,  and  Rome  could 
at  last  boast  of  writers  and  orators  who  were  artists.  The  consul, 
Servius  Galba,  was  one  of  those,  whose  discourses  bear  the 
marks  of  this  difficult  and  laborious  transition.  "  Servius 
Galba,"  says  Cicero,  "  knows  how  to  go  beyond  the  limits  of 
his  subject,  to  look  for  ornaments  in  it,  to  please,  to  move,  to 
elevate  the  matter  he  discourses  on."*  These  few  words  are 
admirably  characteristic  of  a  great  literary  revolution. 

This  progress  of  Latin  eloquence  preceded  its  theory.  It  is 
anterior  to  all  the  Latin  schools  of  grammar  and  of  rhetoric. 
These  schools  found  the  same  obstacles  to  their  establishment, 
that  had  been  encountered  by  the  schools  of  Greece.  It  was 
but  a  half  a  century  before  our  era,  that  this  rhetoric,  which  had 
several  times  been  persecuted  and  which  had  always  been  an 
object  of  suspicion,  was  at  last  pronounced  u  useful  and  honor- 
able,'^ to  use  the  expression  of  Suetonius.  It  had  thus 
taken  the  Romans  an  entire  century,  to  wrest  from  their  patri- 
cians the  full  liberty  of  teaching  and  of  learning  the  art  of 
speech.  This  was  the  most  difficult  and  the  slowest  of  their 
conquests. 

The  first  professor  of  Latin  rhetoric  at  Rome  was  a  certain 
Lucius  Plotius,  who  is  expressly  designated  as  having  been  a 
Gaul  by  birth4  Two  other  Gauls,  though  somewhat  younger 
than  the  former,  still  competed  with  him  in  the  practice  of  the 
same  profession ;  they  were  Marcus  Antonius  Gnipho  and 
Valerius  Cato.  The  latter  taught  only  Latin  grammar;  but 
Gnipho,  who  was  equally  well  versed  in  the  Greek  and  in  the 
Latin,  professed  both  arts  and  in  both  these  languages. § 

*  De  Clar.  Orat.  c.  21.  "Ximirum  is  princeps  ex  Latinis  ilia  oratorum  propria, 
et  quasi  legitima  opera  tractavit,  ut  egrederetur  a  proposito  ornandi  causa,  ut  delect- 
aret  animos,  ut  permoveret,  ut  augeret  rem,  ut  miaerationibus,  ut  communibua  locia 
uteretur."— Ed. 

t  De  Claris  Rhetoribus,  1.  "Rhetorica  quoque  apud  nos,  perinde  atque  grammatica, 
sero  receptaest,  paulo  etiam  difficilius,  quippe  quam  constat  nonnunquam  etiam  prohi- 

bitam  exerceri Paulatim  et  ipsa  utilis  honestaque  apparuit :  multique  earn 

prsesidii  causa  et  gloriae  appetiverunt." — Ed. 

J  "  Plotius  Callus  primus  Romae  Latinam  rhetoricam  docuit :  de  quo  Cicero  sic  refert  :• 
memoria  teneo,  pueris  nobis  priraum  Latine  docere  coepisse  Plotiumquendam." — Casau- 
bon  ad  Suet,  de  Clar.  Rhet.  2 — Ed. 

§  "  Puisse  dicitur  ingenii  magni,  memoriae  singularis,  nee  minus  Graece,  quam  La- 
tine  doctus Docuit  autem  et  rhetoricam Scholam  ejus  claros 

quoque  viros  frequentasse  aiunt :  in  his  M.  Ciceronem,  etiam  cum  praeturafungeretur." 
Suet,  de  Illustr.  Gramm.  7.  Compare  also  Quint,  lib.  i. ;  Macrobius  Saturn,  iii.  A 
short  account  of  Valerius  Cato  is  given  by  Suet,  de  Illustr.  Gramm.  11.  That  he  wrote 
poetry,  as  well  as  books  on  grammar,  we  learn  from  Catull.,  Ivi.  1. ;  Ovid.  Trist.  ii.  436. 


GroBco-Itoman  Literature  in  Gaul.  57 

Thus  we  see  three  Gauls  professing  at  Rome,  nearly  at  the 
sane  time  and  among  the  first,  the  sciences  which  had  recently 
been,  introduced  among  the  Romans.  There  is  something  sur- 
prising about  this  particular.  The  most  probable  of  the  vari- 
ous suppositions,  by  which  it  may  be  explained,  is,  that  the 
three  professors  in  question  were  Gauls  from  the  Provincia 
Narlonensis,  who  may  have  received  their  training  in  the  schools 
of  IVIissilia,  and  subsequently  applied  their  knowledge  to  the 
Latin,  and  communicated  it  through  the  same  medium.  But 
whaterer  explanation  may  be  given  of  it,  the  fact  is  a  remark- 
able oiie.  It  is  a  sort  of  prognostic  of  the  ardor,  with  which 
the  people  of  Gaul  were  soon  to  devote  themselves  to  the  study 
of  Komin  letters. 

But  eVen  after  they  had  their  Latin  schools,  the  Romans  did 
not  ceas^on  that  account  to  frequent  the  Greek  schools.  They 
were  not  even  satisfied  with  those  they  had  at  Rome ;  they 
continued  to  go  to  Greece  to  prosecute  their  studies  there,  par- 
ticularly  #  Athens  and  at  Rhodes.  The  course  of  events,  how- 
ever, soonopened  to  them  new  Greek  schools  nearer  at  home. 

Massilia  ^having  espoused  the  part  of  the  Roman  Senate 
against  Cae\ar,  the  latter,  after  a  memorable  siege,  took  posses- 
sion of  the\  city.  He  was  exceedingly  irritated  against  it ; 
nevertheless"  he  treated  it  leniently,  or,  at  least,  affected  to  do 
so,  in  consideration  of  its  antiquity  and  its  renown,  as  he  him- 
self avows.  He  left  it  its  independence  and  its  liberty,  but  he 
stripped  it  of  ill  that  had  heretofore  constituted  its  strength  and 
its  prosperity^  he  seized  its  navy,  destroyed  its  arsenals,  took 
immediate  po$ession  of  several  of  its  colonies,  and  favored  the 
attempts,  whici  the  other  cities  successively  made  to  alienate 
themselves  froh  it.  In  fine,  he  withdrew  from  them  all  the 
jurisdiction  over  the  different  countries,  which  the  Senate  had 
conferred  on  thin — all  of  which  escheated  again  to  the  Roman 
government,  as  krts  of  the  Provincia  Narbonensis. 

From  this  molaent  all  that  portion  of  their  intellectual  acti- 
vity, which  the  Vihabitants  of  this  city  had  directed  to  com- 
merce, to  navigation  and  the  cultivation  of  its  collateral 
sciences,  or  to  thcWvernment  of  their  colonies  and  dependent 
territories — all  thiumportant  portion  of  their  energy  and  intel- 
ligence became  exinct  or  concentrated  itself  on  the  culture  of 
letters,  of  philosopW  and  of  certain  particular  sciences,  which 
daily  came  more  a\d  more  into  vogue,  as,  for  example,  the 
science  of  medicinei 

In  regard  to  the  Ailosophy,  which  was  at  that  time  taught 
at  Massilia,  history  aves  us  no  information,  nor  does  it  name 
any  of  the  men  wnoVave  instruction  in  it.     The  presumption  < 
is,  that  they  were  nefiier  distinguished  for  any  original  ideas, 


58  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

nor  even  for  a  profounder  appreciation  of  the  ancient  ideas,  lut 
that  they  adhered  to  a  sort  of  eclecticism  without  any  defirite 
principle  or  aim. 

Their  physicians  are  better  known.  Pliny  mentions  three  of 
them,  who  flourished  at  Rome  at  the  commencement  of  the 
Christian  era,  and  who  enjoyed  a  prodigious  reputation.  They 
are  Demosthenes,  Crinis  and  Channis.*  Demosthenes  wis  the 
author  of  several  valuable  works,  one  of  which  is  01  the 
diseases  of  the  eye,  from  which  Galen  quotes  a  number  d  pas- 
sages. This  work  was  still  extant  in  the  tenth  century  The 
celebrated  Gerbert,  known  as  Pope  Sylvester  II. ,  possessed  a 
copy  of  it.  There  is  but  one  anecdote  related  about  Crinis, 
which,  however,  is  a  curious  one,  inasmuch  as  it  proves,  what 
an  immense  fortune  a  distinguished  physician  could  at  that 
time  accumulate  at  Rome.  He  gave  to  Iris  native  city  for  the 
repairing  or  the  reconstruction  of  its  walls  a  sum  of  noney  to 
the  amount  of  twelve  millions  of  francs.f 

The  rhetoricians  of  Massilia  were  no  less  celebrated  than  its 
doctors  ;  but  we  are  scarcely  acquainted  with  the  nanes  of  any, 
and  the  works  of  all  of  them  are  lost. 

When  the  Romans,  who  had  thus  far  been  obliged  to  go  to 
Greece,  in  order  to  find  what  they  deemed  proper  to  learn  of  the 
literature  of  Greece,  saw  that  there  were  masters  of  this  know- 
ledge at  Massilia,  they  began  to  frequent  their  instruction. 
The  concourse  of  disciples  increased  the  number  <f  the  profes- 
sors, and  from  the  first  years  of  the  reign  of  Augustus,  the 
schools  of  Massilia  were  preferred  to  those  of  A.thens.  This 
preference  was  at  least  as  much  moral  as  it  was  scientific.  The 
manners  had  not  as  yet  had  time  to  change  at  Hassilia.  They 
still  preserved,  along  with  their  primitive  sirmlicity,  the  aus- 
terity which  had  so  long  been  the  object  of  adniration. 

Julius  Agricola,  the  conqueror  of  Great  Jritain,  was  the 
first  Roman  of  any  note  known  to  have  recived  his  educa- 
tion at  Massilia,  and  it  was  to  this  circumstance  that  Tacitus, 
his  son-in-law  and  biographer,  attributed  in  a  ;reat  measure  the 
virtues  for  which  he  lauds  him.  Here  are  tb  words  of  Tacitus 
himself:  "  Besides  his  happy  natural  dispositon,  there  was  one 
thing  in  particular,  widen  preserved  Agricoa  from  the  snares 
of  vice  :  it  was,  that  from  his  infancy  he  hai  had  Massilia  for 
his  place  of  residence  and  for  his  school— a  city  of  excellent 
morals,  in  which  the  elegance  of  Greece  vas  found  united  to 
the  simplicity  of  the  Province." :(: 

*  Pliny  :  Nat.  Hist.,  xxuc.  5,  8.— Ed. 

t "  Nuperque    centies   HS.    reliquit   murls  patriae,   icenibusque   alii8   pscne   non 
minori  summa  exstructis."    Pliny,  eodem  loco — Ed. 
£  "Arcebat  earn  ab   illecebria   peccantium,    prate  ipsiua  bonam  integramque 


Grceco-Roman  Literature  in  Gaul.  59 

The  example  of  the  Romans  had  a  decisive  influence  on  the 
Gauls  of  the  Pro vincia  Narbonensis.  The  capital  of  this  province, 
Narbonne,  had  inherited  some  of  the  political  power  and  of  the 
commerce  of  Massilia,  and  it  had,  at  an  early  date  become  one 
of  the  most  important  cities  of  the  empire.  It  had  been  founded, 
or  rather  rebuilt,  a  hundred  and  eighteen  years  before  our  era 
by  a  vast  colony,  composed  not  of  Italian  veterans,  as  were 
nearly  all  the  other  colonies,  but  of  Roman  citizens,  who  had 
come  directly  from  Rome  itself.  Its  ancient  inhabitants  hav- 
ing to  some  extent  participated  in  the  disorders  of  the  pro- 
vince during  the  war  of  Sertorius,  the  Romans  made  that  rebel- 
lion a  pretext  for  driving  them  all  away,  so  that  in  the  city 
itself  .and  in  all  the  adjacent  countries  there  was  nothing  but  a 
purely  Roman  population,  which  daily  increased  in  numbers,  in 
activity  and  in  wealth.  In  spite  of  its  remote  and  isolated 
situation  on  the  southern  limits  of  the  Province,  Narbonne  was 
destined  to  become,  and,  in  fact,  did  become,  the  principal 
centre  of  the  Roman  civilization  in  Gaul. 

Caesar  had  derived  great  assistance  from  the  ETarbonenses,  and 
from  the  inhabitants  of  the  Province  during  his  war  against  the 
Gauls  of  the  North.  Desirous  of  recompensing  them  for  their 
services,  he  had  sent  a  large  number  of  them  to  the  Senate  at 
Rome.  He  had  thus  imparted  a  purely  Roman  impulse  to  the 
Gallic  population  of  Narbonensis.  This  population  had  already 
become  accustomed  to  the  sweets  of  peace ;  it  had  already 
learnt,  from  the  example  of  the  Massilians,  the  glory  and  the 
advantages  of  civilization,  of  the  arts  and  of  knowledge,  and  it 
sought  them  with  avidity.  But  after  having  once  been  sub- 
jected to  Roman  influences,  after  having  adopted  the  tone  of  the 
Romans,  and  become  eager  for  the  distinctions  and  offices  which 
were  distributed  at  Rome,  its  highest  pretension  and  ambition 
was  to  be  Roman.  It  strove  to  become  so  by  its  talents  and 
studies,  as  well  as  by  its  dignities  and  honors.  It,  therefore, 
began  to  rival  the  Romans  zealously  in  the  cultivation  of  Greek 
letters. 

ZSTor  were  they  in  want  of  competent  masters.  Massilia  could 
supply  them,  as  well  as  the  Romans.  Among  the  writers  of 
antiquity,  Strabo  is  the  one  that  has  given  us  a  minute  account 
of  the  sort  of  literary  revolution,  which  at  that  time  was  going 
on  in  the  south  of  Gaul.  He  speaks  of  it  in  the  following 
terms :  "The  Gauls,  seeing  the  studious  Romans  thus  frequent- 
ing the  schools  of  Massilia,  and  living  peaceably  in  other 
respects,  gladly  profited  by  this  leisure  to  devote  themselves  to 

naturam,  quod  statim  parvtilns  seclem  ac  magiatram  studiorum  Massiliara  habuit,  locnra 
Graeca  comitate  et  provincial!  parsimonia.  mistum  ac  bene  compoeitum." — Tacit.  Agri- 
oola,  c.  4.— Ed. 


60  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

a  similar  kind  of  life  ;  and  they  did  so,  not  only  individually, 
but  collectively.  Thus,  therefore,  the  cities,  as  well  as  private 
individuals  of  wealth,  kept  their  salaried  sophists  and  physi- 
cians."* The  term  sophist,  as  employed  here  by  Strabo,  is 
applicable  either  to  the  professors  of  philosophy,  or  to  those 
of  rhetoric,  or  to  both  of  them  at  the  same  time.  But  whatever 
construction  we  may  be  inclined  to  put  upon  it,  the  passage 
quoted  attests  an  equally  general  zeal  for  Greek  literature  in 
the  Gallo-Romans  of  the  South.  This  was,  as  it  were,  a  conse- 
quence of  their  sympathy  with  the  Phoceeans,  who  had  been 
their  first  instructors  in  the  enjoyments  and  in  the  arts  of  civili- 
zation. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  study  of  Latin  letters  being  indispens- 
able to  the  Narbonensian  Gauls,  professors  of  Latin  grammar 
and  of  eloquence  speedily  arose  in  their  province.  There  were, 
in  the  first  place,  some  of  them  at  Massilia  itself,  in  all  pro- 
bability at  iNarbonne,  and  then  successively  in  all  the  other 
cities,  ascending  from  the  South  toward  the  North. 

Among  the  rhetoricians  which  flourished  at  Rome  during  the 
course  of  the  first  century  of  our  era,  several,  and  some  of  the 
most  illustrious,  were  Gallo-Romans,  who,  in  all  probability, 
had  commenced  their  career  and  their  fame  in  the  cities  of 
Gallia  Narbonensis.  To  this  number  belonged  Yotienus  Mon- 
tanus  of  Narbonne,  whom  Tacitus  designates  as  a  man  cele- 
brated for  his  genius  ;f  Clodius  Quirinalis,  from  Aries  ;  Satrius 
Rufus,  whose  native  city  is  unknown,  and  Julius  Florus,  whom 
Quintilian  mentions  as  the  king  of  Gallic  eloquence.  J 

Among  the  celebrated  rhetoricians  of  Gaul,  who  never  left 
their  country,  history  names  Statius  Surculus  of  Toulouse,  the 
schools  of  which  he  was  the  first  to  render  illustrious,  and  Gabi- 
nianus,  who  attained  to  an  equal  eminence  in  his  profession, 
but  in  what  part  of  the  country  we  know  not. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  first  century,  Gaul  was  already  full  of 
rhetoricians,  and  there  were  schools  for  the  study  of  rhetoric  in 
every  part  of  it.  This  was  a  fact  that  had  become  proverbial 
and  to  which  Juvenal  makes  satirical  allusion  in  many  a  pas- 


*  Strabon.  Geograph.  lib.  iv.  c.  5  :  "  'Ev  62  rw  Trapovn  ical  rove 
'Pwuaiuv  nlireiKev,  dvrl  Trj$  df  'Atfjyvaf  diroarj/uia^  luclae  (jtoiTav  <j>j%,ofj,a&Ei? 
bpuvre  f  61  TOVTOVC  oL  Ta^-drat,  KOI  dfj.a  eipfjvjjv  uyovrtf;,  TTJV  o^oArjv  dajucvat  7rpb$  rovf 
vf  diari-bevTa,!.  (3iov^,  ov  /ear'  dv6pa  ffovov,  uAAd  nal  drjijoa'w  coQicrraf  yovv 
ovTcu  roi)f  ft£v  i6lpt  roi>f  6£  al  TroAetf  KOIVTJ  fua&ovftevaii  Ka&dircp  «at 
."  —  Ed. 

f  Annal.  lib.  iv.  c.  42.  where  Tacitus  relates  that  Montanus  was  accused  of  the  crime 
of  lasa  majestatis  against  Tiberius,  and,  as  Eusebius  informs  us,  banished  to  the 
Baleares.  Seneca  mentions  Montanus  as  a  distinguished  orator,  and  Ovid  as  a  poet  — 
Benec.  Cont.  vi.  praef.  i.  ix.—-  Ed. 

±  uls  fuit  Julius  Florus,  in  eloquentia  Galliarum,  quoniam  ibi  demum  exercuit  earn, 
princept,  alioqui  inter  paucos  disertus  et  dignus  ilia  propinquitate."—  Quint.  Inst.  Orat. 
lib.  x.  c.  3-13.—  Ed. 


GrcBco-Roman  Literature  in  Gaul.  61 

sage  of  his  satires.  Says  he  in  one  of  them,  addressing  himself 
to  some  one  who  wanted  to  make  a  living  by  his  talents  : 
"  Wouldst  thou  derive  a  revenue  from  thy  eloquence  ?  Then 
go  to  Gaul !"  *  "  The  eloquence  of  Athens  and  our  own  have 
invaded  the  world,"  says  he,  in  another  place.  "  Deserted 
Gaul  has  furnished  the  isla/id  of  Britannia  with  advocates,  and 
that  of  Thule  already  talks  of  engaging  masters  of  rhetoric."f 

The  quinquennial  competitions  for  prizes  in  eloquence,  which 
Caligula  instituted  at  Lyons,  are  another  proof  of  the  progress 
which  the  study  of  literature  had  made  in  Gaul.  It  was  then 
customary  to  crown  the  pieces,  which  in  the  opinion  of  the 
iudges,  appointed  to  decide  on  their  merits,  had  deserved  this 
'nonor  ;  but  the  rhetoricians,  who  had  produced  pieces  which 
were  unworthy  of  being  presented  on  such  occasions,  were 
obliged  to  eiface  them  with  their  tongue.  The  confusion  and 
the  flurry  of  the  competitors  at  the  moment,  when  such  sentences 
were  pronounced,  had  become  proverbial.  "  Pale  like  a 
rhetorician  at  the  altar  of  Lyons,  says  Juvenal  in  one  of  his 
satires ;  J  and  yet  it  would  appear,  that  the  rhetoricians  nocked 
around  the  formidable  altar  ! 

From  the  second  century  to  the  end  of  the  fourth,  the 
number  of  schools  for  the  study  of  Latin  grammar  and  of 
!  rhetoric  was  constantly  increasing  in  Gaul.  At  the  latter 
epoch,  there  was  not  a  single  city  of  any  importance  left  in  all 
the  southern  part  of  the  country,  but  what  had  its  own  institu- 
tions of  the  Kind.  Those  of  Toulouse,  of  Bordeaux,  of  Nar- 
bonne,  of  Yienne,  and  of  Autun,  were  particularly  celebrated. 
Ausonius  has  left  us  a  list  of  the  professors,  who  in  his  day  had 
rendered  themselves  illustrious  in  those  of  Bordeaux,  his  native 
city,  and  of  those  who,  having  been  born  in  this  latter  city,  had 
risen  to  eminence  in  their  profession  elsewhere.  H&enumerates 
no  less  than  thirty  of  them,  among  whom  there  were  some  whose 
reputation  was  coextensive  with  that  of  the  empire.  § 

The  social  condition  of  these  professors  is  a  new  proof  of  the 
value,  which  was  attached  to  their  knowledge.  They  were 
elected  and  salaried  by  the  curia  or  municipal  senate  of  each 

*      ...    "Accipiatte 

Gallia,  vel  potius  nutricula  causidicorum 

Africa,  si  placuit  mercedem  ponere  linguae." — Juvenal:  Satiravii.  v.  148. — Ed. 

f  "  Nunc  totus  Graias  nostrasque  habet  orbis  Athena3. 
Gallia  causidicos  docuit  facunda  Britannos  : 
De  conducendo  loquitur  jam  rhetore  Thule." — Satira  xv.  v.  111. — Ed. 


$  This  is  done  in  his  work  entitled  "  Comraemoratio  Professorum  Burdigaliensium,"  a 
collection  of  twenty-six  poetical  compositions,  of  which  the  majority  are  inscribed  to 
the  grammaticus,  rhetor  or  orator,  whose  name  the  poet  intended  to  perpetuate  in  his 
verses.  Compare  Ausonii  Opera,  vol.  ii.  p.  230-275 Ed.  Valpy. 

§  "  Palleat,  ut  nudis  qui  pressit  calcibus  anguem, 
Aut  Lugdunensem  rhetor  dicturus  ad  aram." — Satira  i.  v.  43. — Ed. 


62  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

city.  In  the  fourth  century,  the  salary  of  a  professor  of  grammar 
in  the  larger  cities  was  equivalent  to  twelve  thousand  francs  of 
our  money,  and  that  of  a  professor  of  rhetoric  was  double  that 
amount.  It  would  appear,  that  the  decurions  or  municipal 
magistrates  of  the  cities  were  wont  to  pique  themselves  on 
their  liberality  and  on  their  gratitude  toward  the  professors  of 
their  choice,  however  small  may  have  been  their  merit  or 
renown ;  and  they  frequently  erected  statues  in  honor  of  them 
during  their  lifetime  even. 

The  study  of  Greek  literature  kept  for  some  time  equal  pace 
with  that  of  Latin  letters.  During  the  whole  of  the  first  century 
of  our  era,  and  until  nearly  the  middle  of  the  second,  the  Greet 
continued  to  be  generally  cultivated  in  Gaul.  ^Elian,  who  wrote 
during  the  reign  of  Trajan,  speaking  of  the  Gauls,  and  apparently 
of  the  Gauls  of  his  time,  says  that  they  had  recourse  to  the  Greek, 
for  the  purpose  of  transmitting  to  posterity  the  memory  of  their 
glorious  exploits.*  Dio  Chrysostomus  and  Lucian  plume 
themselves  in  their  writings  on  having  visited  the  nations  of 
Gaul,  and  on  having  given  them  useful  lessons  in  philosophy. 
Now  these  lessons,  which  were  given  in  Greek,  could  only  have 
been  imparted  in  places,  where  there  was  a  sufficient  number  of 
persons  versed  in  the  study  of  this  language,  and  devoted  to 
that  of  philosphy  besides.  There  is,  therefore,  room  for  be- 
lieving,that  the  schools  of  Massilia  were  then  still  in  existence, 
and  that  they  continued  to  exercise  on  the  literary  culture  of 
the  Gauls  a  direct  influence,  distinct  from  that  of  Kome. 

^  At  the  end  of  the  second  century,  Massilia  was  no  longer 
distinguished  for  anything,  except  for  the  corruption  into  which 
it  had  sunken.  It  had  no  longer  any  schools — at  any  rate  no 
schools  which  were  frequented  by  foreigners.  To  go  to  Massilia 
had  become  a  proverbial  expression,  and  was  tantamount  to 
abandoning  one's  self  to  vice  and  to  effeminacy.  To  say  of  any 
one,  that  he  came  from  Massilia,  was  but  another  mode  of 
branding  him  with  infamy. 

From  this  moment  the  literature  of  Greece  was,  to  the  Gauls 
as  well  as  the  Romans  themselves,  no  longer  anything  more 
than  a  supplement  or  an  accessory  to  the  Latin.  Greek  schools 
for  the  disciplines  of  grammar  and  of  rhetoric  were  still  kept 
up ;  but  thev  gradually  decreased  in  number,  and  toward  the 
middle  of  the  fourth  century  there  were  but  a  few  of  them 
left  in  some  of  the  principal  cities  only.  The  last  of  these 
Greek  grammarians  or  rhetoricians,  who  are  known  to  have 
professed  their  art  in  Gaul,  belonged  to  the  schools  of  Bordeaux, 

*  "  'AAAa  Kal  Tpoiraia  lyeipovaiv,  apa  re  £TTJ  ro?f  ireirpayiJ.lvoi$  aefivv/ivofjiEvoi,  Kal 
vTrofivrj^ara  UVTUV  rijc  aptrr/f  aTroAetTrovref  'EAAnvi/cif." — ./Eliani  Varia  Historia, 
p.  U8,  Ed.  Coray.— Ed. 


Grceco-JRoman  Literature  in  Gaul.  63 

and  are  of  the  number  of  those,  whom  Ausonitis  enumerates 
among  his  colleagues  or  his  masters.  He  mentions  five  or  six, 
the  most  distinguished  of  whom  was  a  Sicilian  by  the  name  of 
Cytharius.  He  speaks  of  him  as  of  one,  who  was  the  equal  of 
Aristarchus  in  criticism,  and  of  Simonides  in  poetry ;  as  of  a 
man,  whose  lectures  had  converted  Bordeaux  into  a  vast  athe- 
naeum.* 

Among  these  last  professors  of  Greek  grammar  or  of  rhetoric, 
who  flourished  in  Gaul,  there  were  several  who  had  come  there 
from  abroad ;  as,  for  example,  the  Cytharius,  whom  I  have  just 
named,  who  was  native  of  Syracuse,  and  the  father  of  the 
panegyrist  Eumenes,  one  of  the  principals  of  the  school  at 
Autun,  who  was  an  Athenian.  But  it  is  to  be  presumed  that 
the  majority  of  them  were  Massilians,  who  preserved  a  certain 
tradition  of  the  knowledge  of  their  ancestors. 

After  having  said  so  much  of  these  schools  of  rhetoric  and 
grammar,  both  Greek  and  Latin,  with  which  Gaul  was  covered 
under  the  dominion  of  the  Romans,  it  will  not  be  superfluous 
to  call  to  mind  briefly  in  what  these  two  sciences,  or  these  two 
favorite  arts  of  the  Romans,  consisted. 

The  principal  object  of  gmmjnar  was  to  analyze  and  to 
comment  certain  distinguished  works,  especially  those  of  the 
older  poets,  for  the  purpose  of  developing  both  their  literal 
sense  and  their  aesthetic  beauties.  In  an  age  when  the 
copies  of  books  were  scarce  and  expensive,  the  grammatical 
analysis  or  elucidation  of  a  work  was  tantamount  to  the  act  of 
publishing  it.  There  were  many  persons,  whose  knowledge  of 
such  or  such  a  poem,  ancient  or  modern,  was  limited  to  what 
they  had  learnt  in  the  grammar  schools  from  the  reading  and 
the  exposition  of  it. 

Rhetoric  was  something  higher,  more  complicated  and  more 
artificial  than  grammar.  It  consisted  of  various  exercises,  the 
definite  aim  of  which  was  to  impart  to  a  discourse,  by  means  of 
its  forms  and  its  accessories,  an  importance,  which  was  distinct 
from  its  subject  and  as  much  as  possible  superior  to  the  subject- 
matter  itseli*.  It  taught,  according  to  Suetonius,  the  pertinent 
use  of  suitable  figures  of  speech,  the  art  of  expressing  the.  same 
thing  in  several  different  or  opposite  ways,  and  always  equally 
well,  always  with  the  same  degree  of  effect ;  of  saying  better 

*  See  the  XlUth  carmen  of  the  collection  above  referred  to.    The  following  are  a  few 
verses : 

u  Esset  Aristarchi  tibi  gloria,  Zenodotique, 
Graiorum ;  antiquus  si  sequeretur  honor. 
Carminibus,  quae  priraa  tuis  sunt  condita  inannis, 
Concedit  Cei  Musa  Simonidei. 
***** 

Tarn  generis  tibi  celsus  apex,  quam  gloria  fandi. 
Gloria  Athensi  cognita  sede  loci,"  etc.— Ed. 


6i  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

that  which  already  passed  for  having  been  said  well ;  of  giving 
fables  the  air  of  truth,  and  to  truth  the  air  of  fables ;  of  eulogizing 
or  of  censuring  great  men. 

The  principal  compositions  of  the  rhetoricians — those  in  which 
they  most  habitually  displayed  all  the  shifts  and  subtleties  of 
their  art — were  their  controversies  and  their  declamations.  The 
controversies  were,  as  their  name  indicates,  discussions,  in  which 
two  or  several  rhetoricians  maintained  opposite  opinions  on  one 
and  the  same  question.  Their  declamations  were  studied  and 
ostentatious  discourses  on  fanciful  subjects.  These  declamatory 
exercises  soon  became  public,  and  constituted  one  of  the  favorite 
amusements  of  the  times.  The  effect  of  these  discourses  de- 
pended, in  a  great  measure,  on  the  pomp  and  the  art  with 
which  they  were  delivered.  We  can  scarcely,  at  present,  form 
any  conception  of  an  art  like  this,  unless  it  be  from  the  extra- 
ordinary care,  with  which  we  know  the  rhetoricians  to  have 
exercised  their  voice.  They  trained  it  to  run  over  long  oratori- 
cal scales,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  and  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest  note  of  them,  and  they  often  practised  these 
exercises  in  inconvenient  and  embarrassing  positions,  as  for 
example,  while  lying  on  their  back,  in  order  to  acquire  so  much 
the  more  assurance  in  extraordinary  emergencies. 

It  follows  from  all  this,  that  the  Komans  had  endeavored  to 
supply,  by  means  of  the  practice,  the  methods  and  a  discipline 
of  the  school,  their  natural  lack  of  aptitude  for  literature  and 
eloquence.  "What  has  been  the  extent  of  their  success  ?  This  is 
a  question  which  I  am  not  bound  to  answer  ;  I  have  to  confine 
myself  to  a  rapid  survey  of  the  history  of  the  different  schools 
of  rhetoric  and  grammar  in  Gaul. 

In  consequence  of  the  want  of  direct  information  respecting 
the  organization  of  these  schools  and  the  works  of  their  most 
prominent  masters,  we  have  but  one  general  and  vague  fact,  by 
which  to  form  a  summary  estimate  of  their  doctrines  and  their 
services.  It  must,  I  think,  be  admitted  as  a  fact,  that  all  the 
more  or  less  distinguished  men  of  letters  that  appeared  in  Gaul 
from  the  commencement  of  the  first  century  of  our  era  to  the 
end  of  the  fourth,  had  received  their  intellectual  training  in 
these  schools.  They  may,  therefore,  be  considered  as  being 
their  result ;  and  from  the  general  character  of  the  works  of  the 
one  we  may  form  a  tolerably  correct  idea  of  the  doctrines  pro- 
fessed in  the  other.  Finally,  the  progress  and  the  revolutions 
of  these  schools  must,  to  a  certain  extent,  have  been  marked  by 
corresponding  differences  or  inequalities  among  the  writers 
who  went  forth  from  them. 

Now,  the  writers  in  question  are  very  numerous,  and  of 
various  kinds ;  they  are  orators,  historians,  and  poets,  the  ma- 


Gr  mo- Roman  Literature  in  Gaul.  65 

jority  of  whom  are  ranked  among  the  most  distinguished  of  their 
respective  epochs.  Trogus  Pompeius,  from  the  country  of  the 
Yocontii,  was  the  most  learned  historian  of  his  time ;  Domitius 
Afer,  from  Nimes,  was  considered  the  first  orator  of  Kome, 
at  a  time  when  the  Forum  was  still  full  of  men  of  the  finest 
genius ;  *  at  a  somewhat  later  period,  Marcus  Aper  and  Julius 
jSecundus,  both  of  them  interlocutors  in  the  celebrated  dia- 
logue, attributed  to  Quintilian,  "  On  the  causes  of  the  corrup- 
tion of  eloquence,"  were  likewise  numbered  among  the  most 
distinguished  members  of  the  bar.  The  ingenious  satirist, 
Petronius,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  so  lively  and 
piquant  a  picture  of  the  manners  of  the  Romans  during  the 
first  century  of  our  era,  may  be  included  in  the  number  of 
the  Latin  writers  who  had  been  educated  in  Gaul.  The  mul- 
tiplication of  these  writers  was  proportionate  to  that  of  the 
Gallic  schools  of  grammar  and  of  rhetoric.  In  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, Gaul  was  the  most  flourishing  seat  of  Latin  literature. 
The  rhetoricians,  who  are  the  panegyrists  of  the  emperors 
Maximianus,  Constantius,  of  Constantine  and  Julian,  are  all,  or 
the  majority  of  them,  Gauls.  Ausonius  of  Bordeaux  is  one  of 
the  most  polished  intellects,  and  Sulpicius  Severus  the  most 
elegant  of  the  Christian  writers  of  this  epoch. 

All  these  writers  had  undoubtedly  lost  much  of  the  taste,  the 
vigor  and  the  gravity  of  those  of  the  preceding  centuries.  But 
what  was  really  wanting  to  them  was  neither  zeal,  nor  know- 
ledge, nor  talent ;  it  was  rather  the  previous  state  of  things, 
which  had  been  consigned  to  irreparable  ruin ;  it  was  the  glory 
and  the  liberty  of  former  times.  Such  as  they  were,  however, 
these  men  were  the  product  and  the  evidence  of  a  highly  re- 
fined and  a  very  extensive  intellectual  culture. 

At  this  same  epoch,  that  is  to  say,  during  the  fourth  century, 
when  Massilia  and  all  the  other  Greek  cities  of  Gaul  had  be- 
come subject  to  the  dominion  of  the  Romans,  the  Latin  lan- 
guage must  have  introduced  itself  there  together  with  that 
dominion.  Nevertheless,  the  majority  of  their  inhabitants 
were  still  Greeks,  and  retained  their  ancient  idiom.  It  is  there- 
fore extremely  probable,  that  these  cities  had  not  yet  entirely 
renounced  their  native  literature ;  but  history  does  not  furnisn 
us  any  very  definite  notions  on  this  point.  The  only  piece, 
which  I  could  quote  in  support  of  my  assertion,  would  perhaps 
prove  still  more  conclusively,  to  what  an  extent  the  genius  of 
Greece  had  then  declined  among  the  descendants  of  the  ancient 

*  On  these  orators  see  Quint.  Inst.  Orat.  lib.  x.  c.  i.  p.  118  :  "  Sunt  alii  roulti  diserti, 
quos  persequi  longum  est :  eorum,  quos  viderim,  Domitius  Afer  et  Julius  Africanus 
longe  praestantissimi :  arte  iile  et  toto  genere  dicendi  praeferendus,  et  quern  in  numero 
veterwn  locare  nan  timeas,"  etc.  On  Jufcis  Secundus,  compare  id.  p.  120-123.— Ed. 

5 


66  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

Massilians.  It  bears  the  title  of  Monody,  and  is  a  funeral 
eulogy  on  Constantine  the  younger,  the  brother  of  Constantino 
the  Great.  This  young  man  was  assassinated  in  311,  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  Pyrenees,  at  the  moment  when  he  was  about  to 
enter  Spain,  for  tne  purpose  of  marrying  a  young  Spanish  lady, 
who  had  been  affianced  to  him.  Tnis  murder,  which  was  im- 
puted to  several  different  persons,  and  to  the  great  Constantine 
nimself,  was  a  source  of  great  affliction  to  the  inhabitants  of 
Aries,  whom,  it  seems,  the  prince  had  inspired  with  a  great 
affection.  Some  rhetorician  of  the  country  composed  his  fune- 
ral oration.  It  is  but  a  short  and  cold  declamation,  the  work 
of  a  schoolboy,  in  which  pagan  reminiscences  and  Christian 
ideas  are  strangely  jumbled  up  together  from  one  end  to  the 
other. 

If,  however,  this  piece  was  pronounced,  as  we  may  be  per- 
mitted to  suppose,  before  the  people  of  Aries  on  a  solemn  pub- 
lic occasion  in  honor  of  the  deceased  prince,  it  offers  us  a 
certain  historical  interest  as  an  evidence  of  the  fact,  that  in  the 
fourth  century  the  Greek  was  still  the  language  of  a  great  part 
of  the  Arelatenses ;  and  a  fortiori  it  must  have  still  been  in  use 
at  Massilia,  at  Nicaea,  at  Antipolis,  and  in  the  other  cities  of  Pho- 
csean  origin. 

The  literary  culture  of  the  Gauls,  as  I  have  just  now  repre- 
sented it,  was  a  laborious  and  a  refined  culture ;  it  was  that  of 
the  higher  classes  of  society,  of  those  who  had  an  eye  to  public 
honors  or  to  fame.  Of  all  this  intellectual  light,  the  masses  of 
the  people  received  nothing  more  than  isolated  reflections, 
which  fell  from  far  too  high  a  region  to  have  any  great  effect 
on  them.  But  the  civilization  and.  the  arts  of  Greece  and  Rome 
had  a  number  of  material  and  sensuous  sides,  by  which  they 
must  have  produced  a  strong  effect  on  the  masses  of  the  popu- 
lation, into  the  midst  of  which  they  were  transplanted. 

I  have  already  elsewhere  noticed  the  facility,  with  which  the 
Gallic  tribes  in  the  vicinity  of  Massilia  took  to  the  pompous 
gaiety  of  the  religious  ceremonies  of  Greece ;  they  likewise 
took  to  all  the  various  applications  of  poetry,  to  the  festivals 
and  the  habits  of  domestic  life,  to  the  public  amusements,  to 
the  expression  of  natural  sentiments.  The  Romans,  and  more 
especially  the  Greeks,  had  their  popular  songs  for  all  the 
usages  of  society,  and  I  had  almost  said  for  every  moment  of 
their  life.  Their  most  familiar  diversions  had  something  pic- 
turesque and  poetical  in  them.  The  majority  of  their  popular 
choruses  and  of  their  danses  were,  like  tne  choruses  of  tneir  re- 
ligious festivals,  short  dramas,  in  which  the  poetic  word,  the 
music  and  the  mimic  art  conspired  to  contribute  to  the  mate- 
rial representation  of  an  idea,  in  imitation  of  some  captivating 


Ur&co-Roman  Literatt^re  in  Gaul.  67 

o*  some  touching  adventure.    The  songs  of  the  night  and  the 
epithalamia  belonged  likewise  to  the  popular  class  of  poetry* 

The  lovers  were  in  the  habit  of  going  beneath  the  windows 
of  their  mistresses  by  night,  for  the  purpose  of  singing  to  them 
their  songs,  which  assumed  various  names  and  a  different  cha- 
racter according  to  the  time  at  which  they  were  sung,  which 
was  commonly  at  midnight  or  at  the  break  of  day.  With  all 
these  domestic  usages,  the  Gauls  of  the  South  adopted  the  poe- 
try which  was  associated  with  them,,  and  ^hich  constituted, 
their  principal  charm.  Of  this  we  shall  find  proofs  when  we 
shall  come  to  examine  certain  kinds  of  poetry  composed  by  the 
Troubadours,  in  which  we  shall  recognize  traditions  of  the  an- 
cient poetry,  modified  in  conformity  with  the  spirit  of  chivalric 
gallantry.  The  poems  of  Homer  even  became  popular  among 
the  Gauls  of  the  South,  who  were  made  familiar  with  them  either 
through  the  recitations  of  the  Massilian  rhapsodists  or  through 
the  Greek  instruction  given  in  the  schools  of  grammar  or  of 
rhetoric.  This  is  another  fact,  the  certainty  of  which  we  shall 
likewise  see  established  hereafter. 

With  this  general  al  acrity  on  the  part  of  the  Gallic  people, 
to  adopt  from  the  culture  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  whatever 
there  was  striking  or  picturesque  in  it,  or  whatever  was  calcu-  ' 
lated  to  move  their  senses,  their  imagination,  or  their  curiosity, 
it  was  impossible,  that  the  dramatic  representations  and  all  the 
other  kinds  of  ancient  spectacles  should  not  have  likewise  pro- 
duced an  equally  great  effect  upon  the  Gauls.     I  have  already 
advanced  it  as  very  probable,  that  the  Massilians  had  a  theatre* 
It  is  at  least  certain  that  several  of  their  colonies,  among  others 
Nice  and  Antibes,  had  one.     Inscriptions  have  been  found  at 
Nimes,  which  likewise  attest  the  existence  of  a  Greek  theatre 
in  that  city ;  and  this  fact  can  hardly  be  explained  in  any  other 
way  than  as  a  consequence  of  the  dominion  of  the  Massilians 
in  the  country,  of  which  Nimes  was  the  capital ;  but  whether 
this  was  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  or  the  usage  of  the 
Massilians,  or  in  spite  of  them  and  by  way  of  exception  to 
their  discipline,  it  is  nevertheless  certain  that  Greek  theatres 
did  exist  in  southern  Gaul,  in  which  Greek  pieces  of  some  sort 
must  have  been  performed,  precisely  as  pieces  in  the  Latin  lan- 
guage were  played  at  Narbonne,  at  Aries,  at  Yienne,  at  Lyon, 
and  in  all  the  other  cities,  where  there  were  Roman  theatres. 
It  may  therefore  be  considered  as  a  settled  fact,  that  there 
were  dramatic  representations,  as  there  were  other  branches  of 
literature  and  of  the  arts.    The  influence  of  these  representa- 
tions on  the  manners  and  the  culture  of  the   Gauls  must 
have  been,  especially  in  the  beginning,  a  Greek  as  much  as  it 
was  a  Roman  influence. 


68  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

The  dramatic  poetry  of  the  Greeks  had  not  long  continued 
in  the  original  and  majestic  ensemble  of  its  primitive  forms;  it 
had  soon  become  corrupted  and  disintegrated  by  a  multitude 
of  causes,  first  in  Greece  itself,  and  through  the  fault  of  the 
Greeks ;  at  a  somewhat  later  date  at  Home,  and  through  the 
vices  of  the  Romans. 

The  general  history  of  literature  and  of  the  arts  could  not 
exhibit  anything  more  interesting  and  more  curious  than  the 
picture  of  those  revolutions  in  the  dramatic  art  of  classical  an- 
tiquity ;  but  I  can  only  notice  here  the  principal  results  of 
those  revolutions,  and  with  the  simple  view  of  pointing  out 
their  long-protracted  influence  on  the  manners  and  the  culture 
of  the  Middle  Age. 

The  two  grand  forms  of  theatrical  composition,  tragedy  and 
comedy,  had  long  before  our  era  been  scarcely  cultivated  or 
represented  anywhere ;  they  had  gradually  decomposed  them- 
selves into  a  multitude  of  smaller  varieties,  which  had  taken 
their  place,  and  which  were  nothing  more  than  a  shadow  -or  a 
parody  of  the  former. 

The  mime,  which  was  the  oldest,  the  most  elevated  and  the 
most  popular  of  these  secondary  dramatic  forms,  admitted  of 
all  sorts  of  arguments,  serious  and  comic,  graceful  and  bur- 
lesque. The  Cysiodie,  the  hilarodie,  and  the  magodie  were 
other  varieties  of  shorter  dramas,  still  simpler  than  the  mime. 
The  two  first  appear  to  have  been  nothing  more  than  the  brief- 
est possible  imitation  of  an  action,  ordinarily  a  serious  one, 
which  was  represented  by  a  single  actor,  accompanied  in  his 
performance  by  one  or  two  instruments,  and  playing  in  the 
costume  of  a  man  the  personages  of  both  sexes,  which  concurred 
in  the  action.  The  magodie  was  likewise  acted  by  a  single 
histrio,  who  was,  however,  dressed  like  a  woman,  and  the 
action  turned  most  frequently  on  burlesque  scenes  from  the  life 
of  persons  from  the  lower  orders  of  society,  or  on  the  ordinary 
adventures  of  courtesans.  This  species  of  the  drama  was,  there- 
fore, on  an  extremely  limited  ground,  an  exaggeration  of  the 
licenses  of  comedy,  as  the  two  former  were  a  contraction  of 
tragedy. 

Degenerated  or  mutilated  as  these  compositions  were,  they 
had,  nevertheless,  some  points  in  common  with  the  ancient 
master-works  of  art ;  they  preserved  some  impress  of  the  genius 
of  the  Greeks. 

In  all  of  them  the  imitation  was  effected  by  the  concurrence 
of  the  words,  the  music  and  the  dance.  Easy  as  it  had  been 
made  in  all  these  little  dramas,  this  association  of  three  distinct 
arts,  for  the  production  of  a  single  and  individual  effect,  was 
nevertheless  an  obstacle  to  the  greatest  attainable  popularity 


GrcBCO-Roman  Literature  in  Gaul.  69 

of  these  dramatic  amusements.  This  obstacle  was  removed ; 
dramas  of  every  kind  and  of  every  dimension  were  composed, 
in  which  the  picturesque  gesticulation  or  the  dance  was  em- 
ployed as  the  only  means  of  imitation.  From  that  time  the  art 
of  characterizing  solely  by  motions  and  gestures,  even  to  the 
most  delicate  nuances,  the  most  accidental  modifications  of  pas- 
sion,  assumed  developments  and  an  importance,  of  which  it 
would  be  difficult  to  form  any  conception  at  present. 

All  these  inventions,  all  these  little  varieties  of  the  drama 
had  passed  successively  from  the  Greeks  to  the  Romans,  and 
the  latter  had  often  confounded  them  under  the  vague  and  col- 
lective denomination  of  mimes.     Now,  it  was  the  ordinary  lot 
of  the  inventions  of  Greece  to  lose  their  primitive  simplicity 
and  innocence,  or  to  deteriorate  still  worse,  after  they  had 
been  transplanted  among  the  Romans.     The  immense  riches  of 
the  Romans  furnished  them  with  the  means  of  pushing  their 
vices    into    monstrosities.       The  mimes   and  other   dramatic 
sports  were  among  them  carried  to  an  excess,  where,  in  order 
to  pique  the  curiosity  of  the  spectators,  it  became  necessary  to  ^ 
add  the  obscenity  of  speech  to  that  of  the  action,  and  to  con*  1 
vert  into  a  reality  before  their  very  eyes,  whatever  impurity  / 
the  imagination  had  only  been  accustomed  to  conceive. 

By  an  excess  of  another  kind,  and  still  more  odious,  they  hit 
upon  the  idea  of  taking  advantage  of  the  execution  of  criminals, 
in  order  to  add  a  little  variety  to  their  theatrical  emotions. 
They  had  pieces  composed  expressly  for  the  purpose  of  intro- 
ducing or  embodying,  either  in  the  shape  of  incident,  or  as 
the  catastrophe — the  punishment  of  the  condemned.  One  exam- 
ple of  the  kind  will  answer  our  purpose.  Some  wretch  or  other 
had  been  arrested  and  condemned  to  death  for  having  commit- 
ted highway  robbery  in  Sicily,  on  Mount  JStna,  or  in  its  vici* 
nity.  His  adventure  was  dramatized,  and  a  mountain  was  con- 
structed on  the  stage  to  represent,  as  well  as  could  be  done,  Mount 
^Etna,  with  its  crater  and  its  ravines.  The  denouement  was  a 
picturesque  one :  the  criminal  was  precipitated  into  the  abyss  j 

In  short,  the  more  these  theatrical  representations  degene- 
rated, the  less  could  the  Romans  dispense  with  them.  Thev 
finally  introduced  them  as  domestic  amusements  into  their  pri- 
vate habitations.  There  was  no  family  fete,  no  banquet  without 
some  sort  of  dramatic  diversion,  without  some  pantomime,  some 
dance  or  musical  performance.  "  There  are  now,"  says  Seneca, 
•"  more  singers  at  our  feasts  than  there  were  formerly  spectators 
in  our  theatres."*  Every  house  of  any  pretension  to  wealth  had 

*  Luc.  Ann.  Senecae  Epistola  Ixxxiv.  :  "  In  comessationibus  nostris  plus  cantprum 
«st,  quara  in  theatris  olim  spectatorum  fuit."  Where,  however,  several  editors  insist  on 
reading  cemmissimibvs,  to  which  thej  altjUmte  tfce  ABASC  of  «flJ  roodej-n 


TO  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

its  private  stage,  which  was  daily  frequented  by  some  itinerant 
artists,  by  histrions,  by  elegant  female  dancers,  by  skillful  play- 
ers- on  the  lyre  or  the  flute. 

The  theatrical  representations  of  the  provinces  were  probably 
not  carried  to  the  same  degree  or  to  the  same  refinement  of  cor- 
ruption, as  were  those  at  Rome ;  but  they  pursued  the  same 
course,  and  they  experienced  the  same  revolutions,  and  these 
revolutions  superinduced  analogous  results.  Thusy  for  example^ 
the  dramatic  spectacles  of  Gaul,  during  the  fourth  and  fifth  cen- 
turies, differed  in  no  essential  respect  from  those  of  Rome  or 
Italy.  The  remarks  or  the  hints  of  the  contemporary  ecclesi- 
astical writers  respecting  them  are  sufficient  proof,  that  they 
were  neither  less  degenerate  nor  less  popular.  The  ruins  of 
Roman  theatres  are  rare  enough  at  the  present  time  in  France ; 
but  there  undoubtedly  existed  many  theatres  in  Gaul,  of  which 
no  longer  any  vestiges  are  left,  and  everything  authorizes  ua 
to  believe,  that  there  was  scarcely  a  province  iiat  which  drama- 
tic representations  were  not  known. 

It  appears,,  however,  that  the  mania  for  the  elaborate  refine- 
ments- of  the  saltation  or  the  imitative  dance  did  not  penetrate 
very  far  into  the  north  of  GauL  The  Emperor  Julian  gives  us 
an  account  of  a  man  from  Cappadocia,  who,  having  been  obliged 
to  flee  from  his  country,  became  the-  leader  of  a  company  of 
strolling  dancers  or  mimes,  with  which  he  went  into  Gaul.  He 
produced  them  at  the  theatre  of  Paris— a  circumstance,  from 
which  we  learnr  that  there  was  such  an  establishment  there  at 
that  epoch.  It  was  the  first  time  that  artists  of  this  description 
were  seen  there.  They  were  taken  for  fools  and  hooted,  to  the 
great  delight  of  Julian,  who  did  not  like  those  inventions  of 
civilization,  which  contributed  to  the  enervation  of  the  souL 
The  case  was  a  very  different  one  in  the  cities  of  the  South.  It 
was  customary  there  to  erect  monuments-  in  bonor  of  those,  who 
distinguished  themselves  in  this  art  of  saltatioDr  which  had  be- 
come  the  first  of  the  dramatic  arts-  The  ruins  of  the  theatre  at 
Antibes  contained  an  inscription  in  honor  of  Septentrio,  a 
young  man  of  fifteen,  who,  after  having  appeared  twice  in  suc- 
cession, aind  with  great  success,  in  this  theatre,  had  died,  proba- 
bly in  consequence  of  the  efforts  he  had  made  to  merit  this- 
success. 

These  remarks  on  the  passion  of  the  Gauds  for  theatrical 
representations  will  easily  account  for  the  avidity,  with  which 
they  hankered  after  other  representation s>  still  more  calculated 
to  move  an  unpolished  or  a  vitiated  multitude  ;  I  refer  to  those 
of  the  amphitheatre.  The  ruins  of  these  amphitheatres  are  at 
present  much  more  numerous  in  France  than  those  of  the  thea- 
tres. It  is  a  proof  that  the  combats-  of  gladiators  and  with  wild 


Greece-Roman  Literature  in  Gaul.  71 

beasts  were  more  general  and  frequent  even  than  the  amuse- 
ments of  the  stage. 

To  complete  this  perhaps  too  rapid  stretch  of  the  Gallo- 
Roman  civilization,  I  ought,  perhaps,  to  speak  of  the  other  arts 
of  the  Romans,  particularly  of  their  architecture,  and  of  the 
magnificent  monuments  with  which  they  covered  the  soil  of 
Gaul.  But  the  results,  at  which  I  might  arrive,  would  be  too 
remotely  connected  with  the  ulterior  object  of  my  researches. 
I  shall  therefore  limit  myself  to  a  few  observations  on  this 
point,  such  as  will  naturally  link  themselves  to  the  general  sub- 
ject of  this  outline. 

Among  the  prominent  monuments  of  architecture,  erected  in 
Gaul  under  the  dominion  of  the  Romans,  there  were  some,  as 
for  example,  the  temple  at  Nimes,  generally  known  under  the 
name  of  the  maison  carree,  or  the  square  house,  which  were 
purely  Grecian  in  their  conception  and  their  style,  and  must 
be  regarded  as  the  work  of  Greek  artists,  as  must  also  the  tem- 
ples and  other  monuments  of  the  Phocsean  cities.  The  amphi- 
theatres, the  basilicas,  the  majority  of  theatres,  and  the  trium- 
phal arches  were  monuments  of  Roman  design  and  workmanship; 
but  they  required  decorations,  paintings,  and  statuary,  for  the 
execution  of  which  the  Romans  generally  employed  Greek 
artists.  The  supposition  is  a  natural  one,  that  several,  perhaps 
even  the  majority,  of  these  artists  were  Greeks  of  the  vicinity 
or  of  the  country,  or  in  other  words,  Massilians.  This  being 
the  case,  the  latter  would  have  exercised  an  equally  important 
influence  on  the  art  of  Gaul,  as  we  have  seen  them  exercising 
on  its  literary  culture. 

But  whether  it  was  by  Massilians  or  by  others,  certain  it  is, 
that  numerous  monuments  of  Grecian  art  were  reared  in  Gaul, 
by  the  side  of  the  monuments  of  Roman  art.  Some  facts  would 
even  lead  to  the  presumption,  that  several  of  these  monuments 
were  of  a  far  superior  order  to  what  we  are  generally  inclined 
to  imagine.  We  know,  for  example,  from  the  testimony  of 
Pliny,  that  a  Greek  statuary  by  the  name  of  Zenodorus,  whose 
native  country  is  not  known,  and  who  was  perhaps  one  of  the 
many  unknown  Massilian  artists,  had  executed  for  a  temple  in 
the  capital  of  the  Arverni  (which  has  since  received  the  name 
of  Clermont),  a  colossal  statue  of  Mercury  in  bronze.  This  sta- 
tue, of  one  hundred  and  twenty  feet  in  height,  passed  for  one  of 
the  wonders  of  art  at  an  epoch,  when  art  had  still  retained 
much  of  its  primitive  grandeur.  The  fame  which  the  artist 
acquired  by  this  work  procured  him  a  call  to  Rome,  where  he 
was  to  cast  a  colossal  statue  of  Nero.*  Now,  if  such  a  work 

*  Pliny :  Nat.  Hist.  lib.  xxxiy.  c.  18 Ed. 


72  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

adorned  a  city  like  that  of  the  Arverni,  which  occupied  but  a 
secondary  place  among  the  cities  of  Gaul,  is  it  not  natural  to 
suppose,  that  works  of  a  still  more  elevated  kind  must  have  em- 
bellished the  cities  of  the  first  order,  such  as  Narbonne,  Treves, 
Toulouse,  Yienne  and  Lyons  ? 

To  these  indications  it  would  be  easy  to  add  a  multitude  of 
others;  but  this  is  not  essential  to  my  object.  I  think  I  have 
said  enough  to  establish  the  general  fact,  in  respect  to  art  as 
well  as  in  respect  to  literature,  that  the  influence,  under  which 
the  Gauls  acquired  their  civilization,  was  a  mixed  one,  partly 
Greek  and  partly  Roman. 

If  now  we  wish  to  reduce  the  foregoing  facts  or  views  to  a 
small  number  of  primary  results,  we  must  transport  ourselves 
to  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  that  being  the  epoch,  at  which 
the  culture  of  the  Gallo-Romans  had  attained  to  its  highest  de- 
velopment and  its  most  extensive  diffusion. 

The  primitive  population  of  Gaul  was  composed  of  at  least 
three  distinct  national  bodies,  different  in  their  origin,  their 
language,  their  institutions  and  their  manners.  Caesar  had 
designated  these  three  nations  by  the  names  of  the  Aquitani, 
the  Celtse  and  the  Belgae.  Each  of  them  was  subdivided 
into  a  multitude  of  independent  tribes  or  hordes,  having  no 
fixed  bond  of  union  among  themselves,  always  in  motion, 
always  at  war  with  each  other,  ever  ready  to  follow  the  first 
chief  who  offered  to  conduct  them  to  the  pillage  of  foreign 
countries,  constantly  menacing  the  existence  and  the  peace  of 
the  civilized  portion  of  mankind,  which  was  at  that  time  as  yet 
very  small. 

By  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  these  three  nations  and  their 
numerous  subsidiary  tribes  had  merged  themselves  into  a  single 
compact  mass,  subdued  into  civilization,  having  the  same  poli- 
tical interest,  the  same  government,  the  same  civil  laws,  the 
same  municipal  administration,  the  same  arts,  the  same  intellec- 
tual culture,  and  deriving  all  this  from  Rome  or  from  Greece, 
either  directly  or  through  the  intermediate  agency  of  Rome. 
The  Latin  had  become  the  language  of  the  great  majority,  and 
an  additional  bond  of  union  oetween  the  different  races,  of 
which  this  new  nationality  was  composed.  But  in  some  moun- 
tainous districts,  or  in  such  as  were  remote  from  the  highways 
of  communication,  the  descendants  of  the  ancient  tribes  had 
still  preserved  their  original  idioms ;  so  that  the  three  primitive 
languages  of  Gaul — that  of  the  Aquitanians,  that  of  the  Celts 
and  that  of  the  Belgians — were  still  spoken  in  various  places. 

History  offers  us  no  longer  any  vestige  of  the  remains  of 
Druidism  at  the  epoch  of  which  we  are  now  speaking.  The 
large  majority  of  the  Gallo-Romans  professed  Christianity,  in- 


GrcBco-Roman  Literature  in  Gaul.  73 

termingling  it,  indeed,  with  many  superstitions  and  customs 
which  were  derived  from  paganism;  but  from  the  Grseco- 
Roman  paganism,  and  not  from  the  Gallic.  Thus  the  two 
religions  at  that  time  coexistent  in  Gaul,  the  one  in  its  decline 
and  near  extinction,  the  other  already  dominant,  were  equally 
the  results  of  Graeco-Roman  influences. 

The  Bards  had  disappeared,  together  with  the  Druids,  and 
with  the  former  every  reminiscence  of  the  ancient  national 
poetry  had  become  extinct.  To  find  some  feeble  echo,  some 
vague  tradition  of  this  poetry,  we  would  have  to  go  to  the 
bardic  songs  of  the  insular  Britons,  to  the  fragments  of  the 
Irish  and  the  Gaelic  bards,  to  look  for  it.  By  the  close  of  the 
fourth  century  there  was  no  longer  any  trace  of  it  in  Gaul ;  it 
had  long  been  supplanted  there  by  the  Grseco-Roman  literature, 
of  which  I  have  just  taken  a  cursory  survey. 

There  is  every  reason  to  believe,  that  the  mythological  or 
poetical  traditions  respecting  the  origin  of  the  Gauls  and  Celts 
had  perished,  together  with  the  Druids  and  the  Bards.  Fables 
invented  to  please  had  taken  their  place.  Not  satisfied  with 
being  Romans  by  adoption  and  by  their  institutions,  the  Gallo- 
Romans  had  arrived  at  the  point,  where  they  could  plume  them- 
selves on  being  so  by  origin.  Such  were  the  pretensions  of  the 
Arverni,  who  called  themselves  the  brothers  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Latium.  Others,  as,  for  example,  the  Aquitanians,  had 
found  it  more  glorious  to  give  themselves  a  Greek  descent. 
Who  can  affirm,  that  these  infantile  fabrications  of  Grseco-Ro- 
man  vanity  have  not  deprived  history  of  some  important  data 
respecting  the  origin  of  the  aboriginal  tribes  of  Gaul  ? 

From  the  united  testimony  of  these  facts,  and  from  the  con- 
siderations connected  with  them,  it  will  appear,  I  hope,  suffi- 
ciently evident,  that  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  Gaul  was 
as  different  as  possible  from  what  it  had  been  before  the  Roman 
conquest ;  that  it  had  become  Roman  in  everything  that  con- 
stitutes and  characterizes  a  nation.  I  do  not  know  whether 
history  offers  us  another  example  of  so  complete  a  change  pro- 
duced by  conquest. 

Nevertheless,  to  whatever  extent  the  culture  and  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  Romans  may  have  preponderated  in  Gaul,  it  appears, 
that  at  the  bottom  of  the  Gallic  or  of  the  Celtic  character  there 
/always  remained  a  certain  individual  something,  which  was  not 
Roman,  and  which  refused  to  become  so.  Of  this  I  shall  have 
to  give  some  curious  proofs  hereafter. 


74  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


CHAPTEE  Y. 

THE  SOUTH  OF  FRANCE  UNDER  THE  BARBARIANS. 

THIS  Gallo-Roman  civilization,  of  which  1  have  just  drawn  a 
picture,  contained  in  itself  the  germs  of  decadence,  or  rather,  it 
had  already  deteriorated  very  greatly.  The  means  and  the 
chances  of  a  regeneration  were  perhaps  the  only  resources  that 
were  left  to  it.  But  the  Barbarians  were  at  hand  to  eliminate 
all  these  chances. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  describe  the  long  and  fatal  strug- 
gle, in  the  course  of  which  the  Germanic  tribes  occupied  coun- 
try after  country,  until  they  had  subjugated  the  whole  of  the 
Western  Empire.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  call  to  mind  in  a  few 
words  the  results  of  tnis  struggle,  as  far  as  they  relate  to  Gaul. 
Toward  the  year  414  this  country  was  entered  by  the  Visigoths, 
under  the  conduct  of  Ataulphe,  the  brother-in-law  and  the 
successor  of  Alaric  the  Great.  They  established  themselves 
between  the  Khone  and  the  Pyrenees,  from  whence  they  gradu- 
ally pushed  their  conquests  as  far  as  the  confines  of  the  Loire. 
Soon  after  came  the  Burgundians,  who,  from  the  vicinity  of  the 
Yosges  descended  by  degrees  as  far  as  the  right  banks  of  the 
Durance,  and  appropriated  all  the  eastern  part  of  Gaul.  Several 
of  the  provinces  of  the  North  had  remained  subject  to  Roman 
chiefs,  and  were  still  regarded  as  dependent  on  the  empire. 
But  the  Frankish  tribes,  who  had  long  been  encamped  in  the 
northwest  of  Belgium,  descended  to  the  banks  of  the  Aisne 
under  the  command  of  their  young  chief  Clovis,  defeated  the 
Gallo-Romans,  and  made  themselves  masters  of  all  their  terri- 
tory as  far  as  the  frontiers  of  the  Yisigoths  and  the  Burgun- 
dians. 

Henceforward  the  sole  possessors  of  Gaul,  the  three  barba- 
rian nations,  which  had  come  to  conquer  each  a  portion  of  it, 
began  to  make  war  upon  each  other,  in  order  to  decide  the 
question  as  to  which  of  them  the  whole  was  to  belong.  The 
last  comers,  the  Franks,  were  the  successful  combatants  ;  they 
extended  their  dominion  over  the  whole  of  Gaul,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  narrow  strip  of  land  included  between  the 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.         75 

Cevennes  and  the  Mediterranean,  which  remained  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  Visigoths.  The  events  which  led  to  this  result 
comprised  an  interval  of  nearly  a  hundred  and  thirty  years, 
during  which  the  Gauls  had  to  suffer  from  invasions,  from  wars 
and  from  political  confusions,  nearly  all  that  a  human  society 
can  suffer  without  being  absolutely  anihilated. 

It  would  seem,  that  in  the  midst  of  such  long-protracted  dis- 
asters every  vestige  of  Roman  civilization  should  have  disap- 
peared from  Gaul.  But  this  was  not  the  case.  The  Barbarians 
had  no  formal  design  of  destroying  anything  that  Rome  had 
created.  All  that  they  wanted  was  to  rule  in  her  place,  and  as 
far  as  they  were  able  and  knew  how,  to  rule  like  her,  by  the 
same  means  and  with  the  same  forms.  They  left  to  the  van- 
quished their  religion,  their  cultus,  their  language,  their  civil 
laws,  their  municipal  government,  their  arts  and  their  usages  of 
every  description.  They  did  more  than  this ;  they  became  con- 
verted to  Christianity,  and  thereby  submitted  to  the  influence  of 
the  clergy,  which  was  at  that  time  the  most  enlightened  and 
the  most  powerful  class  among  the  vanquished,  and  the  one 
which  was  most  interested  in  the  maintenance  of  the  ideas  and 
the  institutions  of  the  empire.  Thus  the  fall  of  the  Gallo-Roman 
civilization  was  not  indeed  prevented,  but  at  any  rate  somewhat 
retarded. 

In  the  midst  of  all  the  calamities  of  the  fifth  century,  the 
Gallo-Romans  still  preserved  the  same  intellectual  culture 
which  they  had  exhibited  in  the  preceding  century.  They  cul- 
tivated the  same  sciences,  the  same  arts,  and  they  cultivated 
them  with  the  same  aptitude  and  the  same  ardor.  Only  the 
circumstances  were  much  more  unfavorable ;  and  this  differ- 
ence manifested  itself  in  the  results.  Grammar  and  rhetoric  con- 
tinued to  be  the  favorite  studies  of  this  sorrowful  epoch ;  but  as 
the  empire  lost,  and  the  Barbarians  gained  advantages  and 
ground,  the  means  as  well  as  the  motives  for  devoting  them- 
selves to  these  studies  diminished  in  proportion.  After  the 
middle  of  the  century,  the  larger  cities  of  the  South  were  almost 
the  only  places  where  schools  of  grammar  or  of  rhetoric  were 
left.  Those  of  Narbonne,  of  Toulouse,  of  Bordeaux,  of  Aries,  of 
Yienne  and  of  Lyons,  less  flourishing,  doubtless,  than  during 
the  previous  epochs,  still  continued  to  maintain  themselves  un- 
der the  dominion  of  the  Barbarians.  Other  cities,  of  less  note 
and  power,  clubbed  together  to  support  a  professor  in  com- 
mon, who  divided  his  time  and  his  instruction  between  them. 
This  policy  was  adopted  by  those  of  Agen  and  of  Perigueux, 
among  others. 

The  Arverni  began  to  have  schools  toward  the  middle  of  the 
fifth  century.  This  epoch  may  be  regarded  as  the  term  at 


76  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

which  the  Roman  impulsion  ceased  to  influence  the  literature 
of  Gaul. 

At  the  head  of  several  of  the  schools  which  I  have  mentioned, 
there  were  professors  who  passed  for  prodigies  of  eloquence  and 
talent;  such  were  Sapaudus  at  Vienne,  Lampridius  at  Bor- 
deaux, Leo  at  Narbonne. 

As  to  philosophy,  we  cannot  suppose  it  to  have  been  very 
flourishing  in  Gaul  at  the  epoch  in  question  ;  and  yet  we  here 
and  there  perceive  better  indications  of  philosophic  life  and 
curiosity  than  during  the  preceding  century.  It  appears  that 
the  opposite  doctrines,  which  have  since  been  designated  by  the 
names  of  Materialism  and  of  Spiritualism,  came  then  into  fre- 
quent and  violent  collision,  and  that  they  in  fact  divided  Gallo- 
Roman  society — a  circumstance  from  which  we  have  reason  to 
conclude,  that  each  of  them  had  its  separate  schools. 

But  we  are  almost  entirely  ignorant  of  these  schools ;  we 
know  neither  their  professors  nor  their  disciples,  nor  even  the 
places  in  which  they  were  established.  There  is  but  one  of 
them  on  which  we  can  say  a  few  words,  on  the  authority  of 
Sidonius  Apollinaris,  who  had  frequented  it  in  his  youth.  It  is 
the  one  at  Yienne.  Toward  the  commencement  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, a  Greek  by  the  name  of  Eusebius  had  taught  there,  pro- 
bably in  Greek,  the  categories  and  the  ethics  of  Aristotle.  At 
a  somewhat  later  date,  it  was  distinguished  for  a  man,  who  is 
better  known  than  the  former;  and  this  man  was  Claudian 
Mamert,  brother  to  Mamert  the  bishop  of  Yienne.  He  has 
left  several  works,  the  most  remarkable  of  which  is  a  treatise 
in  three  books,  On  the  nature  of  the  soul*  He  there  proposes 
to  demonstrate  the  immateriality  of  this  substance,  in  opposition 
to  the  opinion  of  those  who  regard  it  as  something  inherent  in 
the  organs  of  the  body,  and  as  constituting  nothing  more  than 
a  certain  state  or  modification  of  these  organs.  He  employs  for 
this  purpose  several  purely  metaphysical  arguments,  which  lie 
pretends  to  have  borrowed  from  the  ancient  Pythagorean  phi- 
losophers. 

It  was  with  poetry,  as  it  was  with  eloquence  and  with  philo- 
sophy ;  it  still  continued  to  be  cultivated,  and  the  only  question 
would  be,  to  know  with  what  degree  of  merit  and  success. 
Many  verses  were  made  of  every  kind  and  on  every  subject ; 
odes,  comedies,  tragedies  and  satires  were  composed.  But 
more  than  ever,  the  poetic  talent  had  ceased  to  be  a  special 
talent,  having  its  root  in  some  individual  peculiarity  inherent 
in  the  imagination  and  the  sensibility  of  the  poet.  It  was  no 
longer  anything  more  than  a  general  savoir-faire  or  knowing 

*  This  may  be  found  in  Migne's  "  Patrologiae  Cursus  Completus."  vol.  53,  under  the 
title  of  "  Mamerti  Claudiani  Presbyteri  Viennensis  De  statu  animap  libri  tres."— Ed. 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.          77 

how,  a  conventional  complement  to  all  literary  and  scientific 
culture.  The  most  renowned  rhetoricians,  grammarians  and 
lawyers  had  also  the  reputation  of  being  the  best  poets.  The 
Leo  of  Narbonne,  whom  I  have  already  mentioned  as  the 
Cicero  of  his  epoch,  was  its  Yirgil  into  the  bargain.  Lampri- 
dius  of  Bordeaux,  a  famous  professor  of  rhetoric  and  eloquence, 
passed  for  no  less  a  famous  poet. 

We  have  no  longer  any  of  the  works  of  these  poets  to  com- 
pare them  with  their  ancient  fame.  We  may,  if  we  choose, 
suppose  them  to  be  superior  in  several  respects  to  other  con- 
temporary productions  which  have  come  down  to  us ;  but  it  is 
scarcely  probable,  that  they  had  much  more  imagination  or  ori- 
ginality than  the  latter.  The  genius  of  the  Romans  had  never 
been  purely  and  frankly  poetical,  not  even  in  its  youth  or  in 
the  vigor  of  its  manhood ;  and  these  its  last  efforts  were  but 
a  tedious  exaggeration  of  its  primitive  defects.  We  may  be 
permitted  to  regret  the  loss  of  the  poetic  master-works  of  the 
fifth  century  on  account  of  the  infinite  variety  of  characteristic 
traits,  which  we  would  undoubtedly  find  in  them,  concerning 
the  men,  the  events  and  the  manners  of  this  singularly  curious 
and  too  little  known  epoch.  The  loss  may  therefore  be  a  serious 
one  to  history,  but  certainly  not  to  poetry. 

Sidonius  Apollinaris  was  perhaps  the  greatest  genius  of 
his  age,  and  the  last  of  those  writers,  who  in  spite  of  their 
defects,  nevertheless  belong  to  classical  antiquity.  Sidonius 
was  from  Lyons,  and  of  one  of  the  most  illustrious  families  of 
the  times.  His  father,  Apollinaris,  had  been  prefect  of  the 
prsetorium  of  the  Gauls.  He  married  very  young,  Papianilla, 
the  daughter  of  Avitus,  one  of  the  most  prominent  men  in  the 
province  of  the  Arverni,  who,  after  having  been  master  of  the 
cavalry,  was  elevated  to  the  rank  of  emperor,  by  an  intrigue 
which  was  half  Gallic  and  half  Yisigothic.  Sidonius,  now  the 
son-in-law  of  an  emperor,  found  himself  naturally  thrown  into 
the  career  of  ambition  and  of  honors.  Involved  in  the  rapid 
fall  of  his  father-in-law,  he  entered  very  largely  into  a  Gallic 
conspiracy  against  the  emperor  Majorian — a  conspiracy  of 
which  Lyons  was  the  centre.  This  city  however  was  besieged 
and  taken,  and  the  defeated  conspirators  dispersed  in  every 
direction.  Sidonius  obtained  his  pardon  by  a  pompous  pane- 
gyric on  Majorian,  in  which  he  celebrates,  in  perhaps  a  some- 
what dastardly  manner,  the  victory  which  the  emperor  had 
gained  over  himself,  his  friends  and  fellow-citizens.  Some  time 
after,  another  panegyric  on  the  emperor  Anthemius,  gained 
him  the  dignity  of  prefect  of  Rome,  which  was  the  second  in 
Italy.  Toward  the  year  472,  he  was  nominated  bishop  of  the 
church  of  the  Arverni,  and  he  exhibited  in  this  new  capacity  a 


73  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

force  and  dignity  of  character,  of  which  no  one,  who  was 
acquainted  with  his  previous  conduct,  would  have  thought  him 
capable. 

Sidonius  has  left  us  compositions  in  prose  and  verse.  Of  his 
verses  I  shall  say  nothing ;  they  are  only  remarkable  for  their 
stiffness,  their  obscurity,  their  bombast,  and  for  their  monoto- 
nous and  pedantic  abuse  of  the  fictions  of  Grecian  mythology. 
But  his  letters  form  an  extremely  interesting  collection.*  These 
are  full  of  invaluable  information  on  the  principal  personages, 
and  on  the  prominent  events  of  the  epoch.  The  historians 
have  turned  them  to  great  advantage ;  they  have  not,  however, 
as  yet  availed  themselves  of  all  the  tacts,  which  they  are  capable 
of  contributing  to  our  knowledge  of  Gaul  during  the  second 
half  of  the  fifth  century.  In  a  literary  point  of  view,  they  are 
a  brilliant  reflex  of  the  spirit  and  of  the  taste  of  their  century. 
The  style  of  this  period  is  still  very  refined,  but  it  also  exhibits 
a  rapid  tendency  to  a  fastidious  minuteness  and  to  mannerism. 
We  everywhere  perceive  a  vast  deal  of  care  and  labor  bestowed 
on  affecting  talent,  and  on  giving  a  pedantic  and  pretentious 
tone  to  serious  and  noble  sentiments. 

I  shall  quote,  as  a  specimen  of  the  eloquence  of  Sidonius 
Apollinaris,  one  of  his  most  interesting  letters.  Its  subject  is 
as  follows :  Toward  the  year  470,  the  war  between  Nepos,  the 
emperor  of  the  West,  and  Euric,  the  king  of  the  Yisigoths, 
had  broken  out.  The  latter,  who  coveted  the  fine  province  of 
Auvergne,  made  several  incursions  into  it  for  the  purpose  of 
effecting  its  conquest,  and  in  474  besieged  the  city  of  Clermont. 
Sidonius  Apollinaris  had  recently  been  elected  bishop  of  that 
city.  He  exhorted  the  inhabitants  to  defend  themselves 
bravely,  and  his  brother-in-law  Ekdikius,  who  commanded 
them,  accomplished  prodigies  of  audacity  and  valor,  which 
compelled  the  Visigoths  to  raise  the  siege.  But  scarcely  had 
the  Arverni  been  delivered  from  their  enemies,  when  they 
learnt  to  their  surprise  that  a  peace  had  been  concluded  between 
Euric  and  the  emperor,  and  that  the  cession  of  Auvergne  to  the 
Yisigoths  was  one  of  the  conditions  of  this  peace.  It  was  then, 
that  Sidonius,  overcome  with  grief  and  indignation,  addressed 
the  following  letter  to  Graecus,  the  Bishop  of  Marseilles,  who 
was  one  of  the  three  bishops  that  had  negotiated  the  peace : 

"  The  regular  bearer  of  inv  letters,  Amantius,  is  going  to 
regain  his  port  Marseilles  (at  least,  if  the  passage  be  a  favora- 
ble one),  carrying  with  him,  as  usually,  the  little  booty  he  has 

*  Sidonias  has  left  us  nine  books  of  letters,  addressed  to  various  distinguished  contem- 
poraries of  his,  and  a  number  of  lyrical  compositions,  some  of  which  he  terms  Carmina 
and  others  Panegyrici.  Among  the  printed  editions  are  that  of  Sirmond,  Paris,  1614, 
and  that  of  Jligne,  in  his  Patrol.  Curs.  Compl.— Ed. 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.          79 

made  here.*  I  should  seize  this  opportunity  of  having  a  gay 
chat  with  you,  if  it  were  possible  to  occupy  one's  self  with 
gaieties,  when  one  is  under  the  visitations  of  adversity.  Now 
this  is  precisely  our  condition  in  this  degraded  corner  of  the 
land,  which,  if  the  report  speaks  true,  will  be  still  more  unfor- 
tunate in  consequence  of  the  peace,  than  it  had  been  during  the 
war.  We  are  required  to  pay  for  the  liberty  of  another  by  our 
own  servitude ;  by  the  servitude  of  the  Arverni ;  alas !  of  the 
same  Arverni,  who  anciently  were  bold  enough  to  call  them- 
selves the  brothers  of  the  Latins,  and  the  descendants  of  the 
Trojans  !  who  in  our  own  day  have  repelled  by  their  own  forces 
the  attacks  of  public  enemies,  and  who  frequently,  when  be- 
leagured  by  the  Goths,  so  far  from  trembling  within  their  walls, 
have  made  their  adversaries  tremble  in  their  camps. 

"  They  are  the  same  Arverni,  who,  whenever  it  was  required 
to  face  the  Barbarians  of  their  vicinity,  have  at  the  same  time 
been  both  generals  and  soldiers.  In  the  vicissitudes  of  these 
wars,  you  have  reaped  all  the  fruit  of  the  success,  and  they  all 
the  disasters  of  the  reverses.  They  are  the  men,  who,  in  their 
zeal  for  the  public  good,  have  not  hesitated  to  surrender  to  the 

*  This  is  the  seventh  epistle  of  Book  VII.,  of  which  the  original  is  as  follows :  "  Sidoniua 
domino  Popee  Greece  Salutem.  Ecce  iterum  Amantius  nugigerulus  noster  Massiliam  suam 
repetit,  aliquid,  ut  moris  est,  de  manubiis  civitatis  domum  reportaturus,  si  tamen  aut  cata- 
plus  arriserit.  Per  quern  joculariter  plura  garrirem,  si  pariter  unus  idemque  valeret 
animus  exercere  laeta,  et  tristia  sustinere.  Siquidem  nostri  hie  nunc  est  infelicis  anguli 
status :  cujus,  ut  faraa  confirmat,  melior  fuit  sub  bello,  quam  sub  pace  conditio.  Facta 
est  servitus  nostra  pretium  securitatis  aliense.  Arvernorum,  proh  dolor  !  servitus,  qui, 
si  prisca  replicarentur,  audebantse  quondam  fratres  Latio  dicere,  et  sanguine,  ab  Iliaco 
populos  computare ;  si  recentia  memorabuntur,  ii  sunt,  qui  viribus  propriis  hostium 
publicprum  arma  remorati  sunt.  Cui  saepe  populo  Gothus  non  fuit  clauso  intra  mcenia 
formidini,  cum  vicissim  ipse  fieret  oppugnatoribus  positis  intra  castra  terrori.  Hi  sunt, 
qui  sibi  adversus  vicinorum  aciem  tarn  duces  fuere,  quam  milites.  De  quorum  tamen 
sorte  certaminum,  si  quid  prosperum  cessit,  vos  secunda  solata  sunt :  si  quid  cpntrarium, 
illos  adversa  fregerunt.  Illi  amore  rei  publicae  Seronatum,  barbaris  provincias  propin- 
antem,  non  timuere  legibus  tradere ;  quern  convictum  deinceps  respublica  vix 
prsesumpsit  occidere.  Hoccine  meruerunt  inopia,  flamma,  ferrum,  pestilentia,  pinguea 
caedibus  gladii,  et  macri  jejuniis  praeliatores  ?  Propter  hujus  tamen  inclytae  pacis  expec- 
tationem  avulsas  muralibus  rimis  herbas  in  cibum  traximus :  crebro  per  ignorantiam 
venenatis  graminibus  infecti,  quae  indiscretis  foliis  succisque  viridantia  saepe  manus  fame 
concolor  legit.  Pro  iis  tot  tantisque  devotionis  experimentis  nostri  (quantum  audio) 
facta  jactura  est.  Pudeat  vos  precamur  hujus  foederis,  nee  utilis,  nee  decori.  Per  vos 
legationes  meant.  Vobis  primum,  quanquam  Principe  absente,  non  solum  tractata 
reserantur,  verumetiamtractandacommittuntur.  Veniabilis  sit,  qusesumus,  apud  aures 
vestras  veritatis  asperitas,  cujus  conyitii  invidiam  dolor  eripit.  Parum  in  commune  con- 
sulitis ;  et  cum  in  concilio  convenitis,  non  tarn  curae  est  publicis  mederi  periculis^ 
quam  privatis  studere  fortunis.  Quod  utique  saepe  diuque  facientes,  jam  non  primi 
comprovincialium  coepistis  esse,  sed  ultimi.  At  quousque  istae  poterunt  durare 
vestigiae?  Non  enim  diutius  ipsi  majores  nostri  hoc  nomine  gloriabuntur,  qui  minores 
incipiunt  non  habere.  Quapropter  vel  consilio,  quo  potestis,  statum  concordiae  tarn 
turpis  incidite.  Adhuc  si  necesse  est  obsideri,  adhuc  pugnare,  adhuc  esurire  delectat. 
Si  vero  tradimur,  qui  non  potuimus  viribus  obtineri,  invenisse  vos  cerium  est,  quid 
barbarum  suaderetis  ignavi.  Sed  cur  dolori  nimio  fraena  laxamus?  Quin  potiua 
ignoscite  afflictis,  nee  imputate  moerentibus.  Nam  alia  regio  tradita  servitium  sperat, 
Arverna  supplicium.  Sane  si  medicari  nostris  ultimis  non  valetis,  saltern  hoc  efficite 
prece  sedula,  ut  sanguis  viyat,  quorum  est  moritura  libertas.  Parate  exulibus  terram, 
capiendis  redemptionem,  viaticum  peregrinaturis.  Si  murua  noster  aperitur  hostibus, 
non  sit  clausus  vester  hospitalibus.  — Ed. 


80  History  of  Provencal  Poefry. 

sword  of  justice  that  Seronatus,  wlio  served  up  at  the  feasts  of  the 
Barbarians  the  provinces  of  the  empire,  and  whose  sentence  of 
execution  the  imperial  government  itself  has  hardly  dared  to 
execute. 

"This  peace  of  which  they  talk — is  this  what  we  have 
merited  by  our  privations,  by  the  desolation  of  our  walls  and 
fields  from  fire  and  sword  and  pestilence,  by  the  destruction  of 
our  famished  warriors?  Is  it  in  a  hope  of  a  peace  like  this,  that 
we  have  fed  on  herbs  extracted  from  the  crevices  of  our  ram- 
parts, not  unfrequently  empoisoned  by  deadly  plants  which  we 
could  not  distinguish,  and  gathered  by  hands  as  livid  as  them- 
selves ?  Shall  all  these  acts  and  similar  acts  of  self-devotion 
only  end,  as  they  assure  us,  in  our  ruin  ? 

"  Oh,  do  not  submit,  we  do  beseech  you,  to  a  treaty  so  fatal 
and  so  disgraceful !  You  are  the  intermediate  agents  of  all  the 
communications ;  it  is  to  you,  that  the  decisions  arrived  at  and 
submitted,  and  the  decisions  yet  to  be  arrived  at,  are  first  com- 
municated, even  in  the  absence  of  the  prince.  Listen  then,  we 
do  conjure  you,  listen  to  a  rugged  truth,  to  a  reproach  for 
which  our  sorrow  should  obtain  your  pardon.  You  rarely  write, 
and  when  you  do  write,  it  is  not  so  much  to  devise  a  remedy  for 
public  evils,  as  it  is  to  bargain  for  your  private  interests.  By 
acts  like  these,  you  will  soon  no  longer  be  the  first,  but  the  last 
of  the  bishops.  The  'prestige  cannot  last ;  and  those  will  not 
long  retain  the  quality  of  superiors,  who  have  already  begun  to 
lack  inferiors. 

"  Prevent  therefore,  and  break  at  any  hazard,  a  peace  so  dis- 
gjaceful.  Or  shall  we  fight  again?  Shall  we  endure  another 
siege,  another  famine  ?  We  are  prepared  for  it ;  we  are  con- 
tent. But  if  we  are  betrayed  without  being  vanquished,  it  will 
be  manifest,  that  in  betraying  us,  you  have  devised  a  cowardly 
expedient  to  make  your  peace  with  the  Barbarians. 

"  But  what  avails  it,  thus  to  give  the  reins  to  an  excessive 
grief?  Excuse  those  in  affliction.  Every  other  country  that 
surrenders  will  come  off  with  simple  servitude,  but  ours  nas  to 
expect  the  rigors  of  a  severer  punishment.  If,  therefore,  it  is 
not  in  your  power  to  preserve  us,  then  save  at  least  by  your 
intercession  the  life  of  those,  who  are  doomed  to  lose  their 
liberty.  Prepare  lands  for  the  exiles,  ransoms  for  their  cap- 
tives, provisions  for  those  who  shall  be  forced  to  emigrate.  If 
our  walls  are  opened  to  the  enemy,  let  not  yours  be  closed  to 
the  stranger  and  the  guest." 

These  pages,  in  spite  of  the  occasional  instances  of  bad  taste 
by  which  they  are  disfigured,  impress  us  with  the  idea  of  a 
cultivated  intellect,  as  well  as  of  a  noble  character,  in  their 
author.  They  are  particularly  interesting  in  a  historical  point 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.          81 

of  view.  They  are,  I  believe,  the  last  that  could  be  mentioned 
as  having  been  inspired  by  an  exalted  sentiment  of  Roman 
patriotism.  The  war,  to  which  they  allude,  is  the  last  that  was 
waged  for  the  honor  of  the  Roman  name.  For  these  various 
reasons  they  deserved  to  be  quoted  in  a  historical  survey  of  the 
Roman  civilization  in  Gaul. 

If  anything  could  have  imparted  to  the  literature  and  the 
eloquence  of  this  fifth  century  a  little  of  the  ancient  dignity 
and  simplicity,  it  would  undoubtedly  have  been  Christianity, 
which,  in  this  Roman  society,  degraded  and  ruined  by  des- 
potism, had  disseminated  new  ideas  respecting  the  destiny  of 
man  and  that  of  nations.  The  clergy  of  Gaul  preached  daily 
what  it  called  the  Government  of  God  to  the  Gallo-Romans, 
who  had  fallen  under  the  yoke  of  the  Barbarians.  They 
endeavored  to  resuscitate  their  courage,  depressed  by  the  disas- 
ters of  the  century.  They  sought  to  refute  those,  who  made 
these  disasters  the  pretext  for  upholding  the  Pagan  doctrine  of 
fatalism  against  the  Christian  doctrine  of  a  Providence,  mindful 
of  the  lot  of  men  and  of  the  course  of  human  events.  They  pre- 
tended to  find,  even  in  the  downfall  of  the  empire,  even  in  the 
incursions  of  so  many  different  conquerors,  indications  of  the 
reign  of  that  providence  which  they  proclaimed.  They  dared 
to  draw  a  parallel  between  the  government  of  the  empire  and 
that  of  the  Barbarians,  and  to  find  in  the  first  more  vices,  more 
tyranny  and  more  cruelty  than  in  the  second.  Without  deny- 
ing the  evils  and  the  ravages  of  those  incursions,  they  pretended 
that  these  evils  and  these  ravages  were  nothing  in  comparison 
with  those  which  would  naturally  and  necessarily  have  attended 
the  triumph  of  the  Barbarians,  unless  the  divine  mercy  had 
inspired  them  with  a  clemency  and  a  deference  toward  the 
conquered,  which  was  neither  in  their  character  nor  in  their 
habits. 

Saint  Augustine  had  been  the  first  who  gave  currency  to 
these  ideas  by  his  treatise  "  On  the  City  of  God  ;"  the  compo- 
sition of  which  was  occasioned  by  the  taking  and  the  pillaging 
of  Rome  by  Alaric.  Soon  after  that  event  the  bishops  of  Gaul 
had  frequent  occasions  to  preach  them  anew.  Prosper,  of 
Aquitania,  put  them  into  verse ;  Salvian,  of  Marseilles,  deve- 
loped them  methodically  in  a  work  which  he  entitled  "  On  the 
Government  of  God." 

True  or  false,  illusory  or  serious,  these  ideas  were  new ;  they 
were  bold  and  sublime,  and  it  seems  that  they  ought  to  have 
inspired  these  who  were  filled  with  them,  and  who  were  so 
enthusiastic  in  propagating  them  with  a  new  eloquence,  an 
eloquence  as  earnest  and  as  stern,  as  are  the  ideas  themselves. 
There  was  nothing  of  the  kind.  The  style  of  Salvian  is  as 

6 


92  History  of  Provencal  Poetoy. 

affected  and  as  tainted  with  bad  taste,  as  that  of  the  profane 
rhetoricians  of  the  epoch.  The  verses  of  Prosper  of  Acqui- 
tania  do  not  breathe  a  more  natural  or  a  more  original  tone 
than  so  many  others  of  the  same  epoch,  which  treat  of  vulgar 
subjects. 

Of  the  study  of  the  Greek  language  and  literature,  which 
once  had  been  so  extensively  cultivated  in  Gaul,  there  is 
scarcely  a  vestige  to  be  found  in  the  fifth  century.  Marseilles 
itself  can  show  at  this  epoch  but  two  professors,  and  both  of 
these  were  Romans-;  both  having  given  instruction  in  Latin 
rhetoric.  The  small  number  of  those  who  are  known  to  have 
then  and  since  composed  anything  at  Marseilles,  wrote  in  Latin. 
It  is,  however,  probable  that  the  Greek  was  still  spoken  at 
Marseilles ;  but  it  appears  to  have  been  abandoned  to  the  lower 
classes  of  the  people ;  the  rest  had  long  ago  adopted  the  use 
of  the  Latin. 

There  were,  however^still  some  schools  for  the  study  of  Greek 
grammar  and  of  rhetoric  scattered  here  and  there  throughout 
the  South.  What  I  have  said  on  the  teaching  of  philosophy  at 
Yienne,  necessarily  presupposes  in  that  city  a  certain  number 
of  persons  familiar  with  the  Greek.  That  this  language  also 
continued  to  be  taught  at  Bordeaux,  we  learn  from  the  testi- 
mony of  Paulin,  one  of  the  principal  inhabitants  of  that  city, 
known  for  the  singular  reverses  of  fortune  which  he  experienced 
during  the  invasion  of  the  Goths,  and  of  which  he  has  given  us 
a  narrative  in  verse,  full  of  interest  and  candor.  It  was,  un- 
doubtedly, the  same  at  Narbonne ;  where  we  find  men  of 
genius  applying  themselves  to  the  study  and  the  composition  of 
the  Greek.  Cossentius,  one  of  the  most  illustrious  and  the 
most  opulent  Narbonenses  of  his  time  had  written  odes  or 
some  other  poems  which  his  friends  compared  to  those  of 
Pindar. 

I  have  as  yet  said  nothing  of  the  spectacles  and  the  public 
amusements  of  every  description  ;  and  I  have  very  little  to  say 
about  them.  The  amusement  of  the  circus,  the  gladiatorial 
combats,  and  what  was  called  the  chase  of  animals,  were  in  all 
probability  less  frequent  in  the  fifth  century  than  they  had 
been  the  century  before.  But  they  continued  to  be  the  favorite 
spectacle  in  the  amphitheatres  of  large  cities.  Salvian,  who  in 
all  his  remarks  on  the  manners  and  the  usages  of  Gaul,  has 
always  particular  reference  to  what  he  had  observed  in  the 
South,  explains  himself  on  the  subject  of  these  spectacles  in  a 
manner,  which  proves  that  they  must  have  still  been  very  much 
frequented.  "  If  it  happens,"  says  he,  "  (and  it  happens  very 
often)  that  the  public  sports  and  one  of  the  festivals  of  the  church 
occur  on  the  game  day :  which  is  the  place,  I  ask,  where  the 


The  South  of  Prance  under  the  Barbarians.          83 

greatest  crowd  collects  ?  Is  it  the  house  of  God,  or  the  amphi- 
theatre ?"*  The  performances  of  the  circus  given  at  Aries,  in 
462,  are  the  last  of  which  history  celebrates  the  display  and  the 
magnificence.  In  regard  to  tne  dramatic  amusements  and 
representations,  there  is  nothing  special  to  be  said  here.  The' 
testimonies  on  this  point  are  so  vague,  that  it  would  be  neces- 
sary to  collect  and  to  discuss  a  large  number  of  them  in  order 
to  arrive  at  some  definite  conclusion  of  any  value  in  the  history 
of  literature  or  art.  I  shall  limit  myself  to  a  general  conjecture 
on  the  subject ;  which  is,  that  the  amusements  and  the  repre- 
sentations in  question  had  gradually  degenerated  in^to  farces  of 
the  mountebank  stage. 

These  are  the  most  important  and  the  best  authenticated 
indications,  that  are  left  us  of  the  literary  culture  of  Gaul  at  the 
epochs  of  the  definitive  invasion  of  the  country  by  the  Ger- 
mans. I  might  now  proceed  directly  from  this  outline  to  that 
of  the  following  periods  of  the  Middle  Age,  to  inquire  what 
had  become,  in  the  tenth  century,  four  hundred  years  after  the 
Barbarian  conquest,  of  all  that  Grseco-Roman  civilization ;  to 
enumerate  and,  as  it  were,  to  measure  its  ruined  remains,  in 
order  to  be  able  to  recognize  them  again,  if  need  be,  in  the  new 
literature  of  the  Middle  Age,  the  antecedents  of  which  I  am 
now  investigating.  But  it  appeared  to  me  that  this  transition 
would  be  too  abrupt.  I  have,  therefore,  deemed  it,  if  not 
necessary,  at  least  convenient,  to  dwell  for  a  moment  on  the 
immediate  consequences  of  the  Germanic  invasions,  to  mark  a 
little  more  minutely  the  various  impressions  which  the  differ- 
ent conquerors  received  from  the  Gallo-Roman  civilization,  and 
the  particular  share  which  they  unconsciously  contributed  to 
its  progressive  degradation.  Up  to  a  certain  point  it  will  be 
sufficient  for  our  purpose  to  continue  this  summary  review, 

*  "Si  quando  enim  eyenerit,  quod  scilicet  saepe  evenit,  ut  eodem  die  et festiyitaa 
ecclersiastica  et  ludi  publici  agantur;  qusero  ab  omnium  conscientia,  quis  locus  majores 


christianorum  virorum  copias  habeat,  cavea  ludi  publici,  an  atrium  Dei?  et  templum 
omnes  magis  sectentur,  an  theatrum  ?  dicta  evangeliorum  magis  diligant,  an  thymeli- 
corum?  verbayitse,  an  verba  mortis?  rerba  Christi,  an  yerba  mimi?  Npn  est  dubium, 
quin  illud  magis  amemua,  quod  anteponimus.  Omni  enim  feralium  ludicrorum  die,  si 
quaelibet  ecclesia?  festa  fuerit,  non  solum  ad  ecclesiam  non  veniunt,  qui  christianos  se 
esse  dicunt,  Bed  si  qui  inscii  forte  venerint,  dum  in  ipsa  ecclesia  sunt,  si  ludos  agi 
audiiyat,  ecelesiam  derelinquunt.  Spernitur  Dei  templum,  ut  curratur  ad  theatrum. 
Bcclesia  vacatur,  circus  impletur,"  etc.,  etc.  De  Gubernatione  Dei,  lib.  vi.  c.  vii. 
Compare  also  c.  xi.  of  the  same  book,  in  which  the  author  brands  these  amusements  as 
relics  of  pagan  idolaltry.  This  passion  for  public  spectacles  of  every  kind  seems  to 
have  been  equally  great  across  the  Mediterranean,  in  the  north  of  Africa,  where  we  find 
a  body  of  bishops  memorializing  one  of  the  emperors  to  prohibit  these  public  amuse- 
ments on  Sunday,  and  on  other  festivals  of  the  church;  and  more  especially  on  Easter 
Sunday,  on  which,  as  they  allege,  more  people  went  to  the  circus  than  to  the  churches 
(maxime  quia  Sancti  Paschts  octavarum  die  populi  ad  circum  magis  quam  ad  ecclesiam 
convenient).  Cap.  61  Collect.  Afric.  The  fourth  council  of  Carthage  menaces  with  the 
penalty  of  excommunication  those,  who,  in  contempt  of  its  prohibition,  might  persist  in 
thus  pursuing  their  pleasure,  to  the  neglect  of  divine  worship,  on  days  consecrated  to 


34  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

which  I  have  broken  of  at  the  fifth  century,  as  far  a8  the  sixth, 
or,  in  other  words,  as  far  as  the  epoch  of  the  Franks. 

During  the  whole  of  this  fifth  century  the  Visigoths  and  the 
Burgundians  were  the  only  nations  among  the  Barbarians,  who 
•  could  have,  and  who,  in  fact,  did  have  any  influence  on  the 
culture  of  the  Gallo-Romans.  Most  of  the  cities,  in  which  the 
ancient  schools  of  grammar,  of  eloquence,  and  of  philosophy 
continued  in  operation  during  this  century,  were  subject  to  one 
or  the  other  of  these  two  nations :  Vienne  and  Lyons  to  the 
Burgundians ;  Bordeaux,  Narbonne  and  Toulouse  to  the  Visi- 
goths.  It  may  be  a  matter  of  astonishment  to  some  to  find  all 
these  cities  maintaining,  even  under  their  barbarous  masters,  a 
decree  of  culture  which  is  probably  but  little  inferior  to  that,  in 
which  they  would  have  remained  under  the  dominion  of  the 
Romans.  But  our  surprise  will  cease  when  we  come  to  consult 
history. 

Of  all  the  Barbarians  at  war  with  the  Roman  empire,  the 
Visigoths,  at  the  time  of  their  incursion  into  Gaul,  were  those 
who  had  humanized  themselves  the  most,  who  had  acquired 
the  greatest  degree  of  aptitude  for  the  order  and  the  enjoy- 
ments of  civil  life.  They  willingly  obeyed  their  chiefs — nearly 
all  of  whom  acquired  glory  in  commanding  them.  Of  the 
eight,  which  they  had  during  the  century  of  their  dominion  in 
Gaul,  five  were  remarkable  men,  we  might  say  great  men,  who 
to  the  energy  of  their  barbarous  character,  added  great  politi- 
cal intelligence,  and  a  noble  consciousness  of  the  advantages  of 
civilization. 

The  first  of  all  of  them,  and  the  one  who  led  them  to  the 
foot  of  the  Pyrenees,  Ataulphe,  had  by  degrees  become  a  com- 
plete Roman  in  his  sentiments  and  ideas.  He  was  assassinated 
at  the  moment,  when  he  was  preparing  to  employ  all  the  forces 
of  his  nature  to  uphold  the  crumbling  edifice  of  Roman 
grandeur. 

The  fourth  of  these  eight  chiefs,  Theodoric  I.,  was  scarcely 
less  distinguished  than  Ataulphe.  It  was  for  the  general  cause 
of  humanity,  and  from  a  motive  of  political  generosity,  that  he 
espoused  the  part  of  the  Romans  against  Attila.  He  was  killed 
in  the  great  battle  of  Chalons,  to  the  winning  of  which  he  con- 
tributed greatly. 

His  son,  Theodoric  II. ,  added  to  the  brilliant  qualities  of  a 
warlike  chief,  the  manners,  the  polish  and  the  education  of  a 
Roman.  According  to  the  assertion  of  Sidonius,  who  had 
known  him  personally,  he  took  pleasure  in  the  reading  of  Virgil 
and  of  Horace. 

Euric,  his  younger  brother  and  successor,  read  neither  Virgil 
nor  Horace ;  perhaps  he  did  not  even  understand  the  Latin. 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.          85 

But  yet  he  was  a  greater  man  than  his  predecessor,  and  gave 
surer  indications  of  genius  as  a  civilizer.  He  ordered  an  abridg- 
ment of  the  Theodosian  code  to  be  made,  for  the  benefit  of  his 
Roman  subjects,  together  with  an  interpretation  of  the  laws 
which  required  one.  To  his  Yisigothic  subj  ects  he  gave  a  written 
code,  in  which  he  adopted  a  multitude  of  the  provisions  of  the 
Roman  law,  to  which  it  seems  the  Goths  conformed  without 
any  opposition.  He  encouraged,  at  least  indirectly,  the  culture 
of  letters  by  bestowing  honors  and  offices  of  trust  on  such 
Gallo-Romans,  as  were  most  distinguished  for  their  talent  and 
acquirements.  He  sent  on  several  embassies  to  Constantinople 
that  same  Cossentius  of  Narbonne,  whom  I  have  already  men- 
tioned as  having  had  a  remarkable  talent  for  Greek  poetry. 
His  secretary  was  that  same  Leo,  likewise  from  Narbonne, 
whom  we  already  know  as  a  celebrated  orator  and  poet.  The  last 
pieces  of  Gallic  rhetoric,  boasted  of  as  master-works,  were 
manifestoes  or  letters  composed  by  him  in  the  name  of  Euric, 
and  addressed  to  the  different  nations  that  had  chosen  this  king 
as  their  arbitrator. 

Under  chiefs  like  these,  though  they  were  Barbarians,  and 
in  the  midst  of  an  order  of  things  which  was  still  Roman  in  all 
its  forms,  we  can  easily  conceive,  that  the  ancient  schools  of 
grammar,  of  rhetoric  and  of  jurisprudence  even,  may  have  still 
been  able  to  maintain  themselves  for  some  time  longer.  The 
civilization  of  the  Romans  had  now  become  effete;  it  had  ful- 
filled its  destiny  ;  its  time  was  past ;  it  was  to  fall  irrevocably ; 
but  its  downfall  might  be  more  or  less  a  gentle  or  a  gradual 
one,  and  the  interval  between  the  moment  of  this  downfall  and 
that  of  some  future  regeneration  might  be  a  more  or  less  pro- 
longed one.  Now  the  Yisigoths  were  the  particular  tribe  of 
all  the  Barbarians,  the  dominion  of  which  could  afford  the  best 
chanceis  for  such  a  change. 

The  Burgundians  had  not  made  the  same  progress  in  civil 
polity  as  the  Yisigoths.  Nevertheless  they  were  more  humane 
and  more  susceptible  of  discipline  than  several  other  German 
tribes.  The  majority  of  their  chiefs  exhibited  a  respectful 
deference  toward  the  Roman  authority,  as  long  as  it  subsisted. 
Several  of  them  were  invested  with  the  title  of  patricians,  and 
appeared  to  regard  it  as  their  highest  honor.  Gondebaud,  the 
most  distinguished  of  all  these  chiefs,  had  spent  many  vears  in 
Italy,  and  always  prided  himself  on  appearing  as  a  civilized 
prince,  in  private  life  as  well  as  in  his  public  capacity.  In 
the  feuds  he  had  with  Clovis,  he  affected  quite  a  Koman 
repugnance  to  him  and  to  his  Franks,  on  whom  he  disdainfully 
bestows  the  epithet  of  Barbarians.  Of  his  conduct  relatively 
to  literature  and  the  liberal  studies  we  know  nothing,  but  we 


86  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

have  every  inducement  to  presume,  that  if  he  meddled  with 
them  at  all,  it  was  rather  to  retard  than  to  accelerate  their  ruin. 

The  sixth  century  produced  an  entire  change  of  things.  The 
dominion  of  the  V'isigoths  was  transferred  beyond  the  Pyre- 
nees ;  the  Burgundians  ceased  to  have  chiefs  of  their  own,  and 
they  no  longer  constituted  a  separate  national  body.  The 
Franks  remained  sole  masters  of  nearly  the  whole  of  Gaul. 

Of  the  three  nations  which  had  established  themselves  in  this 
country,  the  Franks  were  the  one,  which  had  most  carefully 
preserved  in  their  primitive  purity  the  manners,  the  institutions 
and  the  spirit  of  its  Germanic  ancestors.  It  was,  therefore, 
under  them  and  through  them,  that  these  manners,  these  insti- 
tutions and  this  spirit  were  destined  to  develop  themselves  in 
Gaul  with  the  greatest  vigor  and  effect,  and  to  act  upon  its 
interior  civilization  and  culture  in  the  most  direct  and  serious 
manner.  The  moment  will  come,  when  it  will  be  my  duty  to 
appreciate  the  definitive  results  of  this  action.  For  the  present 
I  can  only  throw  out  in  advance  a  few  general  notions,  which 
may  hereafter  constitute  a  part  of  that  estimate. 

From  the  end  of  the  fifth  to  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century, 
the  literary  decadence  of  Gaul  continued  with  accelerated 
rapidity,  in  consequence  of  the  ravages  produced  by  the  various 
expeditions  of  the  Franks  against  the  Goths,  both  of  Italy  and 
of  Gaul,  and  against  the  Burgundians.  Nevertheless,  the  ancient 
studies  were  by  no  means  entirely  abandoned  ;  grammar  schools 
still  continued  to  exist ;  for  example,  at  Lyons,  at  Yienne  and  at 
Clermont  there  was  still  a  great  number  of  writers,  but  they  all 
belonged  to  the  ecclesiastical  order.  The  laity  had  no  longer 
any  motive  for  applying  itself  to  the  culture  of  letters.  Saint 
Caesarius,  the  bishop  of  Aries,  has  left  us  homilies,  which  do 
not  seem  to  be  inferior  to  these  of  his  predecessors.  Saint  Fer- 
reol,  bishop  of  Uzes,  composed  epistles  in  the  style  of  those  of 
Sidonius  Apollinaris.  Though  Fortunatus,  the  bishop  of  Poi- 
tiers, was  not  a  Gaul  by  birth,  we  yet  may  refer  here  to  the 
numerous  compositions  in  verse,  which  he  wrote  in  honor  of  all 
the  great  personages  of  his  time,  of  kings,  queens,  dukes,  counts 
and  bishops.  In  point  of  correctness  and  elegance  of  diction 
these  pieces  are  perhaps  the  most  distinguished  productions  of 
the  sixth  century.* 

But  the  writer  of  this  period,  who  has  a  preeminent  claim  to 
our  attention,  is  Gregory  of  Tours.  His  works,  which  were 
composed  under  the  influences  of  the  Germanic  barbarism,  may 

*  The  works  of  Fortunatus.  both  poetical  and  prose,  may  be  found  in  Migne's  "  Pa- 
trologiae  Cursus  Completus/'  vol.  88,  page  1-591  ;  the  homilies,  epistles,  etc.,  of  St. 
Caesarius  in  vol.  67,  page  997-1163.  The  epistles,  which  Gregory  of  Tours  asserts  to  have 
been  written  after  the  models  of  Sidonius,  have  not  been  published,  Cf.  Fabriciua 
Biblioth.  Latina,  lib.  vi.  p.  491. 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.          87 

be  regarded  as  the  double  expression  of  it ;  they  are,  in  the  first 
place,  the  formal  history  of  it,  and  in  their  character  and  their 
defects,  they  furnish  to  a  certain  extent  the  measure  of  it. 

Gregory  was  born  at  Clermont  between  the  years  520  and 
530.  His  father,  Florentius,  and  his  mother,  Armentaria,  were 
both  descended  from  those  ancient  Gallo-Roman  families,  the 
members  of  which  had  filled  some  of  those  high  offices  which 
gave  admission  to  th«  Senate  of  Home,  and  who  continued  to 
call  themselves  senatorial,  long  after  both  the  senate  and  the 
senators  had  ceased  to  exist. 

Gregory  had  three  uncles  who  were  bishops.  One  of  these 
three,  by  the  name  of  Gallus,  was  bishop  of  Clermont.  It  was 
under  him  that  Gregory  pursued  his  studies  in  grammar  and  in 
rhetoric.  The  dominant  trait  of  his  character  as  a  man  already 
began  to  manifest  itself  in  his  childhood.  It  was  the  extraordinary 
facility,  with  which  he  believed  in  miracles,  and  the  desire  to  wit- 
ness and  to  perform  them.  Never  did  saint  of  the  primitive  ages 
have  so  many  marvellous  visions  as  he,  and  never  was  any  one  ac- 
quainted with  so  many  men,  who  had  experienced  the  same  thing. 

After  having  been  made  deacon,  he  was  elected  to  the  see  of 
Tours,  about  the  year  566.  This  was  the  most  fortunate  event 
and  the  greatest  honor  that  he  could  possibly  desire,  owing  to 
his  particular  veneration  for  Saint  Martin,  the  first  bishop  of 
that  city.  The  duties  of  his  office  he  always  fulfilled  with  zeal 
and  sometimes  with  courage.  He  died  toward  the  year  594.* 

"We  have  from  the  pen  of  Gregory  of  Tours  several  works 
composed  for  pious  purposes,  such  as  biographies  of  saints  and 
martyrs,  and  collections  of  miracles.  I  have  nothing  to  say  about 
these  works,  except  that  they  occasionally  contain  some  inter- 
esting historical  facts.  I  pass  now  to  the  consideration  of  his 
history.  Of  the  ten  books  of  which  it  is  composed,  I  shall  pass 
over  the  whole  of  the  first,  which  is  nothing  more  than  a  uni- 
versal chronicle  from  the  creation  of  the  world  to  the  death  of 
Saint  Martin  of  Tours,  and  a  compendium  of  several  other 
chronicles.  The  nine  remaining  books  constitute  a  history  of 
Gaul,  from  the  year  395  to  that  of  591.  This  is  an  interval  of 
nearly  two  centuries,  which  comprises,  summarily  or  in  detail, 
the  different  epochs  of  the  dominion  of  the  Romans,  the  con- 
quest of  Clovis,  his  reign,  and  those  of  his  four  sons  and  of  hig 
three  grandsons.  The  motives  which  prompted  him  to  compose 
this  history,  cannot  be  a  matter  of  indifference  to  us.  He 
himself  explains  them  in  his  preface,  and  in  the  following  terms  : 
"  While  the  culture  of  letters  is  diminishing  or  rather  becoming 

*  A  life  of  Gregory  (  Vda  Sancti  Gregorii  Episcopi  Turonensis  per  Odanem  Abbatem) 
from  the  pen  of  a  certain  Abbot  Odo,  is  prefixed  to  his  collected  works  in  Migoe'i 
•"Patrologiae  Cursas  Completus,"  voL  71,  p.  115-129 — Ed. 


88  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

entirely  extinct  in  Gaul ;  while  many  events  are  taking  place, 
some  good  and  others  bad  ;  while  no  restraint  of  any  kind  is 
imposed  on  the  unbridled  ferocity  of  nations  and  on  the  fury 
of  kings  ;  while  the  church  is  assailed  on  the  one  hand  by  the 
heretics,  and  on  the  other  defended  by  the  Catholics,  the  faith 
of  Christ  being  cherished  with  fervor  in  some  places  and 
rebutted  with  indifference  in  others ;  while  churches,  enriched 
by  the  munificence  of  pious  men,  are  despoiled  by  the  perverse — 
there  has  yet  no  person  been  found,  conversant  with  the  sciences 
and  with  grammar,  to  recount  these  things,  either  in  prose  or 
verse.  The  majority  of  men,  moreover,  sigh  and  say :  '  Woe 
be  to  our  age  I  the  study  of  letters  has  been  lost  among  us,  and 
the  people  have  no  longer  a  man  capable  of  recording  the 
events  of  the  times.'  Hearing  complaints  like  these  perpe- 
tually, and  desirous  of  transmitting  to  posterity  the  knowledge 
of  the  past,  I  have  resolved  to  publish,  though  in  an  uncouth 
style,  the  actions  of  the  wicked  and  the  lives  of  the  good ;  being 
especially  encouraged  to  this  enterprise  by  the  reflexion,  that  in 
our  day  there  are  but  few  persons,  who  can  comprehend  a  phi- 
losophic rhetorician,  while  there  are  many  that  can  comprehend 
an  ordinary  discourser."*  All  this  is  summed  up  in  the  first 
sentence  01  his  first  book.  "  I  propose,"  says  he,  "  to  recount 
the  wars  of  the  kings  with  foreign  nations,  of  the  martyrs  with 
the  pagans,  of  the  church  with  the  heretics."f 

The  scientific  point  of  view,  in  which  he  has  conceived  his 
history,  is,  as  we  perceive,  sufficiently  elevated  and  sufficiently 
comprehensive.  It  is  not  from  a  mere  motive  of  piety,  that  he 
proposes  to  delineate  the  struggle  of  the  church  against  the 
pagans  and  the  heretics ;  it  is  from  a  historical  motive ;  it  is 
because  this  struggle  is  one  of  great  significance  in  the  events 
which  he  wishes  to  narrate.  But  his  feebleness  of  judgment 

*  "Decedente,  atque  immo  potius  pereunte  ab  urbibus  Gallicanis  liberalium  culture 
litterarum,  cum  nonnullse  res  gererentur  vel  recte  vel  improbe,  ac  feritas  gentium 
desseviret,  regum  furor  acueretur,  ecclesiae  impugnarentur  ab  haereticis,  a  catholicis 
tegerenter,  ferveret  Christi  fides  in  plurimis,  refrigeresceret  in  nonnullis,  ipsse  quoque 
ecclesiae  vel  ditarentur  a  devotis,  vel  nudarentur  a  perfidis  :  nee  reperiri  posset  quisquam 
peritus  in  arte  dialectica  grammaticus,  qui  hsec  aut  stylo  prosaico,  aut  metrico  depin- 
geret  versu.  Ingemiscebant  saepius  plerique,  dicentes  :  vae  diebus  nostris,  quia  periit 
studium  litterarum  a  nobis,  nee  reneritur  in  populis,  qui  gesta  praesentia  promulgare 
possit  in  paginis.  Ista  enim  atque  his  siinilia  jugiter  intuens  dici,  pro  commemoratione 
prseteritorum,  ut  notitiam  attingerent  venientium,  etsi  inculto  affatu,  nequivi  tamen  ob- 
tegere  vel  certamina  flagitiosorum,  vel  vitam  recte  viventium.  Et  praesertim  his  illici- 
tus  stimulis,  quod  a  nostris  fari  plerumque  miratus  sum,  quia  philosophantem  rhetorem 
intelligunt  pauci,  loquentem  rusticum  multi ;  libuit  etiam  animo,  ut  pro  supputatione 
annorum  ab  ipso  mundi iprincipio  libri  primi  poneretur  initium :  cujus  capitula deorsum 
subjeci."  Praefatio — Ed. 

t  "  Scripturus  sura  bella  regura  cum  gentibua  adversis,  martyrum  cum  paganis, 
ecclesiarum  cum  haereticis,"  and  to  convince  the  reader  that  this  was  to  be  done  by  a 
true  Catholic,  he  adds  in  the  same  sentence  :  "Prius  fidem  meam  proferre  cupio,  ut 
qui  legeret,  me  non  dubitet  esse  Catholicum."  A  full  confession  of  his  faith  follows  a 
few  sentences  after.  S.  Gregorii  Episc.  Turon.  Historiae  Eoclesiasticae  Francorum  libri 
decem.  Ed.  Guigue,  Paris,  1849.—- Ed. 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.          89 

does  not  permit  him  to  establish  the  necessary  proportion  and 
harmony  among  the  different  elements  of  his  subject.  We  can- 
not find  in  any  book  of  history  so  many  instances  of  infantile 
credulity  as  there  are  contained  in  his,  or  so  much  faith  and 
piety  so  gratuitously  and  so  ineptly  applied  to  the  appreciation 
of  human  events.  This  is  a  great  and  an  annoying  blemish, 
which,  however,  does  not  in  the  least  affect  the  historical  sub- 
stance of  his  work,  and  which  I  here  admit,  at  the  very  outset, 
and  once  for  all,  so  as  not  to  be  obliged  to  return  to  it. 

Gregory  of  Tours  did  not  possess  materials  of  the  same 
nature,  or  equally  authentic  sources  of  information  for  the  dif- 
ferent parts  of  his  work.  Hence  all  these  parts  contain  dis- 
crepancies which,  rigorously  considered,  are  very  striking,  and 
worth  our  notice ;  but  the  critical  examination  of  these  dis- 
crepancies would  carry  me  too  far  from  my  subject,  and  I  shall 
not  engage  in  it ;  I  shall  confine  myself  to  a  single  observation, 
the  consequence  of  which  will  find  its  proper  place  a  little 
later. 

About  the  year  573,  which  was  the  epoch  at  which  Gregory 
commenced  the  composition  of  his  history,  an  interval  of  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty  or  a  hundred  and  thirty  years  had  already 
elapsed,  since  the  majority  of  the  Frankish  tribes  had  first  esta- 
blished themselves  on  the  soil  of  Gaul.  These  tribes  had  un- 
doubtedly brought  along  with  them  to  their  new  home  the 
traditions,  the  legends  and  the  poetry,  which  constituted  their 
particular  history,  or  that  of  the  Germans  in  general.  It  seems 
that  the  Gallo-Romans,  after  having  once  become  reconciled  to 
the  idea  of  living  with  the  race  of  their  conquerors,  must,  in 
their  intercourse  with  the  latter,  have  necessarily  learnt  from 
their  mouth  something  of  what  they  knew  respecting  their 
origin,  their  antiquities,  their  successive  migrations  and  adven- 
tures, and  we  shall  in  the  sequel  find  plausible  reasons  to  be- 
lieve, that  it  was  really  so. 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  Gregory  of  Tours,  having  occasion 
to  speak,  from  the  very  commencement  of  his  history,  of  the 
origin  and  the  antiquities  of  the  Franks,  makes  no  use  what- 
ever of  their  national  traditions.  "Was  he  not  acquainted  with 
them?  Did  he  put  no  faith  in  them?  These  are  questions 
which  I  am  unable  to  decide.  I  merely  observe,  that  not  a 
vestige  of  them  appears  in  the  part  of  his  history,  in  which  he 
would  have  naturally  been  expected  to  say  what  he  knew  or 
thought  of  them.  All  that  he  relates  respecting  the  Franks, 
previously  to  their  arrival  in  Gaul,  he  had  derived  from  Latin 
authors  but  little  older  than  himself,  and  who  appear  to  have 
been  equally  ignorant  or  suspicious  of  the  Germanic  traditions 
in  question.  The  only  point  on  which  I  would  gladly  suspect, 


90  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

that  Gregory  had  followed  these  aboriginal  accounts,  is  that 
which  relates  to  the  history  of  Childeric,  the  brother  of  Clovis, 
and  to  his  adventure  with  Basine,  the  wife  of  the  chief  of  the 
Thuringians.  I  shall  perhaps  say  a  word  on  this  adventure 
elsewhere.  For  the  present  I  propose  to  make  a  few  observa- 
tions on  the  work  of  Gregory  of  Tours,  regarded  as  a  whole,  and 
I  shall  endeavor  to  form  a  summary  estimate  of  its  character 
and  of  the  degree  of  importance  to  which  it  is  entitled. 

The  historians  of  classical  antiquity,  the  Greeks  as  well  as 
the  Homans,  have  left  us  an  infinity  of  details  and  characteris- 
tic traits  respecting  the  long  struggle  of  six  centuries,  in  conse- 
quence of  which  the  Barbarians  from  beyond  the  Danube  and 
the  Rhine  established  themselves  as  conquerors  in  the  pro- 
vinces of  the  Western  Empire.  At  a  later  period,  in  the  ninth 
and  tenth  centuries  of  the  Middle  Age,  we  shall  see  the  descen- 
dants of  these  victorious  nations,  which  had  already  coalesced, 
or  wrere  ready  to  coalesce,  with  the  masses  of  the  conquered, 
enter  together  with  the  latter  upon  a  new  order  of  society,  of 
civilization  and  of  ideas. 

But  between  these  two  periods  there  is  an  interval  of  four 
entire  centuries,  and  the  most  positive  and  the  most  interesting 
information,  which  we  possess  in  regard  to  that  interval,  we  owe 
entirely  to  Gregory  of  Tours.  It  is  he  and  he  alone,  that  has 
delineated  for  us  consecutively  and  in  detail  those  Germanic 
conquerors,  arid  especially  the  Franks,  in  the  full  enjoyment  of 
the  power,  the  benefit  and  the  honors  of  the  conquest ;  govern- 
ing the  vanquished,  as  they  knew  how  or  as  they  pleased,  but 
also  governed  in  their  turn  by  relations  of  a  new  description. 
The  character  of  the  Barbarians,  which  we  have  thus  far  only 
seen  in  war  and  in  violent  and  evanescent  situations,  unfolds 
itself  here  in  all  its  freedom  and  totality,  and  history  can  show 
nothing,  which,  in  our  estimation,  could  take  the  place  of  its 
delineation. 

Though  arranged  loosely  and  without  any  real  plan,  the 
various  events  recounted  by  Gregory  of  Tours  may  easily  and 
distinctly  be  reduced  to  a  single  leading  fact.  "Whether  eccle- 
siastics or  laymen,  the  Gallo-Romans,  whom  their  position  or 
their  intelligence  gave  a  certain  influence,  endeavored  to  direct 
the  Frankish  conquest  to  the  common  interest  of  both  the  van- 
quished and  vanquishers.  But  to  the  barbarous  chiefs  of  these 
conquerors  the  power  of  government  was  nothing  more  than 
a  purely  personal  force,  a  means  for  satisfying  their  unbridled 
passions,  their  insatiable  cupidity  and  their  brutal  eagerness  for 
the  mere  material  enjoyments  of  life.  They  consequently  made 
mutual  war  upon  themselves  ;  they  murdered  and  they  plun- 
dered each  other.  On  the  other  hand,  their  vassals,  who  were 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.          91 

their  officers  and  agents,  being  very  naturally  the  enemies  of  a 
power  which  was  so  contrary  to  all  the  ideas,  to  all  the  habits 
of  the  Germanic  race,  conspired  among  themselves,  resisted 
their  masters,  and  incessantly  aspired  to  appropriate  entirely 
and  fully  the  revocable  part  they  had  received  of  the  honors 
and  advantages  of  the  conquest.  Several  of  them  made  com- 
mon cause  with  the  vanquished  population,  which,  under  their 
command,  revolted  at  every  instant  against  the  Merovingian 
monarchs,  and  ended  in  withdrawing  entirely  from  their  domi- 
nion. 

Gregory  has  failed  to  impart  the  same  degree  of  perspicuity 
and  prominence  to  all  the  phases  of  this  fact.  It  contains 
points  which  he  was  unable  or  did  not  wish  to  develop ;  but 
even  on  these  he  has  said  more  than  is  necessary  to  leave  no 
sort  of  uncertainty  in  regard  to  the  ensemble  and  the  general- 
ity of  the  fact. 

Now,  in  order  to  give  a  general  idea  of  whatever  there  is 
original  or  interesting  or  profound  in  the  isolated  details  of  this 
general  fact,  I  shall  produce  some  of  them,  dwelling,  by  way 
of  preference,  on  those  which  give  us  the  best  portraiture  of 
the  genius  of  these  Barbarians,  as  far  at  least  as  this  genius  can 
be  represented  by  that  of  the  Franks.  They  will  be  the  preli- 
minaries to  our  future  discussions. 

The  following  is,  for  example,  a  characteristic  trait  of  the 
disposition  of  Thierry,  the  eldest  son  of  Clovis  and  king  of 
Austrasia,  toward  his  brother  Clotaire,  the  King  of  Soissons, 
and  conseo.uently  his  royal  neighbor. 

In  528,  Thierry  and  Clotaire,  who  had  as  yet  never  had  any 
quarrel  with  each  other  (a  circumstance  which  it  is  important 
to  notice  here),  engaged  in  a  common,  campaign  against  Her- 
manfried,  the  king  of  the  Thuringians,  who  had  committed 
great  cruelties  toward  the  Franks  beyond  the  Rhine.  The  ex- 
pedition was  one  of  the  happiest  that  had  ever  been  under- 
taken. The  Thuringians,  after  a  most  sanguinary  defeat,  were 
obliged  to  submit  to  the  authority  of  the  Franks.  Thierry, 
now  victorious,  and  no  longer  in  need  of  the  assistance  of  his 
brother,  conceived  the  idea  of  killing  him.  Clotaire,  having 
become  aware  of  his  danger,  escaped  from  it,  and  the  two  bro- 
thers remained  as  good  friends  as  they  had  been  before.  We 
will  now  see,  in  what  terms  Gregory  recounts  the  adventure. 

"  Thierry,  wishing  to  kill  his  brother,  invited  him  to  meet 
him  at  his  residence,  as  if  for  the  purpose  of  treating  with  him 
in  secret  on  some  matter  of  importance.*  He  had  ordered  a 

*  "  Theudericus  Clothachariumfratremsuumoccidere  voluit.  Et  praoparatis  occulte  cum 
armia  viris,  eum  ad  se  vocat,  quasi  secretius  cum  eo  aliquid  tractaturus,  expansoque  in 
parte  domus  illius  tentorio,  de  uno  pariete  in  alterum,  armatos  post  eum  stare  jubet. 


92  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

piece  of  tapestry  to  be  suspended  from  one  side  of  the  ro  om  to 
the  other,  behind  which  he  had  secreted  armed  warriors.  But 
the  tapestry  was  found  to  be  too  short,  in  consequence  of  which 
the  feet  of  these  men  could  be  discovered.  Clotaire  per- 
ceived them,  and  ordered  another  body  of  armed  men  to  attend 
him.  Thierry,  seeing  that  his  brother  had  penetrated  his  de- 
sign, invented  some  storv,  and  began  to  converse  on  whatever 
happened  to  come  into  nis  head.  But  wishing  afterward  to 
obtain  the  pardon  of  his  brother,  on  account  of  his  evil  inten- 
tion, he  made  him  a  present  of  a  large  silver  basin.  Clotaire, 
being  satisfied,  thanked  him  and  returned  to  his  camp,  and 
Thierry  remained  to  lament  with  his  friends  over  the  silver 
basin,  which  he  had  lost  without  any  advantage  to  himself, 
At  last,  addressing  himself  to  his  son  Theodobert,  he  said :  '  Go 
to  your  uncle  and  beg  him  to  make  you  a  present  of  the  basin 
which  I  have  just  now  given  him.'  Theodobert  went  and  got 
the  basin.  Thierry  was  very  ingenious  in  the  invention  of  tricks 
like  these." 

The  trait  is  an  admirable  one,  and  perhaps  requires  a  little 
reflection  to  discover  the  whole  extent  of  its  significance !  A 
trait  like  this  gives  us  a  sort  of  presentiment  of  all  the  wars, 
which  subsequently  divided  the  descendants  of  Clovis.  It 
enables  us  to  comprehend  the  entire  value,  which  a  Frankish 
king  could  attach  to  a  piece  of  gold  or  silver. 

Much  has  been  said  about  the  manner,  in  which  the  Franks 
understood  and  practised  Christianity.  They  have  been  found 
more  ferocious  after  their  conversion  than  before  it.  They  were 
neither  more  nor  less  so.  They  had  changed  their  religion  very 
readily ;  but  it  was  impossible  for  them  not  to  retain,  for  some 
time  to  come,  both  in  the  practice  and  in  the  faith  of  the  new 
creed,  the  spirit  and  the  habits  of  the  old.  One  of  the  facts, 
which  establishes  most  conclusively  what  I  wish  to  convey,  is  a 
feature  in  the  conduct  of  Clotilda,  the  widow  of  Clovis.  Clo- 
tilda was  regarded  as  a  saint  by  the  most  pious  bishops  of  her 
time  and  by  Gregory  himself,  and  yet  she  had  continued  to 
cherish  Germanic  customs  and  sentiments,  which  were  entirely 
incompatible  with  those  of  Christianity.  Seeing  her  three  sons 
upon  the  throne,  she  said  to  them  one  day :  "  My  dearly  be- 
loved sons,  do  not  make  me  repent  of  having  educated  you  with 

Cumque  tentorium  illud  esset  brevius,  pedes  armatornm  apparuere  detecti.  Quod 
cognoscens  Chlothacharius,  cum  suis  armatus  ingressus  est  domum.  Theudericus  vero 
intelligens  hunc  haec  cognovisse,  fabulam  fingit,  et  alia  ex  aliis  loquitur.  Denique 
nesciens  qualiter  dolum  suum  deliniret,  discum  ei  magnum  argenteum  pro  gratia  dedit. 
Chlothacharius  vero  valedicens,  et  pro  munere  gratias  agens  ad  metatum  regressus  est. 
Theudericus  vero  queritur  ad  suos,  nulla  exstanti  causa  suum  perdidisse  catinum :  et  ad 
filium  suum  Theudebertum  ait :  Vade  ad  patruum  tuum,  et  roga,  ut  munus,  quod  ei  dedi, 
tibi^sua  voluntate  concedat.  Qui  abiens,  quod  petiit  impetravit.  In  talibus  eniru  dolis 
Theudericus  multum  callidua  erat."  Lib.  lii.  cap.  vii.— Ed. 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.          93 

tenderness.  Kesent,  I  do  beseech  you,  the  injury  I  have  sus- 
tained, and  hasten  to  avenge  courageously  the  death  of  my 
father  and  my  -mother."*  The  thing  was  done,  as  she  had  said 
and  as  she  desired. 

It  was  true,  that  her  father  and  her  mother  had  been  cruelly 
put  to  death  by  her  uncle,  Gondebaud,  the  king  of  the  Burgun- 
dians.  But  more  than  fifty  years  had  elapsed  since  the  crime 
had  been  committed,  and  the  author  of  it  was  already  dead.  It 
was  his  son,  then  reigning,  and  who  had  never  done  Clotilda 
any  harm,  that  was  to  be  exterminated  at  her  request. 

There  were  indeed  moments,  usually  moments  of  adversity 
or  of  terror,  in  which  the  Franks  seriously  endeavored  to  be 
sincere  Christians.  But  even  on  such  occasions,  there  was  still 
something  egotistical  and  barbarous  in  their  sentiments.  When 
smitten  with  the  malady  of  which  he  died,  Clotaire  I.  devoutly 
exclaimed :  "  Oh !  what  must  be  this  king  of  Heaven,  who 
makes  great  monarchs  die  so  wretchedly  ?" 

Gregory  frequently  makes  his  Barbarians  speak,  and  almost 
always  with  an  energy  so  abrupt,  so  frank  and  so  poetical,  that 
we  cannot  suppose  him  to  be  the  author  of  these  discourses, 
destitute  as  his  writings  generally  are  of  all  imagination  and 
of  coloring.  I  cannot  resist  the  pleasure  of  giving  an  ex- 
ample. 

In  the  year  577,  Gontran,  the  king  of  the  Burgundians,  con- 
cluded a  treaty  of  alliance  with  his  nephew  Childebert,  with 
whom  he  had  thus  far  been  at  variance.  Having  therefore 
assembled  his  leudes,  that  is  to  say  his  vassals,  he  embraced  his 
nephew  in  the  presence  of  them,  and  said  :  "  By  way  of  punish- 
ment for  my  sins,  I  have  been  left  without  issue ;  it  is  on  this 
account  that  I  desire  to  adopt  this  nephew  as  my  son."f  Hav- 
ing thereupon  directed  Childebert  to  take  his  seat,  he  trans- 
ferred his  kingdom  to  him  by  saying:  "Let  henceforth  the 
same  buckler  protect,  and  the  same  lance  defend  us.  And  if 
ever  I  should  have  any  sons,  you  shall,  in  that  event  even, 
always  be  to  me  as  one  of  them,  and  the  tenderness  which  I 
now  pledge  to  you  shall  never  fail  you." 

Some  time  after  this,  Gontran  delivered  a  discourse  of  a  dif- 
ferent kind,  and  which  is  so  much  the  more  curious,  as  it  gives 
us  in  a  few  words  the  most  vivid  idea  of  the  constantly  increas- 

*  "  Chlotechildis  veto  regina  Chlodomerem,  vel  reliquos  filios  suos  alloquitur  dicens : 
non  me  poenitaat,  charissimi,  vos  dulciter  enutrisse  :  indignamini,  quaeso,  injuriam 
m3amet  patris  matrisque  mese  mortem  sagaci  studio  vindicate."  Lib.  iii.  cap.  vi. — Ed. 

t  8.  Gregorii  Hist.  Franc,  lib.  v.  c.  xviii.  :  "Evenit  impulsu  peccatorum  me  o  rum,  ut 
absque  liberis  remanerem :  etideo  peto,  ut  hie  nepos  meusmihi  sit  filius.  Et  imponena 
eum  super  cathedram  suam,  cunctum  ei  regnum  tradidit,  dicens :  Una  nos  parma 
protegat,  unaque  hasta  defendat.  Quod  si  tilios  habuero,  te  nihilominus— tanquam 
unum  ex  his  reputabo,  ut  ilia  cum  eis,  tecumque  permaneat  charitas,  quam  tibi  hodie 
ego  polliceor,  teste  Deo."— Ed. 


94r  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

ing  jealousy  and  hatred,  which  at  that  time  prevailed  between 
the  Merovingian  chiefs  and  their  vassals.  Gontran  pronounced 
the  discourse  in  question  before  the  leudes  of  Neustria,  who  in 
584  were  assembled  in  a  church  on  the  occasion  of  his  assuming 
the  guardianship  of  Clotaire  II.,  who  was  then  four  months  of 
age.  This  ceremony  took  place  soon  after  the  assassination  of 
Chilperic.  "I  conjure  you,"  said  he  to  them,  "  I  conjure  you, 
ye  men  and  women  who  are  present  here,  to  be  faithful  in  the 
observance  of  your  fealty  toward  me,  and  not  to  destroy  me  as 
you  have  recently  destroyed  my  brothers.  Permit  me  to  live 
but  three  years  longer,  that  I  may  finish  the  education  of  these 
my  nephews,  who  by  adoption  have  become  my  sons.  Beware 
of  a  calamity  which  God  may  graciously  avert !  Beware,  I  say, 
lest  if  I  perish  with  these  children,  you  likewise  perish  your- 
selves, when  no  one  shall  be  left  to  reign  of  our  race  that  has 
the  power  to  defend  it."* 

One  might  search  in  vain  in  Gregory  of  Tours  for  the  least 
sentiment  of  Roman  or  Gallic  patriotism,  the  least  regret  be- 
stowed upon  the  vanished  glory  or  the  power  of  Rome.  The 
establishment  of  the  Franks  in  Gaul  is  to  him  a  consummated 
fact,  for  which  he  has  neither  murmurs  nor  reflections.  It  is  to 
this  want  of  moral  and  political  preoccupation,  to  this  ab- 
sence of  all  national  pride,  that  we  must  in  a  great  measure 
attribute  the  truthfulness  and  the  simplicity,  the  earnestness 
and  the  calmness,  with  which  he  portrays  the  manners  and  the 
acts  of  the  Barbarians.  But  to  this  we  must  also  attribute  the 
little  interest  and  care  he  takes  in  characterizing  the  opposition, 
which  the  successors  of  Clovis  encountered  at  an  early  day  in 
Gaul,  especially  in  the  South,  and  which  ended  in  the  dismem- 
berment of  the  latter. 

The  sentiment,  in  accordance  with  which  Gregorv  of  Tours 
habitually  judges  of  the  events  which  he  records,  is  his  religious 
sentiment,  or,  as  we  might  more  fitly  term  it,  his  creed.  But 
his  creed  is  a  gloomy  and  a  narrow  one,  incapable  of  elevating 
itself  to  the  lofty  standard  of  Christian  morality. 

So  long  as  the  Franks  gained  battles  and  made  conquests 
over  the  pagans  or  the  heretics,  their  pious  historian  is  quite  at 
his  ease.  He  triumphs  with  them.  He  explains  their  success 
by  the  orthodoxy  of  their  faith,  and  even  then,  when  this  success 
is  tainted  with  immorality  and  barbarity.  Clovis  assassinates 
all  his  nearest  relations  one  after  the  other,  and  one  through  the 

*  "  Adjuro  vos,  o  viri  cum  mulieribus  qui  adestis,  ut  mihi  fidem  inviolatam  seryare 
dignemini,  nee  me,  ut  fratres  meos  nuper  fecistis,  interimatis ;  liceatque  mihi  vel  tribus 
annis  nepotes  meos,  qui  mibi  adoptivi  facti  sunt  filii,  enutrire :  ne  forte  contingat,  quod 
divinitas  seterna  non  patiatur,  ut  cum  illis  parvulis,  me  defuncto,  simul  pereatis ;  cum  do 
genere  nostro  robustus  zion  fuerit  qui  defenset."  8.  Greg.  Hist.  Franc,  lib.  vii.  c. 
viiL— Ed* 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.          95 

other,  and  takes  possession  of  their  little  kingdoms.  He  thus 
unites  the  scattered  tribes  of  the  Franks,  and  incorporates  them 
into  one  great  nation,  destined  to  act  a  distinguished  part  in  the 
world.  The  historian  might  say  that  this  was  marching  directly 
and  firmly  in  the  ways  of  policy  and  conquest ;  Gregory  calls 
it  marching  in  the  ways  of  God. 

But  the  moment  arrives,  and  very  speedily,  when  these  pre- 
tenders to  orthodoxy,  carried  away  by  their  brutal  passions, 
become  divided  among  themselves ;  they  tear  each  other  to 
pieces,  and  suffer  themselves  to  be  beaten  by  the  pagans  and 
the  heretics.  Then  the  good  bishop  is  sorely  afflicted  and 
incensed.  He  invokes  against  the  Barbarians  all  that  is  social 
and  humane  in  Christianity.  "  I  am  disgusted,"  says  he,  at  the 
beginning  of  his  fifth  book,  "  to  recount  the  disorders,  into 
which  the  nation  and  the  monarchy  of  the  Franks  has  plunged 
itself.*  We  have  arrived  at  the  woeful  time  predicted  by  our 
Lord:  the  father  rises  against  the  son,  the  son  against  the 
father,  the  brother  against  the  brother,  the  neighbor  against  the 
neighbor.  Might  tfiey  not  learn  then  from  the  reign  of  the 
ancient  kings,  that  a  kingdom  divided  against  itself  must  fall 
into  the  hands  of  its  enemies  ?" 

"  What  would  you  have  ?  What  are  you  looking  for  ?"  he 
adds,  directly  apostrophizing  the  successors  of  Clovis,  "and 
what  are  you  in  want  of?  f  Have  you  not  an  abundance  of 
wine,  of  oil  and  of  wheat  in  your  cellars  ?  Do  not  your  trea- 
suries contain  lumps  of  gold  and  silver  ?  Beware  of  discord ! 
If  you  lose  your  army,  you  will  remain  without  support,  and 
you  will  fall  beneath  the  blows  of  hostile  nations." 

Sometimes  the  moral  sensibility  of  Gregory  of  Tours  and  his 
independence  as  a  historian  awake  as  of  themselves,  quite  un- 
expectedly and  with  so  much  the  more  effect.  This  happens  to 
him  at  the  moment,  when  he  comes  to  relate  the  death  of  Chil- 
peric.  This  passage,  remarkable  in  several  respects,  is  one  of 
those  in  which  the  semi-barbarous  historian  of  the  Franks  seems 
all  of  a  sudden  to  go  back  several  centuries,  and  to  approximate 
the  times  of  classical  latinity.  I  subjoin  here  a  translation  of  it, 
which  is  as  faithful  as  I  could  make  it. 

*  "  Taedet  me  bellorum  civilium  diversitates,  quse  Francorum  gentem  et  regnum 
valdc  proterunt,  memorare :  in  quo,  quod  pejus  est,  tempus  illud,  quod  Dominus  de 
dolorum  praedixit  initio  jam  videmus.  Consurgit  pater  infilium,  filius  inpatrem,  f  rater 
in/ra/rem,  proximus  inproximum  (Matth.  x.  21).  Debebant  enim  nos  exempla  anteri- 
orumregum  terrere,  qui  ut  divisi,  statim  ab  inimicis  suntinterempti."  Lib.  v.  Prologus. 
Ed. 

t  "  Quid  agitis  ?  quid  quseritis  ?  quidnonabundatis?  In  domibus  delicise  supercrescunt ; 
in  promptuariis  vinura,  triticum,  oleumque  redundat ;  in  thesauris  aurum  atque  argen- 
turn  coacervatur.  Unum  vobis  deest,  quod  pacem  npnhabentes.  Dei  gratia  indigetis." 

"  Cavete  discordiam,  cavete  bella  civilia,  quae  vos  populumque  vestrum 

expugnant.  Quid  aliud  sperandum  erit,  nisi  cum  exercitus  vester  ceciderit,  vos  sine 
solatio  relic ti,  atque  a  gentibus  adversis  oppressi,  protinus  corruatis?"  Lib.  v.  Prologus. 


96  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

"  Meanwhile  Chilperic,*  the  ISTero  and  the  Herod  of  our  time, 
had  gone  to  engage  in  the  amusements  of  the  chase  on  his  country 
seat  at  Chelles,  about  ten  stadia  from  Paris.  One  evening,  after 
having  returned  from  his  sport  at  night-fall,  as  he  was  descend- 
ing from  his  horse,  with  his  hand  supported  bv  the  shoulder  of 
a  slave,  some  one  coming  up  to  him  struck  him  twice  with  a 
knife,  the  first  time  into  his  arm-pit  and  the  second  time  into 
his  belly ;  and  the  king  forthwith  gave  up  his  wicked  soul, 
together  with  the  blood  that  issued  from  his  mouth  and  from 
his  wound.  The  mischief  he  had  done  is  recorded  in  the  preced- 
ing pages.  He  devastated  and  burnt  several  countries,  without 
experiencing  any  regret  for  it,  and  even  with  joy,  as  Nero  did 
in  former  times,  who  sung  his  tragedies  in  the  light  of  blazing 
palaces  which  he  himself  nad  kindled.  It  frequently  happened 
that  he  condemned  the  innocent,  in  order  to  take  away  their 

S'operty,  and  few  clerks  in  his  reign  attained  to  the  episcopate, 
e  was  extremely  addicted  to  gluttony,  and  had  made  a  god  of 
his  belly. 

"He  was  fond  of  setting  up  for  the  most  learned  of  men. 
"We  have  by  him  two  books  of  hymns,  composed  in  the  style  of 
those  of  Scdulius.  But  the  measure  of  his  verses  is  very  bad ; 
for  he  employed,  out  of  sheer  ignorance,  short  syllables  instead 
of  long  ones,  and  long^  ones  instead  of  short  ones. 

"  He  had  a  horror  for  the  interests  of  the  poor,  and  he  never 
ceased  to  abuse  the  priests  of  God.  In  the  privacy  of  his 
familiar  intercourse,  there  were  none  whom  he  scandalized  and 
ridiculed  so  readily  as  the  bishops.  The  one  he  found  frivolous, 
the  other  a  swaggerer ;  this  one  was  a  slave  to  his  comforts,  that 
one  a  debauchee.  Such  a  one  appeared  to  him  vain,  another  a 
pedant.  He  detested  the  church  above  all  things,  and  he  often 
said :  '  Look  at  our  exhausted  fiscus !  Look  at  our  wealth  trans- 
ferred to  the  churches !  The  office  of  royalty  is  now  vested  in 
the  episcopate ;  every  bishop  is  a  king  in  his  episcopal  city.' 

*  Hist.  Franc,  lib.  vi.  c.  xlvi.  "  His  itaque  cum  hac  prreda  pergentibus,  Chilperi- 
cns,  Nero  nostri  temporis  et  Herodes,  ad  Villam  Calensem,  quae  distat  ab  urbe  rari- 
siaca  quasi  centum  stadiis,  accedit,  ibique  venationes  exercet.  Quadem  vero  die 
regressus  de  venatione,  jam  sub  obscura  nocte,  dum  de  equo  susciperetur,  et  unam 
manum  super  scapulam  pueri  retineret,  adveniens  quidam  eum  cultro  percutit  sub 
ascellam,  iteratoque  ictu  ventrem  ejus  perforat ;  statimque  profluente  copia  sanguinia 
tarn  per  os  quam  per  aditum  vulneris  iniquum  fudit  spiritum.  Quam  vero  malitiam  ges- 
serit,  superior  lectio  docet.  Nam  regiones  plurimas  saepius  devastavit  atque  succendit, 
de  quibus  nihil  doloris,  sed  tetitiam  magis  habebat,  sicut  quondam  Nero,  cum  inter 

incendia  palatii  tragsedias  decantaret. Causas  pauperum  exosaa 

habebat,  sacerdotes  Domini  assidue  blasphemabat ;  nee  aliunde  magis,  dum  secretua 
esset,  exercebat  ridicula  vel  jocos  quam  de  ecclesiarum  episcopis.  Ilium  ferebat  levem, 
alium  superbum ;  ilium  abuudantem,  istum  luxuriosum ;  ilium  asserebat  elatum,  huno 
tumidum ;  nullum  plus  odio  habens  quam  ecclesias.  Aiebat  enim  plerumque :  Ecce 
pauper  remansit  fiscus  noster,  ecce  divitise  nostrae  ad  ecclesias  sunt  translates.  Nulli 
penitus,  nisi  soli  episcopi,  regnant ;  periit  honor  noster,  et  translates  est  ad  episcopos 

civitatum. Nullum  unquam  pure  dilexit,  a  nullo  dilectua  est ;  ideoque 

cum  spiritum  exhalassat,  omnes  eum  reliquerunt  sui,"  etc.,  etc.— Ed. 


The  Sotith  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.          97 

Under  pretexts  like  these  he  often  broke  the  wills  that  had  been 
made  in  favor  of  the  churches,  and  trampled  under  foot  the 
wishes  of  his  father  even,  doubtless  imagining  that  the  day 
would  come  when  his  own  would  likewise  be  respected  by 
no  one. 

**  With  respect  to  his  ex-cesses,  the  imagination  can  conceive 
of  nothing  which  he  did  not  practise.  He  was  always  on  the 
alert  for  new  means  wherewith  to  vex  the  people ;  and  if  he 
found  any  one  recalcitrant,  he  had  his  eyes  put  out.  The  man- 
dates which  he  addressed  to  the  judges  concluded  with  the  fol- 
lowing formula-:  '  And  whoever  shall  disregard  our  orders^  shall 
have  their  eyes  put  out.'  He  never  had  an  honorable  affection 
for  any  one  and  was  loved  by  none.  So  from  the  instant  he  had 
given  up  the  ghost,  be  was  abandoned  by  all  his  followers. 
Malulfe,  the  bishop  of  Senlis>  who  had  been  waiting  there  for 
three  days  without  being  able  to  speak  to  him,  came  to  the  spot 
as  soon  as  he  had  heard  the  rumor  of  the  assassination,  He 
washed  the  corpse,  enveloped  it  in  more  appropriate  apparel  and 
had  it  buried  in  the  church  of  St.  Yincent  at  Paris." 

The  portrait  of  Chilperic  II.,  as  delineated  here  by  Gregory, 
exhibits  certain  traits  to  which  it  is  necessary  for  me  to  return, 
and  I  shall  devote  a  moment  to  their  exposition ;  according  to 
this  account,  one  of  the  manias  of  Chilperic,  and  indeed  the 
most  conspicuous  of  all,  was  that  of  appearing  preeminently 
wise  and  learned.  And  his  pretension  was  founded  on  some 
claims.  He  had  composed  two  books  of  ecclesiastical  hymns, 
the  verses  of  which,  to  be  sure,  were  in  the  opinion  of  Gregory 
of  Tours,  a  little  weak  in  their  feet  and  too  much  addicted  to  the 
vice  of  hobbling  ;  he  had  moreover  written  a  treatise  on  one  of 
the  sublimest  dogmas  of  the  Catholic  creed,  on  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity,  which  he  comprehended  and  was  anxious  to  explain 
after  a  fashion  of  his  own ;  that  is  to  say,  in  a  manner  which  was 
not  very  orthodox.  He  did  not  stop  here.  He  had  still  more 
strangely  conceived  the  fancy  of  reforming  the  Latin  alphabet, 
which  he  considered  defective,  by  adding  to  it  four  new  char- 
acters borrowed  from  the  Greek.  He  gave  orders,  that  this 
reform  should  be  introduced  into  all  the  schools,  and  if  we  may 
believe  his  historian,  he  directed  all  the  Latin  books  written 
according  to  the  ordinary  orthography  to  be  obliterated,  for  the 
purpose  of  transcribing  them  anew. 

In  all  this,  there  are  appearances  of  Roman  erudition  and  of 
culture  which  are  obvious  enough  ;  these  appearances  are  still 
more  conspicuous  in  other  acts  of  Chilperic,  which  have  refer- 
ence to  the  events  of  the  year  577.  The  spectacles  of  the  amphi- 
theatre, the  amusements  of  the  circus  were  certainly  at  that 
time  very  rarely  given,  if  indeed  they  had  not  entirely  vanished 


98  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

from  Gaul,  except,  perhaps,  from  the  larger  cities  of  the  South. 
Chilperic  made  the  attempt  to  reestablish  them.  He  had  cir- 
cuses built  or  repaired  (Gregory  of  Tours  says  expressly  that  he 
had  them  built)  at  Soissons  and  at  Paris,  in  which  he  gave  spec- 
tacles to  the  public. 

To  these  traits  in  the  conduct  of  Chilperic  we  must  add  tho 
indications  of  his  mode  of  government  and  of  his  civil  admi- 
nistration, all  of  which  go  to  prove  that  in  these  respects  he  like- 
wise intended  to  conform  to  the  precedent  of  the  Romans. 

All  these  Roman  manners  were  by  no  means  a  particular 
feature,  an  individuality  of  the  character  of  Chilperic  ;  they 
were  a  common,  more  or  less  diversified  and  salient,  but  con- 
stant trait  in  the  character  of  all  the  Merovingian  chiefs  of  the 
Frankish  tribes,  who  did  not  escape  the  influences  of  Roman 
civilization,  any  more  than  those  of  the  Yisigoths  and  the  Bur- 
eundians  had  done.  The  effect  of  these  influences  was  only 
different  on  the  former  from  what  it  was  on  the  latter,  and  was 
productive  of  results  more  varied,  more  complicated  and  more 
serious. 

Transplanted  into  the  heart  of  Gaul,  into  a  situation  which 
was  entirely  new  to  them,  the  descendants  of  Meroveus  were 
there  assailed  by  a  host  of  new  ideas  and  new  tentatives.  Ex- 
cessively greedy  of  power  and  of  fame,  of  treasures  and  of 
material  enjoyments,  they  entered  into  the  pursuit  of  all  this 
with  all  the  energy  of  their  character,  and  they  looked  for  it  as 
much  as  possible  in  the  institutions,  in  the  inventions  and  even 
in  the  excesses  of  the  Roman  civilization. 

The  fact  which  I  have  adduced  above,  of  the  construction  of 
two  amphitheatres  by  the  order  of  Chilperic,  is  surely  a  remark- 
able proof  of  this  mania  on  the  part  of  the  Merovingians  for  be- 
coming Romans.  There  was  not  one  of  them,  not  even  with 
the  exception  of  Clovis,  but  what  exhibited  among  his  first 
acts  a  similar  manifestation  of  the  greedy  curiosity,  with  which 
the  Barbarians  searched  in  the  culture  of  the  Romans  for  the 
enjoyments  which  they  suspected  it  was  capable  of  affording. 
Clovis  had  heard  by  chance  of  those  mimes  or  dancers  whom  I 
have  already  noticed,  and  whose  art  consisted  in  rendering  by 
the  gestures  and  the  movements  of  the  body  whatever  poetry 
could  express  in  words.  He  took  it  into  his  head  to  have  one 
of  these  artists  at  his  command.  At  that  time,  however,  there 
were  none  of  them  to  be  found  in  the  north  of  Gaul,  and  it  was 
Theodoric,  then  king  of  Italy,  who  undertook  to  send  him  one. 
The  pedantic  letter  of  Cassiodorus,  which  announced  and  ac- 
companied this  singular  mission,  is  still  extant.* 

*  Cassiodori  epistolae,  xli.    This  is  one  of  the  many  epistles  written,  in  the  name  of 
Theodoric.    It  is  addressed  to  Luduin  or  Clovis,  the  king  of  the  Franks.    After  congra- 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.          99 

All  the  descendants  of  Clovis  did  not  push  their  literary 
vanity  so  far,  as  to  write  bad  verses  or  heterodox  prose,  like 
Chilperic.  But  it  appears  that  the  majority  of  them  prided 
themselves  on  a  correct  knowledge  of  the  Latin.  Fortunatus 
compliments  the  elegance  with  which  Charibert  expressed  him- 
self in  this  language. 

But  it  is  particularly  important  to  observe  the  Roman  ten- 
dencies of  the  Merovingian  chiefs  in  their  government,  and  to 
recognize  their  effects  on  it.  Kings  of  two  nations,  of  which 
the  one  differed  so  widely  from  the  other,  these  chiefs  found 
themselves  in  fact  invested  with  two  royalties  equally  distinct, 
the  Roman  on  the  one  hand  and  the  Germanic  on  the  other. 
The  former,  as  the  clergy  then  proclaimed  it,  was  an  absolute 
and  despotic  royalty.  The  second,  as  yet  entirely  new  and  ill- 
defined,  was  but  a  sort  of  military  command,  which  free  warriors 
did  not  consider  themselves  bound  to  obey,  except  so  far  as  it 
contributed  to  their  personal  interest. 

As  the  Merovingians  were  captivated  by  the  convenience  of 
the  Roman  royalty,  complete,  all-powerful  and  respected  as 
it  was,  so  they  detested  the  Germanic,  which  was  always 
precarious,  always  contested,  however  slight  might  be  its  depar- 
ture from  the  national  ideas  and  the  habits  of  the  Franks. 

In  this  embarrassing  situation,  the  Merovingians  attempted 
at  first  to  assimilate  the  Germanic  royalty  to  the  Roman,  or  in 
other  words  to  govern  the  conqueror  portion  of  their  subjects 
in  the  same  manner  and  by  the  same  laws,  as  they  did  the  con- 
quered. History  has  preserved  us  some  striking  instances  of 
this  anti- Germanic  tentative  on  the  part  of  the  successors  of 
Clovis.  Theodebert,  the  king  of  Metz,  at  the  instigation  of  a 
shrewd  Gallo-Roman  or  Gallo-Greek  financier,  by  the  name  of 
Parthenius,  attempted  to  impose  a  land-tax  on  the  Frankish  inha- 
bitants of  his  kingdom.  This  measure  was  successful  for  some 
time ;  but  after  the  decease  of  Theodebert,  Parthenius  was  cut 
to  pieces  by  the  Franks,  and  from  that  time  a  territorial  tax 
was  out  of  the  question. 

We  have  several  constitutions  by  Childebert  and  by  Clotaire, 
which  were  conceived  with  the  still  bolder  and  still  more 
anti-Germanic  intent  of  substituting  capital  punishment  in 
place  of  the  pecuniary  compensations  for  murder,  for  rape  and 
even  for  simple  robbery. 

A  little  later  (in  614),  Clotaire  II.  held  at  Paris  a  sort  of 

tulating  him  on  his  recent  victory  over  the  Alemanni,  and  exhorting  him  to  clemency 
toward  the  inhabitants  of  the  confines  of  Italy,  he  adds  in  conclusion :  "  Citharoedum 
etiam  arte  sua  doctum  pariter  destinavimus  expeditum,  qui  ore  manibusque  consona 
voce  cantando,  gloriam  vestrae  potestatis  oblectet.  Quern  ideo  fore  credimus  gratum, 
quia  advos  eum  judiscastis  magnopere  dirigendum." — Ed. 


100  Histoi^y  of  Provenyd  Poebry. 

general  council,  composed  of  the  bishops  of  his  realm.  He 
then  took  or  adopted  diverse  measures  for  the  discipline  both 
of  the  church  and  of  the  state,  and  he  pronounced  sentence  of 
death  against  all  transgressors  without  distinction  of  nationality 
or  race.  These  tentatives  ended  in  nothing.  .  The  Franks  still 
clung  to  the  manners,  the  laws  and  ideas  of  their  Germanic 
ancestry,  and  they  maintained  themselves  in  their  privileged 
situation  of  conquerors.  The  necessary  antagonism  between 
the  Roman  royalty  and  Germanic  liberty  then  became  a  direct 
and  open  conflict  of  hostile  forces.  It  is  of  this  desperate  strug- 
gle between  the  Merovingian  kings  and  the  Frankish  leudes  ^ 
that  Gregory  of  Tours  describes  so  many  strange  and  pictur- 
esque incidents. 

These  kings  had  doubtless  but  a  very  imperfect  conception 
of  the  Roman  royalty  with  which  they  were  so  much  delighted ; 
they  exercised  it  in  an  arbitrary,  egotistical,  and  brutal  manner ; 
so  that  the  conquered  portion  of  their  subjects,  which  alone  was 
affected  by  its  provisions,  found  itself  miserably  oppressed  and 
daily  degenerated  more  and  more  into  ignorance  and  poverty. 
Upon  the  whole,  however,  the  mischief  came  rather  from  the 
royal  agents,  the  leudes  or  vassals  of  the  crown,  than  from  the 
kings  themselves,  and  there  was  at  the  botton  of  the  Merovin- 
gian monarchy  a  progressive  tendency  in  favor  of  the  protection 
of  the  vanquished,  a  disposition  to  adapt  itself  to  tneir  ideas 
and  to  regard  their  interests.  The  struggle,  therefore,  between 
the  leudes  and  the  king  was,  strictly  speaking,  that  of  the  ancient 
civilization  against  the  prolonged  excesses  of  the  conquest. 

This  struggle,  at  first  a  vague  and  partial  one,  ended  in  con- 
centrating and  localizing  itself;  it  became  that  of  two  distinct 
countries,  of  Neustria  and  Austrasia,  that  of  two  masses  of 
population,  of  which  the  one  was  mostly  Gallo-Roman,  the  other 
principally  Frankish. 

The  violence  and  the  disasters  of  this  struggle  act  a  promi- 
nent part  in  our  history,  of  which  they  occupy  more  than  a  cen- 
tury. The  Neustrian  party,  at  first  victorious,  treated  the  leudes 
with  the  utmost  severity,  feut  the  latter,  rallying  under  the  Car- 
lovingians,  who  had  now  become  their  chiefs,  were  finally  the 
victorious  combatants.  Their  triumph  in  Gaul  had  all  the 
appearance  and  all  the  consequences  of  a  second  Germanic 
conquest,  more  violent,  more  painful  and  more  destructive  than 
the  first.  The  Gallo-Roman  society  was  completely  disorganized 
by  it,  and  jevery  vestige  of  the  ancient  civilization  vanished 
now  entirely. 

Under  the  Merovingians,  at  any  rate  under  the  first  of  them, 
literature  and  the  traditions  relating  to  the  grand  questions  of 
philosophy,  had  taken  refuge  from  society  in  the  churches  and 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.        101 

in  the  cloisters,  and  the  clergy  had  thus  preserved  the  power 
of  a  beneficent  intervention  in  the  government  of  the  Barba- 
rians in  favor  of  civilization.  Under  the  first  Carlovingians, 
the  greater  part  of  the  ecclesiastical  lands  and  dignities  were 
transferred  by  main  force  into  the  hands  of  the  warriors,  so 
that  the  influential  and  studious  portion  of  the  clergy  found 
itself  all  at  once  merged,  as  it  were,  in  the  order  of  soldiers. 
Then  there  was  nothing  left,  to  which  the  name  of  literature 
could  be  applied  in  any  sense.  The  chronicles  were  then 
almost  the  only  kind  of  literary  compositions  cultivated  to  a 
small  extent,  and  these  even  exhibit  the  most  deplorable  marks 
of  the  barbarity  which  had  invaded  everything. 

The  Carlovingians  were  the  men  of  an  epoch  like  this — men 
of  war  and  of  conquest — who,  before  disquieting  themselves 
about  the  manner  in  which  they  might  govern  the  Gallo- 
Komans,  were  first  of  all  to  make  sure  of  their  obedience. 
Having  soon  rallied  the  entire  mass  of  the  Franks  and  of  the 
Neustrians,  they  went  to  work  to  reconquer  the  whole  of  the 
south  of  Gaul,  which,  taking  advantage  of  the  last  troubles  of 
the  Merovingian  dynasty,  had  made  itself  independent  and 
was  commanded  by  chiefs  of  its  own.  The  campaigns  of 
Charles  Martel,  first  against  the  Provencals  who  had  united 
with  the  Arabs,  and  then  against  the  Arabs  alone ;  those  of 
Pepin  against  the  dukes  of  Aquitaine  were,  in  military  par- 
lance, grand  and  glorious  enterprises,  far  superior  to  any  of 
those  of  Clovis.  However,  these  enterprises  did  not  inspire 
the  contemporary  chroniclers  with  anything  more  than  arid 
notices,  incoherent  and  truly  barbarous. 

The  Gallo-Roman  or  Frankish  writers,  who  after  Gregory  of 
Tours  had  occupied  themselves  with  the  history  of  the  Merovin- 
gians, had  shown  themselves  much  inferior  to  him.  They  had 
interwoven  many  fables  into  their  narratives ;  into  those,  for 
example,  which  relate  to  the  adventures  of  Childeric,  tho 
father  of  Clovis,  and  to  the  marriage  of  Clovis  with  Clotilda. 
But  these  fables  had  not  altered  trie  substance  of  the  facts ; 
they  were  but  a  sort  of  poetic  development  of  them.  Strictly 
considered,  they  even  attested  a  lively  interest  for  the  events 
and  names  of  glorious  memory  ;  they  were  nothing  more  than 
history  idealized  in  the  sense  and  according  to  the  tastes  of  the 
people. 

There  is  nothing  of  the  kind  in  the  Carlovingian  chronicles  ; 
they  contain  neither  fiction  nor  poetry,  but  what  is  worse  than 
this,  falsehoods  and  servile  concealments.  And  still  these 
chronicles  are  works  of  genius,  in  comparison  with  a  multitude 
of  others,  which  furnish  us  a  more  exact  standard  of  the  general 
taste  and  of  the  ordinary  compass  of  intelligence,  as  it  existed 


102  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

at  the  close  of  the  seventh  century  and  during  the  first  half  of 
the  eighth.  Further  on,  toward  the  end  of  the  latter  century, 
we  still  find  the  events  related  in  the  chronicles  in  question 
despoiled  of  everything  that  constitutes  their  proper  character 
or  their  individuality,  and  reduced  to  certain  general  formulas, 
abstract  and  lifeless.  Do  we  wish  to  know,  for  example,  how 
one  of  these  chronicles  describes  the  famous  battle  of 
Poitiers,  which  Charles  Martel  won  over  the  Arabs  of  Spain  ? 
It  is  as  follows  :  "  In  732  Karle  fought  against  the  Saracens,  on 
Saturday,  near  Poitiers."  Have  we  the  curiosity  to  know  what 
transpired  in  722  ?  Another  chronicle  gives  us  the  informa- 
tion in  the  following  terms:  "Great  abundance,  wars  from 
northern  quarters."  * 

And  this  even  was  not  the  ultimate  limit  of  barbarity  in  this 
respect;  it  arrived  at  a  point  where  developments  like  those 
which  I  have  just  indicated,  appeared  to  be  either  superfluous 
or  too  difficult  to  be  written.  The  chronicles  of  that  period 
are  exclusively  composed  of  the  names  of  the  kings  and  of  the 
figures  which  mark  the  date  of  their  accession. 

This  was  the  state  of  affairs,  and  the  last  vestiges  of  the 
ancient  civilization  seemed  to  be  on  the  point  of  disappearing 
forever  amid  the  disorders  of  the  Carlovingian  conquest,  when 
Charlemagne,  inheriting  the  forces  of  that  conquest,  gave  them 
a  new  and  unexpected  direction.  The  course  of  events  had 
brought  Charlemagne  into  early  and  intimate  relations  with  the 
Hornan  pontificate,  the  only  power  which  at  that  time  pos- 
sessed, with  some  enlightenment  and  some  consistency,  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  Western  Empire,  and  was  in  a  position  to  make 
some  efforts  toward  the  triumph  of  those  traditions  over  the 
barbarity  by  which  they  were  invaded,  and  which  was  con- 
stantly increasing  in  Italy  as  well  as  elsewhere. 

Though  endowed  with  a  marvellous  instinct  of  civilization, 
Charlemagne  had  nevertheless  in  his  character  many  and  de- 
cided traits  of  the  barbaric  genius  ;  he  remained  a  German  in 
more  than  one  respect,  and  it  would  be  a  question  to  know 
whether  he  properly  comprehended  or  really  could  perform  all 
that  the  churcn  of  Rome  suggested  to  him  with  reference  to 
the  restoration  of  social  order  and  of  civilization  in  the  West. 
Charlemagne,  however,  always  declared  himself  the  champion 
of  this  civilization,  and  accomplished  great  things  for  it.  He 
resuscitated  the  culture  of  language  and  of  letters  at  the  mo- 
ment of  their  utter  abandonment ;  he  made  war  against  the  Bar- 

*  722.  "  Magna  fertilitas  et  bella  contra  aquiloniam."  732.  "  Karlus  pugnavit  con- 
tra Saracenos  die  Sabbato  ad  Pictavis."  709.  "  Annus  durus  et  deficiens  fructus. 
Godefrid  moritur."  Several  specimens  of  these  chronicles,  or,  as  they  were  termed, 
Annales,  may  be  found  in  Pertz :  Monum.  Germ.  Historic.,  vol.  i.  p.  19,  sqq.— Ed. 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.        103 

barians  beyond  the  Khine  with  a  view  to  converting  them  to 
Christianity,  and  through  Christianity  to  a  regular  social  ex- 
istence. Finally,  by  accepting  the  title  of  Emperor  of  the 
West,  he  appears  to  have  indicated  the  desire  of  elevating  the 
whole  of  it. 

But  the  existence  and  the  projects  of  Charlemagne  were  but 
a  magnificent  exception,  a  sudden  and  a  powerful  interruption 
of  the  natural  course  of  things.  After  him,  the  struggle  be- 
tween the  political  ideas  and  traditions  of  Kome  and  the 
principles  of  the  Germanic  conquest  commenced  anew.  The 
wars  of  Louis  le  Debonnaire  with  his  sons,  those  of  his  sons, 
first  among  themselves  and  subsequently  with  their  vassals, 
were  but  the  continuation  of  this  struggle,  slightly  modified  by 
the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  times  and  by  the  reigns  of 
Pepin  arid  of  Charlemagne.  The  Germanic  spirit  was  at  this 
time  also  triumphant,  The  Carlovingian  monarchy  was  dis- 
membered in  its  turn,  still  more  completely  than  had  been 
that  of  the  Merovingians,  and  by  the  prolonged  action  of  the 
same  causes. 

The  vassals  of  every  rank  and  of  every  race  established  them- 
selves as  absolute  hereditary  seigniors  in  the  provinces,  in  the 
cities,  on  domains,  which  they  had  thus  far  only  possessed  as 
revocable  fiefs.  This  was  the  definitive  result,  toward  which 
the  Frankish  conquest  had  tended  from  the  beginning.  That 
long  period  of  modern  history,  which  is  vulgarly  designated  by 
the  name  of  the  feudal,  commences  with,  and  in  consequence 
cf,  this  dismemberment  of  Charlemagne's  empire. 

This  dismemberment,  brought  on  by  general  causes,  was 
everywhere  attended  with  uniform  effects,  which  were,  how- 
ever, not  without  many  local  variations.  I  shall  here  consider 
it  only  in  relation  to  the  south  of  Gaul,  and  without  inquiring 
for  the  present,  in  what  respects  the  feudalism  of  this  country 
may  have  differed  from  that  of  the  rest  of  France  and  Europe.  I 
may  perhaps  return  to  these  distinctions  on  another  occa- 
sion. 

The  great  feudal  seigniories  of  the  South  date  their  existence 
from  the  end  of  the  ninth  century ;  they  consolidated  them- 
selves from  the  commencement  of  the  tenth,  and  what  I  have 
here  to  say  respecting  the  condition  of  the  countries,  which 
constituted  these  seigniories,  has  chiefly  reference  to  the  inter- 
val between  880  and  920. 

By  a  fortunate  concurrence  of  circumstances,  the  south  of 
Gaul  had  never  been  parcelled  out  to  any  very  great  extent 
even  after  it  had  detached  itself  from  the  Frankish  conquest. 
Aquitania,  which  was  by  far  the  largest  portion  of  it,  had 
nearly  always  constituted  but  a  single  state,  first  as  a  duchy 


104:  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

and  afterward  as  a  kingdom.  Some  isolated  and  smaller 
parts,  such  as  the  Provence  and  Septimania,  corresponded  to 
the  ancient  Roman  divisions,  and  had  strictly  determined  phy- 
sical limits,  which  to  a  certain  extent  may  have  served  as  the 
motive  for  their  accidental  isolation. 

In  this  new  state  of  things,  there  could  no  longer  be,  and 
there  was  in  fact  no  longer,  any  territorial  division  which  de- 
served the  name  of  a  country,  or  any  group  of  population 
which  could  be  called  a  people.  All  these  groups  were  too 
small  or  too  factitious  to  merit  any  such  denomination.  They 
corresponded  to  nothing  natural  or  historical.  The  number  of 
states  that  had  DOW  sprung  up  was  almost  equal  to  that  of  the 
cities  or  the  fortresses,  and  there  were  as  many  national  divi- 
sions as  there  were  dukes,  counts,  suzerains  of  every  denomina- 
tion and  of  every  rank. 

And  yet  these  millions  of  men,  divided  into  so  many  little 
groups,  differed  in  no  essential  respect  among  themselves. 
They  had  the  same  faith  and  the  same  cultus ;  they  were  gov- 
erned by  the  same  civil  laws,  by  the  same  municipal  institu- 
tions ;  they  had  the  same  manners,  the  same  arts,  the  same 
kind  and  nearly  the  same  degree  of  culture ;  they  all  spoke 
the  same  language;  they  had  the  same  historical  traditions, 
and  they  all  knew  that  they  had  long  been  united  under  the 
same  government.  In  a  word,  all  these  people  continued  to 
form,  in  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries,  as  they  had  done  be- 
fore, one  and  the  same  society,  a  mass  which  was  homogeneous 
in  every  sense  of  the  term. 

What  then  was  the  basis  of  this  social  unity  1  What  were 
those  laws,  those  institutions,  those  manners,  and  those  tradi- 
tions common  to  all  those  groups,  which  were  isolated  -only  by 
their  political  chiefs?  They  were  still  the  laws,  the  institu- 
tions, the  manners  and  the  traditions  of  the  Romans,  greatly 
modified,  undoubtedly,  and  greatly  deteriorated,  but  neverthe- 
less  recognizable  still ;  still  dear  to  the  people,  and  destined 
to  live  again  under  new  forms  at  some  future  day.  It  thus 
appears,  that  even  after  its  five  centuries  of  perpetual  struggle 
against  the  progressive  disorders  of  the  two  Frankish  conquests, 
tnis  ancient  and  powerful  civilization  of  the  Roman  world  had 
not  yet  been  totally  annihilated  in  the  south  of  Gaul.  Whatever 
in  these  countries  and  during  the  epochs  in  question  constituted 
a  characteristic  trait  of  national  manners,  a  rule  or  medium  of 
social  order,  an  exercise  of  the  imagination  or  of  the  intellect,  or 
a  popular  enjoyment — all  this  had  been  derived  from  am 
anterior  civilization,  and  was  only  the  prolonged  consequence 
of  the  Graeco-Roman  influence. 

I  have  no  room  here  for  a  complete  portraiture  of  the  south 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.        105 

of  France  in  this  new  condition,  and  I  shall  limit  myself  to 
an  outline  of  the  state  of  literature  and  of  the  arts. 

The  restoration  of  learning,  which  was  wrought  out  by 
the  fostering  care  of  Charlemagne,  did  not  extend  to  the 
southern  parts  of  Gaul.  Whether  churchmen  or  laymen, 
the  writers  who  during  the  reign  of  this  prince  distin- 
guished themselves  by  their  talent,  or  those  who  at  a  later 
date  were  trained  in  the  schools  founded  by  him,  were 
nearly  all  of  them  either  Germans  or  Gallo-Romans  from  the 
North.  There  is  scarcely  one  that  could  be  designated  as  hav- 
ing come  from  the  South.  It  is  true,  that  in  this  part  of 
Gaul  we  meet  with  abbeys  and  ecclesiastical  schools  of  Charle- 
inanic  origin,  but  these  schools  do  not  figure  in  the  literary 
history  of  the  Middle  Age.  That  of  Aniane,*  in  Septimania, 
is  the  only  one  whose  name  has  come  down  to  us  invested  with 
some  degree  of  celebrity ;  but  this  celebrity  even  is  a  gratuitous 
one.  The  best  authenticated  historical  information  respecting 
this  abbey,  under  the  rubric  of  art,  is,  that  the  columns  and 
the  marble  employed  in  its  construction  were  derived  from  one 
of  the  ancient  monuments  of  Nimes,  which  was  probably 
destroyed  on  this  account. 

Louis  le  Debonnaire,  in  the  capacity  of  King  of  Aquitaine, 
applied  himself  with  more  zeal  and  with  greater  success  than 
Charlemagne  to  the  reform  of  both  the  secular  and  the  regular 
clergy  of  the  country.  The  number  and  the  flourishing  condition 
of  the  Aquitanian  monasteries  under  his  reign  were  spoken  of 
with  boastful  praise;  and  this  prosperity  had,  probably, 
redounded  to  the  advantage  of  the  studies  and  the  literature  of 
the  Latin.  But  it  lasted  only  for  a  short  time.  The  perpetual 
wars  and  the  troubles  of  every  kind,  in  which  Aquitaine  was 
involved  under  the  empire  of  Louis  le  Debonnaire  and  his  suc- 
cessors, soon  caused  the  ruin  of  its  churches  and  monasteries,  so 
that  the  Aquitanian  clergy,  like  that  of  the  South  in  general, 
were  in  a  short  time  degraded  to  the  same  level  of  ignorance 
and  of  grossness,  in  which  the  masses  of  the  population  were 
already  buried.  This  is  a  fact  on  which  it  would  be  superfluous 
to  dwell,  and  of  which  we  shall  presently  see  some  very  aston- 
ishing proofs. 

Meanwhile,  that  which  directly  follows  from  this  fact  with 
reference  to  my  subject,  is,  that  from  the  ninth  century  the 
Roman  literature  of  the  South  had  almost  entirely  disappeared, 

*  This  was  probably  nothing  more  than  the  monasterium  Anianense,  which  in 
Charlemagne's  time  was  under  the  direction  of  a  certain  Benedictus  (Pertz :  Mon.  Germ. 
Hist.  vol.  i.  p.  301),  and  which  in  the  Constitutio  de  servitio  manasteriorum  of  Louis  I. 
is  enumerated  as  one  of  forty-eight  institutions  of  a  similar  name  and  character.  Perta, 
vol.  hi.,  p.  223.— Ed. 


106  History  of  Provengal  Poebry. 

and  that  the  measures  of  Charlemagne  had  not  been  able  to 
resuscitate  it.  These  measures  had,  on  the  contrary,  displaced 
the  focus  of  Latin  studies  and  traditions  in  Gaul ;  they  had 
transferred  it  from  the  South  to  the  North,  and  this  displace- 
ment had  an  influence  on  the  literary  destiny  of  the  two  coun- 
tries, which  has,  perhaps,  as  yet  not  been  sufficiently  considered. 

It  is  from  the  time  of  this  displacement,  that  we  begin  to  per- 
ceive in  the  south  of  France  the  first  efforts  of  a  new  local  and 
popular  literature  disengaging  itself  from  the  remains,  the 
reminiscences  of  the  ancient  Grseco-Roman  literature,  which 
was  then  expiring,  or  had  already  expired.  I  have  promised 
to  make  the  attempt  of  giving  a  complete  exposition  of  this 
curious  transition,  and  the  moment  has  now  arrived  for  keeping 
my  word.  With  this  end  in  view,  I  shall,  in  the  first  place, 
describe  the  general  condition  of  the  manners,  the  ideas,  and 
the  culture,  in  the  midst  of  which  the  transition  in  question  was 
effected,  and  it  will  thus  become  much  easier  for  me  to  dis- 
tinguish the  accidental  or  necessary  impulsions  by  which  it  was 
determined.  And  perhaps  we  shall  find  in  this  cursory  sur- 
vey more  numerous  vestiges  of  the  ancient  paganism  and  of  the 
ancient  pagan  civilization,  than  we  might  have  looked  for  at  so 
advanced  an  epoch  of  the  Middle  Age,  as  were  the  ninth  and 
tenth  centuries. 

It  is  commonly  supposed,  that  at  the  time  when  the  Ger- 
manic nations  took  possession  of  Gaul,  Christianity  was  the 
only  religion  of  the  country.  This  is  an  improbable  hypothesis, 
contradicted  by  positive  facts.  It  is  incontestably  established, 
that  on  severals  points  of  territory,  in  the  remoter  provinces 
and  on  the  mountains,  Druidism  and  other  primitive  modes  of 
worship,  peculiar  to  the  inhabitants  of  Gaul,  had  maintained 
themselves  to  the  last  days  of  the  Roman  dominion,  and  had 
even  survived  it.  It  is  still  more  certain,  that  the  Graeco- 
Roman  paganism  continued  to  be  the  religion  of  a  portion  of 
the  Gallo-Romans  under  the  dominion  of  the  Barbarians.  The 
zeal,  with  which  the  clergy  combated  all  these  remains  of 
idolatry,  is  attested  by  history.  This  war  was  a  long  one,  and 
was  attended  with  many  singular  incidents,  especially  in  the 
South,  where  classical  paganism  had  maintained  its  ascendency 
much  longer  and  more  completely  than  in  the  North. 

Toward  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century,  Saint  Caesarius, 
bishop  of  Aries,  and  one  of  the  most  enlightened  ecclesiastical 
chiefs  of  his  time,  had  been  occupied  during  the  whole  of  his 
episcopate  in  combating  the  anti-Christian  superstitions  of  the 
inhabitants  of  his  diocese.  These  superstitions,  of  which  a  con- 
temporary priest  has  transmitted  to  us  a  list,  which  comprises 
almost  the  entire  circle  of  the  Grseco-Latin  paganism,  blended, 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.        107 

perhaps,  with  some  remains  of  the  ancient  local  paganism. 
The  celebration  of  the  calends,  the  practice  of  resorting  to 
haruspices,  the  belief  in  auguries,  the  cultus  of  fountains  and 
of  forests  are  enumerated  among  the  obnoxious  practices. 

Not  only  did  these  people  then  still  believe  in  the  false  gods, 
but  they  continued  to  immolate  victims  in  honor  of  them. 
This  is  evident  from  one  of  the  canons  of  the  council  of  Orleans, 
pronouncing  sentence  of  excommunication  against  those,  who 
had  participated  in  the  distribution  of  the  viands  offered  at 
the  sacrifices.* 

Another  council,  held  at  Toledo  in  the  year  589,  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  which  extended  over  all  the  dioceses  of  the  metropolis  of 
Narbonne,  attests  the  fact,  that  in  these  dioceses  paganism 
was  no  less  prevalent  than  it  was  in  that  of  Aries.  A  canon  of 
this  council  condemns  in  somewhat  vague  and  general  terms 
the  sacrileges  of  idolatry,  which  were  practised  in  all  parts  of 
the  countries  subject  to  the  Yisigoths.f  A  new  council,  held 
at  Karbonne  that  same  year,  in  continuation  and  in  conclusion 
of  the  preceding  one,  points  out  expressly  among  all  those 
sacrileges  of  idolatry,  which  the  latter  had  proscribed  without 
any  specifications,  one  which  was  peculiar  to  the  province  of 
Narbonne.  It  prohibits  the  celebration  of  Thursday,  the  day  of 
Jupiter,  unless  some  Christian  solemnity  should  happen  to  coin- 
cide with  the  day 4 

This  concurrence  of  the  councils  and  of  the  bishops  in  com- 
bating everywhere  the  remains  of  the  ancient  idolatry  had 
been  productive  of  some  effect ;  but  the  success  was  far  from 
being  a  complete  one.  Sundry  religious  usages  of  the  Grseco- 
Roman  paganism  had  been  retained  in  southern  Gaul,  as  in 
other  places,  and  even  to  a  greater  extent,  in  spite  of  all  the 

Erotestations  and  the  opposition  of  the  clergy.     These  usages 
ad,  however,  gradually  lost  their  primitive  character ;  they 
had  ceased  to  be  religious  acts ;  they  were  no  longer  living 

*  Concil.  Aurel.  ii.,  can.  xx. :  "  Catholici,  qui  ad  idolorum  cultum  non  custodita  ad 
integrum  accept!  gratia,  revertuntur,  vel  qui  cibis  idolorum  cultibus  immolatis  gustu 
illicit®  prsesumptionis  utuntur  ab  ecclesiae  coetibus  arceantur,"  etc. 

t  Concil.  Tolet.  iii.  can.  xyi. :  "  Quoniam  pene  per  omnem  Hispaniam  sive  Galliam 
idolatriae  sacrilegium  inolevit,  hoc,  cum  consensu  gloriosissimi  principis,  sancta  synodus 
ordinavit,  ut  omnis  sacerdos  in  loco  suo  una  cum  judice  territorii  sacrilegium  memora- 
tum  studiose  perquirat,  et  exterminare  inventum  non  differat,"  etc.,  etc.  The  penalty 
of  excommunication  is  attached  to  the  neglect  of  this  requirement.  Several  of  the 
capitularies  of  Charlemagne  inveigh  with  great  severity  against  all  the  remains  of 
Pagan  superstition,  and  exhort  the  bishops  to  banish  them  from  their  respective  dio- 
ceses :  "  Ut  populus  Dei  paganias  non  faciat ;  sed  ut  omnes  spurcitias  gentilitatis  abjiciat 
et  respuat,  sive  profana  sacrificia  mortuorum,  sive  sortileges  vel  divinos,  sive  phylac- 
teria  et  auguria,  sive  incantationes,  sive  hostias  immolatitias,  quas  stulti  homines 
juxta  ecclesias  ritu  paganorum  faciunt,  sub  nomine  sanctorum  martyrum,"  etc.,  etc. 
— Ed. 

$  Concil.  Narbon,  can.  xv. :  "  Ad  nos  pervenit,  quosdam  de  populis  Catholicae  fidei 
execrabili  ritu  diem  quintam  feriam,  qui  et  dicitur  Jovis,  excolere  et  operationem 
non  facere."  A  severe  penalty  is  added  against  this  practice. — Ed. 


108  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

superstitions  blended  with,  or  substituted  in  the  place  of,  Christ- 
ianity. The  false  gods  had  been  gradually  forgotten,  but  the 
natural  desire  and  the  necessity  of  agreeable  emotions,  and  the 
social  habits  to  which  their  cultus  had  given  rise,  had  nearly 
all  of  them  survived  that  cultus.  The  sports,  the  songs,  the 
imitative  and  picturesque  dances,  which  had  constituted  a  part 
of  them,  had  remained  in  vogue  as  the  means  of  reunion,  as 
civic  festivals,  as  popular  spectacles. 

These  diversions  had  forced  themselves  into  an  association 
with  the  ceremonies  of  Christianity ;  they  took  place  on  the 
occasions  of  Christian  solemnities,  and  they  had  become  in  a 
measure  their  accessory.  Those  pagan  temples,  where  they 
had  commenced,  continued  to  be  their  theatre,  transformed 
into  churches,  as  had  been  the  majority  of  these  temples.  The 
companies  of  dancers,  which  represented  the  antique  choruses, 
were  composed  (as  had  been  the  latter)  sometimes  of  persons 
of  both  sexes ;  sometimes,  and  it  would  seem  most  frequently, 
of  women  and  of  damsels.  Their  dances  were  always  accom- 
panied with  songs,  and  the  ordinary  burden  of  these  songs  con- 
sisted of  sentiments  or  adventures  of  love.  The  writings  of  the 
clergy  and  the  laws  never  mention  them  without  horror, 
never  without  branding  them  as  tissues  of  turpitude  and 
obscenity. 

It  was  these  remains  of  the  ancient  choral  plays,  these 
dances  and  the  songs  with  which  they  were  accompanied,  that 
the  councils  of  every  epoch  of  the  Middle  Age  proscribed  as 
being  yet  in  vogue  ;  which  they  designated  as  pagan  usages, 
sometimes  by  new  names,  invented  for  this  purpose,  but  more 
frequently  by  their  ancient  epithets,  and  which  they  describe 
in  a  manner,  which  proves  that  these  epithets  were  well 
applied. 

Charlemagne  did  his  utmost  to  second  the  efforts  of  the  coun- 
cils and  bishops  for  the  abolition  of  these  relics  of  paganism. 
He  issued  on  this  subject  a  capitulary,  of  which  1  shall  give  a 
verbal  report,  because  it  characterizes  the  usages  condemned  by 
it.  It  is  as  follows  :  "  When  the  people  come  to  the  churches, 
on  Sundays  or  on  fast-days,  let  them  not  give  themselves  up  to 
dances,  to  saltations,  or  to  the  chanting  of  infamous  and  obscene 
songs,  for  these  things  are  the  remains  of  pagan  customs." ' 

The  general  council  held  at  Home  in  826,  characterizes  these 
profanations  still  more  specifically.  "  There  are  persons,"  says 
the  thirteenth  canon  of  that  council,  "  and  especially  women, 
who  on  the  feast  of  the  Nativity,  or  on  other  religious  occasions 
repair  to  the  churches,  not  from  any  suitable  motives,  but  for 

*  Another  capitulary  is  to  a  similar  effect :  "  Canticum  turpe  atque  luxuriosum  circa 
ecclesias  agere  omnino  contradiciinus.    Quod  et  ubique  vitandum  est." — Ed. 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.        109 

the  purpose  of  dancing,  of  chanting  scandalous  words,  of  forming 
and  of  leading  choruses,  so  that  if  they  have  come  there  with 
venial  sins,  they  return  thence  with  the  heaviest"  * 

These  profane  customs,  common  to  all  the  countries  which 
had  been  provinces  of  the  Roman  Empire,  were  very  generally 
prevalent  and  deeply  rooted  in  the  south  of  Gaul,  and  we  en- 
counter vestiges  of  them  in  almost  every  direction. 

From  the  year  589,  the  council  of  Toledo,  to  which  I  have 
already  alluded,  prohibited  the  exhibition  of  profane  dances 
and  of  obscene  songs  during  the  solemnities  of  Christian 
worship,  f  The  practice,  which  we  are  told  was  kept  up  for  a 
long  time  at  Limoges,  is  still  more  curious  from  the  fact  of  its 
being  more  circumstantial.  The  people  of  this  city  were  in  the 
habit  of  interfering  on  their  own  account  in  the  celebration  of 
the  feast  of  Saint  Martial,  who  was  the  apostle  and  the  patron 
of  the  country.  At  the  conclusion  of  each  psalm,  they  sung  in 
place  of  the  words  prescribed  by  the  liturgy,  a  couplet  in  the, 
vulgar  tongue,  of  which  the  sense  was :  "  Saint  Martial  pray 
for  us  and  we  will  dance  for  you."  And  they  actually  danced 
while  chanting  these  words.  They  executed  a  round,  a  chorus, 
and  all  this  in  the  church  itself. 

The  festival  of  the  Ascension  was  likewise  celebrated  in  that 
city  by  popular  dances,  with  this  difference  only,  that  these 
dances  were  not  performed  in  the  interior  of  the  church,  but  on 
a  neighboring  meadow.  The  same  thing  was  practised  at 
Chalons,  in  the  diocese  of  Lyons.  There  is  one  circumstance 
connected  with  these  usages,  which,  in  the  absence  of  all  other 
proofs,  would  alone  suffice  to  establish  their  pagan  origin  ;  it  is 
the  care  with  which-  the  clergy,  unable  to  abolish  them, 
attempted  to  sanctify  them,  by  adapting  them  as  well  as 
could  be  done  to  the  Christian  cultus.  It  thus  frequently 
happened,  that  a  priest  preluded  with  some  prayer  or  some  pious 
ceremony  to  these  rounds  and  these  profane  songs,  in  which  the 
people  sought  their  pleasure. 

*  Concil.  Roman,  anni  826,  can.  xxxv. :  "  Sunt  qnidam,  efrmaxime  mulieres,  quifestis 
diebus  atque  sanctorum  natalitiis,  nou  pro  eorum,  quibus  delectantur,  desideriis 
advenire,  sed  ballando,  verba  turpia  decantando,  choreas  tenendo  et  ducendo,  simili- 
tudinem  paganorum  peragendo  advenire  procurant;  tales  enim,  si  cum  minoribus 
veniant  ad  ecclesiam  peccatis,  cum  majoribus  revertuntur,"  etc.,  etc.  Leo  IV.  enjoins 
excommunication,  if  after  an  admonition  the  practice  is  not  abandoned.  The  XlXth 
canon  of  the  Council  of  Ceville  (A.D.  650)  proscribes  the  same  custom,  which  appears 
to  have  been  in  vogue  on  all  extraordinary  occasions,  such  as  dedications  of  churches, 
festivals  of  the  martyrs,  etc — Ed. 

t  Concil.  Tolet.  can.  xxiii. :  u  Exterminanda  omnino  est  irreligiosa  consuetude, 
quam  vulgus  per  sanctorum  solemnitates  agere  consuevit ;  utpopuli,  qui  debent  officia 
divina  attendere,  saltationibus  et  turpibus  invigilent  canticis ;  non  solum  sibi  nocentes, 
sed  et  religiosorum  officiis  perstrepentes.  Hoc  etenim,  ut  ab  omni  Hispania  depellatur, 
sacerdotum  et  judicum  a  concilio  sancto  curae  committatur."  Another  council  of  an 
earlier  date  issued  a  similar  canon:  "Non  licet  in  ecclesia  choros  saecularium,  vel 
puellarum  cantica  exercere,  nee  convivia  in  ecclesia  praeparare,"  etc. — Ed. 


110  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

All  these  remains  of  pagan  rites  reposed  on  the  general 
groundwork  of  paganism.  They  represented  the  ordinary 
formalities  common  to  all  the  ancient  festivals,  without  any 
more  particular  reference  to  any  one  of  these  festivals  than  to 
another.  At  any  rate,  the  testimonies  of  the  ecclesiastics  on 
this  point  are  too  vague  to  distinguish  anything  more  special. 
Among  all  these  pagan  reminiscences  of  the  Middle  Age,  there 
are  but  very  few,  which  it  seems  possible  to  refer  to  any 
determinate  localities  or  particularities  of  the  ancient  cultus. 
Of  these  I  shall  only  notice  one,  which  is,  however,  a  singular 
and  a  remarkable  one,  and  which  seems  to  me  to  be  connected 
with  the  ancient  cultus  of  Flora. 

The  inhabitants  of  Rome  adored  under  this  name  a  divinity, 
which  was  supposed  to  preside  over  the  fecundity  of  the  eartn, 
and  over  the  prosperous  growth  of  vegetation,  regarded  as  a 
means  of  sustenance  for  man.  Her  festival  was  celebrated  in  the 
beginning  of  May,  by  amusements  which  had  become  prover- 
bial for  their  scandal.  The  courtesans  of  the  city  were  collected  in 
the  stadium ;  and  at  a  given  signal  they  stripped  themselves  of 
all  their  garments,  and  commenced  running  races,  the  prize  of 
which,  like  that  of  all  the  other  public  sports,  was  awarded  by 
duly  appointed  magistrates,  and  in  the  name  of  the  people. 

How  can  we  imagine,  that  a  usage  like  this  could  have 
maintained  itself,  under  the  Christian  empire  ?  And  yet  it 
was  kept  up,  and  that  for  centuries,  in  several  cities  of  ancient 
Provence,  and  more  particularly  in  that  of  Aries.  It  was  one 
of  the  oldest  customs  of  this  city  to  celebrate  the  feast  of  Pente- 
cost by  diverse  gymnastic  exercises,  by  feats  in  wrestling,  in 
leaping  and  in  racing — exercises,  the  taste  for,  and  the  habit  of 
which,  by  the  way,  the  Massilians  had  left  in  all  the  places 
which  had  formerly  been  subject  to  their  sway.  These 
amusements  always  drew  together  an  immense  concourse  of 
people ;  they  were  concluded  by  races  of  nude  prostitutes,  and 
prizes  were  awarded  to  those  who  had  won  them ;  they  were 
distributed  by  the  magistrates,  and  at  the  expense  of  the  com- 
munity. All  this  was  regulated  by  the  municipal  statutes,  and 
all  this  was  not  abolished  until  the  sixteenth  century,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  remonstrance  of  a  capuchin. 

The  same  thing  was  practised  at  Beaucaire  and  doubtless  in 
many  an  other  city,  whose  ancient  usages  are  now  forgotten  and 
unknown.  The  association  of  sports  like  these  with  one  of  the 
most  solemn  festivals  of  the  Christian  church  has  something 
striking  about  it.  It  shows  us,  how  strong  the  tendency  of  the 
people  was,  to  transfer  to  the  austere  pomp  of  the  new  cultus 
the  obscenest  reminiscences  of  the  old. 

As  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  these  pagan  usages  became 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.        Ill 

more  insignificant  and  of  rarer  occurrence  in  proportion  to  the 
remoteness  of  their  origin,  and  that  the  clergy  had  redoubled 
its  efforts  to  abolish  or  to  modify  them,  we  may  regard  their 
popularity  at  comparatively  recent  epochs  as  the  certain  indica- 
tion of  a  much  more  extensive  popularity  at  an  earlier  period. 
Thus,  for  example,  the  Provencal  manners  of  the  seventeenth 
century  still  contained  a  multitude  of  usages,  which  authorize 
us  to  suppose,  that  during  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries  these 
customs  must  have  been  at  least  half  pagan.  The  following 
striking  illustration  I  gather  from  a  curious  pamphlet,  addressed, 
in  the  shape  of  a  letter  (in  1645),  to  Gassendi,  by  a  certain 
Tourangeau,  who  was  one  of  his  friends.  "While  on  a  visit  to 
Provence,  this  good  Tourangeau  had  been  singularly  struck  by 
what  he  had  seen  there  in  every  part  of  the  country,  that 
appeared  to  him  strange  and  pagan  in  the  ceremonies  of  re- 
ligious worship,  and  especially  in  the  famous  procession  of 
Corpus  Christi  at  Aix.  It  was  for  the  purpose  of  repressing  his 
offence  at  the  scandal,  that  he  addressed  to  Gassendi  the  little 
work  to  which  I  have  alluded,  and  which  was  entitled  :  "  A 
complaint  to  Gassendi,  with  reference  to  the  unchristian  usages 
of  his  countrymen,  the  Provencals."  The  author  describes  the 
festival  of  Saint  Lazarus,  as  he  had  seen  it  celebrated  at 
Marseilles,  in  the  following  manner  : 

"  Pagan  Marseilles,"  says  he,  "  had  strenuously  prohibited  all 
theatrical  representations ;  but  now  that  it  professes  the  religion, 
in  the  eyes  of  which  all  the  amusements  of  the  stage  are  crimes, 
it  has  ceased  to  abstain  from  these  amusements.  In  fact,  it 
celebrates  the  festival  of  Saint  Lazarus  with  dances,  which, 
owing  to  the  multitude  and  the  variety  of  their  figures,  have  all 
the  air  of  theatrical  representations.  All  the  inhabitants,  at 
least  those  who  wish  to  make  the  day  of  their  Saint  a  merry 
one,  meet  publicly,  both  men  and  women,  and  wearing  grotesque 
masks,  they  all  commence  the  most  extravagant  dances.  You 
would  say  that  Satyrs  and  Nymphs  were  carrying  on  their 
frolics  together.  They  take  each  other  by  the  hand,  they 
march  through  the  city  to  the  sound  of  flutes  and  violins,  and 
when  they  form  an  uninterrupted  file  bending  and  winding 
its  serpetine  course  through  all  the  turns  and  passages  of  the 
streets,  they  call  this  great  sport.  But  why  should  it  be  made 
in  honor  of  Saint  Lazarus  ?  This  is  a  mystery  which  I  am 
unable  to  divine,  any  more  than  the  many  other  extravagances 
in  which  the  Provence  abounds,  and  to  which  the  people  are  so 
much  attached,  that  if  any  one  were  to  relax  their  observance, 
however  slightly,  it  would  be  looked  upon  as  a  high  misde- 
meanor, which  is  sometimes  punished  by  the  destruction  of  the 
property  and  harvest  of  the  delinquent." 


112  History  of  Provengal  Poetry* 

A  provincial  council  of  Narbonne  held  in  the  year  1551,  had 
not  yet  done  with  these  obnoxious  remains  of  paganism,  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  had  been  condemned  since  the  year  589 — that 
is  to  say,  more  than  nine  centuries  before.  It  proscribed  anew 
the  practice  of  dancing,  and  every  other  sort  of  play  or  repre- 
sentation in  the  churches  or  cemeteries. 

That  which  took  place  at  the  celebration  of  funerals  coincides 
with  all  the  preceding  facts,  and  confirms  all  the  reflections, 
which  are  suggested  by  them.  There  is  no  doubt,  but  that  the 
clergy  of  the  South  had  made  every  effort  to  obtain  the  exclusive 
management  of  the  ceremonies  connected  with  the  burial  of  the 
dead — in  other  words,  of  one  of  the  offices  of  social  life,  over 
which  religion  naturally  exerts  the  greatest  amount  of  influence. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  certain  that  at  the  epochs  of  the  Middle  Age, 
now  under  consideration,  the  funerals  were  celebrated  with  the 
most  incongruous  intermixture  of  Christian  and  pagan  rites. 
It  was  still  customary,  for  example,  to  engage  for  funeral  pro- 
cessions bands  of  hired  mourners,  who  by  their  gestures,  their 
words  and  their  screams,  gave  all  the  demonstrations  of  the 
intensest  grief.  Death  was  celebrated  with  songs,  which 
were  not  those  of  the  Christian  ritual,  but  which  were 
composed  expressly  for  the  occasion.  They  were  a  sort  of 
myriologues,  and  always  executed  with  a  certain  formal  prepa- 
ration, often  by  two  alternate  choruses  of  maidens,  and  with 
noisy  accompaniments  of  an  instrumental  music,  as  profane  as 
the  songs  themselves  with  which  it  was  intermingled  ;  and  all 
this  transpired  in  the  church  and  in  the  presence  of  the  priests, 
who  were  obliged  to  participate  in  these  acts  of  heathenism,  or 
at  any  rate  to  submit  to  them  !  This  latter  mode  of  celebrating 
funeral  solemnities  seems  to  have  been  rather  Greek  than 
Roman.  Moreover,  the  country  in  which  it  was  generally 
prevalent  and  popular  during  the  Middle  Age  was  one,  in 
which  the  Greek  population  had  predominated  for  centuries 
before  ;  it  was  the  Provence  proper.  The  custom  was  still  in 
vogue  at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  in  all 
probability  much  later. 

Charlemagne  had  already  attempted  to  abolish  these  wholly 
pagan  modes  of  burying  the  dead.  He  had  decreed  that  all 
those,  who  attended  a  funeral  procession,  and  did  not  know  some 
psalm  by  heart,  should  sing  the  Eyrie  eleison  aloud.  His  ob- 
ject was  to  substitute  something  religious,  something  Christian, 
in  place  of  the  profane  songs  in  use  on  such  occasions. 

These  different  traits,  widen  I  could  easily  have  multiplied, 
reveal  several  characteristic  propensities  of  the  mediaeval  inha- 
bitants of  the  south  of  France.  We  perceive,  that  what  they 
had  retained  with  the  greatest  tenacity  of  the  paganism  of  the 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.        113 

Greeks  and  Romans,  was  its  gayest,  its  most  sensual  and  its 
most  picturesque  side,  in  short,  whatever  was  adapted  to  cap- 
tivate the  eves  or  ear  in  the  shape  of  an  amusement  or  a 
spectacle. 

It  was  perhaps  in  consequence  of  the  same  tendencies,  that 
these  people  had  preserved  certain  provisions  of  the  civil  or 
penal  code  of  the  Phocseans,  which  were  incompatible  with  the 
purity  of  the  Christian  spirit.  Thus,  for  example,  in  several  of 
the  southern  cities,  and  particularly,  it  would  seem,  in  those 
which  were  nearest  to  the  sea-coast,  the  punishment  for  adultery 
was  a  greater  scandal  than  the  crime  itself.  The  culpable  party, 
if  a  woman,  was  placed  in  a  state  of  nature  upon  an  ass,  and 
thus  paraded  through  the  whole  city.  "We  have  every  reason 
to  regard  this  custom  as  one  of  Ionian  origin,  and  introduced 
into  Gaul  by  the  Massjlians.  At  any  rate,  it  is  an  established 
fact,  that  on  the  northern  coasts  of  Ionia  the  same  crime  was 
punished  in  exactly  the  same  manner.  The  woman  thus  pun- 
ished was  there  called  onobatis ;  that  is  to  say,  the  rider  upon 
an  ass. 

Besides  these  ancient  festivals,  which  they  had  kept  up  from 
the  pagan  times,  the  people  of  the  South  had  amusements  of 
another  kind  and  much  more  frequent,  for  which  they  were 
likewise  indebted  to  antiquity.  One  of  the  commonest  of  these 
were  the  feats  of  dexterity,  of  strength,  or  of  agility,  which 
were  performed  in  the  open  air,  either  in  the  streets  or  on  the 
public  places.  Among  these  amusements  the  various  kinds  of 
ropa?dancing  figured  with  distinction. 

The  invention  and  the  improvement  of  these  sorts  of  exercise 
are  almost  exclusively  due  to  the  Greeks,  who  had  become  the 
more  passionately  addicted  to  them,  in  proportion  as  the  nobler 
and  more  serious  arts,  which  depended  on  the  varied  exercise 
of  thought  and  sentiment,  fell  into  gradual  desuetude  among 
them.  The  same  motives,  which  had  prompted  them  to  invent 
and  to  relish  them  in  Greece,  had  led  to  their  adoption  in  all  the 
Roman  provinces. 

The  Greeks,  who  made  a  profession  of  these  arts  (if  frivolous 
products  of  a  degenerate  civilization  like  these  deserve  the 
honor  of  the  name),  were  designated  by  various  appellations, 
according  to  the  different  exercises  to  which  they  more  espe- 
cially applied  themselves.  But  they  were  all  comprised  under 
one  common  denomination,  which  was  equivalent  to  that  of 
prodigy-makers.  Toward  the  latter  time  of  the  empire  they' 
were  designated  in  Latin  by  the  equally  generic  name  of  Jocu- 
latores.  These  men  introduced  themselves  at  an  early  date  into 
the  south  of  Gaul,  where  they  were  called  Joglars  or  Jongleurs, 
and  where  they  were  destined  to  become  at  a  future  day  the 

8 


114:  History  of  Provencal  Poetory. 

rhapsodists  of  the  Troubadours  and  one  of  the  poetic  classes  of 
Provencal  society. 

Another  amusement,  as  popular  as  the  preceding,  and  which 
was  likewise  and  still  more  intimately  connected  with  the  arts 
of  antiquity,  consisted  in  the  dramatic  or  mimic  farces  and 
I/  plays,  the  only  and  scarcely  distinguishable  remnant  of  the 
ancient  theatrical  representations.  Such  of  these  representa- 
tions, as  presupposed  a  certain  degree  of  literary  culture  in  the 
spectators,  and  which  required  a  certain  apparatus  and  the  con- 
venience of  a  theatre,  must,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  have 
necessarily  been  discontinued  in  Gaul  at  an  early  day,  very 
probably  toward  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  at  the  latest. 
But  the  dramatic  plays  of  an  inferior  order,  those  which  could 
scarcely  be  said  to  have  required  any  stage  or  the  cooperation  of 
many  actors,  certainly  continued  to  be  .in  vogue.  Those  his- 
trions,  those  itinerant  mimes,  who  had  long  since  been  accus- 
tomed to  travel  from  city  to  city,  from  borough  to  borough , 
amusing  the  populace  by  their  parodies  and  by  their  fragment- 
ary imitations  of  the  comedy  or  the  pantomime  of  the  larger 
theatres,  had  their  successors,  who  continued  and  perpetuated 
their  art. 

No  doubt,  this  art  had  already  miserably  degenerated  with 
reference  both  to  the  means  which  it  employed  and  to  the  end 
proposed;  no  doubt,  the  traditions  and  the  recollections,  on 
which  it  was  founded,  had  become  more  and  more  distorted  and 
adulterated,  the  further  they  had  receded  from  their  source ;  but 
they  did  not  become  entirely  extinct,  and  there  is  not  an  epoch 
of  the  Middle  Age,  in  which  we  could  not  discover  some  ves- 
tiges of  them. 

In  both  the  civil  and  the  ecclesiastical  laws  of  the  Middle 
Age  we  find  certain  provisions,  which  prove  that  at  this  epoch 
there  existed  histrions  and  mimes,  who  were  the  successors  of 
the  histrions  and  mimes  of  the  pagan  period.  These  laws  pro- 
nounce against  the  former  the  same  exclusions,  which  the  Roman 
emperors  and  the  ancient  councils  had  pronounced  against  the 
latter.  They  likewise  refused  them  the  right  of  becoming  wit- 
nesses before  the  tribunals. 

The  representations  by  which  they  fascinated  the  uncultured 
multitude  are  nowhere  specified  in  the  acts  which  proscribe 
them,  but  they  are  summarily  qualified  as  the  wanton  plays  of 
^i  infamous  and  obscene  histrions,  as  the  filthy  jests  of  mimes,  and 
/  by  other  terms,  which  leave  no  uncertainty  as  to  their  close  alli- 
ance to  the  pagan  mimes. 

The  ecclesiastical  authors,  who  make  mention  of  these  repre- 
sentations, have  in  all  probability  spoken  of  them  with  so  much 
conciseness  and  obscurity  for  no  other  reason,  than  because  they 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.        115 

did  not  venture  to  be  more  explicit.  As  far  as  we  can  form  any 
conception  of  them,  from  such  imperfect  testimonies,  these  farces 
were  always  of  a  coarse,  and  frequently  of  a  licentious,  charac- 
ter, in  which  one  or  several  actors  represented,  often  by  a  simple 
pantomimic  play,  sometimes  also  by  the  aid  of  speech,  certain 
pleasing  or  burlesque  actions  and  situations,  the  majority  of 
which  must  have  belonged  to  the  traditions  of  antiquity. 

And  the  mimes,  the  dramatic  histrions,  properly  so  called, 
were  not  the  only  artists  of  pagan  antiquity,  which  had  their 
representatives  in  the  Middle  Age.     Those  dancers,  those  musi-, 
cians,  those  itinerant  buffoons  of  the  pagan  age,  which  were 
invited  to  the  private  feasts,  to  weddings  and  to  banquets,  or  \ 
who  introduced  themselves,  in  order  to  increase  and  add  variety 
to  the  amusement,  were  still  to  be  found  during  the  ninth  and 
tenth  centuries,  exercising  the   same  profession,  leading  the  \ 
same  life  as  their  predecessors  had  done  before  them,  and  as   i 
welcome  as  they  had  been,  wherever  they  presented  themselves. 

They  are  the  same  personages,  which,  under  their  antique 
names  of  Thymelici  and  of  buffoons,  the  Emperor  Louis 
le  D^bonnaire,  by  way  of  a  pious  exception  to  the  general 
usage,  thought  it  his  duty  to  remove  from  his  entertain- 
ments. 

Among  this  class  of  artists  there  figured  certain  women, 
whom  contemporary  legislations  designate  as  peculiarly  dan- 
gerous. I  refer  to  the  dancers  and  the  flute-players,  who  went 
about  from  city  to  city,  and  in  the  country,  especially  on  Sun- 
days and  on  festivals,  searching  in  every  direction  for  those 
whom  they  might  for  a  moment  please  or  seduce.  They  were 
under  new  and  sometimes  barbarous  names — the  ancient  Orches- 
trides,  the  Aulestrides  of  the  Greeks  and  of  the  Komans,  save 
only  that  they  fell  far  below  the  talents  and  the  graces  of  their 
ancient  prototypes.  We  shall  find  them  again  in  the  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  centuries,  in  those  women  who  were  the  itine- 
rant rivals  of  the  Jongleurs,  after  the  latter  had  become  the 
rhapsodists  or  singers  of  the  Troubadours. 

All  these  remains,  all  these  traditions  of  the  religion,  the  arts 
and  the  customs  of  antiquity,  necessarily  lead  to  the  supposition 
of  equivalent  remains  and  of  similar  traditions  of  ancient  poetry, 
with  which  all  of  them  were  more  or  less  intimately  connected. 
It  is  in  fact  easy  to  convince  ourselves,  that  at  the  epochs  under 
consideration  there  must  have  existed,  in  the  south  of  Gaul,  a  \ 
popular  poetry,  which  was  the  express  and  direct  reminiscence  ] 
of  that  of  the  ancient  paganism,  feeble  and  degraded  as  that 
reminiscence  may  have  been. 

And  in  the  first  place,  those  profane  dances,  the  remains   of 


116  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

ancient  religious  choruses,  which  had  perpetuated  themselves 
in  the  Christian  solemnities  ;  those  pagan  rites,  which  had  been 
kept  up  in  the  funeral  ceremonies,  were,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  always  accompanied  by  analogous  songs.  These  songs 
are  always  qualified  by  the  epithet  of  profanity  by  the  ecclesi- 
astical writers  who  have  occasion  to  speak  of  them.  They  con- 
sequently did  not  constitute  a  part  of  the  Christian  liturgy ;  nor 
is  it  any  more  probable,  that  they  were  pagan  hymns.  They 
could  at  most  have  been  but  vague  recollections  of  the  latter, 
composed  with  more  or  less  energy  and  vivacity,  but  without 
any  art  and  in  a  popular  tone,  in  an  incorrect  and  barbarous 
Latin.  The  funeral  songs  are  those,  which  it  is  the  easiest  to 
suppose  were  sometimes  possessed  of  some  little  inspiration  and 
originality. 

But  the  real  groundwork  of  all  the  popular  poetry  of  this 
epoch,  consisted  of  the  various  songs,  which  were  required  for 
tne  usual  recreations  of  domestic  life.  Love  was  the  common 
theme  of  all  these  songs,  and  this  love,  it  appears,  was  expressed 
with  that  freedom  of  imagination  and  of  language,  which  was 
so  repugnant  to  the  mystical  spirit  of  Christianity.  Toward 
the  middle  of  the  sixth  century,  Saint  Caesarius  qualified  the 
songs  of  the  peasantry  about  Aries  of  both  sexes  as  licentious  and 
diabolical  songs  of  love.  The  ecclesiastical  writers  of  the  sub- 
sequent centuries  speak  in  nearly  the  same  terms  of  the  same 
kind  of  songs,  which  is  a  proof  that  their  tone  was  still  the 
same. 

A  large  number  of  these  songs  were  dancing-songs,  and  the 
dances  were  generally  of  the  mimic  kind,  in  which  the  per- 
formers imitated  by  their  movements  their  attitudes  and  ges- 
tures, the  action  or  the  situation  described  in  the  chanted 
words.  The  choruses  of  the  Greeks  were  precisely  the  same 
thing ;  and  hence  these  dances  were  designated  by  the  Greek 
corolas  or  coranlas — a  name  which  they  retained  for  a  long 
time. 

It  was  sometimes  the  case  that,  for  want  of  an  appropriate 
poetry,  these  dancing  choruses  chanted  songs  which  were 
simply  historical.  An  ecclesiastical  writer  has  preserved  us 
two  couplets  of  a  popular  song  on  one  of  the  expeditions  of 
Clotaire  II.  against  the  Saxons,  which  took  place  toward  the 
middle  of  the  seventh  century.  He  says  expressly,  that  this 
song,  in  rustic  Latin,  was  in  the  mouth  of  everybody,  and  that 
the  women  made  choruses  of  it,  that  is  to  say,  they  sung  it 
while  performing  the  circular  dance  or  round.* 

r   *  Ex  qua  victoria  carmen  publicum,  juxta  rusticitatem,  per  omnium  pene  volitabat 


The  South  of  France  under  the  Barbarians.        117 

Such  is  the  most  definite  and  the  clearest  idea,  which  it  was 
in  my  power  to  give  of  the  general  state  of  things,  and  of  the 
manners  and  customs,  in  which  the  first  attempts,  the  rudi- 
ments of  a  new  literature  and  of  a  new  idiom  originated  in  the 
south  of  France.  The  extreme  scarcity  of  information  respect- 
ing these  obscure  times,  and  particularly  when  the  question 
turns  on  facts  of  an  order  like  those  which  occupy  our  attention 
at  present,  did  not  permit  me  to  be  more  complete  or  more 
explicit.  I  hope,  however,  that  my  ulterior  developments  will 
fetch  out  more  distinctly  the  antecedents,  to  which  they  will 
successively  link  themselves. 

But,  first  of  all,  it  will  be  necessary  for  me  to  speak  of  the 
formation  and  of  the  history  of  the  Provencal  idiom.  This  is 
an  indispensable  preliminary  to  the  history  of  the  literature 
now  under  consideration. 

ora,  ita  canentium,  faeminseque  chores,  inde  plaudendo,  componebant."    Author  of  the 
life  of  St.  Faron.    The  song  was  as  follows  : 

De  Chlotario  est  canere  rege  Francorum, 

Qui  ivit  pugnare  in  gentem  Saxpnum. 

Quam  graviter  provenisset  missis  Saxonmn, 

Si  non  fuisset  inclytus  Faro  de  gente  Burgundiorum. 

Quando  veniunt  in  terram  Francorum, 
Faro  ubi  erat  princeps,  missi  Saxonum, 
Instinctu  Dei  transeunt  per  urbem  Meldorum, 
Ne  interficiantur  a  rege  Francorum. — Ed. 


118  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

OKIGIN   OF  THE  PROVENCAL  LANGUAGE. 

I  PASS  now  to  the  consideration  of  the  origin  and  formation 
of  the  Romansh  languages  in  general,  and  of  that  of  the  Trou- 
badours, which  is  the  most  ancient,  the  most  ingenious,  and  the 
most  polished  of  them  all,  in  particular.  It  is  not  without  a 
sort  of  diffidence  and  anxiety,  that  I  approach  the  investigation 
of  this  part  of  my  subject,  fearing  that  it  might  appear  dry  and 
wearisome  to  the  general  reader.  The  subject,  however,  is  on 
the  one  hand  too  important  and  too  intimately  connected  with 
the  history  of  modern  literature  and  civilization,  to  admit  of 
any  evasion ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  the  ideas  generally  pre- 
valent on  this  point  seem  to  me  to  be  too  unsatisfactory  to  be 
repeated  here  without  a  new  examination. 

The  Romansh  or  Neo-Latin  languages,  that  is  to  say,  the 
ancient  Provencal,  the  French,  the  Spanish,  the  Italian  and  the 
Portuguese  and  their  respective  dialects  are  commonly  supposed 
to  have  been  formed  by  a  mixture  of  the  Latin,  corrupted  by 
the  Barbarians  of  Germany,  and  of  the  national  idioms  of  the 
latter.  But  this  solution  of  the  problem  is  but  a  superficial 
one ;  it  is,  as  it  were,  a  mere  concealment  of  its  real  nature  and 
extent.  Its  proper  solution  would  have  required  a  preliminary 
inquiry,  on  the  one  hand,  into  the  antiquities  of  the  nations 
among^  which  the  languages  in  question  originated,  and  on  the 
other,  into  the  history  of  languages  in  general. 

This  is  precisely  what  I  would  have  to  do  in  regard  to  the 
Provencal,  in  order  to  analyze  its  original  ingredients.  But 
this  task,  rigorously  taken,  would  exceed  at  once  my  means 
and  my  design.  I  am,  therefore,  less  ambitious  to  furnish  a 
methodical  solution  of  the  question  than  I  am  to  present  it 
under  a  point  of  view,  which  will  permit  us  to  embrace  it  as  a 
whole,  and  to  indicate  some  of  the  conditions  on  which  its 
definitive  solution  depends. 

The  origin  of  the  rrovengal  goes  back  far  beyond  the  epoch 
of  the  Germanic  invasions  ;  it  links  itself  by  various  threads  to 
the  history  of  the  ancient  languages  and  of  the  ancient  inhabi- 


Origin  of  the  Provencal  Language.  119 

tants  of  Gaul.  Some  notions,  in  regard  to  the  latter,  are  there- 
fore an  indispensable  preliminary  to  our  researches  on  the 
former. 

I  have  already  had  occasion  to  speak  of  the  aboriginal  in- 
habitants of  Gaul,  which  are  mentioned  in  history.  But  what 
I  have  been  able  to  say  casually,  and  as  it  were  by  stealth  on 
this  subject,  has  been  by  far  too  rapid  to  admit  of  my  referring 
to  it  now.  It  is  indispensable,  that  I  should  resume  the  con- 
sideration of  it  more  expressly,  in  order  to  discover  its  relation 
to  the  special  question  which  I  have  now  undertaken  to  dis- 
cuss. Nevertheless,  it  will  be  granted  that  I  shall  not  be  able 
to  say  all  that  might  be  said  on  a  topic  so  obscure  and  so  com- 
plicated as  is  the  one  under  consideration,  without  deviating 
from  my  purpose ;  and  I  shall  be  reduced  to  the  necessity  of 
merely  giving  some  of  the  results  without  any  further  discus- 
sion, and  without  entering  into  all  the  proofs  by  which  they  are 
arrived  at.  I  can,  however,  assure  the  reader  that  I  have 
neglected  neither  researches  nor  reflections  to  convince  myself 
of  the  truth  of  these  results. 

At  the  time  in  which  the  history  of  Gaul  commences,  this 
country  was  inhabited  by  numerous  tribes,  forming  at  least 
three  distinct  groups,  three  different  national  bodies,  which  the 
writers  of  antiquity  frequently  confounded,  sometimes  under 
one  name,  sometimes  under  another.  Caesar  is  the  first  who 
has  expressly  distinguished  them  by  different  names.  To  the 
first  of  these  three  nations  he  gives  the  name  of  Aquitani, 
to  the  second  that  of  Celtae,  and  to  the  third  that  of 
Belgse.* 

But  positive  and  valuable  as  this  division  may  be,  it  never- 
theless gives  rise  to,  or  rather  leaves  unsolved,  several  difficul- 
ties, of  which  I  will  only  mention  two. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  not  applicable  to  the  whole  of  Gaul, 
but  only  to  that  portion  of  the  country  which  was  conquered 
by  Caasar.  It  consequently  excludes  all  the  tribes  of  Gallia 
iNarbonensis,  a  province  of  vast  extent,  which  had  already  been 
subject  to  the  Roman  sway  before  the  conquest  of  Caesar.  "We 
know  positively,  that  the  tribes  of  this  province  belonged  to 
different  races,  but  it  remains  to  be  decided  whether  these 
races  were  the  same  three  national  bodies  which  we  have  already 
mentioned,  or  whether  they  were  of  a  different  origin. 

The  first  of  these  two  hypotheses  is  by  far  the  most  probable, 
and  I  think  it  can  be  proved  historically,  that  the  tribes  of 
Gallia  Karbonensis  were  all  of  them,  as  were  those  of  the  rest 
of  Gaul,  either  Aquitanian  or  Celtic  or  Belgic,  and  that  they 
were  thus  evidently  included  in  the  division  of  Caesar. 
*  De  Bello  Gallico,  lib.  i.,  c.  1.— Ed. 


120  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

In  the  second  place,  Caesar  expressly  affirms  a  fact  which  is 
worth  our  notice.  He  says,  that  the  name  Celt,  which  he  applies 
to  one  of  the  three  nations  conquered  by  him,  was  the  name  by 
which  this  people  was  accustomed  to  designate  itself,  and  he  at  the 
same  time  adds,  that  the  Celts  were  the  same  people  to  which  the 
Romans  usually  gave  the  name  of  Gauls.*  It  follows  from  this 
assertion,  that  in  his  time  the  term  Gauls  was  employed  by  the 
Romans  in  an  improper  and  arbitrary  manner — in  a  man- 
ner, which  did  not  correspond  to  the  actual  state  or  usage  of 
the  country ;  that  at  that  epoch  there  was  no  longer  any  par- 
ticular tribe,  or  any  collection  of  tribes,  to  which  this  ancient 
name  of  Gauls  could  strictly  be  applied.  It  appears,  that  in 
consequence  of  some  unknown  revolution  a  new  name  had 
gained  the  ascendency  over  the  latter,  and  had  caused  it  to  fall 
into  desuetude  in  its  own  country  even.  Now  it  is  necessary 
to  know  to  which  of  the  three  of  Caesar's  national  divisions  the 
name  of  Gauls  had  originally  been  given,  and  could  still  be 
applied  with  propriety,  at  least  historically.  We  have  every 
reason  to  believe,  that  it  was  to  the  Belgians,  and  that  the 
name  of  Belgse  was,  in  Caesar's  time,  the  one  which  had  ob- 
tained in  Gaul  as  the  collective  designation  of  the  tribes  which 
had  formerly  been  denominated  Gallic. 

Caesar  is  also  the  authority  from  which  we  learn,  what  por- 
tion of  the  territory  of  Gaul  was  inhabited  by  each  of  the  three 
nations  discovered  by  him,  and  there  is  no  doubt  but  that,  upon 
the  whole,  and  with  a  few  exceptions  noticed  by  others,  his 
division  is  a  just  and  an  important  one.  According  to  his  ac- 
count the  Aquitanians  inhabited  the  triangular  area  comprised 
between  the  course  of  the  Garonne  and  the  occidental  half  of 
the  Pyrenean  chain.  The  Celts  had  chiefly  concentrated  them- 
selves in  the  territory,  which  was  situate  between  the  Garonne 
and  the  Seine.  The  Belgic  tribes,  or  those  of  the  ancient  Gal- 
lic race,  occupied  the  whole  of  the  area  extending  from  the 
right  bank  of  the  Seine  to  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine,  and  to 
the  shores  of  the  Atlantic.  Finally,  the  province  of  Gallia 
Narbonensis  contained  tribes,  of  which  some  were  affiliated  to 
the  Belgae,  as  for  example,  the  Volcse  Arecomici  of  Nimes, 
and  the  Yolcae  Tectosages  of  Toulouse ;  and  others  to  the  Aqui- 
tanians, as,  for  example,  all  the  Ligurians  and  the  Iberians  on 
the  sea-coast,  between  the  mouths  of  the  Rhone  and  the  eastern 
headland  of  the  Pyrenees.  Some  of  those  tribes  were  un- 
doubtedly Celtic,  but  we  have  no  positive  data,  by  which  we 
may  distinguish  them. 

In  regard  to  the  characteristic  differences,  which  doubtless 

"Tertiam  (partem  incolunt),  qui  ipsorum  lingua  Celtse,  nostra  Galli,  appellantur." 
Id.  eodem  loco. — Ed. 


Origin  of  the  Provencal  Language.  121 

existed  between  the  three  nationalities  mentioned  by  Csesar, 
that  of  their  languages  is  the  principal  one,  which  it  is  necessary 
for  me  to  notice  here  ;  but  it  is  by  no  means  easy  to  say  any- 
thing very  definite  on  this  .point.  Csesar  is  content  with  the 
vague  affirmation,  that  the  three  nations  in  question  differed 
among  themselves  in  their  laws,  their  customs  and  their 
languages.* 

Strabo,  while  adopting  the  division  of  Csesar,  happily  adds  some 
traits,  which  develop  and  complete  it,  at  least  as  far  as  the 
Aquitanians  are  concerned.  "  The  Aquitanians,"  says  he,  "  are 
entirely  different  from  the  Gauls,  not  only  with  respect  to 
their  language,  but  also  in  their  general  appearance,  which  has 
a  greater  resemblance  to  that  of  the  Iberians ;"  f  and  by  his 
Iberians,  Strabo  here  means  the  masses  of  the  Spanish.  When 
he  comes  to  the  special  description  of  Aquitania,  he  commences 
with  a  passage  which  is  still  more  explicit  than  the  first: 
"The  Aquitanians,"  says  he,  "resemble  the  Iberians  more 
closely  than  they  do  the  Gauls,  both  in  the  general  conforma- 
tion of  their  body  and  in  their  language."  J 

This  fact  being  considered  as  established,  we  are  certain,  that 
the  Aquitanians  and  the  other  tribes  of  the  same  race  spoke  an 
Iberian  idiom,  as  different  as  possible  from  the  Celtic  or  the 
Gaulish.  In  regard  to  these  latter  languages,  it  is  equally 
obvious  that  their  mutual  difference  must  certainly  have  been 
much  more  inconsiderable  than  the  difference  between  them 
and  the  Aquitanian ;  it  was,  however,  still  great  enough,  to 
lead  Csesar  into  the  error  of  regarding  them  as  two  languages, 
totally  distinct  from  each  other.  The  inhabitants  of  Gaul, 
therefore,  spoke  primitively  three  different  languages,  the 
Aquitanian,  the  Celtic  and  the  Gallic,  as  I  prefer  to  call  it 
instead  of  the  Belgic. 

The  Phocseans  are  the  first  people,  known  to  have  introduced 
a  new  language  into  Gaul.  The  tribes  of  the  vicinity  of  Mar- 
seilles, as  we  have  already  seen,  soon  learned  this  new  idiom, 
and  their  own,  whatever  it  was,  must  sooner  or  later  have  been 
more  or  less  affected  by  the  former. 

Soon  after  the  establishment  of  the  Phocseans  in  Gaul,  the 
Romans,  having  successively  conquered  the  different  parts  of 
the  country,  introduced  the  Latin,  which  incessantly  gained 
new  advantages  over  the  Greek,  as  well  as  over  the  ancient 
national  languages,  until  the  epoch  of  the  Germanic  invasions. 

*  "Hi  omnes  lingua,  institute,  legibus  inter  se  differunt."    De  Bello  Gallico,  lib.  L 
c.  1 Ed. 

t  "  'ATrAcDf  yap  etTretv,  ol  'A/covmzvoZ  dia<}>tpovai  rov  TahariKov  ^t>Ao 
raf  TUV  auparuv  KaraaKEva^  Kal  /card  rrjv  yAurrav  to'iKaat  d£  fulMov  "I 
Geograph.,  lib.  iv.  c.  2 Ed. 

J  In  the  same  chapter  of  the  same  book.— Ed. 


122  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

It  is  an  accredited  opinion,  that  at  this  epoch  the  Latin  had 
become  the  universal,  nay,  the  only,  language  of  the  Gauls  ; 
but  this  opinion  has  very  little  intrinsic  probability.  It  has 
against  itself  the  excessive  difficulty,  with  which  languages  are 
known  to  become  extinct,  however  little  they  may  be  spoken 
by  numerous  masses  of  men,  and  in  a  territory  of  a  certain 
extent  and  of  some  variety  of  surface.  It  remains  to  be  seen, 
whether  it  has  any  facts  in  its  favor ;  but  it  is  easy  to  assure 
one's  self,  that  it  has  none. 

The  Romans,  it  is  true,  undertook  to  impose  their  language 
and  their  laws  at  the  same  time  on  the  nations,  whom  they 
subjugated  ;  *  but  in  this  attempt  they  cannot  be  said  to  have 
been  absolutely  successful  anywhere.  The  time  for  the  con- 
summation of  so  vast  an  enterprise  was  wanting  to  them  every- 
where ;  and  when  their  empire  fell,  there  was  perhaps  not  a 
single  province,  but  what  contained  considerable  masses  of 
population,  which  continued  to  express  themselves  in  the  idiom 
of  their  fathers.  Thus  they  spoke  Greek  in  Greece ;  Punic  and 
Berber  in  the  province  of  Africa  ;  Illyrian  on  the  eastern  coast 
of  the  Adriatic ;  Coptic  in  Egypt.  In  the  first  century  of  our  era, 
the  ancient  dialects  of  several  districts  of  Italy,  at  a  very  short 
-distance  from  Rome,  as  for  example  the  Oscan  and  the  Etruscan, 
were  still  written  and  spoken  both.  The  same  facts,  which 
prove  that  at  that  time  tliey  were  not  yet  extinct,  warrant  the 
presumption  that  they  still  continued  to  exist  for  a  long  time 
after  ;  so  that  it  is  very  doubtful,  whether  the  Latin  was  ever 
the  only  language  of  Italy  itself. 

As  far  as  Gaul  is  concerned,  the  Latin  was  certainly  never 
the  language  of  all  its  inhabitants.  There  are  a  multitude  of 
facts  which  go  to  prove,  that  in  different  parts  of  the  country  the 
ancient  national  idioms  and  even  the  Greek  continued  in  use 
until  the  last  days  of  the  empire,  and  that  they  even  survived  it. 

Saint  Jerome  states  indirectly,  that  in  the  fifth  century  the 
Gallic  was  still  spoken  at  Treves  and  its  vicinity — that  is  to  say, 
in  one  of  the  parts  of  the  country,  where  Roman  culture  must 
have  exercised  the  greatest  influence. f  The  same  saint  re- 
lates another  fact  on  the  authority  of  Varro,  and  his  statement 
would  seem  to  imply,  that  it  was  still  so  in  his  own  time  ;  he 
says,  that,  besides  the  Latin  and  the  Greek,  a  third  idiom  was 
spoken  at  Marseilles  and  its  environs,:):  which  could  have 

*  "  Imperiosa  civitas  non  golum  jugum,  sed  etiam  lingnam  snam  gentibua  domitia 
imponebat. — Romani,  quocumque  pergebant,  latinam  inferebant  linguam."   St.  Hieron. 


in  Epist.  ad  Galatas,  prooem.    St.  August.  De  Civit.  Dei,  lib.  xix.— Ed. 
f    .    .    .    .    "  Galatas  excepto  sermone  Grseco, 


,  quo  omnis  Oriens  loquitur,  propriam 
linguam  eundem  pene  habere  quam  Treviros."    ....    In  Epist.  ad  Gal.  lib.  ii.  c. 

3 Ed. 

±  "  Massiliam  Phocsei  condidernnt :  quos  ait  Varro  trUinguts  «*e,  quod  et  Grace 
loquantur,  et  Latine,  et  Gallice."    Id.  eodem  libro.— Ed. 


Origin  of  the  Provencal  Language.  123 

been  none  other  than  one  of  the  three  primitive  idioms  of  Gaul. 
Now  the  places  in  question  had  been  subject  to  the  action  of 
Greek  and  Roman  civilization  for  more  than  a  thousand  con- 
secutive years.  From  these  two  facts  we  may  indeed  be  per- 
mitted to  conclude,  that  the  Latin  could  not  have  made  any 
very  great  progress  in  the  high  valleys  of  the  Pyrenees,  or  on 
the  remote  shores  of  Armorica  ;  and  in  support  of  these  facts, 
we  might  cite  twenty  others,  if  we  had  the  time  to  do  so. 

It  would  be  a  chimerical  enterprise,  if  one  were  to  attempt  to 
draw  a  precise  line  of  demarcation  between  the  parts  of  Gaul, 
where  the  Latin  was  spoken  at  the  commencement  of  the  fifth 
century,  and  those  where  the  national  idioms  had  continued  in 
use  up  to  the  same  period.  The  assertions,  which  could  be 
hazarded  on  this  subject,  would  be  true  only  on  the  condition  of 
being  extremely  vague. 

At  the  epoch  in  question,  the  three  primitive  languages  of 
Gaul  continued  in  use,  without  any  doubt,  in  certain  remote 
cantons,  away  from  the  highways  of  commerce,  and  from  the 
seats  of  authority — that  is  to  say,  in  the  mountainous  districts  of 
the  interior,  and  on  the  frontiers. 

As  to  the  Latin,  it  must  have  been  generally  spoken  in  the 
cities  and  in  the  greater  part  of  their  districts,  at  least  in  those 
populous  provinces,  which  had  frequent  and  regular  communi- 
cations with  each  other. 

But  even  there,  where  the  Latin  was  spoken,  it  could  not 
have  been  so  to  the  same  extent  nor  equally  well.  The  person- 
ages of  the  higher  classes,  those,  who  had  frequented  the  schools 
of  grammar  and  of  rhetoric,  no  doubt  spoke  it  with  correctness.* 
But  we  cannot  make  the  same  application  in  regard  to  the 
general  masses  of  these  populations. 

At  Rome  itself,  there  was  a  great  difference  between  the 
Latin  as  established  by  literary  culture,  such  as  the  educated 
classes  prided  themselves  on  speaking  it,  and  the  Latin  of  the 
people  generally.  There,  as  everywhere  else,  the  people  were 
in  tne  habit  of  clipping  and  of  altering  the  forms  of  words,  and 
of  depriving  them  of  the  characeristic  endings,  which  were 
destined  to  express  the  nicer  shades  of  their  grammatical  value. 
So  men  of  great  sense  and  erudition  have  regarded  the  language 
of  the  ancient  Roman  populace  as  a  vulgar  dialect  of  the  Latin, 
of  which  the  Italian  would  be  the  immediate  continuation. 

*  This  is  manifest  inter  alia  from  a  letter  of  Sidonius,  in  which  he  congratulates  a 
friend  of  his,  who  was  an  inhabitant  of  Auvergne,  on  his  success  in  instituting  public 
schools  for  the  education  of  the  young  nobles  of  the  country  :  "  Celtici  sermonis 
squamam  depositura  nobilitas,  nunc  oratorio  stylo,  nunc  camoenalibus  modis  imbuitur." 
But  to  the  masses  the  Latin  of  the  classical  authors  must  have  still  remained,  what  the 
French  of  Penelon  or  Racine  is  at  this  very  day  to  the  provincial,  who  knows  nothinrr 
but  his  patois,— EeL 


124:  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

There  is  undoubtedly  some  truth  in  this  opinion  ;  the  only 
difficulty  is,  that  from  a  general  and  vague  fact  they  have 
deduced  too  special  and  too  precise  a  consequence. 

As  far  as  Gaul  is  concerned,  the  chances  for  the  adulteration 
of  the  Latin  in  the  mouth  of  the  lower  classes  of  the  people 
were  there  obviously  greater  and  more  numerous  than  at  Kome. 
In  order  to  learn  the  Latin,  the  Gauls  were  obliged  to  forget 
their  ancient  languages ;  and  a  forgetting  of  this  description, 
even  with  the  decided  determination  of  succeeding  in  it,  is  al- 
ways for  the  masses  of  the  people  the  slowest  and  the  most 
difficult  thing  in  the  world.  The  national  terms  and  idioms 
must  have  become  apparent  every  moment  in  the  Latin  of  a 
Celt,  a  Gaul  or  an  Aquitanian,  who  had  not  learnt  it  syste- 
matically, but  by  practice  and  from  sheer  necessity. 

This  forced  mixture,  this  inevitable  collision  between  the 
Latin  and  the  primitive  idioms  of  Gaul,  must  necessarily  have 
given  rise  to  intermediate  dialects,  to  a  popular  Latin,  which  I 
Siall  henceforth  distinguish  by  the  name  of  Rustic  Latin,  and 
to  which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  return  hereafter. 

It  was  not  in  the  nature  of  things,  that  the  inferior  classes  of 
the  Gallo-Roman  population  should  ever  succeed  in  speaking 
the  Latin  with  all  the  rigor  and  in  all  the  purity  of  its  gram- 
matical correctness.  Nevertheless,  as  long  as  the  Roman 
culture  was  making  progress  in  Gaul,  the  Rustic  Latin  must 
have  had  a  gradual  tendency  to  approximate  the  grammatical, 
and  to  become  more  and  more  assimilated  to  it. 

The  Germanic  invasions  came  to  arrest  the  anterior  march 
of  things  in  this  respect,  as  in  every  other.  In  consequence  of 
these  invasions,  three  new  idioms  were  introduced  into  Gaul, 
by  the  Gothic  in  the  southwest,  the  Burgundian  in  the  south- 
east, and  the  Frankish  in  the  north.  At  that  time — that  is  to 
Bay,  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  century,  there  were  eight  or  nine 
different  languages  in  Gaul.  Two  centuries  later,  after  the  con- 
quest of  Septimania  by  the  Arabs,  ISTarbonne,  the  primitive 
centre  of  the  Latin  language  in  Gaul,  became  the  seat  of  a  new 
authority  and  of  a  new  language.  This  is  the  tenth  of  those, 
which  history  can  enumerate  up  to  that  time,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  unknown  varieties  of  dialects,  which  were  undoubtedly 
very  numerous. 

Different  languages,  which  are  brought  into  accidental  contact 
with  each  other,  naturally  tend  to  modify,  to  interpenetrate 
and  to  supplant  each  other.  Being  the  organs  of  moral  and 
political  forces,  they  necessarily  show  the  pretensions  and  the 
destinies  of  these  forces ;  they  triumph  or  they  perish  with  them. 
AH  the  languages,  which  coexisted  in  Gaul  from  the  end  of  the 
fifth  to  the  middle  of  the  eighth  centuries  were  far  from  having 


Origin  of  the  Provencal  Language.  125 

equal  chances  of  life  and  of  duration.  But  it  would  occupy 
too  much  time,  and  it  is  not  essential  for  my  purpose,  to  render 
an  account  of  these  chances,  It  will  be  sufficient  to  remark, 
that  before  the  end  of  the  tenth  century,  the  majority  of  the 
languages,  of  which  I  have  spoken,  had  already  disappeared 
from  the  soil  of  Gaul,  some  sooner  and  others  later,  without  our 
being  able  to  say  precisely  at  what  epoch,  with  respect  to  any 
of  them. 

One  of  the  most  ancient  of  these  languages,  the  Gaulish  or 
the  Gallic,  had  been  one  of  the  first  to  disappear ;  at  any  rate, 
the  last  positive  evidence  we  have  of  its  existence  in  Gaul, 
relates  to  the  end  of  the  fourth  century ;  it  is  contained  in  a 
curious  passage  from  the  life  of  Saint  Martin,  by  Sulpicius 
Severus.  This  biography  is  in  the  shape  of  a  dialogue.  Some 
Aquitanians,  anxious  to  become  acquainted  with  the  life  and  the 
miracles  of  the  Saint,  requested  a  certain  Gaul,  who  had  been  a 
witness,  to  give  an  account  of  them.  But  the  latter  shows  a 
little  diffidence  and  embarrassment  about  explaining  himself  in 
the  presence  of  men  of  an  accomplished  and  fastidious  taste, 
while  he  himself  is  but  a  Gaul,  who,  moreover,  pretends  to  be 
somewhat  illiterate.  "Speak  as  you  please,"  said  thereupon 
Posthumianus,  one  of  the  interlocutors,  eager  to  hear  him, 
"speak  Celtic  or  Gallic  if  you  prefer  it,  provided  you  only 
speak  of  Martin."*  There  is  no  doubt,  but  that  by  these 
denominations  of  Celtic  and  of  Gallic  he  meant  two  of  the 
ancient  idioms  of  Gaul,  which  were  then  still  spoken,  of  one  of 
which,  however,. every  vestige  is  lost  from  the  moment  of  this 
accidental  notice. 

Subsequently  to  the  sixth  century,  we  find  no  longer  any 
indication  of  the  use  of  the  Greek.  Before  the  end  of  the  eighth, 
the  Arabic,  together  with  the  dominion  of  the  Mussulmans,  had 
been  driven  back  beyond  the  Pyrenees.  From  the  commence- 
ment of  the  ninth,  the  Latin  had  ceased  to  be  spoken,  and  was 
thenceforward  only  employed  as  the  language  of  the  cultus, 
the  laws  and  the  administration.  Finally,  there  is  every  appear- 
ance, that  the  Yisigoths  and  the  Burgundians  had  renounced 
their  Teutonic  idioms  about  the  same  time. 

By  the  tenth  century,  history  knows  of  no  more  than  four 
different  languages  within  the  limits  of  Gaul.  The  Frankish 
was  generally  spoken  on  the  left  banks  of  the  Rhine,  in  those 
portions  of  ancient  Belgium,  into  which  the  Franks  had  forced 

*  "Dum  cogito  me  hominem  Gallum  inter  Aquitanos  verba facturum,  vereor  ne  offen- 
dat  vestras  nimium  urbanas  aures  sermo  rusticior."  This  is  the  language  put  into  the 
mouth  of  the  Celt.  To  which  the  Aquitanian  interlocutor  replies:  "  Vel  celtice,  aut  gi 
mavis,  gallice  loquere,  dummodo  jam  Martinum  loquaris."  Dial,  i.—  Ed. 


126  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

themselves  in  a  mass,  and  whence  they  had  expelled  the  Gallo- 
Romans. 

In  the  Armorica  of  Caesar,  which  was  then  called  Bretagne, 
the  Celtic  still  continued  to  be  in  use ;  it  was  then  or  soon  after 
designated  by  the  name  of  the  Breton. 

In  the  valleys  of  the  western  Pyrenees,  the  ancient  Aquita- 
nian  idiom  was  likewise  perpetuated ;  it  had  assumed  the  name 
of  the  Basque,  as  had  also  the  people,  who  spoke  it. 

In  all  the  rest  of  the  country,  the  Gallo-Romans  spoke  a 
language,  which  was  mostly  derived  from  the  Latin,  and  which 
the  historians  designate  by  the  name  of  the  Lingua  Romana 
Rustica,  or  by  that  of  the  Lingua  Romana,  or  Roman  language 
simply.  It  was,  as  we  shall  see  more  clearly  hereafter,  this 
same  idiom,  which  I  have  already  distinguished  as  the  Rustic 
Latin,  and  which,  at  a  somewhat  later  period,  was  called  the 
Romance  or  the  Romansh.  It  was  divided  into  various  dialects, 
the  most  prominent  of  which,  at  the  two  extremities  of  the 
country,  formed  on  the  one  hand  the  French  or  the  Romansh 
of  the  North,  and  on  the  other  the  Provengal  or  the  Romansh 
of  the  South. 

It  is  the  origin  and  the  formation  of  the  latter,  that  I  have 
undertaken  to  explain,  and  it  is  for  the  want  of  a  sufficient 
number  of  direct  data  on  this  subject,  that  I  have  been  obliged 
to  approach  it  in  a  very  circuitous  way.  In  indicating  the 
various  languages,  which,  from  the  most  ancient  times,  were 
simultaneously  or  successively  spoken  in  the  countries,  where 
the  Provencal  was  subsequently  formed,  I  have  at  the  same 
time,  and  by  that  very  means,  indicated  all  the  possible  sources 
of  the  latter,  all  the  materials  which  could  enter  into  its  com- 
position, all  the  grammatical  antecedents  that  could  have  deter- 
mined its  character.  The  question  is  now,  to  see,  to  what 
extent,  considering  the  Provencal  such  as  it  presents  itself  to 
us  in  the  written  monuments  and  by  oral  tradition,  we  may  be 
able  to  distinguish  the  respective  influences  of  the  anterior 
idioms,  and  to  appreciate  its  greater  or  less  affinity  with  thorn. 

There  are  two  things,  which  constitute  a  language :  its  matter, 
or  the  sum  of  words  which  it  employs  in  designating  objects; 
and  the  system  or  the  method,  which  these  words  follow  in  order 
to  express  certain  relations  between  the  objects  designated  and 
our  ideas ;  they  are,  in  other  and  more  familiar  terms,  its  diction- 
ary and  its  grammar.  I  shall,  in  the  first  place,  speak  of  the 
material  substratum  of  the  Provencal,  independently  of  its  gram- 
matical forms,  which  I  propose  to  consider  after  the  former  and 
in  the  next  chapter. 

The  Provencal  contains  a  much  larger  number  of  words, 
foreign  to  the  Latin,  than  is  commonly  supposed.  I  have  col- 


Origin  of  the  Provencal  Language.  127 

lected  nearly  three  thousand  of  them  from  the  different  literary 
monuments  of  this  language,  which  I  have  had  occasion  to 
consult.  Now,  considering  the  small  number  of  these  works  as 
compared  with  the  immense  number  of  those  which  are  lost,  it 
is  to  be  presumed,  that  three  thousand  words  are  scarcely  more 
than  one-half  of  those,  which  might  have  been  gathered  from 
a  complete  collection  of  the  monuments  in  question.  Never* 
theless,  the  number  indicated  is  sufficiently  complete,  to  give  rise 
to  some  curious  comparisons. 

Of  these  three  thousand  Provencal  words  foreign  to  the  Latin, 
or  at  least  to  the  Latin,  such  as  we  know  it  from  books,  the 
greater  part  cannot,  to  my  knowledge,  be  referred  with  cer- 
tainty to  any  known  language.  It  is  impossible  for  me  to 
say,  whether  it  belongs  to  the  lost  portion  of  the  three  primitive 
idioms  of  Gaul,  or  to  languages,  with  which  we  are  unacquainted, 
and  on  the  existence  of  which  history  furnishes  us  no  indication. 
But  the  remainder  of  the  non-Latin  ingredients  of  the  Pro- 
vencal can  very  easily,  and  with  more  or  less  certainty,  be 
referred  to  languages,  which  are  at  present  still  not  only  known, 
but  spoken  and  alive,  and  which  could  never  have  contributed 
words  to  the  Provencal,  unless  they  had  been  in  use  before  it, 
and  in  the  country  in  which  it  originated.  This  portion  of  the 
Provencal  includes  many  valuable  indications,  both  in  regard 
to  its  own  history,  and  in  regard  to  that  of  the  ancient  inhabi- 
tants of  Gaul. 

Of  the  languages  introduced  into  Gaul,  the  Arabic  was  the 
last,  which  could  have  had  any  influence  on  the  formation  of 
the  Provencal.  And,  indeed,  we  find  in  the  latter  a  certain 
number  of  terms,  which  are  undoubtedly  derived  from  the  for- 
mer. They  could  easily  have  found  their  way  into  it,  some 
during  the  dominion  of  the  Arabs  at  Narbonne,  and  others  in 
consequence  of  the  numerous  relations  subsisting  between  the 
inhabitants  of  the  South  and  the  Arabs  of  the  Spanish  Penin- 
sula. I  shall  here  confine  myself  to  a  simple  notice  of  the  fact, 
to  which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  return  hereafter ;  and  I  shall 
return  to  it  for  the  purpose  of  explaining  other  facts,  with  which 
the  latter  is  connected. 

After  all  that  I  have  heretofore  said  concerning  the  influence 
of  the  Massilians  in  the  south  of  Gaul,  it  would  be  astonishing 
not  to  find  some  vestiges  of  the  Greek  in  the  vulgar  idioms  of 
the  country.  And,  indeed,  there  are  to  be  found  many,  and 
very  remarkable  ones,  especially  on  the  left  side  of  the  Rhone, 
in  Provence  proper,  where  the  settlements  of  the  Massilians 
were  more  numerous,  and  their  population  more  compact,  than 
between  the  Rhone  and  the  Pyrenees.  The  language  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  sea-coast  contains  a  very  considerable  num- 


128  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

ber  of  Greek  words,  which  occur  more  especially  among  those 
which  have  reference  to  the  industry  of  the  country,  to  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  soil,  and  to  fishing.  In  Lower  Provence,  and 
even  in  those  parts  of  the  Alps,  which  during  summer  are  fre- 
quented by  Provencal  herdsmen,  there  were  at  a  comparatively 
recent  period  (and  there  are  undoubtedly  still)  villages,  where 
bread  was  called  harto,  from  the  Greek  name  apro$.  In  the 
written  Provencal,  which  represents  the  state  of  the  language 
at  an  epoch,  when  it  was  seven  to  eight  centuries  nearer  to  its 
origin,  these  Greek  terms  are  still  more  abundant.  There  are 
Troubadours,  who  call  the  sea  pelek,  pelech,  pelagre,  names 
which  are  evidently  derived  from  the  Greek  TreAayo^.  Many 
of  the  most  ordinary  acts  of  life  are  likewise  expressed  by  Greek 
words  in  the  Provencal. 

To  dream,  to  muse,  is  expressed  by  pantaizar,  phantayssar, 
Greek  </>avra£6>. 

To  seize,  to  take  by  the  hand,  is  called  niarvir,  amarvir,  from 


To  eat,  to  partake  of  the  principal  meal  of  the  day,  is  denoted 
by  the  word.awwkzr,  from  the  Greek  deirrvov,  whence  the  French 
diner  and  the  English  dinner,  are  derived. 

To  tear,  to  lacerate,  is  called  skizar,  skissar,  from  a%ifa. 

To  strive,  endeavor,  ponhar,  from  trovea),  TTOVOS. 

To  conceal  one's  self,  make  one's  self  small,  tapinar,  from 


To  fight,  to  wage  war,  peleia/r,  from 

To  cut,  to  divide  in  two,  is  entamenar,  from  re//vG>,  which  the 
French  has  converted  into  entamer,  by  a  suppression  which  de- 
stroys or  disguises  the  etymology  of  the  word. 

To  turn  (one's  self),  is  virar  and  girar,  from  yvpo^  yvpevu. 

All  these  Provencal  verbs  can,  with  great  facility,  be  traced 
to  their  Greek  originals,  from  which  they  are  derived,  as  we 
perceive,  with  hardly  any  alterations. 

It  is  just  so  with  a  multitude  of  other  terms,  employed  to 
designate  objects  of  ordinary  life  ;  thus  for  example  : 

An  arrow,  dart,  is  called  pilo,  from  /3eAof. 

Apple,  mela,  or  melha,  from  /ZTJAOV. 

Lightning,  flash,  lampec,  or  lamps,  from 

Column,  stilo,  from  orviog. 

Burin,  style,  graft,  from  ypafalov  or 

Pitcher,  jug,  ydria,  from  vdpelov. 

Visage,  countenance,  oara,  from  ndpa. 

'It  is  perhaps  not  out  of  place  here  to  call  to  mind,  that  the 
Massilians  spoke  an  Ionian  dialect,  peculiar  to  Phocsea,  their 
mother  city,  and  to  the  neighboring  isle  of  Samos.  Now,  this 
dialect  undoubtedly  contained  words,  which  were  unknown 


Origin  of  the  Provengal  Language.  129 

elsewhere,  and  a  number  of  which  may  have  remained  in  the 
Provencal,  without  our  having  at  present  the  means  of  recog- 
nizing them.  Curious  researches  might  be  instituted  on  this 
point ;  but  they  would  lead  too  far  from  my  subject.  I  shall 
have  but  one  observation  to  make  in  regard  to  it,  and  it  is  this : 
had  history  never  said  a  single  word  with  reference  to  the 
Greek  populations,  which  flourished  for  a  long  time  in  the  south 
of  Gaul,  their  existence  might  have  been  surmised  from  the 
vestiges  of  the  Greek  that  are  scattered  through  the  Pro- 
vencal. 

Among  the  ingredients  of  this  latter  idiom  there  are  some, 
which  are  more  ancient  and  more  curious  than  the  Greek.  It 
contains  words  which  are  at  present  still  alive  in  the  Low-Bre- 
ton and  in  the  Welsh.  Now  there  is  no  doubt,  but  that  these 
two  dialects  belong  to  one  of  the  three  primitive  languages  of 
Gaul,  and  to  the  one  which  I  have  designated  by  the  name  of 
the  Celtic.  It  follows  from  this,  that  some  of  the  countries, 
in  which  the  Provencal  has  since  originated,  were  anciently 
inhabited  by  Celtic  tribes,  and  it  is  principally  in  sections  com- 
posing the  northern  half  of  the  basin  of  the  Garonne,  that  we 
must  look  for  the  source  of  whatever  there  is  of  the  Celtic  ele- 
ment in  this  idiom. 

It  would  be  quite  a  complicated  task  for  philological  criticism 
to  eliminate  with  certainty  and  completeness  all  the  Breton  or 
Celtic  elements  interspersed  through  the  Provencal,  and  this  is 
not^the  place  for  such  an  undertaking.  All  that  I  can  do  here 
is  simply  to  affirm,  that  these  words  are  quite  numerous,  and 
to  give  by  way  of  specimens,  some  of  the  most  remarkable  of 
them,  ihus,  for  example,  in  the  Provencal 

Vas  signifies  a  tomb. 

Dorn,  a  clenched  hand,  or  fist. 

Anaf  and  enap,  a  cup. 

Agre,  a  troop,  multitude. 

Runs,  the  earth,  the  country. 

Ruska,  the  bark  of  a  tree. 

Coniba,  dale,  valley. 

Mahoul,  childish,  infantine. 

Cuend,  graceful,  pretty. 

Prim,  slender,  subtile. 

Truan,  vagabond,  mendicant. 

Fell,  bad,  wicked. 

Now  all  these  words  occur  in  the  same  signification,  and  with 
scarcely  any  variation  of  sound  in  the  Welsh,  and  in  the  origi- 
nal and  primitive  portion  of  the  Breton. 

This  affinity  established  between   the  Provencal  and  the 
idioms,  which  may  with  certainty  be  regarded  as  representa- 


130  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

tives  of  one  of  the  three  aboriginal  languages  of  Gaul,  naturally 
suggests  other  researches  of  a  similar  description. 

The  countries,  in  which  the  Provencal  was  spoken,  included 
the  Aquitania  of  Caesar,  and  the  maritime  coast  extending  from 
the  mouths  of  the  Rhone  to  the  eastern  extremity  of  the  Pyre- 
nees. It  can,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  be  historically 
shown,  that  an  Iberian  idiom  was  anciently  in  use  in  these 
countries.  Now,  after  having  enumerated  Celtic  elements  in 
the  Provencal,  there  is  nothing  strange  in  the  supposition,  that 
we  might  likewise  find  in  it  some  traces  of  this  ancient  Iberian 
element,  the  identity  of  which  and  the  Basque  is  a  fact,  which 
may  be  regarded  as  incontestable. 

The  conjecture  is  not  a  chimerical  one.  Both  the  written 
Provencal  and  the  derivative  idioms,  by  which  it  is  still  repre- 
sented, actually  contain  a  certain  number  of  very  curious  words, 
which  they  have  in  common  with  the  Basque.  The  following 
are  some  of  them  : 

Aonar,  to  aid,  second. 

Asko,  much. 

Biz,  black,  dark,  sombre. 

Bresca,  honey. 

Enoc,  sadness,  chagrin. 

Nee,  sorrowful,  gloomy. 

Gais,  evil,  misfortunate,  etc. 

Gaissar,  to  injure,  ravage. 

jSerra,  a  mountain. 

Gavarrer,  a  bush,  thicket. 

Rabi,  a  current,  river. 

Grazal,  a  vase,  porringer. 

AH  these  words  and  fifty  others,  which  I  could  add  to  the  list, 
have  precisely  the  same  signification  and  the  same  sound  in  the 
Basque  as  they  have  in  the  Proven£al.  There  is  no  room  for 
the  supposition,  that  the  latter  borrowed  them  from  the  former. 
Centuries  have  elapsed,  since  the  Basque  has  been  relegated 
into  the  mountains,  and  ever  since  that  time,  so  far  from  being 
able  to  give  words  to  the  languages  in  its  vicinity,  it  has  been 
obliged  to  adopt  from  them,  in  order  to  express  the  new  rela- 
tions and  ideas  introduced  among  the  people,  which  spoke  it. 
The  Provencal  could  therefore  not  have  taken  from  the  Basque, 
what  it  has  actually  adopted,  unless  it  was  in  those  countries, 
where  formerly  the  Iberian  idiom  was  used. 

"We  are  now  certain,  that  the  dictionary  of  the  Romansh- 
Provencal  contains  words,  which  are  borrowed  from  two  of  the 
primitive  languages  of  Gaul,  and  we  shall  presently  have 
occasion  to  recognize  still  more  remarkable  vestiges  of  the  third. 

That  the  Gaels  of  Scotland  and  the  Gaihil  of  Ireland  are 


Origin  of  the  Provencal  Language. 

people  of  the  same  race  as  the  ancient  Gauls  properly  so-called, 
and  that  a  language  closely  related  to  theirs  was  formerly  spoken 
in  a  part  of  Gaul — these  are  facts,  which  have  every  proba- 
bility in  their  favor,  and  are  indicated  by  the  very  identity 
of  the  national  names  themselves.  But  notwithstanding  all 
this,  history  does  not  furnish  us  any  direct  or  positive  proof  on 
the  subject.  The  lexicon  of  the  Provencal  however  may  here 
supply  the  place  of  history.  It  contains  a  large  number  of 
terms,  which  are  found  nowhere  else,  except  in  the  Erse  or 
Irish  and  in  the  Gaelic,  as  the  language  of  the  Scottish  High- 
landers is  called.  I  shall  not  give  a  list  of  them  for  fear  of 
wearying  the  patience  of  the  reader  by  quotations  of  this  kind. 
I  shall  confine  myself  to  noticing  a  few  of  these  Gaelic  words, 
the  existence  of  which  in  Provencal  monuments  may  be  re- 
garded as  a  curious  fact.  Such  is,  for  example,  the  adjective 
certan,  certana,  in  those  instances,  in  which  it  makes  no  sense, 
if  we  translate  it,  as  we  are  at  first  sight  tempted  to  do,  by  our 
own  homophone  "  certain,"  but  where  it  becomes  very  expres- 
sive, if  we  render  it  after  the  Gaelic  substantive  Jceart,  wnich 
signifies  justice,  honor,  rectitude.  Many  other  words,  employed 
by  the  Troubadours,  and  those  which  are  the  most  difficult  of 
interpretation,  are  likewise  Gaelic  words  and  the  remains  of  the 
ancient  Gallic.  And  it  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  the  only 
one  of  the  three  primitive  idioms  of  Gaul,  which  has  entirely 
vanished  from  the  country,  and  that  centuries  ago,  is  precisely 
the  one,  of  which  the  Provencal  exhibits  the  most  numerous,  the 
most  decided  and  the  most  characteristic  vestiges. 

Inasmuch  as  I  do  not  consider  these  questions  in  a  purely 
historical  point  of  view,  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  inquire 
expressly,  what  parts  of  the  south  of  Gaul  the  nations,  which 
spoke  these  Gaulish  idioms,  may  have  inhabited.  It  will  be 
sufficient  for  my  purpose  to  observe  by  the  way,  that  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  fourth  century  asserted  an  affinity  between  the 
Belgse  of  Caesar  and  the  Volcae  or  Yolkse  Arecomici  and 
Tectosages,  whose  capitals  were  Mmes  and  Toulouse,  and  that 
if  the  former  belonged  to  the  great  national  body  of  the  Gauls 
proper,  the  latter  must  likewise  be  related  to  them. 

To  these  already  sufficiently  diversified  sources  of  the  Pro- 
vengal  we  must  now  add  the  Teutonic.  The  Yisigoths  and  the 
Burgundians,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  established  themselves, 
the  former  in  the  southeast,  the  latter  in  the  southwest  of  Gaul, 
might  certainly  be  expected  to  have  exerted  some  influence  on 
the  revolutions,  which  took  place  in  the  languages  of  the 
country.  As  we  know  nothing  special  respecting  the  idiom  of 
the  Burgundians,  we  have  not  the  means  for  making  a  separate 


132  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

account  of  it  in  our  estimate  of  the  affinity  between  the  Pro- 
vencal and  the  Teutonic  languages. 

It  is  not  so  with  the  Visigoths.  Their  dialect  is  very  well 
known.  It  is  in  this  dialect  that  the  patriarch  of  the  Gothic 
nation,  Ulphilas,  composed,  toward  the  middle  of  the  fourth 
century,  a  translation  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  which  is  the 
most  ancient  literary  monument  of  the  Teutonic  languages,  and 
of  which  fragments  are  still  extant.  It  is  easy  to  convince 
one's  self  by  an  inspection  of  these  fragments,  that  the  Visi- 
goths left  traces  of  their  language  in  the  Provinces  of  Gaul 
adjacent  to  the  Pyrenees,  and  that  some  of  them  have  passed 
into  the  Provencal.  But  these  words  are  not  numerous  ;  I  have 
scarcely  been  able  to  count  fifteen  of  them.  When  we  see  in 
history,  how  readily  the  Goths  in  Gaul  and  Italy  submitted  to 
the  influences  of  the  Roman  civilization,  we  are  not  at  all  sur- 
prised, that  so  little  of  their  language  should  have  been  left  in 
the  countries,  which  were  subject  to  their  sway. 

The  majority  of  the  Teutonic  words  contained  in  the  Proven- 
cal are  in  all  probability  of  Frankish  origin.  It  is  true,  that 
this  people  never  established  itself  in  masses  and  at  large  in 
southern  Gaul ;  but  it  ruled  there  for  a  long  time  and  it  founded 
a  large  number  of  partial  or  isolated  settlements,  and  yet  the 
total  amount  of  Provencal  words  to  which  we  can  with  certainty 
assign  a  Teutonic  origin,  is  not  nearly  as  considerable,  as  one 
would  be  tempted  to  imagine.  I  do  not  believe  that  it  exceeds 
fifty.  The  words  retained  from  the  ancient  national  idioms  are 
much  more  numerous. 

All  these  different  ingredients,  however,  taken  together,  con- 
stitute only  a  portion,  and  by  far  the  smallest,  of  the  Provengal 
lexicon.  The  real  and  the  capital  foundation  of  this  lexicon  is 
incontestably  the  Latin.  But  on  this  point  even  there  is  much 
that  might  be  said,  and  I  shall  only  be  able  to  give  a  few  rapid 
indications. 

That  the  great  majority  of  the  Provencal  words  may,  without 
any  violence  or  improbability,  be  referred  to  the  Latin,  is  evi- 
dent enough;  but  that  they  are  all  effectively  and  directly 
derived  from  it,  is  a  question,  and  one  which  depends  on  the 
solution  of  another. 

It  is  necessary  for  me  to  return  here  for  a  moment  to  the  dis- 
tinction, which  I  have  above  endeavored  to  established,  between 
the  three  aboriginal  languages  of  Gaul.  I  have  remarked  that 
the  Iberian,  the  Aquitanian,  of  which  the  Basque  is  an  impor- 
tant relic,  had  absolutely  nothing  in  common  with  the  Celtic 
and  the  Gallic,  or  with  any  other  known  language.  Between 
the  Celtic  and  the  Gallic,  on  the  other  hand,  there  were  analo- 


Origin  of  the  Provencal  Language.  133 

gies,  and  these  analogies  are  represented  by  the  relations  still 
existing  between  the  Erse  or  Irish  and  the  Gaelic  of  the  Scottish 
Highlands,  which  are  respectively  derived  from  them.  Now 
these  two  languages,  though  differing  widely  from  each  other, 
though  having  each  a  material  basis  and  a  character  of  its  own, 
are  nevertheless  idioms  of  the  same  family  of  languages;  of 
which  the  Sanscrit  is  regarded  as  the  type,  and  of  which  the 
Greek,  the  Latin,  the  Teutonic  and  Slavonic  are  collateral 
branches. 

By  reason  of  this  ancient  and  mysterious  relationship,  the 
Gaelic  and  the  Briton  exhibit  numerous  and  manifest  resem- 
blances to  the  Latin,  and  not  only  in  their  vocabulary,  but  also 
in  their  grammatical  forms.  Similar  analogies  must  doubtless 
have  existed  between  these  same  languages,  at  the  epoch,  when, 
under  the  denomination  of  the  Celtic  and  the  Gaelic,  they 
coexisted  on  the  soil  of  ancient  Gaul.  The  numerous  fragments 
of  the  languages  of  Gaul,  which  have  been  transmitted  to  us 
by  the  writers  of  classical  antiquity,  present  to  us  a  striking 
collection  of  marked  analogies  with  the  Latin  and  the  Greek. 

From  these  comparisons  it  follows,  that  various  Provencal 
words  which  have  commonly  been  regarded  as  derivatives  of 
the  Latin,  for  no  other  reason  than  that  they  are  contained  in  it, 
may  with  equal  correctness  be  referred  to  the  Celtic  or  the 
Gallic,  and  may  have  been  derived  from  the  one,  as  well  as 
from  the  other.  Thus,  for  example,  the  word  caitieu,  which 
signifies  captive,  may  as  well  come  from  the  Celtic  caeth,  which 
means  the  same  thing,  as  from  the  Latin  captivus.  The  adjec- 
tive suaU)  sweet,  peaceable,  may  be  derived  either  from  the 
Latin  suams  or  from  the  Irish  sudbhais,  which  has  the  same  sense. 
This  remark  is  not  without  its  importance  in  comparing  the 
unexpected  analogies  of  the  Provencal  with  the  primitive  idioms 
of  Gaul.  However,  1  do  not  intend  to  contradict  by  this  remark, 
what  I  have  above  advanced,  as  a  general  thesis,  that  the  lexi- 
cal groundwork  of  the  Provencal  is  Latin,  and  directly  derived 
from  it. 

After  having  thus  distinguished,  as  far  as  a  rapid  sketch 
would  permit  me,  the  various  origins  of  the  material  basis  of 
the  Provencal,  it  now  remains  to  indicate  in  the  same  manner 
the  origins  and  the  types  of  its  grammatical  forms  and  to  con- 
eider  some  other  points  of  its  history. 


134:  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


CHAPTER  VH 

THE   GRAMMATICAL    FORMATION   OF   THE   PROVENCAL. 

IN  the  preceding  chapter  I  have  examined  the  material  basis 
of  the  Romano-rrovencal  lexicon,  which  I  have  considered 
independently  of  its  grammatical  forms.  I  have  endeavored 
to  distinguish  the  various  elements,  of  which  this  basis  is  com- 
posed, and  to  refer  these  elements  to  their  respective  sources. 
I  have  especially  insisted  on  two  points.  I  have  shown,  that, 
among  the  various  ingredients  of  the  Provencal,  those,  which 
emanated  from  Teutonic  sources,  were  extremely  limited  in  num- 
ber, and  that  the  language  exhibited  no  sign  whatever  of  any 
very  decided  influence  from  that  direction.  I  have  moreover 
pointed  out,  in  the  idiom  in  question,  distinct  and  obvious 
remains  of  the  primitive  languages  of  Gaul — a  fact  of  great  im- 
portance to  its  history. 

Finally,  I  have  advanced,  that  this  idiom  was  not  a  combina- 
tion or  a  mixture  of  the  Teutonic  and  the  Latin,  any  more  than 
were  the  other  Neo-Latin  languages  ;  that,  on  the  contrary,  it 
was  anterior  to  the  Germanic  conquest,  and  the  product  of 
various  causes,  all  equally  independent  of  the  influences  of  that 
conquest ;  and  I  shall  now  endeavor  to  produce  some  proofs  in 
support  of  this  opinion. 

The  Provengal  and  the  Neo-Latin  languages  in  general,  which 
have  supplanted  the  Latin,  differ  from  the  latter  principally  in 
respect  to  their  grammatical  forms,  and  this  difference  shows 
itself  particularly  in  what  are  technically  termed  the  declension 
of  nouns  and  the  conjugation  of  verbs.  The  relations,  which 
the  Latin  expresses,  in  both  these  verbal  modifications,  by 
simple  variations  of  the  endings  of  the  same  word,  are  in  the 
Keo-Latin  idioms  indicated  by  separate  signs,  distinct  from  the 
word  of  which  they  modify  the  signification.  Thus  for  example, 
in  rendering  into  English  the  Latin  dative  plural  fractious,  we 
say  to  the  fruits  ;  in  rendering  the  verb  to  love,  in  the  first  per- 
son singular  of  the  preterit  amavi,  we  say  /  have  loved.  In 
the  first  instance,  the  termination  bus  is  translated  or  repre- 
sented by  the  preposition  to,  joined  to  the  plural  of  the  article 


Grammatical  Formation  of  the  Provengal.          135 

the  ;  in  the  second  instance,  the  termination  avi,  is  represented 
by  the  first  person  singular  of  the  present  of  the  verb  to  havey 
joined  to  the  passive  participle  loved.  In  both  these  examples, 
the  English*  formula  is  a  decomposition,  a  sort  of  analysis  of 
the  Latin  formula,  and  this  fact  generalized,  characterizes  the 
principal  grammatical  difference  between  the  Latin  and  the 
Keo-Latin  languages.  Considered  under  this  point  of  view, 
and  in  so  far  as  it  unites  in  one  and  the  same  term  both  the  root, 
which  denotes  an  object  or  an  idea,  and  the  termination,  which 
modifies  the  signification  of  the  former,  the  Latin  m'ay  be  called 
a  synthetic  language.  In  so  far  as  the  Keo-Latin  languages 
represent  the  termination  by  a  separate  sign,  thus  decomposing 
a  simple  term  into  two  or  more  terms,  they  may  be  denominated 
analytical  or  decomposing  languages. 

This  distinction  being  established,  the  question  respecting  the 
origin  and  the  formation  of  the  Neo-Latin  idioms,  propounded 
in  rigorous  terms,  would  be  as  follows  :  How  was  this  transition 
of  the  Latin  from  its  primitive  condition  of  a  synthetic  lan- 
guage to  the  condition  of  analytical  dialects  accomplished? 
Was  this  transition  merely  the  result  of  accidental  causes,  or 
was  it  brought  about  in  virtue  of  some  one  of  those  laws,  which 
are  known  to  preside  over  the  modifications  and  the  successive 
developments  of  languages  ?  This  is  a  very  important  and  a 
very  abstruse  question.  I  will  endeavor  to  answer  it  by  look- 
ing at  it  from  a  somewhat  more  elevated  point  of  view,  and  in 
a  more  general  light. 

It  is  a  singular  and  apparently  a  very  general  fact  in  the  his- 
tory of  languages,  that  the  nearer  they  are  to  their  origin,  the 
more  complicated  they  are,  the  more  they  abound  in  ingenious 
and  subtle  grammatical  forms.  Among  the  same  people,  the 
most  ancient  grammatical  system  of  its  language  is  always  the  one 
which  contains  the  greatest  number  of  peculiarities  and  niceties. 
Among  two  different  and  unequally  civilized  nations,  it  is  almost 
certain,  that  the  idiom  of  the  most  barbarous  of  the  two  will  be 
the  one,  which  will  exhibit  the  most  artificial  mechanism. 

It  appears  from  this,  that  the  natural  procession  of  languages 
is  from  a  greater  to  a  less  number  of  forms ;  from  special  and 
from  bolder  forms  to  such  as  are  more  general  and  more  defi- 
nite, or,  in  other  words,  from  synthesis  to  decomposition.  It  is, 
however,  the  tendency  of  civilization  and  of  culture  to  suspend 
this  course,  and  to  render  it  as  slow  and  gradual  as  possible. 

When  a  language  has  once  submitted  to  a  fixed  grammatical 
system,  when  it  is  rich  in  monuments,  and  spoken  by  powerful 
and  cultivated  classes  of  society,  the  changes  which  then  take 

*  The  English  as  well  as  French,  in  which,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  author  gives  the 
formula  in  the  original. 


136  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

place  in  it,  can  only  be  of  a  literary  character,  indicative  of  the 
variations  of  taste  in  the  art  of  writing,  and  not  affecting  the 
general  basis  of  its  grammatical  system.  But  by  the  side  of 
these  changes,  there  are  always  formed  a  number  of  dialects 
less  regular  and  less  pure,  spoken  by  the  inferior  masses  of  the 
population,  and  in  wnich  the  natural  tendency  of  languages  to 
decompose  and  impoverish  themselves,  by  becoming  easier  and 
clearer,  operates  with  greater  liberty  and  success.  If  into  this 
state  of  things  some  great  and  sudden  revolution  is  introduced, 
by  which  the  civilization  of  the  country  is  destroyed ;  if  the 
classes,  which  spoke  the  grammatical  idiom,  and  which  alone 
could  maintain  it  in  its  integrity,  are  annihilated,  then  this 
idiom  becomes  likewise  extinct.  It  may  remain  a  learned  or  a 
sacred  language,  but  it  ceases  to  be  spoken  for  the  ordinary  pur- 
poses of  life.  It  becomes  supplanted  by  the  popular  dialects, 
and  they  continue  it  under  a  form,  which  diners  more  or  less 
from  the  primitive,  and  in  which  the  principle  of  decomposi- 
tion predominates  more  or  less. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  inquiring,  which  of  these  two  suc- 
cessive forms  is  the  most  perfect  in  itself,  nor  for  reconciling 
the  idea  of  an  indefinite  intellectual  perfectibility  with  the 
natural  tendency  of  languages  toward  disintegration  and  im- 
poverishment. I  shall  fimit  myself  to  the  remark,  that  the 
system  of  decomposition,  in  reducing  the  number  of  grammati- 
cal formulas,  and  in  employing  only  those,  which  have  a  more 
general  value,  becomes  by  that  very  means  susceptible  of  a 
more  expeditious  and  of  an  easier  use,  and  that  to  some  extent 
it  renders  the  action  of  the  mind  or  its  ideas  more  palpable  to 
itself.  This  will  suffice  to  explain,  up  to  a  certain  point  at 
least,  the  progressive  decomposition  of  the  synthetic  languages. 

The  decomposed  idioms,  however,  after  having  once  been  sub- 
stituted in  place  of  the  synthetic,  assumes  very  soon  an  impor- 
tance, which  they  never  could  have  had  before.  They  are  in 
their  turn  polished  and  systematized,  they  become  the  organ 
of  a  poetry,  of  a  society,  and  they  then  assume  something  of  the 
fixedness  and  regularity,  as  well  as  of  the  destiny,  of  the  lan- 
guages, which  they  succeeded. 

I  should  like  to  illustrate  these  generalities  by  a  few  particu- 
lar facts ;  and  there  are,  I  believe,  few  languages  of  any  anti- 
quity, and  possessed  of  literary  monuments  of  a  certain  age, 
but  what  could  furnish  me  with  the  materials.  But  I  shall 
look,  by  way  of  preference,  for  what  I  want,  to  three  distin- 
guished languages,  which  have  so  many  analogies  in  common 
with  each  other,  and  the  destinies  of  which  are  so  much  alike, 
that  the  history  of  each  of  them  could  have  no  better  commen- 
tary than  that  of  the  other  two.  They  are  the  Sanscrit,  the 


Grammatical  Formation  of  the  Provengal.          137 

Greek  and  the  Latin  itself.  The  material  basis  and  the  gram- 
matical structure  of  these  three  languages  contain  so  many  and 
such  striking  resemblances,  that  it  is  impossible  to  explain 
them  in  any  other  way,  than  by  the  hypothesis  of  a  common 
origin,  and  of  a  complete  identity  at  an  unknown  epoch  of 
antiquity. 

Of  these  three  languages,  the  Sanscrit  is  the  first  that  had  its 
monuments,  a  literature  and  a  system  of  grammar.  "Without 
pretending  to  fix  the  precise  date  of  these  monuments,  we 
may  confidently  affirm,  that  they  are  anterior  to  the  most  ancient 
writings  of  the  Greeks,  to  those  of  Homer  and  of  Hesiod.  There  is 
one  circumstance,  which  in  the  absence  of  every  other,  I  should 
consider,  if  necessary,  a  sufficient  proof  of  this  anteriority ;  and 
it  is,  that  the  system  of  grammatical  forms  is  richer  and  more 
complete  in  the  Sanscrit,  than  in  the  Greek.  This  is  a  certain 
indication,  that  the  former  had  been  seized  and  fixed  by  civili- 
zation and  by  science  at  an  epoch  much  nearer  to  their  com- 
mon origin.  Its  declension  has  eight  cases,  all  of  which  are 
indicated  by  characteristic  terminations,  and  which  vary  accord- 
ing to  the  gender  and  the  form  of  the  radicals.  This  system  of 
declension  is  consequently  a  very  rich  synthetic  one.  I  sus- 
pect, however,  that  at  a  remoter  period  it  must  have  been  still 
richer,  and  that  in  this  respect,  even  the  language  had  at  the 
time  of  its  present  grammatical  fixation  already  lost  some  of 
its  primitive  forms. 

The  Sanscrit  conjugation,  equally  rich  and  equally  varied, 
is  likewise  composed  of  synthetic  forms ;  but  here  the  princi- 
ple of  decomposition  has  already  insinuated  itself.  There  are 
already  certain  tenses  of  the  passive  voice,  where  the  action  is 
expressed  not  by  a  simple  verbal  radical,  modified  by  certain 
terminations  or  by  affixes,  but  by  adjectives  or  participles, 
which  are  combined  with  a  verb  signifying  to  le  or  to  make, 
precisely  as  in  French  or  English.  This  may  be  regarded  as  the 
germ  of  a  revolution  introduced  into  this  language. 

At  the  epoch  of  its  earliest  written  monuments,  the  Greek, 
as  compared  with  the  Sanscrit,  had  already  lost  several  of  its 
primitive  forms.  Its  declension  is  reduced  to  five  cases ;  the 
sixth,  which  is  called  the  ablative,  differing  in  no  respect  from 
the  dative,  and  being  only  determined  by  a  particle,  such  as 
the  prepositions  in,  etc.  It  thus  had  three  cases  less  than  the 
Sanscrit ;  or  in  other  words,  three  synthetic  forms  of  declension 
were  supplanted  by  so  many  analytical  forms.  The  principle 
of  decomposition  had  likewise  penetrated  into  the  conjugation. 
The  third  person  plural  of  the  preterit  passive  was  formed  by 
adding  the  verb  to  be  to  a  participle. 

The  Latin  was  reduced  to  writing  much  later  even  than  the 


138  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

Greek,  and  when  the  system  of  decomposed  or  periphrastic 
forms  had  already  supplanted  several  forms  of  the  opposite 
system.  Its  declension  had  remained  in  the  same  state  as  the 
(rreek,  but  in  its  conjugation  the  use  of  the  verb  to  be,  in  the 
capacity  of  an  auxiliary,  was  more  frequent.  Entire  verbs  had 
been  formed  by  the  simple  juxtaposition  of  a  substantive  or  a 
preposition  and  the  verb  sum,  as  for  example,  possum  (by 
eupnony  instead  of  pot-sum),  ad-sum,  prce-sum. 

After  having  once  been  consecrated  by  religious  documents, 
by  national  poems,  by  systems  of  grammar  founded  on  the  ex- 
amples of  the  first  writers,  these  three  languages  were,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  regarded  as  inviolable  by  the  chiefs  and  the  higher 
classes  of  the  respective  nations.  Their  forms  became  to 
them  the  rule  for  writing  and  for  speaking.  Nevertheless,  the 
natural  tendency  to  the  disintegration  of  these  forms  was  always 
at  work  in  the  masses  of  the  people.  I  have  not  examined  the 
Sanscrit  for  the  purpose  of  discovering  traces  of  the  gradual  pro- 
gress of  this  tendency ;  but  they  are  visible  in  the  Latin  and  in 
the  Greek.  We  find  in  the  best  writers  of  both  these  languages 
examples  of  the  unusual  and  anti-grammatical  employment  of 
periphrastic  forms  of  conjugation,  instead  of  the  synthetic  forms. 
They  occur  in  great  variety  in  Cicero,  in  Pindar,  in  Herodotus,  in 
Plato,  in  Sophocles,  and  without  any  sort  of  doubt  in  other  authors. 

Nevertheless,  examples  of  this  kind  are  rare  in  good  writers, 
and  they  may  be  considered  as  licenses,  as  exceptions  to  the 
general  principles  of  synthetic  grammar.  They  might  be  said 
to  have  teen  accidental  irruptions  of  the  dialect  of  the  multi- 
tude into  that  of  the  learned  and  polished  classes. 

There  can  in  fact  be  no  doubt,  but  that  languages  so  compli- 
cated and  so  rich,  as  were  the  Greek,  the  Latin  and  the  Sans- 
crit, must  have  undergone  in  the  mouth  of  the  popular  masses 
numerous  and  systematic  modifications ;  which,  without  exceed- 
ing certain  limits,  went  nevertheless  so  far,  as  to  give  rise  to 
various  subordinate  dialects  more  simple  and  more  variable 
than  the  latter,  having  each  its  peculiar  vocabulary,  more  or 
less  different  from  the  general  one,  and  tending  each,  in  virtue 
of  a  certain  intellectual  indolence  or  hesitation,  to  substitute 
the  analytic  forms  in  place  of  the  synthetical.  The  direct  his- 
torical proofs  of  the  existence  of  these  popular  dialects  are  very 
scarce,  and  for  no  other  reason  than  that  the  nationality  of  a 
people  is  represented  by  the  idiom  cultivated  by  its  chiefs  and 
by  the  higher  classes  of  its  society.  It  is  in  this  privileged 
idiom,  that  its  religious  doctrines,  its  laws,  its  grand  poetic  monu- 
ments are  composed.  But  time,  sooner  or  later,  introduces 
revolutions,  and  thereby  brings  to  light  those  obscure  and 
despised  dialects,  which  history  at  first  disdained  to  notice. 


Grammatical  Formation  of  the  Provengal.          139 

As  long  as  there  was  a  great  political  power  in  India,  to 
maintain  the  institutions  and  the  antique  civilization  of  that 
vast  country,  the  Sanscrit,  which  was  an  essential  part  of  this 
civilization,  remained  a  living  language,  distinct  from  the 
popular  dialects  which  sprung  up  under  its  dominion.  But, 
when  in  consequence  of  unknown  revolutions  and  at  an  un- 
known epoch,  the  Brahmins  had  lost  the  political  government 
of  Hindostan,  the  Sanscrit  ceased  to  be  spoken,  and  after  that 
became  a  dead  and  learned  language.  In  social  life,  it  was  sup- 
planted by  various  dialects,  and  the  relations  between  these 
dialects  and  itself  are  perfectly  analogous  to  those  existing  be- 
tween the  Neo-Latin  and  the  Latin  of  the  classical  period.  The 
words  have  here  undergone  similar  alterations ;  the  synthetic 
formulas  of  declension  and  of  conjugation  have  here  been  de- 
composed in  the  same  spirit,  for  the  same  purpose  and  by  the 
same  method. 

At  a  much  later  epoch,  the  precise  date  of  which,  however, 
we  are  unable  to  establish,  the  ancient  Greek  disappeared  in 
consequence  of  a  similar  revolution  from  the  Eastern  Empire ; 
and  it  was  likewise  succeeded  by  a  dialect  which  was  by  far 
less  complicated,  less  rich,  and  less  learned,  and  in  which  the 
principle  of  decomposition  that  had  presided  over  the  formation 
of  the  Neo-Hindu  dialects  prevailed  to  the  same  extent  and 
with  the  same  results. 

The  invasions  and  the  conquest  of  these  countries  undoubt- 
edly contributed  to  their  linguistic  revolutions.  By  destroying 
the  ancient  civilization  and  the  ancient  languages  of  India  and 
of  Greece,  they  thereby  transferred  the  place  and  the  functions 
of  the  latter  to  their  respective  popular  dialects.  But  they  did 
not  introduce  these  dialects ;  they  found  them  already  made, 
and  they  scarcely  added  a  few  words  from  the  language  of  the 
conquerors. 

Now  the  extinction  of  the  Latin,  as  a  spoken  language,  and 
the  appearance  of  the  Neo-Latin  idioms  in  its  place,  is  a  revolu- 
tion, similar  in  every  respect  to  those,  which  occasioned  the 
extinction  of  the  Sanscrit  in  India  and  of  the  Greek  in  Greece, 
and  which  brought  the  popular  dialects  of  these  respective 
countries  into  vogue. 

Laying  aside  whatever  there  may  have  been  of  an  accidental 
or  a  local  character  in  the  history  of  these  dialects,  we  find, 
that  they  all  appear  to  have  been  formed  in  virtue  of  the  same 
idea,  and  of  the  same  tendency  of  the  mind.  They  all  result 
from  the  development  of  the  same  germ  of  decomposition,  in- 
troduced from  the  remotest  antiquity  into  the  languages,  from 
which  they  are  derived,  and  introduced  by  way  of  an  exception 
and  in  opposition  to  the  synthetic  principle  of  these  languages. 


140  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

In  all  of  them  the  development  was  brought  about,  if  not  to 
the  same  extent,  at  any  rate  with  reference  to  the  same  end 
and  by  the  operation  of  the  same  causes.  Finally,  a  closer 
inspection  shows  them  all  to  be  the  identical  expression  of  one 
and  the  same  general  fact,  as  the  secondary  form,  into  which 
the  system  of  synthetic  languages  naturally  tends  to  resolve 
itself. 

I  anticipate  an  objection,  in  the  shape  of  an  easy  hypothesis. 
It  will  be  urged,  that,  in  order  to  account  for  the  existence 
of  the  different  idioms  in  question,  it  is  not  necessary  to  sup- 
pose them  anterior  to  the  epoch,  when  the  synthetic  languages, 
of  which  they  are  the  decomposed  forms,  were  altered  or 
destroyed.  They  may  be  the  immediate  consequence,  the  pure 
and  simple  result  of  that  alteration. 

Many  observations  might  be  made  in  opposition  to  this  hypo- 
thesis. I  shall  limit  myself  to  a  single  fact,  which  is,  however, 
a  remarkable  and  a  decisive  one ;  it  is,  that  all  these  idioms 
include  elements  of  a  remote  antiquity ;  materials,  which  are 
foreign  to  the  languages  from  which  they  are  derived,  taking 
these  languages  at  the  moment  of  their  alteration  or  their  dis- 
appearance. 

Thus,  for  example,  several  of  the  Neo-Hindu  idioms  contain 
remains  of  languages,  which  were  anterior  to  the  conquest  of 
India  by  the  Brahmins.  This  is  a  discovery,  made  by  a  young 
orientalist,  who  is  destined  to  make  many  others  no  less  inte- 
resting. Now,  it  is  very  evident,  that  a  Hindu  idiom,  in  which 
such  vestiges  occur,  could  not  have  received  them  from  the 
Sanscrit,  at  the  moment  when  the  latter  ceased  to  be  a  living 
speech.  They  must  of  necessity  be  referred  to  the  unknown 
epoch,  at  which  the  language  of  the  Brahmins  was  first 
brought  into  contact  with  the  conquered  population  of 
India. 

The  modern  Greek  has  preserved  words,  which  belong  to  the 
remotest  antiquity,  and  which  were  not  contained  in  the  classi- 
cal Greek  at  the  epoch  of  its  extinction.  Such  is,  for  example, 
the  word  vepb,  water,  which  in  the  writted  Greek  exists  only  as 
a  derivative  in  the  name  of  the  Nereides  or  Nymphs.  The 
word  oKovria,  which  in  ancient  Greek  signifies  "  skins,  hides," 
has  in  modern  Greek  the  signification  of  "  garments,  clothes." 
Now,  it  seems,  that  it  could  not  have  assumed  this  signification, 
except  at  a  very  distant  epoch,  when  the  Greeks  clothed  them- 
selves in  the  skins  of  animals.  The  modern  Greek  contains 
many  other  terms,  which  could  only  have  entered  into  it  during 
the  most  ancient  period  of  the  language. 

To  give  an  example  from  a  language,  which  is  still  nearer  to 
us :  the  Italian  has  a  large  number  of  words,  which  do  not 


Grammatical  Formation  of  the  Provencal. 

come  from  the  Latin,  and  several  of  which  must  be  quite  as 
ancient  as  the  latter,  or  even  more  so. 

Finally,  I  have  shown  that  the  Romansh  idioms  of  Gaul  in- 
clude many  terms  from  the  primitive  languages  of  the  country, 
which  could  only  have  entered  into  them  long  before  the 
extinction  of  the  Latin.  It  is  evident,  that  all  these  dialects  of 
the  ancient  synthetic  languages,  in  which  similar  elements 
occur,  must,  for  a  longer  or  a  shorter  period,  have  been  contem- 
porary with  these  languages  themselves. 

I  shall  add  but  one  observation  on  the  hypothesis,  which 
attributes  the  origin  of  the  Neo-Latin  idioms  to  the  Germanic 
conquest,  and  to  an  intermixture  of  the  Teutonic  languages  and 
the  Latin ;  and  in  order  to  keep  within  the  definite  limits  of 
my  subject,  I  shall  restrict  this  observation  to  the  Koinansh  of 
the  South. 

Those,  who  have  advanced  the  opinion  of  a  Germanic 
influence  in  the  creation  of  this  idiom,  have  assumed  a  collision 
between  the  Teutonic  and  the  Latin,  of  which  the  Proven§al 
would  have  been  the  immediate  and  the  necessary  result.  It 
would  be  easy  to  show  the  inexactness  of  this  hypothesis.  But 
the  supporters  of  this  hypothesis  even  ought  not,  in  making  it, 
to  have  overlooked  the  anterior  collision  between  the  ancient 
languages  of  Gaul  and  the  Latin — a  collision,  which  was  a 
forced  and  prolonged  one,  and  which  united  all  the  conditions, 
necessary  for  the  production  of  an  idiom  like  the  Provencal, 
occupying  a  middle  ground  between  the  Latin  and  the  ancient 
languages  of  the  country. 

Unless  I  am  mistaken  in  all  that  I  have  thus  far  advanced, 
there  can  be  no  uncertainty  in  regard  to  the  period  of  time,  to 
which  we  ought  to  refer  the  origin  and  formation  of  the  Pro- 
vengal  and  of  the  other  Neo-Latin  idioms.  All  these  idioms 
doubtless  existed,  as  popular  dialects,  before  the  epoch  of  the 
Germanic  invasions.  It  is  far  more  difficult  to  ascertain,  at 
what  particular  epochs  they  succeeded  the  Latin,  and  by  what 
a  succession  of  tentatives  they  were  fixed  and  polished;  in 
short,  how  they  became  what  they  have  long  since  been,  and 
what  they  still  are.  I  shall  say  a  few  words  on  these  questions, 
and  I  shall  confine  myself  as  much  as  possible  to  the  Pro- 
vencal. 

The  most  ancient  Provencal  documents  thus  far  known  to  us 
among  those,  that  can  shed  some  light  on  the  history  of  this 
idiom,  are  contained  in  three  different  manuscripts.  One  of 
these,  now  in  the  public  library  of  Orleans,  and  formerly  in  that 
of  the  Abbey  of  Fleury  sur  Loire,  contains  quite  a  long  frag- 
ment of  a  poem  or  metrical  romance  on  the  tragical  end  of 
Boethius,  the  Roman  senator,  who  was  condemned  to  death  by 


142  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

the  order  of  Theodoric,  the  first  Gothic  king  of  Italy.  The 
other  two,  from  the  ancient  Abbey  of  Saint  Martial  at  Limoges, 
are  now  in  the  royal  library  at  Paris.  They  contain,  among 
many  Latin  pieces,  a  few  in  the  Provencal,  of  which  I  shall 
have  to  speak  in  detail  somewhat  later.  The  question  here  is, 
simply  to  determine  their  date.* 

The  first  of  these  three  manuscripts,  that  of  the  Abbey  of 
Fleury,  is  generally  acknowledged  to  be  from  the  commence- 
ment of  the  eleventh  century,  at  the  latest ;  and  those  of  Saint 
Martial  are  scarcely  any  less  ancient.  Judging  from  several 
characteristics  exhibited  by  them,  we  may  attribute  them  to 
the  first  half  of  the  eleventh  century.  Now  the  Proven§al 
pieces,  included  in  these  three  manuscripts  are,  doubtless,  of  an 
anterior  epoch ;  they  were  transcribed  into  them  from  other 
and  more  ancient  manuscripts.  Of  this  there  is  a  substantial . 
proof,  at  least  in  regard  to  some  of  them,  which  however  do  not 
even  seem  to  be  the  most  ancient  of  the  number. 

Now,  supposing  all  these  pieces  to  be  only  twenty-five  or 
thirty  years  older  than  the  manuscripts  in  which  they  are  pre- 
served, they  would  have  been  composed  toward  the  close  of 
the  tenth  century,  or  at  the  commencement  of  the  eleventh. 
And  these  compositions  were,  doubtless,  not  the  first  of  their 
kind.  They  must  have  been  preceded  by  many  others  of  an 
inferior  and  cruder  order,  which  are  now  lost.  The  only  one  of 
the  documents  preserved,  which  is  undoubtedly  more  ancient 
than  the  pieces  here  described,  is  the  famous  oath  of  842.  I  do 
not  believe  that  any  very  important  conclusion  could  be  drawn 
from  this  document  with  reference  either  to  the  history  of  the 
Provencal,  or  to  that  of  the  Romansh  languages  in  general. 
Nevertheless,  as  the  document  is  a  celebrated  one,  and  as  it  is 
customary  to  quote  it  in  every  discussion  on  the  origin  of  these 
languages,  I  consider  myself  likewise  bound  to  speak  of  it.  I 
shall  speak  of  it  even  with  a  certain  minuteness  and  detail,  for 
the  purpose  of  establishing,  on  this  point,  a  different  opinion 
from  the  one  generally  received. 

I  must,  in  the  first  place,  give  a  general  idea  of  the  event  to 
which  the  document  in  question  relates ;  this  preliminary  is  in- 
dispensable to  the  proper  appreciation  of  its  value  in  relation 
to  the  question,  which  now  occupies  our  attention. 

The  dissensions  between  the  three  sons  of  the  Emperor  Louis 
le  Debonnaire,  are  a  well-known  and  celebrated  fact  in  the 
history  of  France.  They  gave  rise,  under  the  dynasty  of  the 
Carlovingians,  to  circumstances,  which  had  a  strong  resem- 

*  An  account  of  these  manuscripts  is  given  by  M.  Raynouard,  in  the  second  volume 
of  his  Choix  des  Poe'sies  des  Troubadours.  The  fragment  on  Boethius  is  printed  on 
p.  4r47.  Pieces  and  fragments  derived  from  the  MS.  of  St.  Martial  on  p.  133-153— Ed. 


Grammatical  Formation  of  the  Provencal.          143 

blance  to  those,  in  the  midst  of  which  the  Merovingian  dynasty 
had  declined  and  finally  become  extinct.  The  eldest  of  these 
three  brothers,  Lothaire,  who  had  received,  as  his  share  of  the 
paternal  inheritance,  the  title  of  emperor,  together  with  the 
majority  of  the  countries  subject  to  the  Frankish  dominion, 
was  entertaining  the  project  of  invading  them  all,  and  of  plun- 
dering his  two  brothers.  One  of  the  two,  Louis,  was  then  king 
of  Bavaria,  and  the  other,  Charles,  afterward  surnamed  the 
Bald,  king  of  Aquitania.  In  order  to  make  head  against 
their  common  enemy,  they  formed  a  mutual  alliance  together; 
and  the  two  parties,  having  encountered  each  other  at  Fontenay, 
near  Auxerre,  there  fought  the  terrible  battle  which  passes 
under  that  name.  The  number  of  the  slain  on  both  sides  was 
more  than  eighty  thousand,  and  yet  the  strife  was  not  decided ! 
The  three  brothers  repaired  their  enormous  losses  as  well  as 
they  could ;  they  raised  new  armies,  and  the  war  continued 
with  singular  and  vacillating  changes,  the  details  of  which 
have  nothing  to  do  with  my  subject. 

It  suffices  for  our  purpose  to  know,  that  in  the  month  of 
March,  of  the  year  842,  Lothaire,  after  various  unsuccessful 
movements,  found  himself  at  Tours,  entirely  at  a  loss  in  regard 
to  his  future  course,  while  Louis  and  Charles  were  effecting  a 
conjunction  of  their  forces  at  Argentaria,  a  small  town  situated 
a  few  miles  from  the  right  bank  of  the  Rhine,  between  Basle 
and  Strasbourg.  There  the  two  brothers  resolved  to  make  a 
solemn  renewal  of  their  alliance  in  the  presence  of  the  two 
armies  and  of  their  leudes  or  vassals  of  every  rank,  which  were 
all  assembled  in  the  open  air,  and  inclosed  by  the  same  camp. 

Louis  of  Germany,  being  the  elder  of  the  two,  began  to  speak 
first,  and  pronounced  a  discourse  in  which  he  made  a  declar- 
ation of  the  new  wrongs,  of  which  Lothaire  had  been  guilty, 
both  against  himself  and  against  his  brother  Charles,  since  the 
battle  of  Fontenay,  and  of  the  firm  resolution  on  the  part  of 
the  two  brothers  to  consolidate  their  alliance  against  Lothaire. 
In  this  discourse,  Louis  addressed  himself  to  his  leudes  and  to 
his  soldiers — all  men  of  the  Germanic  race,  all  from  the  other 
side  of  the  Rhine,  and  he  spoke  in  the  Teutonic  language. 
Charles  the  Bald  commenced  to  speak  in  his  turn,  and  re- 
peated to  his  army,  word  for  word,  but  in  the  Romansh  idiom, 
the  same  discourse,  which  Louis  had  just  addressed  to  his  own 
in  the  Germanic. 

After  this  address  to  their  respective  leudes  and  soldiers,  the 
two  kings  proceeded  to  conclude  the  new  alliance  between 
themselves,  that  is  to  say,  they  pronounced  the  oaths,  which 
constituted  this  alliance.  The  following  is  an  English  version 
of  the  usual  formula  of  these  oaths : 


144:  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

"  For  the  love  of  God,  for  the  Christian  people  and  for  our 
mutual  safety,  from  this  day  forward,  and  as  long  as  God  shall 

r've  me  power  and  knowledge,  I  will  defend  my  brother,  and 
will  aid  him  in  every  respect,  as  one  ought  to  defend  his 
brother,  provided  he  does  the  same  toward  me,  and  I  shall 
never  wittingly  enter  into  any  agreement  with  Lothaire,  which 
shall  be  detrimental  to  this  my  brother."  * 

Louis  was  the  first  to  pronounce  this  formula,  and  he 
addressed  himself  not  as  he  had  done  the  first  time,  to  the  vassals 
and  the  soldiers  of  his  own  army,  but  to  those  of  Charles ;  and 
on  that  account  he  spoke  in  the  language  of  the  latter,  that  is 
to  say  in  the  Komansh.  Charles  the  Bald,  binding  himself  in 
his  turn  to  the  men  of  his  brother,  swore  in  the  Germanic 
tongue.  Then  the  two  armies  pronounced  in  their  respective 
languages  a  special  oath,  in  which  each  of  them  promised  to 
the  king  of  the  other  to  refuse  obedience  to  its  own,  in  case  he 
should  command  anything  that  might  be  contrary  to  the  obli- 
gations of  his  oath.f 

Nithhard,  the  grandson  of  Charlemagne,  has  left  us  an  inva- 
luable little  work  on  the  whole  of  this  war  between  the  sons  of 
Louis  le  Debonnaire — a  war,  in  which  he  himself  had  figured 
as  an  actor.  It  is  he,  too,  who  has  transmitted  to  us  the  text 
of  the  oaths  pronounced  on  this  occasion,  in  both  languages. 
My  task  requires  me  to  occupy  myself  only  with  those  which 
are  in  the  Komansh  idiom. 

From  these  circumstances,  such  as  they  present  themselves 
at  first  sight,  we  might  infer,  that  the  language  of  these  oaths 
was  that  of  all  the  Gallic  nationalities  to  which  they  were 
addressed.  But  here  already  the  difficulty  presents  itself,  as  to 
who  these  nationalities  were.  I  think  we  may  suppose  the 
army,  with  which  Charles  the  Bald  joined  his  brother  Louis  at 
Argentaria,  to  have  been  composed  of  the  same  national  ele- 
ments as  that  with  which  he  had  fought  at  Fontenay.  In  that 
event,  the  oath  of  Louis  the  German  was  taken :  1st,  by  the 
Neustrians,  that  is  to  say,  by  the  men  from  the  country 
situate  between  the  Seine  and  the  Loire;  2dly,  by  the  Bur- 

*  I  add  here  the  original  of  this  oath  or  pledge,  for  the  purpose  of  giving  the  reader 
some  conception  of  the  character  of  the  language  here  in  question.  It  is  as  follows : 

"  Pro  Deo  amur  et  pro  Christian  poblo  et  nostro  commun  salvament,  dist  di  in  avant, 
in  quant  Deus  savir  et  podir  me  dunat,  si  salvaraeio  cist  meon  fradre  Karlo,  et  in  ad- 
iudha  et  in  cadhuna  cosa,  si  cum  om  per  dreit  son  fradra  salvar  dist,  in  o  quid  il  mi 
altresi  fazet :  et  ab  Ludher  nul  plaid  nunquam  prindrai  qui,  meon  vol,  cist  meon  fradre 
Karle  in  damno  sit." 

f  The  Romansh  of  the  oath  pronounced  by  the  followers  of  the  respective  kings,  upon 
the  same  occasion,  is  as  follows : — "  Si  Lodhuvigs  sagrament  que  son  fradre  Karlo  jurat, 
conservat;  et  Karlos,  meos  sendra,  de  suo  part  non  lo  stanit;  si  io  returnar  non  lint 
pois  ;  ne  io,  ne  neuls  cui  eo  returnar  int  pois,  in  nulla  aiudha  contra  Lodhuwig  nun  li 
iver."  Both  these  formulas,  together  with  the  corresponding  German  or  Prankish 
version,  the  reader  will  find  in  the  work  referred  to  in  the  text,  viz.:  Nithhardi  Hist, 
lib.  iii.  c.  5.— Ed. 


Grammatical  Formation  of  the  Provencal.          145 

gundians ;  3dly,  by  the  Provencals  and  the  Aquitanians ;  and 
among  the  latter  there  were  inhabitants  of  Toulouse,  of  Poitou, 
of  Limousin,  and  of  Auvergne. 

The  question  now  arises,  whether  these  different  nationalities, 
which  since  have  spoken,  and  which  still  speak,  idioms  so 
different  that  they  can  understand  each  other  only  with  dif- 
ficulty, even  on  the  simplest  matters  of  ordinary  life — whe- 
ther they,  at  that  time,  had  but  one  and  the  same  idiom,  that 
of  the  oath  of  842  ;  or  whether  the  idioms  under  consideration 
exhibited  then  already  the  same  differences,  or  differences  pro- 
portionate to  those  which  we  have  observed  in  them  since  ; 
and,  if  the  latter  be  the  case,  which  of  those  idioms  was  the 
one  employed  in  the  oath  of  842  ? 

To  discuss  these  questions,  and  others  that  might  suggest 
themselves,  with  reference  to  this  document,  would,  in  my 
opinion,  be  attributing  to  the  latter  a  kind  and  a  degree  of 
authority  which  it  does  not  possess,  and  which  I  cannot  recog- 
nize. 

In  the  first  place,  Louis  the  German,  who  pronounced  the 
oaths  in  question,  was  born  in  Aquitania,  and  probably  in  that 
part  of  the  country  where  the  Romansh  of  the  South  was  used. 
But  we  do  not  know  where  he  was  educated  ;  or  whether  he 
spoke  the  Romansh  at  all,  and  if  he  did,  what  dialect  of  it  he 
spoke.  And  if  he  really  ever  spoke  some  one  of  these  dialects, 
it  is  more  than  probable  that  Louis  had  in  a  great  measure  for- 
gotten it,  during  the  twenty  years  of  his  residence  in  Germany, 
and  among  the  Germans.  There  is  no  room  for  the  supposition, 
that  the  Romansh  which  he  pronounced  in  842,  on  a  public 
occasion,  and  from  necessity,  was  a  very  pure  or  a  very  correct 
Romansh,  fit  to  be  regarded  as  a  type  of  the  idiom.  In  the 
second  place,  supposing  even  the  Romansh  of  Louis  the  Ger- 
man to  have  been  very  correct,  difficulties  of  another  kind  will 
still  present  themselves.  We  know  how  difficult  it  is  to  indi- 
cate or  to  delineate  (if  we  may  use  the  term)  in  writing  the 
words  of  an  uncultivated  language,  which  has  as  yet  no  set- 
tled orthography.  Is  there  not  something  contrary  to  all  the 
principles  of  philological  criticism  in  the  supposition,  which  is 
constantly  advanced,  at  least  implicitly,  that  two  formulas  of 
an  oath  in  an  uncouth  idiom,  accidentally  inserted  in  a  book 
composed  in  Latin  and  by  a  German,  were  inscribed  there  in- 
a  manner  so  as  to  represent  exactly  the  characteristic  forms  of 
that  idiom,  and  the  delicate  shades  by  which  it  was  distin- 
guished from  the  Latin  ? 

"We  are  so  much  the  more  authorized  to  suspect  imperfections 
of  orthography  in  this  document  from  the  ,fact,  that  its  lan- 
guage is  quite  indeterminate.  We  can  hardly  conceive,  how  ar 

10 


146  History  of  Provengcd  Poetry. 

language  like  this  could  ever  have  sufficed  for  the  ordinary 
wants  and  relations  of  society,  however  little  advanced  in  civil- 
ization. In  a  word,  if  this  oath  was  really  pronounced,  such  as 
it  is  represented  to  us  by  the  orthography  in  which  we  have  it 
now,  it  is  more  natural  to  see  in  it  a  Latin  disfigured  by  arbi- 
trary, and  we  might  say,  by  individual  barbarisms,  than  of  a 
Latin  modified  according  to  the  rules  and  the  genius  of  the 
Romansh  idioms. 

This  document,  however,  is  none  the  less  curious  for  that,  nor 
is  its  historical  importance  in  the  least  diminished  by  the  im- 
perfections of  the  language.  It  proves,  that  from  the  first  half 
of  the  ninth  century,  Gaul  (with  the  exception  of  certain  por- 
tions of  ancient  Austrasia)  had  but  a  single  language,  divided 
into  dialects,  which  I  for  the  present  leave  out  of  consideration ; 
and  that  this  language  was  not  that  of  the  German  conquerors, 
but  that  of  the  conquered — that  of  the  ancient  inhabitants  of 
the  country.  There  is,  in  fact,  no  doubt  but  that  this  army  of 
Charles  the  Bald,  to  which  Louis  addressed  his  oath  in  the  Ro- 
mansh  idiom,  contained  men  of  the  Germanic  race.  This  being 
the  case,  we  must  do  one  of  two  things :  we  must  either  suppose 
that  this  language  had  become  that  of  the  Germans,  or  that  the 
ancient  idiom  of  the  latter  was  no  longer  employed  as  the  vehicle 
of  their  national  transactions,  or  of  the  relations  of  the  Frankish 
kings  to  the  masses  of  their  subjects.  In  either  case,  it  was  a 
victory  of  the  Romansh  over  the  Teutonic. 

All  that  we  know  concerning  the  existence  and  the  culture 
of  the  Romansh  dialects  previously  to  the  year  842,  is  derived 
from  historical  indications.  But  several  of  these  historical  indi- 
cations are  quite  remarkable.  I  shall  presently  have  to  speak 
of  the  measures,  adopted  in  the  year  813,  for  the  application  of 
all  these  dialects  to  the  religious  instruction  of  the  people. 
Meanwhile,  however,  I  can  instance  a  trait  from  a  Latin  poem, 
composed  in  814,  on  the  death  of  Charlemagne.  The  priest  or 
monk,  who  is  the  author  of  this  piece,  exhorts  the  people  of 
Gaul  to  share  his  grief  and  to  celebrate  the  deceased  monarch 
in  Latin  and  in  the  Romansh  idiom.  This  is  an  indication,  that 
at  least  some  of  the  dialects  of  this  language  were  then  more 
polished  and  more  advanced  than  that  of  the  oath  of  842  ;  for 
any  poetic  attempt  in  the  latter,  however  timid  and  crude  we 
might  suppose  it,  appears  to  be  an  impossibility. 

There  is,  for  example,  no  doubt,  but  that  the  Roman  sh-Pro- 
vencal  was  from  that  time — that  is  to  say,  from  the  eighth  and 
ninth  centuries — already  possessed  of  many  of  those  character- 
istic forms,  shades  and  peculiarities,  which  at  a  later  period  distin- 
guished it  from  the  other  Romansh  dialects.  A  certain,  though 
an  indirect  and  only  an  implicit  proof  of  this,  is  to  be  found 


Grammatical  Formation  of  the  Provengal.          147 

in  the  collection  of  the  civil  acts,  the  legal  decisions,  and  the 
transactions  between  private  individuals,  relating  to  the  epochs 
in  question.  The  Roman  law,  which  was  observed  in  those 
provinces,  required  the  records  of  all  these  acts  to  be  kept  in 
Latin ;  but  those  who  kept  these  records,  had  but  an  imperfect 
knowledge  of  the  language,  which  was  transmitted  by  a  sort  of 
oral  tradition.  They  were  consequently  every  moment  liable 
to  make  the  strangest  blunders  in  writing  that  language.  These 
blunders,  which  are  copied  after  the  forms  of  the  vulgar  idiom, 
furnish  us,  on  that  very  account,  invaluable  data  for  the  history 
of  the  latter.* 

I  have  noticed  quite  a  large  number  of  them,  but  it  would 
take  too  long  to  cite  and  to  explain  them  here  in  detail.  It  is 
enough  to  observe  the  general  fact.  I  shall  add,  that  this  influ- 
ence of  the  Eomansh-Provengal  on  the  Latin  of  the  civil  transac- 
tions begins  to  make  its  appearance  during  the  eighth  century, 
and  goes  on  constantly  increasing  until  the  middle  of  the 
eleventh.  We  then  find  civil  documents,  which  are  in  pure 
Provencal  from  one  end  to  the  other.  From  the  tenth  century 
they  had  been  intermingled  with  Romansh  phrases,  which,  as 
they  were  destined  to  be  comprehended  by  everybody,  consti- 
tuted the  most  essential  part  of  them. 

There  is  one  peculiarity  to  be  observed  with  reference  to 
these  legal  acts  or  documents,  and  this  is,  that  they  are  for  the 
most  part  redacted  by  the  clergy.  They  consequently  furnish 
us  an  indication  of  the  measure  of  knowledge  possessed  by  the 
latter,  as  far  as  the  Latin  is  concerned.  In  589,  a  council  of 
Narbonne  had  prescribed  the  rule,  that  no  man  should  be  or- 
dained a  deacon  or  a  priest,  who  had  not  received  a  liberal 
education,f  or  in  other  words,  who  was  not  familiar  with  the 
correct  Latin,  the  Latin  of  the  books,  in  contradistinction  to  the 
popular  dialect  of  this  language,  as  spoken  by  the  inferior 
classes  of  society.  Judging  from  subsequent  facts,  however, 
this  article  of  the  council  of  Narbonne  wras  very  badly  ob- 
served. 

When  from  the  commencement  of  the  second  half  of  the 
eighth  century  we  see  the  priests,  the  judges  and  the  notaries, 
that  is  to  say  the  men,  who  were  required  by  their  profession  to 
know  the  Latin,  knowing  it  so  badly,  and  wrriting  it  in  such  a 
barbarous  manner,  it  is  natural  to  suppose,  that  this  language 

*  A  number  of  the  documents  alluded  to  here  by  the  author,  will  be  found  printed  in 
Raynouard's  Choix  des  Poe'sies  des  Troubadours,  vol.  ii Ed. 

t  Amodo  nulli  liceat  episcoporum  ordinare  diaconum,  aut  presbyterum  literas  igno- 

rantem :  sed  si  qui  ordinati  fuerint,  cogantur  discere et  si  persevera- 

verit  desidiose,  et  non  vult  proficere,  mittatur  in  monasterio,  quia  non  potest  aedifcare 
populum."  Can.  xi.  At  a  later  date  Charlemagne  issued  capitularies  to  the  same 
effect.  In  one  of  them  he  requires  the  priest  to  be  able  to  compose  cartas  et  epistolas.— 
Ed, 


14:8  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

was  then  no  longer  a  living  one ;  that  society  already  contained 
no  longer  any  class  of  men  sufficiently  cultivated  to  speak  it ; 
and  finally,  that  it  no  longer  existed,  except  under  the  decom- 
posed and  popular  form  of  the  Romansh. 

It  was  in  those  same  localities,  where  the  Latin  had  been 
spoken  most  generally  and  with  the  greatest  correctness,  that 
the  Romansh,  by  which  it  was  replaced,  must  have  preserved 
more  of  its  original  materials  and  forms,  and  acquired  the  cha- 
racter and  the  authority  of  a  polished  and  regular  idiom  much 
sooner  than  anywhere  else.  This  observation,  added  to  a  few 
other  comparisons,  would  point  to  Narbonne,  as  the  place, 
which  gave  birth  to  the  purest,  the  most  homogeneous  of  those 
Neo-Latin  idioms,  to  the  one  which  must  naturally  have  served 
as  a  model  to  the  rest. 

It  is  an  important  fact,  and  one  which  has  not  been  suffi- 
ciently appreciated,  that  in  perpetuating  the  Latin,  the  Ro- 
mansh may  be  said  to  have  inherited  its  authority  and  its  privi- 
leges. It  followed  up  the  conquest  of  the  former  over  those 
primitive  idioms  of  Gaul,  which  were  then  still  remaining.  It 
continued  to  crowd  the  Basque  toward  the  Pyrenees ;  a  lan- 
guage, which  at  that  time  was  much  more  extensively  spoken 
than  it  is  now,  in  the  plains  and  in  the  valleys  of  ancient  Aqui- 
taine.  Finally,  it  was  under  this  new  form  of  the  Romansh, 
that  the  Latin,  by  triumphing  over  the  Teutonic  idioms  of  en- 
tire Gaul,  became  the  language  of  the  German  conquerors  ;  all 
the  influence  of  the  latter  being  confined  to  the  introduction  of 
a  few  words  from  their  idioms. 

The  system  of  decomposition,  which  presided  over  the  gram- 
matical structure  of  the  Neo-Latin  languages,  did  not  advance 
to  its  utmost  limit.  The  system  of  these  languages  still  retained 
a  considerable  number  of  synthetic  formulas.  The  wonderful 
harmony,  with  which  all  these  languages  comport  themselves 
with  reference  to  the  Latin,  either  in  approximating  or  in  devi- 
ating from  it,  constitutes  one  of  the  most  striking  phenomena 
of  the  kind.* 

Thus,  for  example,  in  the  conjugation  of  the  verb,  they  all 
reject  the  passive  form,  and  they  replace  it  by  formulas,  com- 
posed of  a  passive  participle  and  of  the  verb  to  le.  In  the 
active  voice,  they  all  retain  the  same  synthetic  tenses,  as  for 
example,  the  present  and  the  imperfect  of  the  indicative. 

They  all  decompose  the  same  tenses;  for  instance,  the  perfect 
and  the  future ;  and  with  reference  to  the  latter,  there  is  this 

*  Those  of  the  readers  of  this  volume,  who  may  have  the  curiosity  to  examine  into 
the  details  of  this  interesting  subject,  will  find  an  invaluable  aid  in  Diez'  '•  Grsn.matik 
der  KomaniBchen  Sprachen,  which  treats  of  all  the  languages  derived  from  the  Latin. — 
Ed. 


Grammatical  Formation  of  the  Provengal.          149 

remarkable,  that  all  the  Neo-Latin  idioms  compound  it  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  manner:  the  infinitive  of  the  verb  denoting  the 
action,  is  joined  to  the  present  indicative  of  the  verb  to  have. 

They  all  connect  an  article  with  nouns,  which  has  the  gram- 
matical value  of  the  Latin  pronoun  iUe,  and  which  is  formed 
from  this  pronoun. 

Finally,  they  all  preserve  remains  and  the  same  remains  of  the 
declension  of  the  Latin  pronouns. 

These  circumstances  lead  us  to  observe,  that  such  an  agree- 
ment cannot  be  the  effect  either  of  chance,  or  of  imitation,  or  of 
mere  convention.  It  could  only  take  place  in  virtue  of  one  of 
those  general  laws,  which  preside  over  the  revolutions  of  all 
languages. 

The  Provencal,  taken  at  the  degree  of  development  and 
refinement,  at  which  the  poetry  of  the  Troubadours  exhibits  it, 
is  richer  in  grammatical  forms,  than  any  other  of  the  Neo-Latin 
idioms.  It  has,  for  example,  two  conditionals  present,  both  of 
which  are  synthetic.  It  has  a  remnant  of  a  declension  for  sub- 
stantives, a  nominative  and  an  accusative  case,  both  of  which 
are  capable  of  assuming  two  or  three  different  forms,  according 
to  that  of  the  noun.  Has  it  preserved  all  this  from  the  Latiii^ 
or  has  it  assumed  it  in  the  course  of  its  successive  develop- 
ments ? 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  adopt  the  latter  of  these  opinions ;  the 
other  would  be  liable  to  too  many  difficulties.  The  literal  Pro- 
vencal as  the  poets  of  the  twelfth  century  wrote  it,  may  have 
been  and  probably  was  spoken  in  the  smaller  courts  of  the 
South,  arid  by  the  feudal  and  ehivalric  classes.  But  it  cer- 
tainly never  was  the  language  of  the  multitude  at  large.  The 
idiom  of  the  latter  was  undoubtedly  of  a  poorer,  a  homelier  and 
a  cruder  kind.  There  was  therefore  a  rustic  Provencal  and  a 

frammatical  Provencal,  as  in  more  ancient  times  there  had 
een  a  rustic  Latin  and  a  grammatical  Latin.  The  analogy  does 
not  stop  here.  In  consequence  of  the  disasters,  which  annihi- 
lated the  Provencal  civilization,  the  polite  idiom  of  the  Trouba- 
dours ceased  to  be  spoken,  and  the  countries,  in  which  it  once 
had  flourished,  had  nothing  left  but  popular  dialects,  which 
still  continue  to  exist,  though  very  greatly  modified  by  the 
French.  This  was,  in  miniature,  the  same  revolution  with  that, 
which  had  substituted  the  Romansh  of  the  South  in  place  of  the 
Latin. 

But  these  considerations  touch  already  upon  other  questions. 
1  shall  again  have  occasion  to  return  to  them ;  but  for  the  pre- 
sent I  shall  not  pursue  them  any  further ;  for  I  must  hasten  to 
the  consideration  of  the  first  development  of  a  popular  litera- 
ture in  the  south  of  France. 


150  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


CHAPTEK  VIIL 

THE   EARLIEST  USE  OF  THE  PROVENgAL  AS  EXHIBTED  IN  THE  LITERA- 
TURE OF  THE  MONKS. 

AT  the  time  when  the  Latin  ceased  to  be  a  living  language 
in  Gaul,  that  is  to  say,  from  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century 
to  the  middle  of  the  ninth,  the  difference  between  the  popular 
dialects,  by  which  it  was  supplanted,  was  much  greater  than  it 
has  been  since.  The  fragmentary  remains  of  the  aboriginal 
idioms  of  the  country  which  are  still  visible  in  them  at  the 
present  time,  were  then  more  numerous,  and  more  conspicuous, 
and  the  Latin,  though  constituting  the  foundation  of  them  all, 
did  not  predominate  in  all  to  the  same  extent. 

It  needed  a  powerful  and  a  continuous  influence,  an  influence 
superior  to  that  which  the  political  authority  of  the  age  could 
supply,  to  subject  all  these  idioms  to  some  degree  of  approxi- 
mation, to  some  common  rules,  and  to  adapt  them  to  the 
expression  of  some  other  wants  than  the  urgent  and  vulgar 
necessities  of  ordinary  life.  It  was  the  authority  of  the  church, 
which  rendered  this  eminent  service  to  the  cause  of  civilization 
in  France. 

Toward  the  commencement  of  the  ninth  century,  the  church 
of  the  West,  which  had  preserved  the  use  of  the  Latin  in  its 
liturgy  and  for  the  religious  instruction  of  the  people,  per- 
ceived, that  the  Christians  under  its  spiritual  direction  no 
longer  comprehended  that  language,  and  it  then  reflected  on 
providing  a  remedy  for  this  serious  inconvenience.  The  first 
measures  which  it  adopted  with  reference  to  this  end,  date  from 
the  year  813,  the  last  year  but  one  of  the  reign  of  Charlemagne. 

Sensible  of  the  rapid  decline  of  his  strength,  and  henceforth 
more  occupied  with  the  affairs  of  the  church  than  with  those 
of  the  state,  this  monarch  desired,  before  his  exit  from  life,  to 
introduce  a  general  plan  of  reform  into  the  discipline  of  the 
churches  of  nis  empire,  which  really  were  very  much  in  need 
of  it.  For  this  purpose  he  convoked  five  provincial  councils, 
which  assembled  nearly  at  the  same  time  in  five  different 
places  of  the  empire,  selected  with  special  reference  to  the  con- 


Earliest  Use  of  the  Provengal.  151 

venience  of  the  end  proposed.  One  of  these  councils  was 
held  at  Aries,  another  at  Maintz,  a  third  at  Rheims,  the  fourth 
at  Chalons  on  the  Saone,  and  the  fifth  at  Tours. 

It  would  not  be  a  matter  of  indifference  to  my  subject,  to 
know  the  precise  date  of  each  one  of  these  councils ;  but  we 
are  only  acquainted  with  that  of  the  three  which  I  have  named 
first  and  in  the  same  order  of  succession.  It  is  commonly  sup- 
posed, but  on  what  evidence  I  know  not,  that  those  of  Chalons 
and  Tours  were  the  last. 

We  know  to  a  certainty,  that  all  these  councils  were  convoked 
for  the  same  purpose,  and  even  if  we  were  ignorant  of  the 
fact,  it  might  be  surmised  from  the  manifest  conformity  between 
their  respective  canons,  at  least  as  far  as  their  general  purport 
and  their  substance  is  concerned.  But  the  more  conspicuous 
this  conformity  is  in  the  great  majority  of  points  and  on  the 
most  important  of  them,  the  more  remarkable  and  the  more 
difficult  of  explanation  are  its  discrepancies  on  certain  parti- 
cular points  and  especially  on  that,  by  which  all  these  councils 
link  themselves  to  the  history  of  the  Romansh  idioms  of 
France. 

In  a  canon  of  the  council  of  Maintz  the  bishops  are  required 
to  adapt  their  sermons  to  the  capacity  of  the  people,  that  is  to 
say,  to  preach  to  them  in  the  Teutonic  idiom.  But  as  the  his- 
tory of  this  idiom  does  not  enter  into  my  subject,  I  shall  have 
nothing  to  say  on  the  council  in  question. 

That  of  Rheims  enjoined  it  on  the  ecclesiastics  of  its  jurisdic- 
tion to  adopt  the  vulgar  language  of  the  country  in  the  religious 
instruction  of  the  people.  The  same  injunction  was  made  by 
the  council  of  Tours,  and  specified  with  some  additional  details, 
which  are  an  evidence  of  the  just  importance  attached  to  this 
measure  by  the  clergy  generally. 

The  assistant  bishops  were  ordered  to  employ  the  Tudesque 
or  Teutonic  language  in  instructing  the  Frankish  inhabitants  of 
their  dioceses  in  the  creed  and  in  their  duties  as  Christians,  and 
to  make  use  of  the  Lingua  Romana  or  the  Romansh  with  the 
ancient  inhabitants  of  the  country.  The  same  decree  contains 
the  special  provision,  that  the  instruction,  which  now  for  the 
first  time  was  to  be  conveyed  in  a  language  distinct  from 
the  Latin,  was  to  discuss  the  rewards  and  punishments  of  a 
future  life,  the  means  of  avoiding  the  one  and  of  obtaining  the 
other,  the  resurrection  of  t]ie  body  and  the  last  judgment.  It 
is  particularly  interesting  to  observe,  that  the  homilies  to  be 
preached  on  these  various  subjects  were  first  to  be  composed  in 
Latin,  and  to  be  afterward  translated  into  the  vulgar  idiom.* 

*  The  canons  of  the  respective  councils  referred  to  by  the  author  are  as  follows : 
Concil.  Turon.    Can.  xvii.     "Visum  est  ananimitati  nostrso,  ut  quilibet  episcopus 


152  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

The  canons  of  the  councils  of  Aries  and  of  Chalons  make  no 
provisions  of  the  kind ;  they-say  nothing  either  of  the  religious 
instruction  of  the  people  or  of  the  language,  in  which  this 
instruction  was  to  be  conveyed.  But,  supposing  the  omission 
to  have  been  a  real,  that  is  to  say,  an  involuntary  one,  on  the 
part  of  the  two  councils,  a  remedy  was  soon  after  provided 
for  it. 

Charlemagne  deemed  it  proper  to  confirm  by  a  special  capi- 
tulary all  the  ecclesiastical  reforms  ordained  by  the  five  coun- 
cils. As  far  as  the  application  of  the  vulgar  idioms  *to  the 
religious  instruction  of  the  people  was  concerned,  this  capitu- 
lary was  based  on  the  canon  of  the  council  of  Tours,  to  which 
I  have  alluded,  and  which  from  that  time  became  a  law  of  the 
empire,  so  that  in  every  part  of  Gaul  the  clergy  were  equally 
required  to  use  the  idiom  of  their  parishioners  in  their  preaching. 

Judging  a  priori  and  from  probability,  these  decrees  which 
imposed  on  the  bishops  and  on  the  clergy  the  obligation  of  cul- 
tivating the  respective  dialects  of  their  parishioners,  must  have 
had  a  prompt  and  a  decided  influence  on  the  fixation  and  the 
culture  of  these  idioms.  It  is  true,  that  the  mass  of  the  clergy 
was  then  immersed  in  an  incredible  ignorance.  Nevertheless, 
the  majority  of  the  priests  and  many  of  the  monks  had  still  a 
smattering  of  Latin  grammar.  In  the  north  of  Gaul,  where 
the  restoration  of  learning,  brought  about  by  the  efforts  of 
Charlemagne,  had  been  attended  with  some  happy  results,  there 
were  a  number  of  ecclesiastics,  who  must  have  had  a  tolerable 
knowledge  of  the  Latin.  To  this  knowledge  some  of  them 
undoubtedly  added  a  certain  degree  of  intelligence  and-  dis- 
cernment, and  it  would  seem,  that  the  Romansh  idioms  could 
only  gain  by  being  spoken,  and  still  more  by  being  written  by 
them. 

I  say  written,  because  the  council  of  Tours  and  the  capitulary 
of  Charlemagne  made  it  incumbent  on  them  to  translate  the 
exhortations,  which  they  had  first  composed  in  Latin,  into  the 
Homansh  dialect  of  their  hearers.  Now,  this  obligation  of  thus 
comparing  the  mother  tongue  and  the  derivative  idiom  naturally 
led  to  the  perception  and  the  determination  of  their  analogies. 


habeat  horailias  continentes  necessarias  admonitiones,  quibus  subject!  erudiantur;  id 

est  de  fide  Catholica,  prout  capere  possint et  ut  easdem  homilias  quisque 

aperte  transferre  student  in  rusticam  Romanam  linguam,  aut  Theodiscamt  quo  facilius 
cuncti possint  intelligere  qua  dicuntur."  Cpncil.  Mogunt.  Can.  xxv.  "De  officio  prae- 

dicationis Nunquam  taraen  desitdiebus  dominicis  aut  festivitatibus,  qui  ver- 

butn  Dei  predicet,  juxta  quod  intelligere  vulgus  possit."  Concil.  Rhem.  ii.  Can.  xv. 
"  Ut  episcopi  serraones  et  nomilias  sanctorum  patrum,  prout  omnes  intelligere  possint, 
secundum  proprietatem  lingute  praedicare  studeat."  The  capitulary  of  Charlemagne,  by 
which  the  injunction  of  these  canons  was  made  a  law  of  the  empire,  is  in  the  following 
words :  »*  De  officio  praedicatipnis,  ut  juxta  quod  bene  vulgaris  populus  intelligere  possit 
assidue  fiat."  Capitulare  anni  regni  sui  xiii.  cap.  xiv..— Ed. 


Earliest  Use  of  the  Provencal.  153 

There  was  now  a  fixed  and  common  standard,  to  which  all  the 
modifications  to  be  made  in  the  Romansh  dialects,  in  order  to 
regulate  and  to  extend  their  usage,  might  be  naturally  and 
easily  referred.  From  this  moment,  the  Latin  was  destined  to 
recover,  in  part  at  least  and  as  a  learned  language,  the  influence, 
which  it  lost  as  a  living  one. 

In  all  probability  this  must  have  been  the  course  of  things. 
In  point  of  fact,  however,  we  are  ignorant  of  what  it  really  was. 
So  far  from  being  able  to  say,  what  influence  the  councils  in 
question  may  have  exerted  on  the  culture  of  the  Romansh 
idioms,  we  do  not  even  know  to  what  extent  their  canons  were 
observed. 

This  ignorance  is,  perhaps,  as  we  shall  see,  explainable,  as  far 
as  the  councils  of  Aries  and  of  Chalons  are  concerned,  which 
do  not  make  any  allusion  whatever  to  the  vulgar  idioms.  It  is 
more  remarkable  in  regard  to  those  of  Rheims  and  of  Tours,  by 
which  the  obligation  of  preaching  to  the  people  in  its  vernacular 
dialects  is  so  explicitly  and  so  emphatically  enjoined  upon  the 
clergy  under  their  jurisdiction.  ]STot  only  does  the  Romansh 
not  contain  the  least  literary  fragment,  the  existence  of  which 
might  be  attributed  to  the  injunctions  of  the  two  last-named 
councils,  but  there  is  not  even  a  vestige  of  historical  evidence, 
that  anything  of  the  kind  ever  existed. 

It  is  in  the  course  of  the  eleventh  century,  that  mention  is 
made  of  some  works  in  the  Romansh-French,  composed  by 
ecclesiastics  for  the  instruction  and  edification  of  the  public. 
"We  find,  for  example,  allusions  to  certain  lives  of  the  Saints, 
translated  from  the  Latin  into  the  dialect  of  Rouen  by  Thibaut 
of  Yernon,  canon  of  the  church  of  that  city,  about  the  year 
1053  ;  but  facts  like  these  are  too  remote  to  be  referred  to  the 
councils  of  Rheims  and  of  Tours. 

I  revert  now  to  the  omission,  to  which  I  have  just  alluded,  in 
the  two  councils  of  Aries  and  Chalons.  It  is  too  remarkable 
and  too  intimately  connected  with  my  subject,  to  allow  me  to 
pass  it  over  without  a  few  reflections.  This  omission  having 
taken  place  simultaneously  in  different  parts  of  the  country,  in 
two  different  assemblies,  and  affecting  an  object  of  great  general 
interest,  it  is  not  easy  to  attribute  it  to  a  mere  inattention  or 
forge tfulness.  We  are  almost  obliged  to  suppose,  that  if  the 
two  councils  in  question  did  not  prescribe  the  same  rules  for 
the  religious  instruction  of  the  people,  which  those  of  Rheims 
and  of  Tours  had  prescribed,  it  was  because  they  did  not  deem 
this  prescription  as  necessary,  as  the  latter  had  found  it  to  be. 
And  if  we  wish  to  state  this  somewhat  vague  hypothesis  with  a 
little  more  precision,  we  must  say,  that  in  the  countries,  to 
which  the  decrees  of  the  two  councils  had  reference,  the  Latin 


154:  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

was  still  generally  understood  in  813,  or  else  that  at  that  time 
the  vulgar  dialects  were  already  applied  to  the  religious  instruc- 
tion of  their  inhabitants. 

Taken  within  certain  limits,  these  two  hypotheses  are  by  no 
means  incompatible ;  and  they  are  both  admissible  in  regard  to 
those  countries,  which  came  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  coun- 
cil of  Aries.  The  proofs  of  this  assertion  will  appear  from  the 
subsequent  development  of  facts. 

I  have  already  had  more  than  one  occasion  to  remark,  that 
the  results  of  the  restoration  of  learning,  which  took  place 
under  Charlemagne,  important  and  decisive  as  they  were  in 
the  north  of  Gaul,  were  scarcely  perceptible  in  the  South. 
One  of  these  results  was,  to  transfer  the  seat  of  Latin  literature 
and  culture  from  the  latter  country  into  another.  Of  about  a 
hundred  and  twenty  ecclesiastical  personages,  more  or  less 
known  from  their  Latin  writings,  from  the  end  of  the  eighth  to 
the  end  of  the  ninth  centuries,  more  than  a  hundred,  some  of 
which  are  Gallo-Romans  and  others  Franks,  belong  to  the 
North ;  and  these  are  in  every  respect  the  most  conspicuous  of 
the  number.  Now,  inasmuch  as  the  professional  learning  and 
the  duties  of  the  Christian  priesthood  depended  in  a  great  mea- 
sure on  their  knowledge  of  the  Latin,  the  ignorance  of  the 
clergy  of  the  South  on  this  point  must  necessarily  have  proved 
pernicious  to  its  discipline.  This  is  a  fact  to  which  I  have  already 
alluded  many  times,  and  the  moment  has  now  arrived  for  giving 
direct  and  positive  proofs  of  it ;  but  this  fact  partly  depends 
upon  another,  which  I  shall  now  explain  in  a  few  words. 

The  liturgy  of  the  Christian  church  was  originally  not 
very  definitely  settled,  nor  very  uniform.  On  many  points  of 
secondary  importance,  every  church  had  its  peculiar  usages. 
Thus,  for  example,  the  hymns,  which  constituted  an  essential 
part  of  the  cultus,  were  nowhere  alike.  Every  priest  adopted 
or  composed  new  ones  at  his  pleasure. 

A  license  like  this,  in  an  age,  when  the  reminiscences  of 
paganism  were  still  alive  with  all  their  seductive  allurements, 
was  attended  with  its  inconveniences.  It  could  introduce  into 
the  Christian  liturgy  compositions,  which  were  strangely  out  of 
place  in  it ;  and  indeed  accidents  of  this  kind  did  not  fail  to 
happen.  It  was  the  Greek  priests  and  even  the  patriarchs,  who 
gave  the  example  of  the  scandal.  The  historian  Cedrenus 
reproaches  Thfeophylact  for  having  admitted  profane  songs 
among  the  chants  of  the  church  at  Constantinople.* 


*  Cedrenus  represents  the  entire  life  of  the  patriarch  as  a  scandalous  insult  to  reli- 
gion. He  accuses  him  of  having  kept  over  two  thousand  horses  in  his  stables,  which 
he  fed  not  on  hay  or  cerealia,  but  on  the  choicest  fruits,  seasoned  with  the  most  deli- 
cious wines ;  of  having  introduced  the  custom  of  celebrating  the  festivals  of  the  Saints 


Earliest  Use  of  the  Provencal.  155 

From  the  East  the  evil  made  its  way  to  the  West,  and  par- 
ticularly to  those  countries,  which  by  reason  of  their  position 
on  the  coasts  of  the  Mediterranean,  were  in  direct  and  frequent 
communications  with  the  capital  of  the  Greek  empire.  Toward 
the  end  of  the  sixth  century,  the  bishops  of  Spain  were  obliged 
to  expunge  from  the  ritual  of  several  churches  hymns  composed 
by  private  or  unclerical  authors,  and  to  interdict  in  the  celebra- 
tion of  holy  offices  the  use  of  every  book  that  was  not  sanctioned 
as  canonical. 

The  ecclesiastical  history  of  Gaul  does  not  inform  us  of  what 
happened  there  in  this  respect.  But  it  was  probably  the  same 
abuse,  that  provoked  one  of  Charlemagne's  capitularies,  which 
condemns  all  apocryphal  histories  and  proscribes  the  public 
reading  of  any  but  canonical  books,  of  any  pieces,  but  such  as 
were  truely  Catholic  and  sanctioned  by  venerable  authori- 
ties.* 

In  regard  to  the  churches  of  the  South  in  particular,  it  is  cer- 
tain, that  the  abuse  in  question  was  carried  to  a  scandalous 
extent  by  them.  Agobard,  the  distinguished  bishop  of  Lyons, 
who  died  toward  the  year  840,  relates,  that,  in  taking  possession 
of  his  church,  he  found  an  antiphonary,  compiled  by  a  chore- 
piscopus,  by  the  name  of  Amalric,  and  interspersed  throughout 
with  pieces,  which  the  compiler  had  inserted  on  his  own 
authority  and  according  to  his  personal  caprice.  Now,  these 
pieces  were  so  indecent,  to  use  the  language  of  the  pious 
bishop  himself,  "  that  no  one  could  read  them  without  being 
struck  with  shame,  and  without  blushes  in  his  face." 

The  pieces,  which  I  am  about  to  produce  as  specimens  of  the 
literary  acquirements  and  taste  of  the  monks  and  priests  of  the 
South,  at  the  time  now  under  consideration,  contain  nothing  of 
so  scandalous  a  character.  But  they  are  nevertheless  striking 
examples  of  the  prodigious  ignorance  of  those  priests  and  of  the 
astonishing  liberty  of  imagination,  which  they  added  to  this 
ignorance.  They  are  found  in  the  two  manuscripts  from  the 
abbey  of  Saint-Martial,  of  which  I  have  spoken  in  the  last 
chapter,  and  to  which  I  cannot  avoid  reverting  for  a  moment 
here. 

These  manuscripts  consist  of  a  collection  of  fragments  of 

with  orgies  and  profanities,  which  Cedrenus  says  were  yet  in  vogue  in  his  day ;  and 
finally  of  having  admitted  diabolical  dances,  obscure  vociferations,  and  obscene  songs, 
borrowed  from  the  brothel,  into  the  cultus  of  the  church. — He  was  killed  by  a  fall 
from  one  of  his  horses.  Cedreni  Historiarum  compendium  (Ed.  Bekker),  vol.  ii.  p. 
332-333.— Ed. 

*  The  capitulary  is  simply  :  "  Ut  canonici  libri  tantum  legantur  in  ecclesia."  But  it 
is  made  with  direct  reference  to  a  canon  of  the  council  of  Laodicea,  which,  with  a  num- 
ber of  others,  it  adopts  as  a  law  of  the  empire.  The  canon  is  the  59th  :  "  Non  oportet 
ab  idiotis psalmos  composites  et  vulgares  dici  in  ecclesiis,  neque  libros,  qui  sunt  extra  cano- 
nem  legere,  nisi  solos  canonicos  novi  et  veteris  Testamenti."  The  books  considered 
as  canonical  are  then  enumerated. — Ed. 


156  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

various  ages  and  by  different  hands,  the  most  important  and 
the  most  ancient  of  which  date,  as  I  have  already  had  occasion 
to  remark,  from  the  first  half  of  the  eleventh  century.  These 
fragments  may  have  successively  belonged  to  different  monas- 
teries or  to  different  churches  of  the  South.  The  pieces,  which 
they  contain,  are  with  few  exceptions  extracts  from  the  Christ- 
ian liturgy,  some  in  Latin  and  others  in  Romansh.  They  were 
all  intended  to  be  sung  at  the  celebration  of  particular  festivals 
or  ceremonies,  and  the  majority  of  them  are  written  with  their 
musical  notation  under  each  line.  Such  of  these  pieces,  as  are 
composed  in  the  vulgar  idiom,  I  shall  consider  presently;  I 
must,  in  the  first  place,  say  a  few  words  on  those  that  are  in 
Latin. 

The  latter  are  of  two  kinds.  The  one  class  appertains  to  the 
liturgy  as  sanctioned  by  the  more  or  less  general  usage  of  the 
churches;  the  other  consists  of  pieces  of  imagination — the 
works  of  unknown  authors,  apparently  by  monks  and  priests  of 
the  South,  who  at  their  pleasure  introduced  them  into  the 
ritual  of  their  churches  among  the  number  of  its  hallowed 
chants  and  prayers.  These  pieces  being  very  numerous,  I  shall 
only  dwell  on  such  as  are  best  calculated  to  illustrate  the  facts, 
which  I  desire  to  establish. 

There  is  one  of  them,  which  has  nothing  remarkable  as  far 
as  its  argument  is  concerned,  but  which  still  deserves  some 
notice  on  account  of  its  metrical  execution.  This  is  a  poetical 
narrative  of  the  heroic  adventure  of  Judith  with  Holofernes ; 
and  this  narrative  is  in  stanzas  or  couplets  of  six  verses  each, 
irregularly  rhymed  and  composed  of  a  number  of  syllables, 
which  varies  from  six  to  eight.  In  regard  to  its  diction,  the 
piece  is  a  tissue  of  the  most  barbarous  blunders  from  one  end 
to  the  other.  The  words  are  Latin,  at  least  the  majority  of 
them,  but  they  are  nearly  always  incorrectly  employed,  and 
the  sentences  are  constructed  after  the  manner  and  the  genius 
of  the  romances.  In  regard  to  its  character  and  tone,  the 
piece  is  a  popular  romanza  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  term  ; 
and  it  is  solely  on  this  account,  that  I  have  noticed  it,  as  one  of 
the  earliest  indications  of  a  fact,  which  is  now  about  to  become 
apparent  by  degrees.  A  few  couplets  of  this  piece,  translated 
without  the  slightest  change  of  construction  and  with  the  most 
scrupulous  fidelity,  save  here  and  there  the  correction  of  a 
barbarism  or  of  a  phraseological  vice,  which  it  is  impossible 
to  reproduce,  will  suffice  to  illustrate  what  I  wish  to  con- 
vey: 

"Being  in  the  thirtieth  year  of  his  reign, — Nebuchadnezzar 
undertook  to  raise  a  war — against  the  nations  and  the  king- 
doms— even  against  Jerusalem." 


Earliest  Use  of  the  Provencal.  157 

"Then  he  summoned  Holofernes — the  commander  of  his 
forces  : — March  against  the  nations,  said  he : — march  to  war 
against  the  West. — Let  thy  hand  give  grace  to  no  one  : — let 
it  never  spare  the  sword." 

"  Hereupon  Holofernes  assembled — generals  and  soldiers, — • 
officers  and  tribunes, — all  the  archers,  and  undoing  sundry 
nations, — he  marched  on  to  Betulia." 

"  Jews,  in  this  city, — were  the  multitude  : — they  adored  the 
God  of  heaven, — the  Saviour  of  mankind ; — and  they  drove 
back  Holofernes, — battling  bravely  in  the  fray." 

"  With  fasting  and  with  tears, — in  sack-cloth,  coarse  and 
rough, — the  people  were  afflicted, — they  prayed  unto  the  Lord, 
— that  from  the  enemy's  hand — he  might  redeem  his  ser- 
vants." 

"  Upon  a  certain  day,  Holofernes, — -in  a  great  rage — began 
to  say  to  his  men: — Who  are  these  people? — Who  is  this 
nation,  that  will  not  bend — to  my  commandment  ?"  etc.,  etc. 

All  the  rest  is  in  precisely  the  same  popular  style,  and  with- 
out any  more  decided  reflection  of  the  oriental  tone  of  the  origi- 
nal story. 

I  pass  now  to  another  piece,  of  which  I  would  also  like  to 

five  an  idea,  if  it  were  possible  to  do  so.  This  is  a  sort  of 
ymn,  an  ode,  an  idyl ;  1  do  not  know  exactly  how  to  char- 
acterize it.  In  a  word,  it  is  a  poem,  composed  by  some  good  old 
Aquitanian  or  Provencal  monk,  with  a  pious  intention,  and 
destined  to  be  sung  in  the  churches.  This  author,  whoever  he 
may  be,  has  aimed  at  the  graces  of  poetic  beauty  and  of  an 
elegant  latinity  ;  but  the  more  he  strives  to  rise  above  a  trivial 
and  popular  tone,  the  more  conclusively  he  proves,  that  this 
tone  was  soon  to  become  that  of  the  monastic  literature  of  the 
South.  In  the  first  four  or  five  strophes,  the  author's  aim 
seems  to  be  to  describe  the  celestial  choirs,  celebrating  the 
wonders  of  creation  and  the  power  of  the  Creator.  The  subse- 
quent strophes  contain  a  sort  of  a  description  of  spring  and  an 
invocation  of  the  nightingale  or  Philomela,  as  our  classical 
monk  terms  the  songstress  of  the  grove, — an  invocation,  in 
which  the  attempt  at  elegance  appears  in  the  most  grotesque 
contrast  with  a  congeries  of  Latin,  Greek  and  Romansh  epi- 
thets, piled  one  against  the  other,  as  if  they  had  been  huddled 
together  by  the  merest  caprice  of  hazard. 

The  more  strange  and  barbarous  all  this  appears,  the  more  it 
is  necessary  for  me  to  give  some  notion  of  it.  I  therefore  sub- 
join here  what  I  have  been  able  to  comprehend  of  it,  and  with 
the  sense  and  the  consistency  I  have  been  able  to  put  into 
it,  I  can  only  guarantee  one  thing,  and  this  is,  that  I  have  done 
no  injustice  to  the  original. 


158  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

"  The  choirs  of  angels  in  the  sky  make  their  golden  tongues 
resound." 

"They  celebrate  perpetually  by  their  canticles  the  king  of 
ages  reigning  there ; 

"  Him,  who  created  the  twinkling  stars  of  heaven,  who  separ- 
ated the  land  from  the  waters ;" 

"  Who  has  created  all  things  for  his  glory ;  the  reptiles  and 
the  birds." 

"  Fair  spring  reigns  in  the  flowering  woodland ;  the  earth 
produces  herbs,  the  forest  puts  forth  verdant  foliage." 

"  There  sing  a  multitude  of  birds ;  the  smallest  is  the  one 
which  has  the  greatest,  the  most  brilliant  voice." 

"  It's  Philomela,  who  having  reached  some  woody  eminence 
and  agitating  tree-top,  continues  her  melodious  complaint, 
throughout  the  whole  of  the  dark  night." 

"  Why,  little  bird,  dost  thou  not  cease  to  sing  so  plain- 
tively? Dost  thou  desire  to  vanquish  with  thy  melody  the 
sweet  sounds  of  the  lyre  ?" 

"  The  girl  who  plays  the  dulcimer  stands  listening  to  thee  ; 
and  princes  lie  awake  to  lend  their  ear  to  thee  and  praise  the 
sweetness  of  thy  song." 

"  Weary  thy  little  gorge  no  longer  !  cease  to  importune  with 
thy  warbling  notes  those  who  desire  to  sleep !" 

"  But  what !  Thou  naughty  bird,  thou  dost  persist  in  sing- 
ing !  Thou  dost  neglect  thy  nourishment,  wouldst  ravish  all 
the  world  with  songs  !" 

"  All  listen  to  thee,  but  there  are  none  to  bring  thee  help, 
save  he  who  has  endowed  thee  with  thy  voice." 

"  But  when  the  summer's  come,  the  bird  is  silent ;  it's  only 
occupied  with  its  young  brood ;  and  it  expires  amid  the  frosts 
of  winter." 

It  is  already  a  matter  of  some  surprise,  that  any  one  should 
ever  have  been  found  capable  of  producing  the  text,  from 
which  I  have  just  translated  a  specimen.  But  what  shall  we 
think  of  the  literature  and  of  the  discipline  of  the  monks,  who 
could  chant  such  nonsense — chant  in  churches,  during  divine 
service,  and  carefully  record  it  on  parchment,  at  a  time  when 
parchment  was  denied  the  writings  of  Cicero  ? 

But  we  have  not  finished  yet.  I  have  to  quote  one  piece 
more.  This,  however,  ig  at  least  no  longer  a  prodigy  of 
barbarity.  The  Latin,  though  insipid  and  familiar,  is  yet 
sufficiently  grammatical  to  admit  of  an  exact  rendering,  which 
the  piece  well  deserves  on  account  of  its  singularity.  It  is  in 
stanzas  of  six  verses  each,  and  it  would  seem  that  we  must 
regard  it  as  a  dialogue  between  two  interlocutors,  between  a 
lover  and  his  mistress,  of  whom  the  former  is  supposed  to 


Earliest  Use  of  the  Provencal.  159 

pronounce  the  first  four  stanzas  and  the  latter  the  remaining 
two. 

FIRST   INTERLOCUTOR,    OR   THE   LOVER. 

"  Pray  come,  my  charming  friend,  whom  I  love  as  I  do  my 
own  heart :  come  to  my  chamber,  which  I've  embellished  with 
all  sorts  of  ornaments." 

"  Seats  are  arranged  for  us  in  it ;  it  is  bedecked  with  ta- 
pestry ;  it's  strewed  with  flowers  intermingled  with  odoriferous 
herbs." 

"  A  table  is  prepared  for  us  in  it,  covered  with  every  kind 
of  meats  ;  a  pure  wine  and  the  most  delicious  cheer  await  us 
in  abundance." 

"  The  sweet  harmony  of  shrill  flutes  resounds  in  it ;  a  young 
boy  and  a  skillful  girl  are  singing  their  blithe  ditties." 


SECOND   INTERLOCUTOR,    OR   THE   LADY-LOVE. 

"  I  have  been  solitary  in  the  forest ;  I've  loved  sequestered 
spots ;  I  have  escaped  the  tumult,  avoiding  the  noisy  crowd  of 
men." 

"  The  snow  and  ice  are  already  melting ;  the  grass  and  foliage 
are  putting  on  their  green.  Already  Philomela  sings  her 
highest  airs,  and  faithful  love  is  languishing  in  the  grottoes." 

I  do  not  intend  to  dwell  on  the  inconvenience  or  the  impro- 
priety of  pieces  like  these,  in  a  Christian  liturgy  ;  I  am  only  in 
search  of .  data  for  the  literary  history  of  the  south  of  France 
during  the  Middle  Age. 

It  is  impossible  to  determine  the  age  of  these  pieces.  The 
manuscripts,  in  which  they  are  contained,  along  with  many 
others,  which  likewise  appertain  to  the  monastic  literature  of 
the  South,  are  no  older  than  the  first  half  of  the  eleventh 
century.  But  they  were  surely  not  composed  for  the  express 
purpose  of  being  inserted  in  these  manuscripts,  and  are  un- 
doubtedly much  older.  Several  of  those,  with  which  they  are 
intermingled,  may  be  traced  to  the  commencement  of  the  ninth 
century,  and  there  is  not  the  slightest  ground  for  the  presump- 
tion, that  they  themselves  are  any  less  ancient.  The  exact 
date  of  these  compositions,  however,  is  comparatively  of  little 
importance.  They  are  Certainly  not  the  only  ones,  nor  the  first, 
of  this  peculiar  style,  this  tone,  this  character  ;  and  there  is  no 
doubt,  but  that  some  of  those,  which  preceded  them,  must  be 
dated  from  the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century,  and  even  from 
second  half  of  the  eighth. 

Now,   it  is   extremely  probable,  that  at  these  epochs  the 


160  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

inhabitants  of  the  South  still  comprehended  such  pieces,  which 
were  composed  in  a  vulgar  and  more  than  semi-barbarous 
Latin,  already  abounding  in  forms  and  imitations  from  the 
Rornansh,  with  which  it  finally  was  confounded. 

It  is  moreover  equally  probable,  that  one  of  the  principal 
motives,  which  prompted  the  clergy  of  the  South  to  introduce 
into  the  Christian  liturgy  profane  songs  bordering  on  scandal, 
was  that  of  drawing  the  people  to  the  churches  and  of  interest- 
ing them  in  the  ceremonies  of  the  cultus.  It  was  a  sort  of  con- 
cession, made  by  an  ignorant  and  ill-disciplined  clergy,  to  the 
pagan  reminiscences  of  the  multitude,  to  the  passion  for  excite- 
ment and  amusement,  which  these  people  carried  even  into 
their  religious  usages. 

An  accommodation  of  this  kind  is  still  more  apparent  in  the 
assiduity,  with  which  that  same  clergy  sought  to  give  a  mate- 
rial and  visible  representation  of  the  ideas  and  facts  of  Christi- 
anity, by  dramatizing,  as  well  as  it  could,  the  solemnities  of 
public  worship.  We  know,  for  example,  that,  during  the  cere- 
monies of  Christmas  day,  it  exhibited  the  three  Magi  from  the 
East,  arriving  under  the  guidance  of  the  marvellous  star  at  the 
cradle  of  the  Saviour,  for  the  purpose  of  knowing  and  adoring 
him.  During  the  solemnities  of  Passion  Week,  it  had  a  man 
suspended  from  the  cross  for  some  length  of  time,  in  order  to 
represent  Jesus  Christ  dying  for  the  redemption  of  men.  There 
was  scarcely  a  church,  but  what  had  translated  the  legend  of  its 
favorite  saint  into  a  sort  of  pantomime  or  drama. 

The  famous  procession  of  Corpus  Christi,  instituted  at  Aix  by 
King  Rene*,  was  nothing  more  than  a  continuation  on.  a  grander 
scale  of  this  ancient  usage,  so  common  among  the  south- 
ern clergy,  of  converting  the  mysteries  of  Christianity  into  a 
dramatic  action  and  into  a  scenic  spectacle.  Now,  the  first 
and  leading  motive  on  the  part  of  the  clergy  for  a  usage  like 
this,  which  in  its  principle  was  wholly  pagan,  wholly  Greek, 
must  certainly  have  been  the  intention  of  attaching  to  the 
ceremonies  of  the  Christian  cultus  a  gay  and  sensual  people, 
which  still  delighted  in  the  imitative  and  picturesque  dis- 
play of  its  former  heathenish  festivals. 

In  behalf  of  these  material  representations  of  the  Christian 
mysteries,  the  priests  and  the  monks  aspired  to  the  composition 
of  pieces  in  verse  or  prose,  in  a  sort  of  barbarous  Latin ;  and 
these  pieces  must  fr  om  the  very  nature  of  their  design  have 
presented  some  shades  of  a  dramatic  form  or  intention. 

Nevertheless,  I  have  not  been  able  to  discover  among  all  the 
monuments  of  the  monastic  literature  of  the  South  a  single  piece 
of  this  description  in  any  kind  of  Latin.  The  only  one  I  could 
quote  belongs  to  a  much  later  epoch  ;  it  is  from  the  eleventh 


Earliest  Use  of  the  Provencal.  161 

century.  I  ought  to  add,  that  it  is,  or  aims  to  be,  in  a  learned 
Latin,  and  that  its  dramatic  side  is  not  very  conspicuous. 
However,  as  it  is  certainly  not  the  only  nor  the  first  composi- 
tion of  the  kind,  it  may  be  cited  as  an  indication  and  a  proof 
of  the  fact,  which  I  propose  to  establish. 

The  piece  in  question  may  be  traced  to  the  year  1048.  This 
was  the  }rear  of  the  decease  of  Odilon,  the  abbe"  of  Cluni,  who 
died  in  the  monastery  of  Silviniac,  in  Auvergne,  which  was  one 
of  the  dependencies  of  Cluni.  There  is  still  extant  a  funeral 
dirge,  composed  in  honor  of  this  abbot  bv  a  certain  lotsald,  one 
of  me  monks  of  Silviniac.  Now,  the  copies  of  this  dirge  contain 
the  intrinsic  evidence  of  its  having  been  written  for  the  express 
purpose  of  being  sung  at  the  funeral  of  the  sainted  abbot ;  and 
we  are  moreover  assured,  from  other  indications,  that  it  was 
intended  to  be  accompanied  by  a  species  of  pantomime,  where 
several  circumstances  from  the  eulogy  of  Odilon  were  to  be 
represented  by  corresponding  scenic  imitations. 

The  poem  contains,  for  example,  verses,  which  the  deceased 
is  supposed  to  sing  from  the  depth  of  his  grave,  shortly  before 
his  resurrection  ;  and  these  verses  were  chanted  by  a  personage, 
who  acted  the  part  of  the  saint  and  who  actually  rose  again  in 
his  stead. 

But  of  all  the  branches  of  the  monastic  literature  of  the 
South,  written  in  a  more  or  less  romanticizing  Latin,  the  most 
prolific  and  the  most  interesting  was  incontestably  that  of  the 
marvellous  histories  and  of  the  legends  of  saints  both  in  verse 
and  prose.  I  have  found  some  of  them  quite  interesting  on 
account  of  the  occasional  hints  they  furnish  us  respecting 
the  nature  and  extent  of  the  influence,  which  their  continual 
wars  against  the  Arabs  of  Spain  and  their  frequent  and  early 
relations  with  the  latter  were  thus  exercising  on  the  poetic 
imagination  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  South.  JBut  the  remarks 
I  might  make  concerning  these  legends  and  fables  are  worth  a 
place  in  a  separate  chapter.  It  is  sufficient  for  my  purpose  to 
indicate  here  en  passant  the  existence  of  the  histories  in 
question. 

In  recapitulating  now  what  I  have  just  said  on  the 
monastic  literature  of  the  South  from  the  end  of  the  eighth 
century  to  the  middle  of  the  ninth,  we  perceive  that  it  already 
includes  all  the  germs  and  rudiments  of  a  new  literature. 
The  transition  from  the  habit  of  making  verses  or  prose  in  a 
barbarous  Latin,  which  was  already  more  than  half  Romansh, 
to  the  idea  of  composing  them  in  the  pure  Romansh,  was  an 
easy  and  a  natural  one  :  it  was  in  fact  inevitable. 

From  the  ninth  century  to  the  tenth,  the  indiscipline  and  the 
ignorance  of  the  priests  and  monks  of  the  South  was  constantly 

11 


162  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

increasing.  The  mass  of  the  clergy  became  more  and  more 
assimilated  with  the  mass  of  the  people,  until  at  last  there  was 
no  longer  any  difference.  In  both  these  masses,  there  was  the 
same  grossness  of  manners,  the  same  ignorance,  the  same  wants 
and  the  same  tendencies  of  the  imagination.  If  the  people  had 
its  remains  of  heathenish  habits,  there  was  likewise  a  tincture 
of  paganism  in  the  inconceivable  readiness  with  which  the 
clergy  gave  itself  up  to  the  practice  of  singing  in  the  churches 
its  erotic  idyls,  its  invocations  of  Philomela,  or  to  other  inde- 
cencies, still  worse  than  these,  as  we  learn  from  the  testimony 
of  Agobard,  to  which  I  have  above  alluded. 

In  this  state  of  things,  a  new  approximation,  and  one,  which 
all  the  rest  had  long  since  tended  to  bring  about,  took  place 
between  the  people  and  the  clergy.  The  latter  made  a  second 
concession,  a  second  innovation  in  the  liturgy  in  favor  of  the 
former.  Among  the  Latin  prayers  and  chants  sanctioned  by 
usage,  and  among  the  profane  songs  in  a  more  or  less  barbarous 
Latin,  which  they  had  introduced  into  it  on  their  own  authority, 
they  now  admitted  other  songs  in  the  Komansh  idiom. 

What  could  have  been  the  motive  of  the  clergy  for  this  new 
compliance  ?  Did  they  think  of  attaching  the  people  more  and 
more  to  the  ceremonies  of  the  cultus,  by  allowing  them  to  pray 
and  sing  in  their  own  vernacular  ?  Was  it  purely  from  a  sym- 
pathy for  the  tastes  of  the  people,  and  without  the  intention  of 
exacting  any  return  for  it,  that  they  made  this  concession  ?  I 
am  inclined  to  believe,  that  both  these  considerations  entered 
into  the  motives  of  the  innovation. 

However  that  may  be,  the  fact  is  a  certain  one,  and  not  with- 
out its  importance  in  the  history  of  the  idiom  and  of  the  popu- 
lar literature  of  the  South.  It  is,  in  fact,  from  the  admission 
of  this  idiom  into  the  Christian  liturgy,  that  we  may  date  the 
commencement  of  its  culture,  and  the  first  literary  tentatives 
in  this  idiom  appear  to  have  been  songs  or  hymns,  composed  by 
ecclesiastics,  in  order  to  be  sung  by  the  people  in  the  churches. 
It  was  thus,  that  the  transition  from  the  semi-popular  poetry  in 
monkish  Latin  to  a  decidedly  popular  poetry  in  the  pure 
Komansh  was  accomplished.  In  regard  to  the  epoch  of  this 
transition,  I  assign  it  on  conjecture  to  the  beginning  of  the 
ninth  century. 

The  most  curious  and  the  most  ancient  specimens  of  the  kind 
are  contained  in  those  precious  manuscripts  of  Saint  Martial, 
which  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  quote  several  times.  We 
there  find  a  hymn  to  the  Virgin  in  twelve  stanzas  of  four  verses 
each,  composed  of  six  syllables,  and  rhyming  two  by  two.  The 
piece  is  one  of  an  extreme  simplicity,  both  in  its  language  and 
in  its  ideas.  There  is  nothing  remarkable  about  it,  except  the 


Earliest  Use  of  the  Provencal.  163 

simple  fact  of  its  existence,  and  it  is  on  that  account  that  T 
refrain  from  speaking  of  it  in  detail.* 

The  same  manuscripts  contain  a  piece,  which  is  much  more 
curious,  not  indeed  intrinsically,  but  on  account  of  certain 
accessories,  which  give  us  some  notion  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  people  participated  in  the  services  of  divine  worship.  This 
is  a  hymn  on  the  Nativity,  and  destined  to  be  sung  at  the  cele- 
bration of  this  festival.  Its  couplets  alternate  with  those  of 
the  same  hymn  in  Latin,  of  which  they  are  only  a  translation, 
and  not  a  very  faithful  one.  It  appears,  that  each  Latin  couplet 
was  chanted  by  the  clergy,  and  that  the  people  responded  to  it 
by  a  couplet  in  the  Romansh,  and  so  on  alternately  to  the  end.. 

In  other  manuscripts  there  are  psalms  translated  into  rhymed 
Provencal  couplets,  likewise  so  arranged  as  to  be  sung  by  a  choir 
composed  of  the  entire  congregation,  and  alternating  with  tha 
Latin  verses  chanted  by  the  priests. 

In  nearly  all  the  churches  of  the  South,  the  people  likewise 
took  a  part  in  the  celebration  of  the  Christian  festivals-  by 
chanting  hymns  in  the  Romansh  idiom.  In  some  of  these 
churches,  this  usage  was  kept  up  until  a  comparatively  recent 
period.  We  still  have  a  hymn  on  the  martyrdom  of  St.  Stephen, 
which  it  was  customary  to  sing  in  those  of  Aix  and  Agen.f  I 
have  seen  in  a  manuscript  of  the  thirteenth  century  a  very 
beautiful  complaint  of  the  Virgin,  on  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ, 
which  must  have  been  sung  for  centuries  in  that  of  Albi. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  certain  pieces  in  monkish  Latin, 
composed  for  those  dramatic  representations  of  the  Christian 
Mysteries,  by  which  the  clergy  had  intended  to  attract  the 
people  to  the  churches.  From  the  moment  and  for  the  same 
reasons,  that  there  were  hymns  and  prayers  in  the  Romansh  lan- 
guage, there  must  have  been,  and  in  fact  there  soon  were  in  the 
same  language  pieces,  in  which  the  attempt  was  made  to  dra- 
matize the  ideas  and  the  facts  of  Christianity.  We  find  one  in 
the  manuscripts  of  Saint  Martial,  which  dates  from  the  end  of 
the  tenth  century  or  from  the  commencement  of  the  eleventh, 
at  the  latest,  and  which  at  present  is  undoubtedly  the  most 
ancient  of  the  kind. 

This  is  a  dramatic  composition  of  the  crudest  description, 
adapted  to  the  service  of  the  Nativity,  and  representing  the 
evangelical  parable  of  the  wise  and  foolish  virgins.  If  any  one 
should  be  tempted  to  glance  at  the  piece,  he  will  find  it  in  the 
second  volume  of  Raynouard's  collection  of  the  Troubadours.;): 

It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  anything  simpler  or  grosser 
in  the  shape  of  a  dramatic  performance.  Its  action  is  so  little, 
marked,  that  it  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  one ;  and  the  piece 

*  Kaynouard,  vol.  ii.,  p.  135.    f  Id.  vol.  ii.,  p.  UG.    J  Page  139.— Ed. 


164  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

proceeds  in  sort  of  helter-skelter  fashion,  and  without  the 
slightest  artifice  from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  Its  dramatis 
persona,  however,  are  very  numerous.  There  are,  besides  the 
wise  and  the  foolish  virgins,  Jesus  Christ,  the  Virgin  Mary,  the 
angel  Gabriel,  an  oil-dealer,  and  several  distinguished  person- 
ages from  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament,  among  which  Nebu- 
chadnezzar and  Yirgil  figure  by  way  of  episodes.  The  virgins 
and  the  oil  dealer  always  speak  Provencal ;  Christ  and  the 
angel  Gabriel  sometimes  Provencal  and  sometimes  Latin.  In 
both  these  idioms  the  dialogue  is  composed  of  rhymed  couplets, 
of  which  some  contain  three  and  others  four  verses. 

The  piece  begins  with  a  sort  of  prologue  in  six  Latin  verses, 
rhyming  two  by  two,  wherein  the  angel  Gabriel  announces  the 
near  advent  of  the  Messiah  under  the  metaphorical  name  of  the 
bridegroom.  The  wise  virgins  now  make  their  appearance,  and 
the  angel  exhorts  them  to  prepare  for  the  coming  of  the  bride- 
groom. The  foolish  virgins  are  absent ;  but  they  soon  arrive 
in  their  turn,  lamenting  that  they  had  neglected  to  provide 
themselves  with  oil  in  order  to  wait  for  the  bridegroom,  and 
conjuring  their  sisters  to  lend  them  some.  The  latter  reject 
their  prayer,  and  refer  them  to  an  oil-dealer  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. But  the  dealer,  who  is  as  pitiless  as  the  wise  virgins, 
cannot  be  prevailed  on  to  accept  either  gold  or  silver  for  a  single 
drop  of  his  oil. 

The  foolish  virgins  thereupon  abandon  themselves  to  despair, 
and  meanwhile  the  bridegroom  arrives,  singing  a  Latin  couplet 
of  six  verses,  in  which  he  declares  that  he  does  not  know  them. 
In  a  second  couplet,  which  is  in  the  Romansh  language,  he  pro- 
nounces their  sentence,  and  condemns  them  to  be  plunged  into 
the  abyss  of  hell.  At  this  point  of  the  story  a  number  of 
demons  must  have  made  their  appearance,  in  order  to  execute 
the  sentence,  and  to  drag  the  foolish  virgins  into  the  flames. 
This  catastrophe  terminates  the  only  portion  of  the  piece 
which  displays  the  slightest  shadow  of  a  dramatic  form.  The 
rest  is  but  a  succession  of  Latin  couplets,  in  which  the  patri- 
archs, the  prophets  and  Virgil  bear  witness  to  all  the  predictions 
by  which  the  coming  of  the  Saviour  was  announced. 

In  regard  to  the  scenic  accessories  and  the  particular  execu- 
tion of  pieces  of  this  kind,  it  does  not  appear,  that  they  could 
have  been  possessed  of  much  refinement  or  illusion.  The 
spectators,  however,  were  not  very  fastidious,  and  a  representa- 
tion, like  the  one,  of  which  I  have  just  given  an  outline,  in 
which  angels,  demons,  virgins,  patriarchs  and  kings  successively 
made  their  appearance,  probably  all  arrayed  in  costumes  of  a 
certain  variety  and  richness,  must  have  been  a  grand  and 
magnificent  spectacle  at  the  most  barbarous  epoch  of  the 
Middle  Age. 


Earliest   Use  of  the  ProvengaL  165 

It  remains  now  to  point  out  the  transition  from  the  more  or 
less  fabulous  histories  or  monkish  legends,  in  a  barbarous 
Latin,  to  the  fables  and  legends  of  a  similar  type  in  the  vulgar 
tongue.  These  compositions  were  certainly  the  most  popular 
of  all  the  tentatives  of  the  nascent  Provencal  literature.  They 
are  those,  which  exercised  the  greatest  power  over  the  imagi- 
nation, and  which  were  naturally  destined  to  serve  as  the  basis 
or  the  nucleus  for  the  future  epopees.  They  are  therefore 
those,  which  it  is  most  important  for  us  to  know ;  but  they  are 
unfortunately  also  those,  which  time  has  spared  the  least,  and 
we  have  now  left  nothing  of  the  kind,  which  might  be  traced 
back  to  the  epoch  of  the  lyrical  and  dramatic  attempts,  of 
which  I  have  j  ust  spoken.  Nevertheless,  it  is  a  fact  attested  by 
history,  that  the  most  ancient  works  in  the  Romansh-Provencal 
belonged  to  this  narrative  or  legendary  species.  A  life  of 
Saint  Sacerdot  is  cited  among  others,  who  was  bishop  of 
Limoges,  during  the  course  of  the  ninth  century.  It  is  written 
in  the  language  of  the  country,  and  immediately  after  the 
(Jeath  of  the  saint. 

The  most  ancient  specimen  of  the  kind  that  I  can  produce, 
is  a  prologue  to  a  metrical  legend  on  Saint  Fides  of  Agen,  a 
lady-saint,  that  formerly  was  greatly  venerated  in  the  south  of 
France.  President  Fauchet,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  this 
fragment  of  twenty  verses,  drew  it  from  a  manuscript,  which 
he  says  belongs  to  the  twelfth  century.  But  the  crudeness  of 
its  style  points  to  an  earlier  origin,  and  the  legend  of  which  it 
constitutes  the  introduction  was  probably  composed  toward  the 
end  of  the  eleventh  century.  Inasmuch  as  this  fragment, 
though  a  very  short  one,  furnishes  us  some  interesting  traits  in 
relation  to  the  history  of  this  monkish  poetry,  the  vestiges  of 
which  I  am  now  endeavoring  to  trace,  I  shall  attempt  to  make 
a  literal  translation  of  it.  The  speaker  is,  as  we  shall  see  pre- 
sently, a  person  in  the  character  of  a  jongleur,  ready  to  recite 
the  legend  in  question,  and  addressing  himself  in  his  own  name 
to  the  auditory  assembled  around  him  for  the  purpose  of  lis- 
tening to  his  story. 

"Listen  to  one  of  the  finest  songs  you  ever  heard;  its  subject 
is  not  Spanish ;  its  words  are  not  Greek ;  its  language  is  not 
Saracen,  but  it  is  blither  and  sweeter  than  honey  or  any  artfully 
compounded  condiment,  and  whoever  shall  recite  it  well  after 
the  fashion  of  the  French,  I  think  he'll  reap  a  great  advantage, 
from  it,  and  he  will  be  the  better  for  it  in  this  world.* 

*  Canczon  audi  q'esbell'  antresca,  E  plus  que  mils  piments  q'omm  esca, 

Oue  fo  de  razo  espanesca ;  Oui  ben  la  diz  a  lei  francesca, 

Non  fo  de  paraula  grezesca  Cuig  m'en  que  sos  granz  pros  Tea  wesca*. 

Ne  de  lengua  serrazinesca  :  E  q'en  est  segle  Ven  pacesca, 
Dolz'  e  suaus  es  plus  que  bresca 


166  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

"  All  the  land  of  the  Basques,  Araojon,  and  the  country  of 
the  Gascons,  will  know  what  this  song  is,  and  that  it  is  a  true 
history.  I  have  heard  it  read  to  clerks  and  to  learned  latinists, 
from  the  book,  in  which  the  heroic  exploits  of  olden  times, 
and  other  things  may  be  read.  If  therefore  the  air  is  to  your 
liking,  I  will  continue  as  I've  begun  and  I  will  sing  it  to  you 
now.*" 

"We  perceive  from  this  fragment  that  the  strolling  minstrels, 
who  knew  these  legends  by  heart,  were  in  the  habit  of  singing 
them  in  the  cities  and  in  other  places,  in  short  wherever  they 
could  find  an  assembly  of  listeners,  precisely  as  they  afterward 
sung  the  chivalric  epopees  of  a  later  period.  We  see  moreover, 
that  the  poetry  of  the  Provengals  during  this  first  epoch  of  its 
history,  and  long  before  it  became  that  of  the  Troubadours,  en- 
joyed already  a  degree  of  reputation  and  of  popularity  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Pyrenees,  and  in  the  circumjacent  countries. 

But  these  observations  do  not  exactly  correspond  with  my 
purpose.  In  speaking  of  these  ancient  monkish  legends,  it  is 
far  more  important  for  me  to  give  some  idea  of  the  peculiar 
turn  of  imagination  (which  is  often  a  fantastical  and  bold  one) 
displayed  by  their  authors,  and  of  the  strange  facility,  witn 
which  they  substituted,  in  place  of  the  general  belief  of  the 
church,  fables  of  their  own  invention,  and  fictions,  which  must 
have  had  a  decided  influence  on  the  subsequent  developments 
of  Proven§al  poetry.  Among  the  more  modern  legends  of  the 
kind,  which  in  the  absence  of  more  ancient  ones  can  aid  us  in 
Comprehending  what  I  wish  to  convey,  there  are  two,  which 
to  the  merit  of  their  singularity  add  that  of  being  very  short. 
Their  substance  is  as  follows : 

The  first  of  these  pieces  is  a  sort  of  amplification  or 
fantastical  paraphrase  of  the  vision  of  Saint  Paul,  who,  as  We 
know,  was  during  his  lifetime  carried  up  to  heaven  by  the 
Spirit,  and  enabled  to  contemplate  all  its  joys  in  anticipation  of 
their  fruition.  In  the  fiction,  to  which  1  have  alluded,  Saint 
Paul  descends  also  into  hell,  in  order  to  contemplate  the  pun- 
ishment of  the  wicked.  He  passes  through  it  under  the  gui- 
dance of  the  archangel  Michael,  who  shows  him  the  different 
cantons  of  the  infernal  regions,  and  the  different  classes  of 
sinners,  each  of  which  is  tormented  by  a  peculiar  punishment, 
adapted  to  his  particular  sin.  The  author  undoubtedly  did  not 
admit  the  doctrine  of  a  purgatory,  as  he  does  not  make  Saint 
Paul  descend  into  it. 

Tota  Basconn'  et  Aragons  Si  qon  o  mostra  '1  passions 

E  1'  encontrada  dels  Gascons  En  que  om  lig  estas  leiczons: 

.Baben  quals  es  aqist  canczons,  E  si  vos  plaz  est  nostre  sons, 

E  s'  es  ben  vera  sta  razons.  Aissi  col  guida  '1  primers  tons, 

Eu  1'  audi  legir  a  clerczons,  Eu  la  vos  cantarei  en  dons. 
tE  agramadis  a  molt  bons  Raynouard,  vol.  ii.,  p.  144. — Ed. 


Earliest  Use  of  the  Provencal.  167 

"We  perceive  from  this  simple  statement,  that  the  piece  in 
question  belongs  to  that  numerous  class  of  mediaeval  composi- 
tions, whose  theme  was  an  ideal  journey  into  the  mysterious 
regions  of  the  invisible  world,  as  represented  by  the  Christian 
system  of  opinions,  and  which  may  have  first  suggested  to  the 
mind  of  Dante  the  subject  for  his  Divine  Comedy.  It  has  every 
appearance  of  being  the  most  ancient  of  these  compositions  in 
the  vulgar  tongue.  This  circumstance  alone  suffices  to  invest 
it  with  some  degree  of  interest.  In  other  respects  it  is  but  a 
rapid  and  a  dry  sketch,  which,  however,  still  displays  some 
vigorous  and  original  traits.  Its  language  is  remarkably  correct, 
and  of  a  simplicity,  which  is  occasionally  so  austere  and  naive, 
that  it  is  impossible  to  translate  it.  This  is  a  confession  I 
must  make  before  translating  the  passage,  which  appears  to 
me  to  be  the  most  striking  part  of  this  little  work. 

"  (And  when  they  beheld  Saint  Peter  and  Saint  Michael), 
the  sinners  which  were  in  hell  began  to  cry  out,  saying :  Have 
mercy  on  us,  thou  blessed  Saint  Michael,  angel  of  God,  and 
thou,  Saint  Paul,  beloved  of  the  Saviour,  go,  pray  to  God  in 
our  behalf. 

"  And  the  angel  said  unto  them :  Weep  on ;  Paul  and  myself 
are  likewise  going  to  weep  for  you,  and  God  perhaps  may  pity 
you  and  give  you  a  little  rest. 

"  When  those  who  were  in  the  torments  of  hell  heard  these 
words,  they  cried  with  a  loud  voice,  together  with  thousands 
of  angels,  and  then  the  sound  of  them  all  was  heard  saying : 
Have  mercy,  have  mercy,  O  Christ ! 

"  And  Saint  Paul  then  suddenly  beheld  the  heavens  moving 
and  the  son  of  God  descending.  And  those  in  hell  cried,  still 
repeating  :  Have  mercy  on  us,  thou  Son  of  the  Most  High ! 

"  And  thereupon  the  voice  of  God  was  heard  in  the  midst  of 
all  this  anguish  ;  and  how  can  ye  ask  me  for  repose — me,  who 
on  your  account,  was  smitten  with  the  lance,  nailed  to  the  cross 
with  nails  ;  whose  thirst  was  quenched  with  gall?  I  gave  my- 
self for  you  in  order  that  ye  might  come  to  me  ;  but  you  have 
been  liars,  misers,  envious  of  riches,  slanderous  and  arrogant. 
You've  done  no  good,  you've  given  no  alms,  you've  not  "been 
penitent ! 

"After  these  words,  Saint  Michael  and  Saint  Paul,  with 
myriads  of  angels,  fell  on  their  knees  before  the  Son  of  God, 
beseeching  him  that  those  who  were  in  hell  might  be  released 
from  punishment  on  Sunday. 

"  And  the  Son  of  God,  in  answer  to  the  prayers  of  Saint 
Michael,  of  Saint  Paul  and  of  the  angels,  and  also  out  of  his 
own  goodness  granted  them  release  from  suffering,  from  the 
ho  ur  of  noon  on  Saturday  to  the  hour  of  prime  on  Monday. 


16S  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

"Thereupon  the  janitor  of  hell,  whose  name  was  Cherubim, 
lifted  up  his  head  over  all  the  torments  of  the  pit,  and  he  was 
sorely  afflicted.  But  all  the  tormented  were  exceedingly 
rejoiced,  and  cried,  saying :  Blessed  be  thou,  Son  of  the  Most 
High  God,  who  hast  given  us  rest  for  a  day  and  for  two  nights ! 
This  will  be  more  of  a  repose  to  us  than  we  have  ever  had  in 
the  other  world." 

The  poem,  from  which  I  have  produced  this  passage,  is  un- 
doubtedly the  work  of  monks  ;  it  contains  the  internal  evidence 
of  having  served  as  a  general  reading  book  in  the  refectories 
and  in  the  churches.  It  displays,  as  we  perceive,  a  liberty  of 
imagination,  similar  to  that  of  which  we  have  already  seen  so 
many  proofs.  The  only  difference  is,  that  in  this  instance 
the  license  is  of  a  more  elevated  and  of  a  more  poetical 
description. 

The  other  legend,  which  it  now  remains  for  me  to  discuss,  is, 
like  the  preceding  one,  in  prose,  and  a  little  more  extended. 
It  is  perhaps  less  remarkable  for  force  and  purity  of  language> 
but  much  more  so  for  its  originality  of  invention.  It  appears, 
moreover,  to  have  been  a  favorite  during  the  Middle  Age? 
and  we  find  that  Troubadours  of  great  celebrity  from  trie 
twelfth  century  contain  passages,  which  seem  to  make  allusion 
to  it. 

The  fiction  is  quite  a  mystical  one,  and  it  already  exhibits 
the  peculiarity  of  having  for  its  subject  not  a  personage  either 
human  or  divine,  but  the  tree,  out  of  which  the  cross  of  the 
Saviour  was  constructed,  and  the  history  of  which  the  author 
traces  back  to  the  first  days  of  creation,  in  order  to  interweave 
it  successively  with  all  the  grand  events  connected  with  religion. 
To  give  a  proper  idea  of  this  singular  fiction,  it  would  not  be 
enough  to  offer  a  mere  extract ;  I  snail  therefore  intersperse  the 
sketch,  which  I  am  about  to  make  of  it,  with  some  passages  of 
the  text,  literally  translated. 

The  author  commences  by  recounting  the  banishment  of 
Adam  from  the  terrestrial  paradise,  his  retreat  to  the  valley  of 
Hebron,  the  murder  of  Abel  and  the  birth  of  Seth,  and  then 
continues  in  the  following  terms  : 

"  Seth,  having  now  grown  up  to  be  a  young  man,  was  very 
obedient  to  his  father.  Adam  had  lived  four  hundred  and 
twenty-two  years  in  the  valley  of  Hebron.  One  day,  when  he 
had  watered  some  young  plants,  he  found  himself  overpowered 
with  weariness,  and  leaning  on  his  pillow,  he  began  to  lament 
and  to  think  of  the  great  calamities  which  he  saw  ushered  into 
the  world  in  consequence  of  what  he  had  done.  And  being 
sorely  afflicted  and  weary  of  life,  he  sent  for  his  son  Sethf 
Dear  son,  said  he  to  him,  I  wish  to  send  you  to  Cherubim,  the 


Earliest  Use  of  the  Provencal. 

angel  of  Paradise,  who  watches  over  the  great  tree  of  life  with 
a  two-edged  sword. 

"  Seth  answered  him :  My  father,  I  am  read y  to  obey  your 
commandment.  Teach  me  only  the  way  which  I  must  follow, 
and  the  words  I  am  to  address  to  the  angel  Cherubim.  Adam, 
his  father,  thereupon  replied  :  Tell  the  angel  that  it  afflicts  me 
to  live,  and  beseech  him  to  send  me  the  unction  of  mercy, 
which  God  has  promised  me  in  driving  me  out  of  Paradise. 
Take  the  road  to  the  east,  and  you  will  find  the  valley  which 
will  lead  you  toward  Paradise.  But  in  order  to  be  surer  of 
your  way,  observe  the  foot-prints,  which  w£  made,  your  mother 
and  myself,  when  we  came  into  this  valley  after  our  exile  from 
Paradise.  The  earth  was  singed  and  withered  by  them;  for 
our  sin  had  been  so  great,  that  never  an  herb  could  grow  again 
where  our  feet  had  touched  the  ground." 

Seth  then  takes  leave  of  his  father ;  he  finds  the  way ;  he 
meets  the  angel,  who  after  having  become  informed  of  the 
motives  of  his  mission,  commands  him  to  observe  from  the 
entrance  of  the  garden  a  terrestrial  Paradise,  the  objects  which 
were  now  about  to  present  themselves  to  his  view. 

"'And  when  Seth  advanced  his  head  into  the  garden,  as  the 
angel  had  told  him,  he  saw  delights  which  no  tongue  could 
express,  every  variety  of  beautiful  flowers  and  fruits,  of  rejoic- 
ings, of  instruments  and  of  singing  birds,  and  there  is  nothing 
that  could  be  compared  with  the  splendor  and  the  sweet  odors 
of  the  place.  In  the  midst  of  it  he  saw  a  clear  fine  fountain, 
from  which  four  great  rivers  issued  ....  and  on  the  edge  of 
this  fountain,  there  was  a  large  tree  surcharged  with  branches, 
but  without  any  bark  or  leaves.  This  naked  tree  was  the  one 
which  had  tempted  his  father  and  his  mother  Eve  to  sin." 

Seth  returns  to  the  angel,  in  order  to  give  him  an  account  of 
what  he  had  seen,  and  he  is  again  sent  to  the  gate  of  the  ter- 
restrial Paradise  and  commanded  to  look  anew.  Seth  obeys, 
and  he  then  sees  an  immense  serpent  coiled  around  the  paternal 
tree.  He  comes  back  to  the  angel  who  orders  him  a  third  time 
to  the  gate  of  Paradise.  This  time  the  tree  extended  itself 
aloft  into  the  heavens  and  bore  upon  its  top  an  infant  enveloped 
in  shining  swaddling-clothes.  Seth  came  to  tell  his  new  vision 
to  the  cherubim,  who  thereupon  addresses  him  in  these  words  : 
"  This  infant,  which  you  have  seen,  is  the  son  of  God,  who  has 
commenced  to  weep  over  the  sins  of  your  father  and  your 
mother,  and  who  will  blot  them  out  when  the  time  shall  be 
fulfilled.  It  is  he  who  will  give  to  your  father  the  unction  of 
mercy  which  God  has  promised  him.  .  . 

"  When  Seth  was  on  the  point  of  returning,  the  angel  gave 
him  three  seeds  from  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  which  his  fath  er 


170  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

had  eaten,  and  he  said  unto  him :  Three  days  after  your  return, 
your  father  will  die.  And  when  he  shall  be  dead,  you  will  put 
these  three  seeds  into  his  mouth,  and  they  will  give  rise  to  three 
great  trees,  of  which  one  will  be  called  the  cedar,  the  other  the 
cypress  and  the  third  the  pine." 

In  the  imagination  of  the  author,  these  three  trees  are  an 
allusion  to  the  Trinity,  and  each  of  them  contains  its  mystical 
analogies  to  one  of  the  three  persons  of  the  Godhead.  What  the 
angel  had  predicted  came  to  pass  and  what  he  had  ordered  was 
accomplished.  In  the  time  of  Abraham,  the  three  sprouts  which 
sprung  from  the  thrcfe  seeds  of  the  tree  of  life  had  not  exceeded 
the  height  of  a  fathom.  They  were  discovered  by  Moses  in 
the  valley  of  Hebron  and  the  spirit  of  God  revealed  to  him 
what  they  were.  He  cut  them  reverentially,  and  having  inve- 
loped  them  in  a  beautiful  piece  of  silken  cloth,  he  carried  them 
with  him,  in  the  shape  of  relics,  during  the  forty  years  of  his 
sojourn  in  the  wilderness,  and  he  replanted  them,  before  his 
death,  in  a  valley  which  by  the  mystical  romancer  is  denomi- 
nated Cornfrafort. 

After  the  lapse  of  a  thousand  years,  the  Holy  Spirit  directed 
.David  to  go  in  search  of  the  three  rods  and  to  fetch  them  to 
Jerusalem,  where  they  were  replanted  one  after  the  other,  close 
to  the  edge  of  a  cistern.  There,  thriving  rapidly,  they  grew  up 
in  the  course  of  thirty  years  into  a  single  tree  of  marvellous 
beauty.  It  was  under  the  shade  of  this  tree  that  David  wept 
over  his  sins  and  composed  his  psalms. 

After  the  death  of  David,  Solomon  had  his  famous  temple 
built.  The  work  was  already  very  far  advanced  ;  he  wanted 
but  one  additional  beam,  but  a  beam  of  such  dimensions  that 
it  appeared  impossible  to  find  it  in  any  of  the  forests  of  tne 
country.  The  Sacred  tree  was  the  only  one  that  could  supply 
the  want,  and  it  was  decided  that  it  should  be  felled.  It  was 
cut  into  the  shape  of  a  beam,  which  by  exact  measurement  was 
found  to  be  thirty-one  cubits  in  length,  and  this  was  exactly  one 
cubit  longer  than  any  of  the  rest.  But  when  they  attempted 
to  put  it  into  its  place,  it  was  found  to  be  one  cubit  short. 
It  was  taken  down  again,  and  by  a  new  measurement,  its  former 
length  of  thirty-one  cubits  was  found  to  be  correct.  They 
wanted  to  replace  it,  but  it  was  again  found  to  have  no  more 
than  twenty-nine  cubits  in  length.  After  several  new  attempts, 
all  equally  futile,  the  builders  finally  came  to  the  conclusion, 
that  the  beam  cut  out  of  the  miraculous  tree  was  not  destined 
to  enter  into  the  fabric  of  the  temple.  But  it  was  the  wish  of 
Solomon  that  it  should  be  at  least  enshrined,  as  an  object  of 
veneration. 

And  it  in  fact  remained  there  for  a  great  length  of  time. 


Earliest  Use  of  the  Provencal.  171 

But  on  a  certain  day,  as  a  woman  by  the  name  of  Maximilla 
was  leaning  against  the  miraculous  post,  her  garments  began 
to  burn  like  tow,  to  use  the  language  of  the  romancer.  The 
woman,  being  frightened,  began  to  cry  out  and  to  prophesy  : 
"  Jesus  Christ,  Son  of  God,  save  rne !"  were  her  words.  No 
sooner  had  the  Jews  heard  her  invoke  the  name  of  Christ  than 
they  took  her  to  be  insane  and  possessed  of  the  devil,  and  chased 
her  out  of  the  city.  This  woman  was  the  first  believer,  who 
suffered  martyrdom  for  Jesus  Christ. 

The  Jews  wishing  to  prevent  a  new  scandal,  had  the  beam 
dragged  out  of  the  temple  and  threw  it  into  a  filthy  place, 
where  the  priests  were  in  the  daily  habit  of  slaughtering  their 
victims  for  the  sacrifices  of  the  temple.  But  an  angel  descended 
from  Heaven  every  night  to  cleanse  the  holy  beam,  which  con- 
tinued to  work  miracles. 

Perpetually  irritated  by  these  wonderful  phenomena,  the 
Jews  drew  it  out  of  the  filthy  place,  in  which  it  was,  and  threw 
it  after  the  fashion  of  a  foot-bridge  over  the  brook  of  Siloa.  It 
was  thence,  that  after  many  other  miraculous  adventures  it  was 
finally  taken  to  be  converted  into  the  cross  of  the  Saviour. 

In  the  only  manuscript,  in  whicji  it  is  contained,  this  singular 
legend  is  entitled :  "  A  treatise  on  Original  Sin,"  and  there  is 
scarcely  any  doubt  but  that  the  bulk  of  the  clergy  of  the  South 
took  all  this  in  earnest  and  for  theology. 

Compositions  of  this  character  are  sufficient  evidence  of  the 
extent,  to  which  this  clergy  was  ignorant,  credulous  and  greedy 
of  fictions,  and  of  the  license  with  which  it  transformed  the 
earnest  faith  of  Christianity  into  romantic  fables !  And  we 
can  easily  conceive,  that  such  examples  must  have  had  a  deci- 
sive influence  on  the  popular  imagination  and  on  the  ulterior 
developments  of  Provencal  poetry. 


172  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

WALTER   OF   AQUITANIA. 
I.    ANALYSIS    OF   THE   SCANDINAVIAN   SONGS. 

THE  pious  songs,  the  marvellous  legends  and  the  mystical 
fables  of  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries,  whether  they  were  in 
the  Romansh  idiom  or  in  a  barbarizing  Latin?  were  intended 
by  their  monkish  or  priestly  authors  to  occupy,  and  in  fact  did 
occupy,  a  conspicuous  place  in  the  imagination  of  the  southern 
Gallo-Romans.  This  people  however  began  at  that  time  to  have 
other  subjects  of  interest  and  emotion,  other  themes  for  poetry, 
and  these  were  of  a  more  human,  of  a  more  national  character. 

The  two  centuries,  which  I  have  already  indicated,  were  to 
the  south  of  Gaul  a  period  of  great  events,  one  of  those  periods 
of  trial  and  of  heroism,  which  have  the  privilege  of  eliciting 
poetic  genius,  which  the  latter  in  its  turn  always  invests  with  a 
certain  halo  of  the  marvellous,  and  the  very  history  of  which  is 
itself  the  more  poetical,  the  more  it  is  complete  and  real. 

The  mass  of  these  events  constitutes  a  rigorously  connected 
whole,  where  all  the  results  are  a  necessary  consequence  of  all 
the  antecedents.  We  may,  however,  for  the  purpose  of  distin- 
guishing certain  details  or  certain  characters  with  greater  per- 
spicuity, divide  them  into  two  distinct  series,  the  first  comprising 
the  wars  between  the  inhabitants  of  the  South  and  the  Arabs  of 
Spain,  the  second  embracing  the  various  incidents  of  the  long 
struggle  between  the  same  people  and  its  Germanic  conquerors. 

All  the  primitive  facts  of  the  Provencal  epopee  are  connected 
with  these  great  struggles,  with  these  two  series  of  events ;  and 
they  are  so  closely  interwoven  with  them,  that  it  is  impossible 
to  appreciate  the  former  with  any  degree  of  interest  or  correct- 
ness without  having  first  acquired  a  vivid  and  a  definite  con- 
ception of  the  latter.  This  is  a  fact  which  it  will  be  easy  for 
me  to  establish,  when  I  shall  have  arrived  at  the  examination 
of  the  epic  romances  of  the  Middle  Age,  but  which  for  the 
present  I  am  obliged  to  take  for  granted,  having  first  of  all  to 
speak  of  a  work  in  which  I  think  I  perceive  a  poetic  evidence 
of  the  reactionary  struggle  of  Aquitaine  and  of  the  rest  of  the 
South  against  the  two  Frankish  conquests. 


Analysis  of  the  Scandinavian  Songs.  173 

I  have  alluded  in  my  general  survey  of  the  history  of  Pro- 
vencal literature  to  a  Latin  poem,  having  a  certain  Aquitanian 
Prince  by  the  name  of  "Walter  for  its  hero.*  I  have  expressed  it 
as  my  desire  and  intention  to  direct,  if  possible,  the  curiosity 
and  attention  of  the  reader  to  this  poem.  The  moment  for  the 
execution  of  my  task  has  now  arrived  ;  but  the  task  is  a  com- 
plicated one,  and  I  cannot  accomplish  my  purpose  without 
a  preliminary  digression  of  considerable  length. 

It  is  not  from  its  intrinsic  merit,  however  genuine  that  may 
be,  that  the  work  in  question  derives  its  greatest  importance  to 
the  history  of  literature ;  it  is  on  account  of  something  much 
more  special,  much  more  accidental ;  it  is  on  account  of  its  con- 
nection with  the  ancient  monuments  of  the  Teutonic  poetry. 
The  action  of  the  Aquitanian  poem  links  itself  by  various 
threads  to  the  action  of  the  famous  German  epopee,  the  Nibe- 
lungen,  and  the  connection  is  such  an  intimate  one  that  in 
attributing,  as  we  are  obliged  to  do,  the  two  poems  to  two  dif- 
ferent literatures,  the  supposition  of  a  prolonged  contact  and  of 
a  sort  of  collision  between  these  two  literatures,  previously  to 
the  ninth  century,  becomes  indispensably  necessary. 

It  is  this  ancient  contact  between  the  Romansh  literature  of 
the  South  and  the  contemporaneous  literature  of  the  Germans, 
that  I  wish  to  prove  and  to  exhibit  in  the  clearest  possible  light, 
as  an  interesting  and  a  new  fact  in  the  history  of  European 
literature.  But  before  attempting  to  do  so,  I  must  first  of  all 
give  some  idea  of  the  Germanic  poems  on  the  subject  of  the 
JNibelungen  and  of  the  national  traditions  on  which  these  poems 
are  founded. 

These  traditions  were  common  to  all  the  branches  of  the 
Teutonic  race ;  they  circulated  orally  for  centuries,  and  in  each 
particular  locality  they  underwent  changes  and  modifications 
of  every  kind.  Their  ensemble  is  at  present  a  very  complex 
and  a  very  confused  one,  and  the  poetic  monuments,  in  which 
they  have  been  collected  and  fixed,  are  still  very  numerous, 
though  it  is  certain,  that  many  of  them  have  been  lost. 

These  monuments  divide  themselves  naturally  into  two  dis- 
tinct series,  of  which  the  one  pertains  to  the  Scandinavian 
and  the  other  the  Germanic  branch  of  the  Teutons.  To 
demonstrate  the  ancient  contact,  to  which  I  have  just  alluded, 
between  the  literature  of  the  North  and  that  of  the  south  of 
Gaul,  it  would,  strictly  considered,  be  only  necessary  to  make 
known  some  of  the  monuments  of  the  latter  of  these  branches. 
I  have  however  a  direct  and  positive  motive  for  extending  this 
obligatory  excursion  into  the  literature  of  the  North  a  little 

*  See  page  4. 


174:  History  of  Provengal  Poefoy. 

further,  and  for  including  in  my  survey  of  the  Germanic  versions 
of  the  fable  of  the  Nibelungen,  the  versions  of  the  Scandina- 
vians. 

The  manner  in  which  the  same  popular  traditions,  the  same 
poetic  fables  are  modified  and  altered,  decomposed  and  recom- 
posed,  combining  themselves  with  new  accessories  as  they 
increase  in  age  or  in  extent  of  circulation,  as  they  pass  from 
one  country  and  from  one  people  to  another  country^  and 
another  people,  constitutes  one  of  the  most  curious  and  inter- 
esting phenomena  in  the  general  history  of  literature.  Now 
of  all  the  poetries  known,  the  ancient  poetry  of  the  North  is 
the  one,  in  which  all  these  things  are  exhibited  in  the  clearest 
light,  and  it  is  consequently  the  one,  which  includes  the  greatest 
amount  of  information  and  of  light,  by  which  we  may  illustrate 
and  generalize  the  corresponding  facts  of  other  poetries,  includ- 
ing those  of  the  Provencal  poetry  itself. 

Among  the  Teutons  or  the  Germans  of  the  South,  the  heroic 
traditions,  of  which  the  history  of  the  Nibelungen  constitutes 
the  principal  part  and  as  it  were  the  nucleus,  have  been  recorded, 
at  different  epochs  of  the  Middle  A^e,  in  various  detached 
poems  which  have  since  been  embodied  into  two  distinct  collec- 
tions or  cycles,  as  they  are  termed.  Of  these  two  cycles  the 
one  is  designated  by  the  expressive  title  of  the  "  Heldenbuch,"  or 
the  Book  of  Heroes,  and  the  other  by  the  special  title  of  the 
"  Song  of  the  Nibelungen."*  Among  the  Scandinavians  or  the 
Teutons  of  the  North,  the  same  traditions  have  been  collected 
and  arranged  in  divers  Sagas  or  chronicles,  of  which  the  most 
interesting  two  are  the  Volsunga  and  the  Wilkina  Sagas.^ 

I  shall  endeavor  to  include  in  one  and  the  same  sketch  the 
substance,  the  common  basis  of  these  Germanic  poems  and  of 
the  Scandinavian  Sagas,  by  indicating  those  points  in  which  the. 
former  differ  from  the  latter,  writh  the  exception,  however,  of 
those  variations,  which  are  of  but  secondary  importance. 

At  an  epoch,  which,  if  we  wish  to  determine  its  precise  chro- 
nology, may  be  assigned  to  about  the  middle  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, the  country  of  Niederland  or  Frankenland,  that  is  to  say 
the  land  of  the  Franks,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Ehine,  was 
governed  by  a  king  whose  name  was  Sigmund — a  powerful 

*  The  "  Heldenbuch"  has  been  edited  by  V.  d.  Hagen  and  Primisser,  Berlin,  1820.  An 
English  account  of  it  byWeber,  in  the  "Illusrtrations  of  Northern  Antiquities,"  Edinburgh, 
1814.  Of  the  "  Nibelungen  Lied"  there  are  several  editions,  by  Lachmann,  V.  d.  Hagen, 
etc.  Translations  into  modern  German  by  Pfltzer,  Busching,  Simrock.  An  English  trans- 
lation by  Birch,  Berlin,  184S.  A  spirited  critique  by  Thomas  Carlyle  in  his  essays — Ed. 

t  The  Volsunga  Saga  has  been  edited  by  Rafn,  in  the  1st  vol.  of  his  "  Pornaldar 
Sogur  Nordlanda,"  1829.  The  Wilkina  Saga  by  Peringskiold,  Stockholm,  1815.  A 
German  version  of  both  of  them  in  v.  d.  Hagen's  Nordische  Heldenromane,  Berlin, 
1814-23.  A  general  account  of  the  different  Sagas  of  the  Scandinavians  in  Muller's 
Sagabibliothek,  Copenhagen,  1818.— Ed. 


Analysis  of  the  Scandinavian  Songs.  175 

and  a  renowned  monarch  of  the  heroic  race.  This  king  had  a 
son,  called  Sigurd  or  Siegfried  (as  I  shall  continue  to  call  him 
in  this  outline),  who  was  destined  to  exterminate  all  the  heroes 
of  his  race  and  those  of  the  entire  world. 

When  yet  quite  young,  Siegfried  already  distinguished  him- 
self by  his  marvellous  exploits,  the  most  memorable  of  which  is 
his  victory  over  the  dragon  or  serpent  Fafnir.  Fafnir  was 
a  dwarf,  that  is  a  sort  of  genius  or  sprite  in  the  system  of 
northern  mythology,  having  the  power  of  changing  his  form, 
and  who  under  that  of  a  dragon  or  serpent  lived  in  a  solitary 
mountain,  in  a  subterranean  palace,  where  he  guarded  an  im- 
mense treasure.  Siegfried,  having  combated  and  slain  Fafnir, 
took  possession  of  his  treasure.  The  gold  and  the  silver  were 
but  the  smallest  portion  of  it ;  he  there  found  a  sword  called 
Eotter,  the  very  best  of  swords,  and  sundry  other  enchanted 
objects,  the  enumeration  of  which  varies  considerably  among  the 
different  authors  of  the  story. 

According  to  the  Germanic  traditions,  Siegfried  renders  him- 
self invulnerable  by  bathing  in  the  blood  of  the  vanquished 
dragon.  According  to  the  Scandinavian  traditions  he  does  not 
bathe  in  the  blood  of  Fafnir,  nor  does  he  become  invulnerable, 
but  he  eats  the  heart  of  the  roasted  monster  and  thenceforth 
comprehends  the  secrets  of  nature,  or  as  the  northern  chronicles 
express  it,  he  understands  the  language  of  the  birds. 

Having  put  FafmYs  treasure  on  the  back -of  Gran,  his  noble 
charger,  Siegfried  takes  the  route  toward  the  Rhine,  with  the  in- 
tention of  entering  into  a  powerful  kingdom  situated  along  the 
banks  of  that  river  and  designated  by  various  names.  I  adopt  that 
of  the  kingdom  of  the  Burgundians,  which  it  bears  in  the  Germani  c 
traditions,  and  which  appears  to  be  the  most  historical  of  them. 

This  kingdom  was  governed  by  three  brothers,  the  three  sons 
of  King  Gibich.  They  were  Gunther,  Hagen  and  Gudorn  or 
Giselher,  ail  of  them  valiant  warriors.  They  had  a  sister, 
called  Chrimhild  in  the  Germanic  poems  and  Gudruna  in  the 
Scandinavian  chronicles ;  I  shall  use  the  latter  of  these  names, 
which  is  more  easily  pronounced  than  the  former. 

Gudruna  was  the  most  beautiful  of  women ;  the  renown  of 
her  beauty  had  spread  in  every  direction,  and  it  was  for  the 
purpose  of  seeing  her  that  Siegfried  came  to  Burgundia. 

But  while  pursuing  his  journey,  he  encountered  a  marvellous 
adventure  which  arrested  his  progress  for  some  time.  He  dis- 
covered on  a  high  mountain  a  young  beauty  in  complete  armor 
and  wrapt  in  a  profound  sleep.  She  was  called  Brunhild,  and 
was  a  Yalkyria,  that  is  to  say  one  of  those  secondary  divinities 
in  the  mythology  of  the  North,  which  assisted  the  warriors  in 
combat  over  which  they  presided. 


176  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

Brunhild  had  vanquished  and  slain  a  king,  to  whom  Odin 
had  promised  the  victory.  It  was  for  the  purpose  of  punishing 
her,  that  Odin  had  plunged  her  by  enchantment  into  a  sleep, 
from  which  she  could  only  be  resuscitated  by  the  intrepidity  of 
the  bravest  of  heroes.  She  had  moreover  been  forbidden  to 
lead  the  martial  life  of  the  Valkyrise  any  longer  and  con- 
demned to  take  a  husband.  But  in  order  to  elude  or  thwart  the 
sentence  of  Odin,  Brunhild  had  sworn  that  she  would  only  wed 
the  man  who  was  not  afraid  of  anything  in  the  world,  and  who 
would  submit  to  all  the  trials  to  wnich  she  was  going  to  subject 
him. 

Siegfried  and  Brunhild  had  scarcely  met  before  they  were 
charmed  with  each  other's  company  and  swore  eternal  tender- 
ness and  mutual  love.  Nevertheless,  Siegfried,  after  having 
epent  a  few  days  in  the  society  of  his  fair  Yalkyrie,  resumed 
his  journey  to  the  kingdom  of  the  Burgundians.  He  arrives 
there  safely  and  meets  with  a  reception  corresponding  to  his 
heroic  air  and  his  marvellous  exploits.  He  sees  Gudruna,  and 
having  suddenly  lost  every  recollection  of  Brunhild  in  conse- 
quence of  the  effects  of  an  enchanted  beverage,  he  becomes 
desperately  enamored  of  the  Burgundian  princess ;  he  asks  and 
obtains  her  in  marriage. 

The  oblivion  wrought  by  the  fatal  beverage  did  not  stop  here. 
Gunther  or  Gonnar,  the  eldest  of  the  three  Burgundian  chiefs, 
who  is  not  yet  married  and  who  has  heard  of  the  vaunted 
beauty  of  Brunhild,  took  it  into  his  head  to  have  her  for  his  wife. 
He  is  aware  that  there  are  great  obstacles  to  be  overcome,  and 
that  Brunhild  would  subject  those  who  aspired  to  her  hand,  to 
the  most  frightful  ordeal.  But  he  hopes,  with  the  aid  of  Sieg- 
fried, to  get  to  the  end  of  his  adventure,  and  immediately 
departs  in  order  to  make  the  attempt. 

This  part  of  the  action  is  one  of  the  strangest,  of  the  most 
complicated  and  one  of  those  concerning  which  the  different 
traditions  contain  the  greatest  number  of  discrepancies.  I  shall 
not  dwell  on  these  variations ;  they  touch  upon  details  on  which 
propriety  forbids  too  great  precision.  It  will  be  enough  for  me 
to  say  briefly,  that  Gunther  soon  finds  himself  incapable  of  sur- 
mounting the  trials  to  which  he  is  subjected  by  Brunhild.  It 
is  Siegfried,  who,  invisible  or  transformed  by  enchantment,  sur- 
mounts them  in  his  place  and  who  receives  Brunhild  for  his 
wife.  But  Gunther  had  made  him  take  an  oath,  that  he  would 
not  violate  his  honor  nor  abuse  the  momentary  intimacy  in 
which  he  would  find  himself  with  a  young  beauty  who  took 
him  to  be  her  husband.  He  keeps  his  oath,  thanks  perchance 
to  a  sword,  keen-ed^ed  like  fire,  which  he  had  placed  between 
Brunhild  and  himself  during  the  hours  of  sleep. 


Analysis  of  the  Scandinavian  Songs.  177 

Guntherand  Siegfried,  resuming  at  last  their  natural  features, 
return  to  Burgundia,  whither  they  also  conduct  Brunhild,  as  if 
in  triumph.  Their  return  is  celebrated  with  magnificent  festi- 
vals and  everything  around  them  is  joy  and  happiness. 

This  happiness,  however,  is  not  of  long  duration.  Gudruna 
and  Brunhild,  who  are  both  women  of  an  impetuous  and 
haughty  temperament,  become  embroiled  in  a  quarrel  of  vanity, 
which  growing  warmer  by  degrees  at  last  runs  into  the  extreme  of 
a  mortal  outrage.  Gudruna,  to  whom  Siegfried  had  disclosed 
all  that  had  taken  place  between  him  and  Brunhild,  reproaches 
the  latter  with  having  been  the  wife  of  two  men. 

Brunhild  seemed  disposed  to  pardon  Siegfried's  want  of  faith 
as  an  involuntary  guilt  and  the  effect  of  an  enchantment ;  but 
she  had  not  ceased  to  love  him,  and  her  life  was  full  of  bitter- 
ness without  him.  The  affront  which  Gudruna  had  offered  her 
is  a  new  cause  of  spite  and  of  chagrin.  She  makes  a  desperate 
resolve  ;  and  by  dint  of  instigations,  of  complaints  and  menaces, 
she  finally  prevails  on  Gunther  to  make  Siegfried  perish  by 
treachery. 

The  manner,  the  circumstances,  and  the  immediate  conse-- 
quences  of  this  murder  are  also  one  of  those  parts  of  the  action 
of  the  epopee,  which  contain  the  greatest  number  of  different 
or  opposite  versions.     It  will  suffice  to  state  here,  that  sub^ 
sequently  to  the  death  of  Siegfried,  Brunhild  disappears^ entirely 
from  the  scene  in  the  Germanic  versions.     We  only  know,  that 
she  is  not  dead,  and  that  she  enjoyed  for  a  long  time  and  with- 
out remorse  the  satisfaction  of  her  vengeance.     In  the  Scandi- 
navian Sagas  she  dies,  being  unwilling  to  survive  Siegfried, 
whose  murder  she  had  instigated. 

The  despair  and  grief  of  Gudruna,  her  rage  against  her 
brothers  after  the  death  of  Siegfried,  may  be  readily  imagined. 
She  passes  several  yeajs  in  a  sombre  melancholy,  and  the 
memory  of  Siegfried  continues  ever  as  fresh  as  it  had  been  on 
the  first  day  of  their  meeting.  At  last  Etzel  or  Attila,  the 
king  of  the  Hans,  sends  an  embassy  for  the  purpose  of.  demand- 
ing her  in  marriage.  Gudruna  resists  his  solications  for  a  long 
time,  but  she  finally  yields  and  passes  into  the  country  of  the 
Huns. 

Some  time  after,  Etzel.  or  Attila,  the  king  of  the  Huns,  in- 
vites his  brothers-in-law,  the  Burgundian  kings,  to  his  court 
on  a  visit.  They  make  their  appearance  there  with  an  immense 
retinue  and  with  great  display,  but  they  are  all  massacred  in  a 
series  of  combats  into  which  they  are  forced  by  the  Huns  and 
by  the  Nibelungen.  The  latter  are  Goths  under  the  command 
of  Dietrich  of  Berne  or  of  Yerona,  the  most  conspicuous  hero  in 
the  Germanic  traditions  of  the  Middle  Age,  and  the  poetic. 

12 


178  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

representative  of  Theodoric,  the  celebrated  monarch  of  the 
Ostrogoths.  All  the  Teutonic  traditions  speak  of  him  as  being 
at  this  epoch  an  exile  at  the  court  of  Attila. 

The  Germanic  poems  represent  the  massacre  of  the  Nibe- 
lungen  or  of  the  Burgundians  as  a  consequence  of  the  treachery 
and  vengeance  of  Gudruna.  In  the  Sagas  of  the  North,  the 
treachery  is  the  work  of  Attila  himself.  Gudruna  does  all  she 
can  to  save  her  brothers. 

Such  is,  considered  independently  of  the  beauty,  the  origi- 
nality and  the  variety  of  the  particular  developments  and  the 
details,  the  common  basis  of  the  epopee  of  the  Nibelungen,  of 
several  poems  of  the  Heldenbuch,  of  the  Scandinavian  chronicle, 
which  bears  the  title  of  the  Volsunga  8aga,  and  finally  of  the 
corresponding  portion  of  the  Wilkina  Saga. 

Considering  the  elements  or  subject-matter  of  these  various 
compositions,  we  easily  can  recognize  in  them  two  kinds  or 
two  classes  of  traditions  combined  and  blended  into  one.  Of 
these  traditions  some  are  mythological  and  evidently  connected 
with  the  religious  beliefs  of  the  North,  with  the  cultus  of  Odin 
and  of  other  Scandinavian  divinities.  There  are  even  learned 
Germans,  who  have  seen  in  all  this  nothing  more  than  mere 
mythology,  than  theological  symbols.  They  thought  they  had 
discovered  in  the  Nibelungen  a  grand  myth,  by  which  it  was 
intended  to  express  the  introduction  of  evil  or  of  sin  and 
death  into  the  world,  through  the  agency  of  woman  or  of 
beauty.  This  idea  is  not  deserving  of  a  serious  examination ; 
it  can  only  be  cited  as  an  evidence  of  the  excess,  to  which  the 
mania  of  symbolism  has  been  carried  by  some  of  the  Germans 
of  our  age. 

In  conjunction  with  the  mythological  elements,  the  poetic 
fable  of  the  Nibelungen  doubtless  contains  others  that  are 
properly  historical,  or  at  any  rate  possessed  of  historic  proba- 
bility, and  these  relate  for  the  most  part  to  the  epoch  of  the 
great  migration  of  the  Germanic  nations  toward  the  south  of 
Europe.  The  action  of  these  poems  supposes  the  Franks  and 
the  Burgundians  to  be  where  they  actually  were  at  the  epoch 
in  question.  It  speaks  of  the  conquest  of  Italy  by  that  branch 
of  the  Gothic  nation,  which  recognized  the  race  of  the  Amales 
•as  its  chief  heroes.  It  makes  allusion,  though  vaguely  and 
anaehronistically,  to  the  conquests  and  even  to  particular  traits 
«>f  the  history  of  Hermanric,  the  famous  chief  of  the  Goths. 
The  relations  which  it  represents  as  existing  between  the  Ger- 
mans and  Attila  are  of  a  domestic  and  a  private  nature,  con- 
cerning which  history  is  silent,  but  which  contain  nothing  that 
as  incompatible  with  the  public  events  attested  by  the  historians 
of  the  time. 


Analysis  of  the  Scandinavian  Songs.  179 

"We  may  also  say,  that  the  intrepidity,  the  prodigies  of  bravery 
and  of  physical  force,  attributed  to  the  heroes  of  this  poem,  are 
better  accounted  for  by  the  epoch  already  indicated  than  by  any 
other.  The  nations  commanded  by  these  heroes  were  at  last 
triumphant  in  their  long  struggle  with  the  empire.  They  had 
taken  Home  twice ;  they  had  conquered  Spain,  Gaul,  and 
Italy  ;  they  had  defeated  Attila  in  the  zenith  of  his  glory  and 
power ;  they  had  shattered  his  yoke  immediately  after  his 
death. 

Moreover,  many  of  the  characteristic  traits  of  the  ancient 
Germanic  manners  are  faithfully  reproduced  in  these  JDoems ; 
as  for  example,  the  point  of  honor  in  regard  to  personal  or 
private  vengeance  ;  the  custom  of  pecuniary  compensations  for 
delinquencies  and  crimes  and  that  of  justificative  trials  or 
ordeals  by  water  and  by  fire.  The  habitual  curiosity  in  regard 
the  future,  the  respect  for,  and  I  had  almost  said  the  worship 
of  gold  are  other  traits  of  Teutonic  manners,  which  the  same 
poems  bring  out  in  bold  relief.  Finally,  that  which  is  still 
more  striking  than  all  this,  is  a  certain  general  tincture  of  bar- 
barity, which  pervades  the  whole ;  a  certain  exaltation  and  a 
ferocious  ruggedness  of  courage,  which  takes  as  much  delight 
in  insult  and  in  bravado,  as  it  does  in  victory.  There  is  a 
fundamental  and  a  striking  resemblance  between  the  heroes  of 
these  tragical  adventures  and  the  Franks,  as  they  are  delineated 
by  Gregory  of  Tours.  The  former  are  in  many  respects  but  the 
poetic  ideal  of  the  latter. 

The  mythological  and  historical  elements  of  the  action  of  the 
Nibelungen  are  far  from  being  contained  in  the  same  propor- 
tion in  the  Scandinavian  redactions,  as  they  are  in  the  Ger- 
manic. This  will  appear  more  clearly  in  the  sequel.  I  shall 
here  confine  myself  to  the  general  remark,  that  the  myths  and 
the  marvellous  occupy  a  much  more  conspicuous  place  in  the 
former.  The  historical  data  and  allusions  occupy  on  the  other 
hand  a  very  subordinate  place. 

The  converse  of  all  this  is  true  of  the  Germanic  poems  ;  the 
marvellous  and  the  mythological  in  the  antecedents  of  the 
fundamental  action  are  there,  as  it  were,  effaced  or  rejected  from 
the  beginning  in  a  very  general  and  summary  manner.  The 
victory  of  Siegfried  over  the  dragon  and  his  conquest  of  the 
treasure  are  there  related  only  incidentally,  and  in  the  shape  of 
an  episode.  The  narrative  is  an  obscure  and  a  fragmentary 
one.  On  this  point,  the  Germanic  poems  have  the  air  of  being 
but  a  confused  echo  of  the  Scandinavian  traditions,*  where  this 

*  On  the  subject  of  these  refusions  of  previous  legends,  compare  Wilhelm  Grimm' 
preface  to  his  "Altdanische  Heldenlieder, "  and  his  "Deutsche  Heldensage,"  Got- 


180  History  of  ProvenQal  Poebry. 

marvellous  account  of  Fafnir  and  his  treasure  has  its  ground 
and  source  in  consecrated  myths. 

It  is  just  so  with  the  character  Brunhild.  In  the  Germanic 
version,  as  in  the  other,  she  is  represented  as  a  prodigy  of 
physical  force,  as  a  sort  of  Bellona;  but  in  this  instance  the 
cause  of  the  phenomenon  is  not  given,  as  she  is  but  a  woman 
of  the  race  of  mortals. 

All  the  heroes  of  the  Nibelungen  are  Germans  of  the  ancient 
type  by  their  ferocity,  and  Christians  by  their  faith.  There  is 
not  one  of  them,  not  even  Attila  himself,  but  what  is  half  a 
Christian  and  seems  ready  to  become  one  entirely. 

The  historical  or  probable  data  of  the  action,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  much  more  distinctly  developed  in  the  Germanic 
poems  than  in  the  Scandinavian  Sagas.  This  inverse  ratio  is 
easily  accounted  for. 

The  Scandinavian  nations  had  no  part,  at  least  none  that  we 
know  of,  in  the  great  movements  of  the  Germanic  conquests 
and  migrations  ;  they  had  no  difficulties  to  settle  with  Attila ; 
they  had  neither  been  his  tributaries  nor  his  conquerors.  It 
was  therefore  natural,  that  they  should  have  adopted  these 
distant  events  only  as  a  sort  of  new  frame- work,  to  which  they 
might  adapt  their  ancient  traditions,  more  marvellous  than 
these  events,  and  more  intimately  connected  with  their  ancient 
pagan  creed.  Siegfried,  or  as  they  call  him,  Sigurd,  is  a  per- 
sonage of  the  ancient  world,  a  mythological  hero,  transferred 
by  a  poetic  anachronism  into  a  comparatively  recent  epoch, 
which  was  however  one  that  might  seem  worthy  of  him. 

The  same  observations  may  be  made  with  reference  to  the 
character  of  Brunhild  ;  she  is  also,  properly  speaking,  a  Scan- 
dinavian personage. 

In  the  Germanic  fable  on  the  contrary,  the  heroes,  who  con- 
stitute the  principal  theme  of  the  poems,  are  manifestly  actual 
ones ;  they  are  the  chiefs  of  the  recent  conquests.  The  highest 
aim  of  this  poetry  is  to  celebrate  the  vanquishers  of  the  Romans, 
the  allies  of  Attila. 

After  these  general  considerations  on  the  different  versions 
of  the  fable  of  the  Nibelungen,  it  will  be  easier  for  me  to  enter 
into  some  details  respecting  the  history  of  the  compositions,  to 
which  this  grand  fiction  has  given  rise. 

The  poem  of  the  Nibelungen,  properly  so  called,  the  portions 
of  the  Hero-book,  and  the  Icelandic  Sagas,  which  treat  of  the 
same  argument,  have  all  of  them  this  in  common,  that  every 
one  of  these  works  contains  the  internal  evidence  of  not  being 

tingen,  1829,  pamm.  Also  Lachmann,  "Uber  die  urspriinglische  Gestalt  der  Nibe- 
lungen  Noth,*  Berlin,  1816.— Ed. 


Analysis  of  the  Scandinavian  Songs.  181 

a  primitive  and  original  composition,  but  a  new  redaction 
of  materials  supplied  oy  anterior  traditions,  a  more  or  less  bold 
modification  of  a  subject  already  old.  We  are  perfectly  con- 
vinced, that  their  ensemble,  as  it  now  exists,  could  only  have 
been  formed  at  a  later  period,  and  that  it  is  composed  of  differ- 
ent pieces,  primitively  isolated  and  independent  of  each  other, 
though  relating  to  the  same  subject,  though  representing  but 
different  moments  and  different  incidents  of  one  and  the  same 
event. 

In  a  word,  every  one  of  these  works  is  but  the  union,  the 
fusion  into  a  single  regular  and  complete  whole  of  various 
popular  or  national  songs,  more  ancient  than  themselves  and 
composed  in  an  isolated  manner,  at  different  times  and  by 
diverse  authors. 

This  assertion  is  but  the  enunciation  of  a  very  general  fact  in 
the  history  of  poetry,  and  which  in  the  history  of  the  ancient 
Teutonic  poetry  is  more  obvious  than  in  any  other. 

We  know  historically,  that  the  Germans  had  national  songs, 
in  which  they  celebrated  the  glory  of  their  chiefs.  Jornandes 
had  those  of  the  Goths  before  him,  and  to  all  appearances  made 
use  of  them,  though  very  ineptly,  in  composing  his  wretched 
history  of  that  people. 

The  emperor  Julian  speaks  of  the  national  songs  of  the  Ger- 
manic tribes  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Rhine.  He  had  heard 
them  resound  terribly  in  his  ears  ;  he  had  been  struck  by  their 
barbarous  melody.* 

Charlemagne  ordered  the  historical  songs  of  the  Franks  to  be 
collected  and  reduced  to  writing,  f 

That  there  existed  songs  similar  to  all  these,  isolated  epic 
songs  on  the  principal  incidents  connected  with  the  history  of 
the  Nibelungen,  and  that  these  songs,  anterior  to  all  the  subse- 
quent redactions  of  this  history,  had  served  as  the  common 
basis  of  them  all  —  these  are  facts,  which  it  is  easy  to  prove, 
especially  in  regard  to  the  Scandinavian  chronicles.  In  fact,  a 
number  of  the  particular  songs,  of  the  poetic  fragments,  after 
which  these  chronicles  were  composed,  are  still  extant  in  our 
day  and  in  precisely  the  same  form,  in  which  they  circulated 
long  before  the  epoch  of  the  latter. 

Nearly  all  the  historical  songs  of  the  Elder  Edda  relate  to 
the  history  of  the  Nibelungen,  and  every  one  of  them  has  for 


*  Oratio  I.  'O  62  .  .  .  e^cuy?  tcapTeptig,  iKir^ayetc  rbv  K^VTTOV  ruv  tnr'kuv,  ovd£  rbv 
ivvuTiiov  iratava  rtiv  OTparoTrefifav  £7raAaAa£ovrwv  ddetis  UKOVUV.  So  Tacitus,  Hist. 
iv.  c.  18.  "Ut  yirorum  (sc.  Batavorum)  cantu,  leminarum  ululatu,  sonuit  acies."  —  Ed. 

t  "  Barbara  (i.  e.  Germanica)  et  antiquissima  carmina.  quibus  veternm  regum  actais 
et  bella  canebantur,  scripait  et  memoriae  mandavit  Inchoavit  et  grammaticam  patrii 
sermonis."  Einhardi  (or  Eginhardi)  vita  Carol!  M.  in  Pertz'  Monumenta  Germ. 
Hist.  vol.  iL—  Ed. 


182  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

its  argument  some  one  of  the  principal  adventures,  which  enter 
into  the  composition  of  this  history.  There  is  one  on  the  comhat 
of  Sigurd  with  the  dragon  Fafnir  and  on  the  conquest  of  his 
treasure,  another  on  the  hero's  marvellous  adventure  with 
Brunhild,  the  fair  warrior-heroine ;  a  third  on  the  murder  of 
Sigurd ;  another  one  is  consecrated  to  the  delineation  of  Gud- 
runa's  sorrow  and  despair  in  consequence  of  that  murder ;  in 
fine,  there  are  not  less  than  twenty  of  them  and  they  embrace 
nearly  the  entire  cycle  of  the  Nibelungen.* 

From  the  examination  of  these  songs,  either  separately  and 
one  by  one  or  in  their  mutual  connection,  it  manifestly  results, 
that  they  were  not  made  to  be  arranged  in  a  regular  order,  so 
as  to  form  a  consecutive  and  systematic  whole.  We  see,  on  the 
contrary,  that  they  were  composed  as  distinct  rhapsodies,  each 
of  which  was  intended  to  be  complete  in  itself,  and  that  they 
were  composed  at  different  times  and  by  different  authors.  This 
is  a  point,  on  which  there  cannot  be  any  doubt,  when  we  con- 
sider, that  several  of  these  songs  are  nothing  more  than  a  more 
or  less  developed,  a  more  or  less  embellished  repetition  of  one 
and  the  same  incident,  and  that  in  a  single  and  regular  narra- 
tion they  would  be  a  double  or  a  triple  redundancy. 

The  truth  of  this  position  becomes  still  more  apparent,  when 
we  observe  that  in  these  different  songs  there  are  contra- 
dictions, which  prove  that  their  respective  authors  have  fol- 
lowed different  traditions.  In  some  of  them,  for  example, 
Sigurd  is  designated  as  the  king  of  the  Huns,  while  in  others 
again  he  figures  as  king  of  the  Franks.  In  some  of  them  again 
we  meet  wTith  contradictions  or  variations  still  more  remark- 
able, and  much  more  closely  related  to  the  fundamental  con- 
ception of  the  legend.  Thus,  for  example,  in  one  of  these 
songs,  it  is  in  consequence  of  her  quarrel  with  Gudruna  and  on 
account  of  the  insulting  reproach,  which  the  latter  flung  at  her, 
of  having  been  in  the  arms  of  Siegfried  before  becoming  the 
wife  of  Gunther,  that  Brunhild  forms  the  resolution  of  having 
Siegfried  assassinated.  Others  again  and  on  the  contrary  con- 
tain passages,  which  are  incompatible  with  the  idea  of  a 
quarrel  between  the  two  women,  or  at  any  rate  this  quarrel 
would  have  no  effect  upon  the  action  and  would  be  perfectly 
superfluous. 

There  is,  for  example,  a  song  entitled  "  The  Predictions  of 
Gripir,"  in  which  Sigurd,  yet  quite  young,  pays  a  visit  to  one 

*  These  songs  the  reader  will  find,  in  Icelandic  and  Latin,  in  the  "  Edda  Saemundar 
bins  Froda,  sive  Edda  antiquior  vulgo  Saemundina  dicta/'  Hafniae,  1787-1828*  Com- 
pare also  Cottle's  "  Edda  translated  into  English  verse  :"  Ettmuller's  "  Lieder  der 
Edda  von  den  Nibelungen,"  Zurich,  1837,  and  other  works  indicated  at  the  beginniag 
of  this  volume. — Ed. 


Analysis  of  the  Scandinavian  Songs.  183 

of  his  uncles,  by  the  name  of  Gripir,  who  is  represented  as 
being  endowed  with  the  gift  of  prophecy,  in  order  to  consult 
him  respecting  the  future  events  of  his  life.*  The  latter  pre- 
dicts them  exactly,  though  not  in  detail  ;  and  these  predictions 
confirmed  by  the  events,  form  as  it  were  a  rapid  and  consecutive 
sketch  of  all  the  subsequent  adventures  of  Sigurd.  There  is, 
however,  one  point,  and  an  important  one,  on  which  the  fulfill- 
ment differs  from  the  prophecy. 

The  latter  conveys  the  idea,  that  Brunhild,  after  being  married 
to  Gunther  and  Sigurd  to  Gudruna,  would  be  full  of  regrets  and 
mutual  love,  when  they  would  come  to  recollect  their  former 
promises  of  perpetual  fidelity.  Sigurd  however  remains  faithful 
to  Gudruna  and  resigns  himself  to  suffering  in  silence.  But 
the  impetuous  and  haughty  Brunhild  will  not  be  resigned. 
Finding  herself  united  to  a  husband,  whom  she  deems  unworthy 
of  her  hand,  she  conceives  the  project  of  avenging  herself  and 
of  making  Sigurd  perish,  resolved  on  following  him  herself  into 
the  other  world  immediately  after.  She  consequently  instigated 
Gunther  against  him,  and  she  does  so  by  accusing  herself  di- 
rectly and  without  any  hesitation  of  having  violated  her  oath 
and  of  having  abused  the  error  in  which  she  Lad  at  first  been 
involved  in  regard  to  him,  by  taking  Sigurd  for  Gunnar,  and 
considering  herself  his  wife. 

This  trait,  which  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile  with  the  quarrel 
between  Gudruna  and  Brunhild,  is  not  the  only  one  in  the 
songs  of  the  Edda  (which  seem  to  point  to  a  particular  version 
of  the  action  of  the  Nibelungen),  in  which  the  quarrel  between 
Gudruna  and  Brunhild  is  either  entirely  overlooked  or  treated 
as  a  matter  of  no  importance. 

The  striking  difference  of  character  and  tone,  which  is-  dis- 
played by  several  songs  of  the  Edda,  is  another  proof  that  they 
are  neither  of  the  same  age  nor  by  the  same  authors,  and  that 
they  were  not  composed  with  reference  to  any  strictly  symme- 
trical arrangement  or  connection. 

It  is  generally  believed  that  these  songs  were  collected  and 
committed  to  writing  by  a  learned  ecclesiastic  of  Iceland,  by 
the  name  of  Ssemund,  who  lived  between  the  years  1056  and 
1121.  Having  undertaken  to  write  the  history  of  his  country, 
Ssemund  had  naturally  occasion  to  make  use  of  the  documents 
relating  to  this  history  ;  and  it  is  supposed,  on  very  plausible 
grounds,  that  he  made  this  collection  of  the  mythological  and 
poetical  traditions  of  the  Scandidavian  nations  as  a  sort  of 
preparation  for  his  historical  work.  We  do  not  know  the  pre- 

*  This  song  is  the  "  Quida  Sigurdar  Fafnisbanal.,"  on  pages  124-143  of  the  second 
volume  of  the  Edda  Saemundina — Ed. 


18i  History  of  Provencal  Poet/ry. 

cise  epoch  at  which  this  collection  was  made  ;  but  if  it  was  the 
work  of  Ssemund,  as  it  has  every  appearance  of  being,  it  is  ex- 
tremely probable,  that  the  latter  must  have  occupied  himself 
with  it,  while  in  the  vigor  and  maturity  of  manhood,  and  not 
during  the  later  years  of  his  life.  It  may  therefore  be  safely 
referred  to  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century  or  to  the  first  years 
of  the  twelfth.  Up  to  the  epoch,  at  which  Saemund  committed 
them  to  writing,  these  songs  had  been  preserved  among  the 
oral  traditions  of  the  country,  and  more  especially  by  the 
Skalds,  the  majority  of  whom  appear  to  have  combined  with 
the  exercise  of  their  talent  as  poetic  inventors  the  function  of 
reciters  of  the  ancient  poetry.  But  there  is  every  indication, 
that  at  the  epoch,  at  which  these  precious  monuments  were 
collected,  many  of  them  had  already  been  lost  and  others 
mutilated.  Some  of  the  songs  of  what  is  called  Ssemund's  Edda 
are  only  fragmentary  remains  of  pieces,  that  were  primitively 
more  considerable. 

Now,  where  and  at  what  epoch  were  these  songs  composed  ? 
These  questions  can  only  be  answered  by  conjectures ;  but  the 
data,  on  which  these  conjectures  are  based,  are  positive  enough  ; 
and,  as  they  are  closely  connected  with  the  general  history  of 
Scandinavian  literature,  they  have  an  additional  intrinsic 
interest  of  their  own. 

The  history  of  the  New  or  Younger  Edda,  for  example, 
throws  considerable  light  on  the  songs  of  the  Elder  ;  and  it  is 
on  this  account  that  I  shall  now  say  a  few  words  on  the  former. 

The  Scandinavians,  who  had  been  converted  to  Christianity  at 
a  very  late  date  and  very  imperfectly,  were  in  the  thirteenth 
century  still  very  much  attached  to  their  ancient  poetical  tra- 
ditions, they  had  remained  pagans  by  their  recollections  and 
their  imagination,  and  the  Skalds,  though  nominally  Christians, 
continued  to  imitate  to  the  best  of  their  ability  their  pagan  pre- 
decessors both  in  the  choice  of  their  subjects  and  in  the  form 
and  manner  of  their  poetic  execution.  Nevertheless,  the 
doctrines  and  the  traditions  of  the  heathen  times  began  to  lose 
themselves  gradually  and  the  poetry  founded  on  them  to  become 
rare.  A  Norwegian  scholar,  Snorro  Sturleson,  who  lived  from 
1179  to  1241,  considered  it  expedient  to  make  a  collection  of 
both  the  one  and  the  other,  to  serve  as  a  rule  and  an  example 
to  the  Skalds  of  his  time.  It  is  this  collection,  which  has  been 
designated  by  the  name  of  the  New  Edda  or  the  Prose  Edda, 
in  contradistinction  to  the  Ancient  Edda  of  Ssemund,  com- 
posed of  those  poetic  songs,  of  which  I  have  just  endeavored 
to  give  you  an  idea.* 

*  On  the  Younger  Edda  compare  Rask's  "  Snorra-Edda  asamt  Skaldu,"  Stockholm, 
1818.— Resenius'   '•  Edda  Islandorum  per  Snorronem  Sturlae  conscripta,"    Haunise, 


Analysis  of  the  Scandinavian  Songs.  185 

The  New  Edda  consists  of  two  principal  parts ;  of  a  collection  of 
myths  in  prose  and  of  a  collection  of  kenningar^  in  other  words 
of  epithets  or  of  poetical  periphrases,  consecrated  by  the  autho- 
rity of  the  ancient  Skalds.  To  comprehend  the  motive  and 
design  of  this  collection  properly,  it  must  be  remembered,  that 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  even  long  before,  the  poetry  of 
the  Scandinavians  had  become  a  sort  of  labored  mechanism, 
the  beauty  of  which  consisted  in  substituting  for  the  proper 
names  of  objects  and  of  persons  metaphorical  synonyms  and 
circumlocutions  of  every  kind,  the  most  fantastical  and  the  most 
obscure  of  which  were  considered  the  best,  provided,  however, 
they  were  founded  on  the  precedent  of  some  pagan  Skald. 
Thus,  for  example,  ships  were  called  the  animals  of  the  sea  / 
the  blood  was  termed  the  dew  of  pain  ;  a  warrior  was  an  armed 
tree,  the  tree  of  battle  ;  a  sword  the  flame  of  wounds,  etc. 

A  hundred  and  fifteen  different  denominations,  more  or 
less  periphrastic,  have  been  found  for  Odin  alone ;  the  word 
island  had  as  many  as  a  hundred  and  twenty  poetic  synomyms  ; 
the  earth  had,  I  believe,  still  more. 

The  poetic  synomyms  collected  in  Snorro's  Edda  are  de- 
rived from  the  works  of  more  than  eighty  different  Skalds 
and  are  illustrated  with  citations.  We  know  the  names  of  all 
or  nearly  all  these  Skalds,  and  we  also  know  at  what  epochs 
and  under  what  Norwegian  kings  they  flourished.  We  perceive 
that  they  formed  an  uninterrupted  series  during  three  entire 
centuries,  from  the  tenth  until  the  thirteenth,  in  which  Snorro 
lived  and  wrote. 

Now,  among  all  the  many  poets  and  poetical  fragments 
quoted  in  the  new  Edda  we  cannot  find  one  that  may  be  said 
to  appertain  to  the  songs  of  the  Ancient  Edda.  There  is  not 
one  of  these  latter  songs,  of  which  the  author  is  known  or 
mentioned  anywhere ;  and  none  of  these  authors  are  to  be 
found  among  the  eighty  quoted  in  the  collection  of  poetic 
synonyms.  This  is  a  strong  presumption,  that  they  were  more 
ancient  than  the  latter. 

This  presumption  receives  additional  force,  if  we  consider  the 
songs  of  the  Ancient  Edda  in  their  relation  to  the  end,  for 
which  the  didactic  portion  of  the  New  Edda  was  composed. 
What  Snorro  wanted  to  offer  to  the  Skalds  of  his  time,  were 
examples  of  the  artificialities,  of  the  obscurities,  and  of  the 
puerile  mechanism  into  which  the  poetry  of  his  countrymen  had 
then  degenerated.  Now,  the  ancient  songs  in  question  were 
grave  and  simple  in  their  form  ;  they  did  not  contain  enough 

1665.  Sirarock,  "Die  altere  u.  jiingere  Edda  nebst  den  myth.  Erzahlungen  der 
Skalda,"  Stuttgart,  1855,  and  other  works  mentioned  at  the  beginning  of  this  volume. 
— Ed. 


186  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

of  those  poetic  synonyms  or  periphrases  of  which  his  contem- 
poraries made, so  much  account,  and  those  even  which  they  did 
contain  were  not  out-of-the-way  enough,  or  learned  enough,  to 
content  the  intellects  of  the  age,  who  had  sunk  so  low  as  to 
take  the  miserable  artificialities  of  diction  for  the  sum  and  sub- 
stance of  art. 

These  considerations  seem  to  me  to  lead  to  the  result,  that  the 
songs  of  the  Elder  Edda,  in  the  form  in  which  they  have  come 
down  to  us,  are,  for  the  most  part,  anterior  to  the  tenth  century, 
which  is  the  epoch  at  which  the  series  of  Skalds  enumerated 
and  cited  in  the  New  Edda  began  to  sing. 

It  is  a  fact,  which  may  be  adduced  in  support  of  this  opinion, 
that  several  of  the  Skalds  belonging  to  this  latter  series  are 
known  to  have  been  familiar  with,  and  to  have  recited,  some 
of  the  songs  of  the  Elder  Edda.  Olaf  the  Saint,  king  of  Nor- 
way, who  died  in  1030,  had  a  Skald,  that  recited  or  sung  the 
poem  of  the  Edda  on  the  combat  of  Siegfried  with  the  dragon 
Fafnir. 

The  precise  date  of  these  songs  is,  however,  a  matter  of  com- 
paratively small  importance.  To  whatever  epoch  we  may  assign 
them,  they  were  certainly  then  already  nothing  more  than  a  new 
redaction,  a  reproduced  form  of  other  songs  on  the  same  sub- 
jects which  had  preceded  them,  and  the  commencement  of  which 
it  would  be  as  difficult  to  indicate,  as  it  would  be  to  determine 
the  origin  itself  of  the  nation  for  which  they  had  been  made. 

It  now  remains  to  give  some  idea  of  the  poetic  character  of 
these  songs  ;  a  few  passages  translated  from  them  will  answer 
our  purpose. 

I  give  here  in  the  first  place  a  song,  which  portrays  the  grief 
and  desolation  by  which  Gudruna  is  seized  immediately  after 
the  assassination  of  Sigurd. 

"  Seated  by  the  side  of  Sigurd's  corpse,  Gudruna  was  ready 
to  expire  ;  she  heaved  no  sighs ;  she  did  not  wring  her  hands, 
and  she  lamented  not  like  otherwomen.  Men  of  noble  rank  in 
rich  habiliments  approached  her  to  distract  her  from  her  melan- 
choly thoughts,  but  Gudruna  could  not  weep,  so  greatly  was 
heart  oppressed  with  grief  and  ready  to  break !"  * 

"  Before  her  there  were  seated  women  of  high  birth,  prin- 

*  This  is  the  GUDRUNAR-QUIDA  IN  FYRSTA  of  pp.  270-284,  vol.  ii.  of  the  Edda  Socmun- 
dina.  I  add  here  two  couplets  of  the  original. 

Ar  var  that  Gvdrun  Gengo  jarlar 

Gordiz  at  deyia  Al-snotrir  fram 

Er  hon  sorg-fvll  sat  Their  er  hardz  hvgar 

Yfir  Sigvrthi.  Hana  lavtto. 

Gerthit  hon  hiufra  Theygi  Gvdrun 

Ne  hondom  sla  Grata  matti. 

Ne  qveina  nm  8va  var  hun  mothvg 

Bern  konor  athrar.  Mvndi hon springa,  etc.  etc — Ed. 


Analysis  of  the  Scandinavian  Songs.  187 

cesses  adorned  with  ornaments  of  gold,  and  each  of  them  be- 
gan to  relate  the  cruelties  of  her  afflictions." 

Guifloga,  the  sister  of  Gibich,  first  spake  and  said  :  "  No 
woman  upon  earth  was  ever  more  afflicted  than  myself.  I  have 
lost,  one  after  the  other,  five  husbands,  two  daughters,  three 
sisters,  eight  brothers,  and  I'm  now  left  alone." 

"  Gudruna  heard  these  words,  but  still  she  could  not  weep, 
so  greatly  was  she  afflicted  by  the  death  of  her  husband  !  So 
deeply  was  she  wounded  by  the  loss  of  her  hero." 

"  The  queen  of  the  country  of  the  Huns,  Herborga,  then 
commenced  :  I  have  the  most  frightful  calamities  to  relate,  said 
she.  My  seven  sons  and  my  eighth  husband  were  all  killed 
on  the  battle-field  in  the  countries  of  the  South.  My  father, 
my  mother  and  my  four  brothers  have  been  the  sport  of  the 
winds  at  sea,  and  their  vessel  was  shattered  by  the  waves.  I 
was  myself  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  collecting  and  honor- 
ing their  remains,  of  giving  them  a  burial  !  And  all  this  has 
happened  to  me  in  the  course  of  a  single  year,  without  my  hav- 
ing received  the  condolence  of  any  one  !  Six  months  after  I 
was  taken  prisoner  in  war,  and  surcharged  with  fetters.  I  was 
condemned  to  clean  the  shoes  for  the  wife  of  the  warrior-chief, 
and  to  tie  them  every  morning  to  her  feet.  She  was  jealous 
of  me,  she  menaced  me  and  beat  me  cruelly  ;  I  never  shall  find 
a  better  master,  and  never  a  worse  mistress." 

"  Gudruna  .  heard  these  words,  and  yet  she  did  not  weep,  so 
atly  was  she  afflicted  by  the  death  of  her  sweet  spouse,  so 
eeply  was  she  wounded  by  the  murder  of  the  hero." 

"  Gullranda,  the  daughter  of  Gibich,  then  spoke  in  her  turn  : 
O  my  nurse,"  said  she,  "  discreet  as  you  are,  you  nevertheless 
know  little  of  the  words  to  be  addressed  to  a  young  woman  in 
affliction." 

"  And  thereupon  Gullranda  raised  the  pall  spread  over  the 
corpse  of  Sigurd  ;  she  laid  it  bare,  and  turned  its  face  toward 
Gudruna  :  Look  at  thy  well-beloved  spouse,  said  she  ;  im- 
press thy  lips  upon  those  of  the  hero,  as  thou  wouldst  do  if  he 
were  yet  alive." 

"  Gudruna  looked  ;  she  saw  the  hair  of  the  warrior's  head 
besmeared  with  gore,  his  brilliant  eyes  now  dim,  his  breast 
pierced  with  the  glaive." 

"  Then  starting  back,  Gudruna  fell  upon  her  pillow  ;  the  fil- 
let round  her  head  relaxed,  her  countenance  turned  red,  the 
first  tear  fell  upon  her  cheek." 

"  And  she  began  to  cry  so  much,  that  her  tears  would  no 
longer  cease  to  flow,  and  that  the  geese  and  the  fair  fowl 
which  the  young  queen  had  raised  in  the  palace-court,  gave 
utterance  to  plaintive  cries  at  it." 


gre 
dee 


188  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

u  Gullranda,  the  daughter  of  Gibich,  then  resumed :  Your 
love  was  never  equalled  among  men  that  tread  the  dust  of 
earth.  Within  doors  or  without,  you  never,  O  my  sister,  could 
be  contented,  except  you  were  with  Sigurd." 

"  My  charming  Sigurd,  said  thereupon  Gudruna,  was  as  supe- 
rior to  the  sons  of  Gibich,  as  garlic  in  blossom  is  superior  to 
the  meadow-weed.  Sigurd  was  the  pearl,  the  diamond  of 
kings." 

u  And  I  myself  was,  in  the  eyes  of  the  companions  of  Sigurd, 
the  first  among  the  daughters  of  the  royal  race.  But  now  that 
Sigurd  is  dead,  I  am  no  longer  of  any  account ;  I  am  but  a 
withered  branch  in  the  forest." 

In  another  song.  Gndruna,  long  after  her  second  marriage  to 
Attila,  relates  herself  the  death  of  Sigurd  to  Dietrich  of  Ve- 
rona. This  narrative,  which  differs  essentially  from  the  former, 
is  in  other  respects  no  less  replete  with  beauties.  The  follow- 
ing are  some  passages  from  it : 

u  A  young  maiden,  brought  up  by  my  mother,  I  shone 
among  the  maidens,  loving  my  brothers  tenderly,  until  Gibich 
my  father  adorned  and  covered  me  with  gold,  and  gave  me  to 
Sigurd  as  his  wife."  * 

"  Sigurd  surpassed  the  sons  of  Gibich,  as  the  verdant  garlic 
surpasses  the  meadow-herb,  or  as  the  lofty-footed  stag  surpasses 
the  other  tawny  deer,  or  the  reddish  gold  the  pale  silver. 

"  But  my  brothers  could  not  endure  it,  that  I  should  have  a 
husband  superior  to  all  the  rest ;  they  could  neither  sleep  nor 
attend  to  their  affairs,  until  they  had  made  Sigurd  perish." 

"  One  day  I  heard  a  great  noise ;  I  saw  Gran  (the  excellent 
charger)  returning  from  the  army,  but  Sigurd  did  not  return. 
All  the  horses  were  stained  with  blood,  they  all  were  smelling 
blood." 

"  I  went,  bathed  in  tears,  to  speak  to  Gran.  His  jaws  were 
moist ;  I  asked  the  excellent  charger  for  the  news ;  the  excel- 
lent charger  was  disconsolate  ;  he  hung  his  head  upon  the  grass ; 
he  looked  about  the  earth,  but  the  monarch  of  the  earth  was 
dead.  The  whole  retinue  was  agitated  for  a  long  time  ;  they 
all  were  pierced  with  sorrow,  nor  did  I  dare  to  question  Gun- 
ther,  the  ting,  on  the  subject  of  my  spouse." 

*  This  is  the  GITDRUVA.R  Qj[Di  EST  OXNER,  of  the  Edda  Saemundina,  vol.,  ii.  pp.  290- 
324.  The  original  of  the  first  two  couplets  is  as  follows : 

Maer  var  ek  me  via  Sva  var  Sigvrthr 

Mothir  mik  faeddi  Of  sonom  Giuka 

Biort  i  buri.  8em  veri  graenn  lavkr 

Vnna  ek  vel  brsethrom.  Or  grasi  vaxinn. 

Vnz  mik  Giuki  Ethr  hiortr  habeinn 

Gvlli  reifthi  Vm  hvbssom  dyrom. 

Gvlli  reifthi  Ethr  gvll  glod-ravtt 

Gaf  Sigvrthi.  Of  gra-silfri,  etc.,  ctc.—JEd. 


Analysis  of  the  Scandinavian  Songs.  18D 

"  Gunther  hung  his  head  without  reply ;  but  Hagen  re- 
counted to  me  the  cruel  death  of  Sigurd :  Sigurd  lies  stretched 
upon  the  ground  beyond  the  stream  ;  his  body  has  been  given 
to  the  wolves." 

"  Go  toward  the  countries  of  the  South ;  there  thou  wilt 
hear  the  ravens  croak,  the  eagles  cry,  and  hungry  wolves  howl 
all  around  thy  spouse." 

"  O  Hagen !  thou  who  art  so  eager  to  acquaint  me  with  a 
great  calamity,  would  that  the  ravens  might  tear  thy  heart 
out  of  thee  in  some  corner  of  this  vast  earth !" 

"  I  left  him  then,  and  I  went  all  alone  to  rescue  the  remains 
of  Sigurd  from  the  wolves.  The  night  I  passed  with  Sigurd 
seemed  to  me  a  month.  I  should  have  deemed  the  wolves  com- 
passionate, if  they  had  devoured  me,  'twould  have  delighted 
me  to  be  consumed  by  fire  like  a  forest  of  birch  trees !" 

The  character  of  Brunhild  is  one  of  the  most  striking  points 
of  these  son^s.  It  is  my  intention  to  give  passages  from  one  of 
them,  in  which  this  character  is  developed  with  the  greatest 
vigor  and  originality.  But  in  order  to  comprehend  these  pas- 
sages properly,  it  will  be  necessary  for  me  to  explain  some  of 
the  preliminaries  with  a  little  more  detail,  than  I  was  able  to 
bestow  on  them  above. 

As  I  have  already  mentioned,  Gunther  or  Gunnar,  the  king 
of  the  Nibelungen  or  of  the  Burgundians,  sets  out  in  company 
with  Sigurd  on  a  journey,  for  the  purpose  of  winning  the  hand 
of  Brunhild.  They  betake  themselves  to  Heimir,  the  uncle  and 
guardian  of  the  fair  warrior-heroine,  whose  habitation  is  in 
the  vicinity  of  hers.  Heimir  receives  them  well,  and  shows 
them  the  palace  inhabited  by  Brunhild,  surrounded  by  a  blaz- 
ing fire,  kindled  by  the  power  of  Odin,  and  which  seems  to  rise 
up  into  the  heavens.  The  fair  Yalkyria  had  declared,  that  she 
would  only  accept  as  her  husband  the  man  who  was  intrepid 
enough  to  pass  through  this  fire  ;  in  the  full  persuasion  that 
Sigurd,  who  loved  and  who  had  disenchanted  her,  was  the 
only  man  in  the  world  capable  of  approaching  her  across 
these  flames.  Gunther  offers  to  pass  the  ordeal  himself,  but  he 
immediately  shrinks  from  it.  Sigurd  thereupon  by  dint  of  an 
enchantment  exchanges  forms  with  him,  plunges  boldly  into 
the  flames,  gets  through  them  safely;  and  appearing  before 
Brunhild  under  the  features  of  Gunther,  he  claims  the  fulfill- 
ment of  her  promise.  .  .  .  Brunhild  becomes  resigned, 
though  not  without  grief  and  surprise,  to  the  fate  of  accepting 
as  her  consort  the  man  whom  she  takes  to  be  Gunther.  She 
retains  him  three  days  at  her  palace,  and  then  follows  Gunther 
to  the  land  of  the  Nibelungen.  There  she  sees  Sigurd  united 
to  Gudruna,  and  at  the  sight  of  this  her  former  love  for  the 


190  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

hero  is  rekindled  into  fury.  Sigurd  himself  now  recollects  the 
solemn  promises  by  which  he  had  formerly  been  linked  to 
Brunhild,  and  his  first  love  return?,  together  with  its  reminis- 
cences. Nevertheless  he  observes  silence,  and  is  resolved  to 
remain  faithful  to  Giidruna ;  but  Brunhild  cannot  curb  her 
passion  so  easily.  It  is  at  this  point,  that  the  old  Scandinavian 
poet  takes  up  the  thread  of  the  story. 

"One  evening,  as  she  was  sitting  alone  in  her  retirement, 
Brunhild  began  to  say  quite  loud  :  I  will  have  Sigurd,  the 
young  hero,  in  my  arms  or  I  will  die  !"* 

"  But  afterward,  correcting  herself  immediately,  she  said : 
I  have  uttered  a  word,  of  which  I  now  repent.  Gudruna  is  the 
wife  of  Sigurd  and  I  of  Gunnar.  The  cruel  Norns  f  have 
prepared  long  sufferings  for  us.  Often  at  evening,  at  the  hour 
when  Sigurd  and  his  fair  consort  were  retiring  to  rest,  Brunhild, 
with  her  heart  full  of  bodeful  thoughts,  was  wandering  about 
on  mountains  covered  with  ice  and  snow." 

"It  is  thus  Fm  wandering  about  without  a  husband  and 
without  friends,  said  she  one  time  ;  I  needs  must  rid  myself  of 
these  cruel  thoughts.  With  her  heart  full  of  this  bitterness, 
she  commenced  to  instigate  Gunnar  to  the  murder  of  Sigurd : 
Renounce  my  kingdom,  renounce  myself,  said  she  to  him ;  I 
desire  to  live  with  thee  no  longer ;  I  wish  to  return  to  the  place 
from  whence  I  came,  to  the  presence  of  my  parents,  unless  you 
make  Sigurd  die." 

Gunnar,  who  is  troubled  by  this  proposition,  hesitates  for  a 
great  while  to  consent  to  it,  but  weakness  and  the  fear  of 
losing  a  wife  without  which  it  is  impossible  for  him  to 
live,  prevail  on  him  at  last  to  resolve  upon  the  act.  It  is  not 
without  some  difficulty,  that  he  succeeds  in  winning  his  brother 
Hagen  in  favor  of  his  project,  and  they  together  incite  Guttorm 
their  younger  brother  to  assassinate  Sigurd.  Guttorm  was 
naturally  ferocious,  but  not  sufficiently  so,  to  strike  a  hero  so 
valiant  as  Sigurd ;  they  therefore  fed  him  for  some  time  on 
the  flesh  of  wolves  and  serpents,  to  render  him  more  sanguinary, 

*  The  passages  on  Brunhild  here  translated  are  from  from  the  SIGUKDAR-QUIPA 
FAFNISBANA  IK.,  in  the  second  vol.  of  the  EddaSsemundina,  p.  212-244.  The  translation 
begins  with  the  sixth  couplet : 

VI.  VII, 

Ein  sat  hon  uti  Orth  maeltac  nu 

Aptan  dags.  Ithromk  eptir  thess. 

Nam  hon  sva  bert  Qvan  er  hans  Gvdrun 

Vm  at  maelaz.  En  ek  Gvnnars. 

Hafa  skal  ek  Sigvrth  Liotar  nornir 

Ethr  tho  svelta  Skopo  oss langa  thra,  etc.— Ed, 

Mavg  frvm-ungan 

Mer  a  armi. 

The  Norns  were  the  Pare*  or  Fates  of  the  Scandinavians.— Ed. 


Analysis  of  the  Scandinavian  Songs.  191 

until  Guttorm  at  last  found  that  he  had  courage  enough  to 
plunge  a  sword  into  the  heart  of  Sigurd  while  the  latter  was 
asleep.  Sigurd,  roused  from  his  slumber  by  the  mortal  blow, 
snatches  the  sword  from  the  wound  and  hurls  it  after  Guttorm, 
who  endeavors  to  escape  ;  the  sword  reaches  him  and  cleaves 
his  body  in  two.  Sigurd  dies  consoling  Gudruna,  who  gives 
utterance  to  frightful  shrieks. 

I  will  now  recommence  my  translation :  "  When  Brunhild, 
the  daughter  of  Budli  heard  from  her  couch  the  shrill  cries  of 
Gudruna,  she  began  to  laugh,  once  in  her  life,  with  all  her 
heart."* 

"  Thou  wicked  woman,  said  thereupon  King  Gunnar  ;  do  not 
laugh  at  these  lamentations  ;  they  presage  no  good  for  thee." 

44  Be  not  incensed  at  me  and  listen  to  me,  Brunhild  replied  ; 
I  was  in  the  flower  of  youth,  I  was  free,  I  was  abundantly  pro- 
vided with  gold  and  I  desired  no  man  for  my  master.  Ye  came, 
thou  and  thy  brothers,  to  search  me  out  in  my  palace,  and 
would  to  God  ye  never  had  made  this  journey !  1  had  pledged 
my  faith  to  Sigurd,  who  excelled  you  all  by  the  beauty  of  his 
eyes  and  countenance,  though  ye  were  likewise  princes  of  the 
royal  blood.  .  .  .  All  know  that  I  did  violence  to  my  heart  in 
marrying  you,  and  that  I  wanted  to  be  the  wife  of  Sigurd.  But 
'one  man  ought  not  to  be  loved  by  several  women,  and  the 
death  to  which  I  am  about  to  subject  myself  will  show,  that  a 
woman  who  has  once  been  loved  by  one  man  ought  not  to  spend 
her  life  in  wedlock  with  another." 

"  King  Gunther,  then  arising  from  his  seat,  hastened  to  Brun- 
hild for  the  purpose  of  appeasing  her,  and  he  was  about  to 
throw  his  arms  around  her  neck ;  all  those  who  were  attached 
to  him  ran  likewise  up,  one  after  the  other,  in  order  to  divert 
her  from  her  resolution  ;  but  she  repelled  them  all  and  persisted 
in  her  determination  to  die.  She  ordered  all  that  she  possessed 
to  be  collected  in  a  heap,  she  took  a  look  at  all  her  slaves  and 
servants  who  had  just  killed  themselves  on  her  account,  nor 
would  her  anguish  cease  until  the  moment  when  she  plunged 
the  trenchant  sword  into  her  heart." 

Mortally  wounded,  Brunhild  in  the  first  place  predicts  to 
Gunther  whatever  was  to  happen  to  him  in  the  future,  and  then 
continues  in  these  words : 

"  1  have  one  more  request  to  make  of  thee,  O  Gunther ;  and 
it  will  be  my  last  request  in  this  world.  Command  thy  men  to 
dig,  out  in  the  fields,  a  large  ditch,  large  enough  for  all  of  us 
who  are  dying  now  with  Sigurd,  Bid  them  inclose  it  with 
pavilions  and  with  shields.  Let  them  then  burn  King  Sigurd 
on  one  side  of  me,  and  on  the  other  rny  servants  adorned  with 

*  Sigurdar-Quida  Fafnisbana  iii.    Stanzas  xxviii,  seqq.— Ed. 


192  History  of  Provengal  Poefoy. 

necklaces  of  gold ;  at  my  head  two  dogs  and  two  owls.  All 
will  be  equally  divided  then."* 

"  And  I  beseech  thee  furthermore,  to  put  the  sword,  adorned 
with  buckles,  the  sharp-edged  steel,  between  Sigurd  and  myself, 
as  when  we  entered,  he  and  myself,  the  same  couch  and  were 
considered  married." 

"  I  have  said  much  and  I  should  say  still  more,  if  the  Creator 
of  the  world  would  leave  me  time  for  it ;  but  my  voice  is  fail- 
ing me ;  my  wound  is  swelling ;  what  I  have  said  is  true,  as  it 
is  true  that  I  am  dying  now."  .... 

This  combination  of  ferocity  and  of  tenderness,  this  indomi- 
table resolution  to  destroy  the  man  she  loves  sooner  than  to  see 
him  united  to  another,  and  to  die  herself  after  him  and  for  him, 
are  contrasts  and  phases  of  refinement,  such  as  we  can  only 
expect  to  meet  with  in  manners  and  usages  as  savage,  as  were 
those  of  the  ancient  Scandinavians.  And  this  complex  charac- 
ter of  Brunhild  is  not  the  only  one  of  the  kind  in  the  songs  of 
the  Edda.  Gudruna  is  a  character  of  the  same  species  ;  that 
is  to  say  she  is  controlled  by  two  contrary  passions,  which 
counterpoise  each  other  for  a  long  time.  In  spite  of  all  the  horror 
with  which  she  is  seized  for  her  brothers,  after  they  had  assassi- 
nated Sigurd,  she  does  not  cease  to  love  them.  So  far  from 
accepting  the  invitation,  which  Attila  had  extended  to  them  to 
come  and  visit  him  at  his  court,  as  an  occasion  for  revenging 
herself  on  them,  she  employs  every  manner  of  contrivance  and 
means  to  save  them  and  to  deter  them  from  this  fatal  journey ; 
and  after  the  failure  of  all  these  attempts  to  save  them,  she 
avenges  them  on  Attila  himself,  whom  she  murders  in  his  sleep. 

I  have  a  word  to  add  on  the  metrical  form  of  these  songs  of 
the  Edda.  It  is  the  primitive  form  of  the  Teutonic  poetry,  and, 
as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain,  exclusively  peculiar  to 
this  poetry.  These  songs  are  in  verses  of  a  definite  number  of 
syllables,  which  do  not  rhyme,  but  each  of  which  contains  at 
least  two  alliterations,  that  is,  two  words  commencing  with  the 
same  consonant.  It  was  not  until  a  much  later  period,  and 
after  it  had  become  considerably  modified  by  its  contact  with 
the  methods  of  the  South,  that  the  poetry  of  the  North  adopted 
the  use  of  the  rhyme. 

Such  are  the  historical  songs  of  the  ancient  Edda  relative  to 
the  action  of  the  Nibelungen,  as  far  as  it  was  possible  for  me  to 
give  an  idea  of  them  in  a  limited  sketch  like  this. 

It  is  extremely  probable,  that  Ssemund,  in  spite  of  all  the  zeal 
and  perseverance,  with  which  we  may  suppose  him  to  have 
made  the  collection  of  these  songs,  nevertheless  did  not  suc- 

*  Sigurdar-Quida  iii.    Stanzas  Ix.-lxvi — Ed. 


Analysis  of  the  Scandinavian  Songs.  193 

ceed  in  bringing  together  all  of  those  which  still  existed  in  his 
time.  Some  of  them  undoubtedly  escaped  his  researches  and 
continued  to  circulate  orally,  to  keep  alive  in  the  memory  of 
the  people  and  of  the  Skalds.  And  even  those,  which  Ssemund 
had  collected,  were  not  on  that  account  destined  to  disappear 
from  oral  circulation  all  at  once. 

Nevertheless,  as  the  ideas  of  Christianity  were  gradually 
better  known  and  comprehended,  and  as  the  ascendency  of 
Christian  manners  became  more  general  in  Scandinavia,  the 
chances,  by  which  these  ancient  pagan  songs  were  destined  to 
fall  into  oblivion,  were  multiplied  in  proportion.  The  ancient 
poetry  had,  moreover,  prodigiously  degenerated  ;  it  was 
scarcely  anything  more  than  a  play,  the  chief  merit  of  which 
consisted  in  overcoming  a  certain  purely  mechanical  difficulty. 
A  taste  for  severer  studies  and  for  the  truth  of  history  had 
been  introduced  into  the  country  by  scholars,  and  it  was  in 
consequence  of  this  taste,  that  men,  whose  minds  still  vacillated 
in  uncertainty  between  the  ancient  poetry  and  nascent  history, 
conceived  the  idea  of  classifying  and  arranging  the  ancient 
pagan  songs,  so  as  to  form  a  regular  whole,  a  continuous,  his- 
torical series  in  the  style  and  on  the  plan  of  the  chronicles  then 
in  vogue. 

To  carry  out  this  design  properly,  it  was  not  enough  to 
arrange  the  poetical  songs  in  the  chronological  order  of  the 
events,  which  constituted  their  theme.  These  songs  had  become 
obscure  in  consequence  of  their  antiquity  ;  they  were,  moreover, 
replete  with  traits  of  a  high  and  vigorous  poetry,  which  the  men 
of  the  epoch  could  no  longer  appreciate  or  relish  ;  they  were 
consequently  translated  into  current  prose,  into  the  prose  of 
the  chronicles. 

Thus  was  composed,  we  do  not  know  precisely  at  what  epoch, 
but  in  all  probability  toward  the  commencement  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  the  celebrated  chronicle,  to  which  I  have 
already  alluded  above,  and  which  is  known  under  the  name  of 
the  Vosunga  Saga.  This  chronicle  is  nothing  more  than  an 
abstract,  a  sort  of  prose  compendium  of  the  poetic  songs  of 
the  Edda  relating  to  the  Nibelungen,  arranged  in  the  order 
supposed  to  represent  the  succession  of  the  events. 

As  these  songs,  however,  are  full  of  variations,  of  discre- 
pancies and  repetitions,  those  only  of  their  number  could  be 
adopted,  which  contributed  to  the  unity  and  consistency  of  the 
historical  narrative,  and  several  were  of  necessity  excluded, 
which  in  a  purely  poetical  point  of  view  are  among  the  most 
beautiful. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  number  of  these  songs  were  fragments, 
and  there  were  besides  blanks  or  lacunae  between  the  several 

13 


194:  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

songs  and  fragments.  It  is  obvious,  that  the  compiler  of  the 
prose  chronicle  did  not  fill  up  these  lacunce  by  matter  of  his 
own  invention,  but  by  odds  and  ends  borrowed  from  other 
poetic  songs,  which  did  not  enter  into  the  composition  of  the 
Edda,  and  which  the  compiler  had  found  in  his  day,  either  in 
the  mouth  of  the  people,  Or  in  some  unknown  collection,  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  Ssemund. 

These  remarks  would  be  susceptible  of  a  much  more  extended 
development ;  but  this  is  not  essential  to  the  establishment  of 
the  only  conclusion  at  which  I  desire  to  arrive,  and  which  is, 
that  the  Vosunga  Saga,  the  most  ancient  connected  redaction 
of  the  Nibelungen  in  Scandinavia,  is  wholly  composed  of 
materials  far  more  ancient  than  itself;  that  these  materials 
consist  of  a  multitude  of  detached  and  independent  songs,  in 
which  the  same  incident  of  the  principal  action  is  treated  in 
several  ways  or  with  different  circumstances,  varying  according 
to  the  caprice  or  the  personal  conviction  of  the  poet,  without 
however  departing  from  the  original  substance  of  the  story, 
which  always  remains  the  same  and  which  is  only  modified  in 
its  accessories  and  details.  The  more  particular  and  more 
methodical  analysis  of  the  poem  of  the  Nibelungen,  which 
will  be  the  subject  of  the  ne^t  chapter,  will,  however,  illustrate 
and  corroborate  such  of  these  observations,  as  are  yet  in 
want  of  it. 


Analysis  of  the  Nibelu/ngen.  195 


CHAPTEK  X. 

WALTER    OF    AQUITANIA. 
II.     ANALYSIS     OF     THE    NIBELUNGEN. 

I  HAVE  been  led,  from  considerations,  which  I  have  already 
explained  and  to  which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  revert  again 
hereafter,  into  quite  a  long,  but  at  any  rate  a  curious,  digression 
on  the  ancient  monuments  of  Northern  Literature,  relative  to 
the  poetic  cycle  of  the  Nibelungen.  I  have  spoken  in  the  last 
chapter  of  such  of  these  monuments,  as  appertain  to  the  Scan- 
dinavian branch  of  Teutonic  literature,  and  of  which  the  his- 
torical songs  of  the  Edda  are  by  far  the  most  ancient  and  the 
most  interesting.  I  have  endeavored  to  give  an  outline  of 
these  songs,  so  remarkable  for  their  beauties,  for  the  original, 
and  we  might  almost  say,  the  local  physiognomy  under  which 
human  nature  there  appears,  and  even  for  their  variations  and 
discrepancies,  which  attest  the  long  traditional  life  they  had 
already  enjoyed  before  the  epoch  at  which  they  were  collected 
and  recorded. 

I  have  now  to  speak  of  the  corresponding  monuments  of 
Germanic  literature,  and  more  especially  of  the  poem  of  the 
Nibelungen,  the  most  prominent  of  these  monuments — the  one, 
which  it  is  the  most  important  for  us  to  know,  and  which  de- 
serves the  most  attention,  both  on  account  of  its  intrinsic 
beauties  and  on  account  of  the  high  renown,  which  some  of  the 
most  distinguished  minds  of  Germany  have  attributed  to  it,  or 
rather  resuscitated,  since  the  commencement  of  the  present 
century. 

Unfortunately  I  shall  not  be  able  to  give  to  this  part  of  my 
task  all  the  extension,  of  which  it  would  admit  and  which  it 
really  deserves.  The  German  poem  of  the  Nibelungen  is 
quite  a  long  one ;  it  contains  nearly  six  thousand  verses.  I  can 
therefore  only  give  a  general  synopsis  of  its  contents,  which 
will  necessarily  appear  somewhat  dry. 

Another  inconvenience  of  this  analysis  will  be  the  repetition 
of  certain  details,  which  must  already  have  struck  the  reader 
in  the  general  outline  I  have  given  of  the  fundamental  action  of 


195  History  of  Provencal  Pozt/ry. 

the  Nibelungen.  But  these  repetitions  will  not  be  very  nume- 
rous ;  and  taking  for  granted,  that  they  will  not  be  very  offen- 
sive, I  have  not  endeavored  to  avoid  them.* 

Toward  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  there  flourished 
(according  to  the  old  poet  of  the  Nibelungen)  a  kingdom  of 
Burgundia,  extending  along  the  two  banks  of  the  Middle-Rhine, 
and  having  Worms  for  its  capital.  This  kingdom  was  governed 
by  three  brothers,  whose  names  were  Gunther,  Gernot  and 
Giselher ;  all  three  of  them  valiant  and  renowned  princes, 
having  under  them  as  their  vassals  other  chiefs,  as  valiant  and 
renowned  as  themselves.  Among  these  was  Hagen  of  Troneg, 
a  warrior  of  extraordinary  strength  and  prowess,  but  also 
equally  passionate  and  ferocious.  This  is  one  of  the  principal 
characters  of  the  terrible  drama  of  the  Nibelungen. 

These  three  princes  had  a  sister  by  the  name  of  Ohrimhild,  a 
young  princess  of  incomparable  beauty,  whom  they  loved  most 
tenderly  and  guarded  with  the  utmost  care. 

In  the  vicinity  of  the  Burgundians,  there  lived  another 
powerful  king,  whose  name  was  Sigmund  and  whose  king- 
dom, called  the  kingdom  of  the  Niderland,  or  of  the  Lower 
Country,  is  supposed  to  have  extended  along  the  Lower  Rhine, 
below  that  of  the  Burgundians.  Sigmund  had  a  son,  by  the 
name  of  Siegfried,  who,  though  as  yet  in  the  flower  of  youth, 
was  already  the  strongest,  the  bravest  and  the  most  celebrated 
of  heroes. 

Siegfried  had  looked  about  in  the  world  at  quite  an  early  age 
and  he  had  adready  encountered  many  a  marvellous  adventure. 

*  Those  of  the  readers  of  this  volume,  who  may  be  desirous  of  following  this  analysis 
with  the  original  before  them,  will  find  an  excellent  text  in  the  superbly  illustrated 
edition  of  this  epos,  from  Baron  von  Lassberg's  MS.,  Leipzig,  1840.  Those  unac- 
quainted withthe  original  may  derive  some  assistance  and  pleasure  from  Birch's  trans- 
lation, Berlin,  1848.  I  add  here  only  the  beginning  of  the  German  llias : 

Una  1st  in  alten  mseren  .  wunders  vil  geseit . 

Von  heleden  lobehaeren  .  von  grozer  arebeit . 

Von  freude  unt  hochgeciten  .  von  weinen  unt  klagen  . 

Von  kuner  recken  striten  .  muget  ir  nu  wnder  horen  sagen . 

Ez  wuhs  in  Buregonden .  eln  vil  edel  magedin  . 
Daz  in  alien  landen  .  niht  schoners  mohte  sin  . 
Chriemhilt  geheizen .  diu  wart  ein  schone  wip  . 
Dar  umbe  musin  degene  .  vil  verliesen  den  lip  . 

Legends  of  bygone  times  reveal — wonders  and  prodigies, 
Of  heroes  worthy  endless  fame — of  matchless  oraveries — 
Of  jubilees  and  festal  sports — of  tears  and  sorrow  great, 
And  knights,  who  daring  combats  fought — the  like  I  now  relate. 

In  Burgundy  there  lived  and  throve — a  truly  handsome  maid  ; 
Such  as  in  all  the  countries  round — was  not,  might  well  be  said. 
Chriemhilda  fair,  the  maiden  bight — a  beauteous  dame  was  she  ; 
On  her  account  did  many  knight — lose  life  and  high  degree. 

V.  Lassberg'8  text  and  Birch's  translation.— Ed. 


Analysis  of  the  Nibelungen.  197 

Among  the  exploits  by  which  he  had  distinguished  himself,  he 
had  conquered  the  treasure  of  the  Nibelnngen,  hidden  in  the 
recesses  of  a  great  cavern,  in  mountains  supposed  to  be  situated 
in  the  proximity  of  Niderland  ;  and  he  had  left  this  treasure  in 
the  charge  of  Alberieh,  a  dwarf  of  prodigious  strength,  'whom 
he  had  vanquished  and  compelled  to  serve  him.  In  this  treasure 
of  the  Nibelungen  he  had  found  the  sword  of  Balmung,  the 
very  best  of  swords ;  he  had,  moreover,  extorted  from  Alberieh 
a  riding-hood  or  cap  of  miraculous  power,  which  rendered  its 
wearer  invisible,  and  which  added  to  his  natural  strength  that 
of  a  dozen  men  beside.  Siegfried  had  afterward  slain  a  mon- 
strous dragon,  and  had  become  invulnerable  by  bathing  in  his 
blood. 

The  fame  of  Chrimhild's  incomparable  beauty  made  Siegfried 
fall  in  love  with  her,  and  he  resolved  to  repair  to  the  court  of 
Burgundia,  in  order  to  demand  her  in  marriage.  Her  father 
and  her  mother,  who  have  unhappy  presentiments  in  regard 
to  this  alliance  endeavor  to  prevent  it.  But  Siegfried  it  not 
the  man  to  yield  to  disquietudes  of  this  description ;  he  sets 
out  with  a  small  retinue  of  twelve  warriors,  and  arrives  at 
Worms,  where  everybody  is  amazed  at  his  heroic  appearance, 
He  is  well  received  by  King  Gunther,  and  spends  an  entire 
year  at  the  court  of  Burgundia  without  however  obtaining  an 
opportunity  of  seeing  Chrimhild.  But  the  latter,  who  has  seen 
Siegfried  on  several  occasions  from  her  window,  is  struck  by 
his  air  and  by  his  personal  beauty ;  she  has  in  fact  become 
enamored  of  him. 

The  love  of  Siegfried  and  Chrimhild  was  still  at  this  stage  of 
its  progress,  when  the  Saxons  and  the  Danes  declared  war 
against  Gunther.  Siegfried  having  applied  for  the  command 
ot  this  war,  sets  out  at  the  head  of  only  a  thousand  men ;  and 
at  the  end  of  a  fews  days  he  returns,  leading  the  two  hostile 
kings  as  prisoners.  Brilliant  festivals  are  now  given  in  com- 
memoration of  this  victory,  at  which  Chrimhild  also  makes  her 
appearance  ;  and  Siegfried,  in  requital  of  the  important  service 
he  had  rendered  Gunther,  obtains  permission  from  the  latter 
to  entertain  the  princess.  The  reciprocal  love  of  Chrimhild  and 
the  hero  is  increased  by  these  occasions,  but  Siegfried  does  not 
venture  as  yet  to  speak  of  marriage ;  a  favorable  opportunity 
for  explaining  his  wishes  was,  however,  soon  to  present  itself. 

There  was  at  that  time  in  Iceland,  or  in  some  other  distant 
island,  a  young  queen  whose  name  was  Brunhild  arid  who  was 
as  famous  for  her  beauty  as  she  was  for  the  singularity  of  her 
pretensions  and  her  destiny.  She  was  fond  of  nothing  but 
war  and  martial  exercises  ;  and  there  was  not  a  man  that  could 
approach  her  in  point  of  physical  strength  and  agility.  No  one 


198  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

could  hurl  the  javelin  as  well  as  she;  no  one  could  lift  a  stone 
of  an  enormous  size  as  easily  as  she  could  fling  it  to  a  distance, 
and  at  the  same  time  follow  it  with  a  bound.  She  had  declared 
that  she  would  never  consent  to  become  the  wife  of  any  one 
save  him  who  could  excel  her  in  these  exercises,  and  every 
pretender  to  her  hand  whom  she  might  conquer  was  doomed 
to  lose  his  head.  Many  a  valiant  warrior  had  tried  his  luck 
in  the  adventure,  but  all  of  them  had  miserably  failed  and 
perished. 

When  King  Gunther,  who  was  as  yet  unmarried,  heard  the 
beauty  and  strength  of  Brunhild  so  nighly  lauded,  he  desired 
in  his  turn  to  submit  to  the  perilous  trial,  and  he  requested 
Siegfried  to  accompany  and,  if  necessary,  to  aid  him  in  the 
adventure.  The  latter  engaged  to  do  so,  but  on  the  condition 
of  obtaining  after  his  return  the  hand  of  Chrimhild  as  his 
recompense.  This  being  agreed  upon,  Gunther  sets  out,  accom- 
panied by  two  men  only,  besides  Siegfried,  that  is  to  say  by 
Hagen  and  by  Dankwart,  the  brother  of  the  latter. 

The  journey  was  performed  by  water.  Having  in  the  first 
place  descended  the  Rhine,  they  entered  upon  the  ocean  and 
at  the  end  of  twelve  days  they  landed  at  Isenstein,  the  kingdom 
of  Brunhild.  Siegfried  was  the  only  one  of  them  who  knew 
the  country ;  he  had  been  there  before  and  he  had  some  reason 
to  apprehend  that  he  would  be  recognized.  To  avoid  this 
inconvenience,  it  was  agreed  that  he  should  pass  for  the  vassal 
or  the  servant  of  King  Gunther. 

The  arrival  of  the  four  adventurers  produced  a  great  sensa- 
tion at  Isenstein.  They  were,  however,  well  received  by  Brun- 
hild, who,  on  perceiving  Siegfried,  recognized  him  at  once  and 
said  to  him :  "  Be  welcome,  my  Lord  Siegfried  !  May  I  know 
what  brought  you  to  this  country  ?"  Siegfried  thereupon  de- 
clares the  name,  the  rank  and  the  intentions  of  Gunther.  The 
trial  is  no  sooner  proposed  than  it  is  accepted ;  Brunhild  hastens 
to  put  on  her  armor,  and  Siegfried  on  his  part  hurries  to  the 
ship  on  which  he  had  arrived.  He  goes  to  look  for  his  magic 
cap,  of  which  he  presently  was  to  be  in  perishing  need.  He 
returns  invisible  under  this  cap  and  takes  his  place  by  the  side 
of  Gunther. 

Brunhild  on  her  part  appeared  in  a  magnificent  martial  attire. 
The  field  in  which  the  trial  was  to  take  place  is  marked  and 
measured.  An  enormous  round  stone  which  twelve  men  were 
hardly  able  to  carry,  is  deposited  at  the  feet  of  Brunhild. 
Hagen  is  so  frightened  at  the  sight  of  it,  that  he  exclaims : 
<>  The  devil  alone  could  desire  a  woman  for  his  wife,  who  is 
capable  of  hurling  a  stone  of  one  quarter  the  size  of  this !" 
Gunther  is  still  more  amazed  at  it ;  he  turns  pale  and  could 


Analysis  of  the  Nilelungen.  199 

have  wished  himself  far  off;  but  Siegfried  is  invisibly  at  hand, 
whispering  words  of  encouragement  into  his  ear.  He  tells  him 
to  make  simply  the  movements,  while  he  himself  proposes  to 
perform  the  act.  Thereupon  he  takes  up  Gunther's  shield,  with 
which  he  covers  himself  and  the  king,  in  expectation  of  the 
javelin  which  was  already  brandished  by  the  haughty  Brunhild. 
The  javelin  flies ;  it  pierces  Gunther's  buckler,  and  would  have 
upset  the  two  warriors,  had  it  not  been  for  the  effect  of  the 
magic  cap.  Nevertheless,  Siegfried  is  shaken  by  the  blow, 
and  streams  of  blood  are  issuing  from  his  mouth  ;  but  he  soon 
recovers  his  foothold,  picks  up  the  javelin  and  sends  it  home  to 
Brunhild.  The  latter  is  prostrated  by  the  shock  ;  but  rising 
again  nimbly,  she  runs  up  to  the  rock  which  had  just  been 
brought  to  her ;  she  raises  it  aloft,  hurls  it  and  follows  it  with 
a  leap  which  measured  the  whole  of  the  distance  described  by 
the  projectile.  It  is  now  Gunther's  turn ;  he  makes  the  motions 
for  lifting  the  enormous  stone ;  Siegfried  raises  it  in  fact,  hurls 
it  and  in  leaping  carries  Gunther  along  with  him.  He  hurls  it 
and  he  leaps  much  further  than  Brunhild  had  done. 

When  Brunhild  saw  this,  she  turned  to  her  followers  and 
said  :  "  Approach  now,  ye,  my  relatives  and  my  men  ;  Gunther 
is  henceforth  your  king."  Then  taking  him  by  the  hand,  she 
courteously  recognized  him  as  her  master. 

To  crown  his  wishes,  Gunther  then  conducted  Brunhild  to 
Worms,  and  on  his  arrival  at  home  gave  Chrimhild  in  marriage 
to  Siegfried,  as  he  had  promised.  The  two  marriages  were 
celebrated  at  the  same  time ;  and  for  a  number  of  days  in  suc- 
cession, the  palace  and  the  city  were  full  of  fetes,  of  banquets 
and  of  tournaments.  Chrimhild  and  Siegfried  were  now  in 
the  zenith  of  happiness ;  they  had  never  entertained  a  wish 
but  what  was  now  fulfilled  and  even  surpassed. 

Not  so  with  Gunther  and  Brunhild.  The  latter  wanted 
to  be  a  mere  nominal  wife.  The  supernatural  force  with  which 
she  had  been  endowed  depended  on  the  condition  of  her  vir- 
ginity, and  there  was  but  one  man  in  the  world  who  was 
capable  of  triumphing  over  that  force.  It  was  the  same  indi- 
vidual that  had  already  triumphed  over  it  once  before  ;  it  was 
Siegfried.  Gunther  was  obliged  to  apply  to  him  again,  and  to 
commission  him  to  break  in  Brunhild  a  second  time.  Still 
invisible  and  again  taken  for  Gunther,  Siegfried,  in  a  second 
struggle  with  Brunhild,  achieved  a  second  victory  over  her,  the 
advantages  of  which  he  had  engaged,  for  the  honor  of  the  king, 
not  to  push  too  far.  He  contented  himself  with  carrying  off 
Brunhild's  girdle  and  a  ring  she  wore  on  her  finger.  But  he 
had  the  fatal  indiscretion  of  giving  this  girdle  and  this  ring 
to  Chrimhild,  and  to  inform  her  how  he  had  obtained  them. 


200  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

After  the  consummation  of  all  these  ceremonies  and  festivals, 
Siegfried  conducted  Chrimhild  into  the  kingdom  of  Niderland, 
the  crown  of  which  his  father  Sigmund  now  resigned  in  his 
favor.  Ten  years  passed  away,  at  the  end  of  which  he  had  a 
son  to  whom  he  gave  the  name  of  Gunther ;  and  during  the 
same  interval  King  G-tmther  likewise  had  obtained  a  son  to 
whom  he  had  given  the  name  of  Siegfried. 

Brunhild,  however,  bore  at  the  bottom  of  her  heart  a  certain 
mysterious  grief,  which  she  endeavored  to  suppress,  but  which 
returned  in  spite  of  her  with  ever  increasing  importunity  and 
sharpness.  There  was  something  in  the  destiny  of  Siegfried 
and  Chrimhild  which  she  did  not  comprehend  and  which 
wounded  her.  She  had  really  taken  Siegfried  to  be  the  vassal 
of  Gunther,  and  had  revolted,  at  the  siglit  of  his  marriage  to 
Chrimhild.  She  had  then  been  told,  that  Siegfried  was  a  king 
as  well  as  Gunther,  and  at  least  as  powerful  as  he ;  she  had 
been  loth  to  believe  it.  She  was  constantly  astonished  to  see 
Siegfried  tranquil  in  his  realm  and  never  dreaming  of  perform- 
ing any  act  of  homage  to  the  monarch  of  the  Surgundians. 
She  thought  herself  above  Chrimhild,  and  sighed  for  an  occa- 
sion to  enforce  her  pretensions.  She  had  also  an  ardent  desire 
of  seeing  Siegfried  again,  as  if  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  a  solution 
for  the  mysterious  doubts  by  which  she  was  tormented  on  his 
account.  She  therefore  requested  Gunther  to  invite  both  of 
them  to  Worms  on  a  visit. 

Gunther  extended  the  invitation  with  pleasure,  and  it  was 
accepted  in  the  same  manner  on  the  part  of  Siegfried  and 
Chrimhild,  who  in  the  course  of  a  few  days  arrived  at  the  court 
of  Burgundy,  followed  by  a  brilliant  retinue.  At  first  there 
was  nothing  but  a  succession  of  festivals  and  sports ;  but  the 
demon  of  pride  and  jealousy  which  tormented  Brunhild  soon 
began  to  disturb  the  narmony  of  these  fetes. 

A  perilous  conversation  ensued  between  the  two  queens. 
Brunhild,  in  speaking  of  Gunther  and  of  Siegfried,  always 
affected  to  regard  the  latter  as  the  vassal  or  inferior  of  the 
former,  and  Chrimhild  did  not  fail  to  repel  these  pretensions 
with  disdain.  The  conversation  gradually  degenerated  into  a 
quarrel,  and  the  quarrel  soon  reached  the  highest  degree  of 
exasperation.  Chrimhild  discloses  the  fatal  secret  in  her  rage. 
She  reproaches  Brunhild  with  having  been  twice  subdued  by 
Siegfried,  before  becoming  the  submissive  wife  of  Gunther  and 
a  woman  like  others  of  her  sex  ;  and  in  proof  of  her  assertion, 
she  exhibits  in  the  presence  of  her  rival  the  girdle  and  the  ring 
which  the  latter  had  lost  in  her  second  encounter. 

At  this  disclosure,  the  rage  of  Brunhild  exceeds  all  bounds ; 
and  the  entire  court  of  Worms,  disordered  by  the  quarrel  of  the 


Analysis  of  the  Nilelungen.  201 

two  women,  is  now  a  scene  of  desolation  and  of  tumult.  Though 
Siegfried  swore,  that  he  had  never  boasted  of  any  triumph 
which  might  offend  the  pride  or  honor  of  Brunhild,  the  latter 
nevertheless  continues  to  lament,  to  cry  and  to  consider  herself 
the  most  outraged  and  the  most  unfortunate  of  women. 

When  Hagen  saw  the  wife  of  his  master  in  this  condition,  he 
swore  that  he  would  avenge  her,  and  he  immediately  plotted  % 
mortal  conspiracy  against  Siegfried,  to  which  King  Gunther 
himself  at  last  consents,  and  which  Giselher,  the  youngest  of 
Chrimhild's  brothers  opposes  in  vain. 

Hagen  and  his  accomplices  circulate  the  rumor,  that  the* 
Saxons  and  the  Danes,  who  had  already  been  vanquished  by 
Siegfried,  were  preparing  to  revenge  themselves  and  to  make  a, 
new  descent  upon  the  Burgundians.  Misled  by  this  false  rumor,,. 
Siegfried,  ever  generous  and  eager  to  embrace  every  oppor-^ 
tunity  for  distinguishing  himself,  expresses  his  readiness  to> 
march  against  them.  His  services  are  accepted  and  the  Bur- 
gundians assemble  from  all  quarters,  for  the  purpose  of  follow- 
ing him/  When  all  are  ready  to  depart,  Hagen  goes  in  search 
of  Chrimhild,  under  the  pretence  of  taking  leave  of  her  and 
of  receiving  her  commands. 

Chrimhild,  who  is  at  this  time  more  solicitous  than  usually 
about  Siegfried's  departure  for  the  war,  tenderly  commends, 
her  husband  to  the  care  of  Hagen.  When  the  latter  desires  ta 
know  what  sort  of  service  he  could  render  to  a  warrior  like* 
Siegfried,  who  was  invulnerable  and  invincible,  Chrimhild,. 
betrayed  into  undue  confidence  by  her  disquietude,  discloses  to 
him  a  fatal  secret.  She  tells  him,  that  as  Siegfried  was  bathing 
in  the  blood  of  the  dragon  which  rendered  him  invulnerable,  a 
large  willow-leaf  had  fallen  on  his  back  between  his  two 
shoulders,  and  that  the  spot  covered  by  this  leaf  had  remained 
vulnerable. 

Hagen  promises  to  remain  constantly  by  the  side  of  Siegfried 
and  to  see  that  no  blow  should  take  effect  upon  the  fatal  spot* 
But  in  order  to  insure  the  success  of  his  vigilance,  he  engages 
Chrimhild  to  sew  on  the  coat  of  the  warrior  some  sign  by  which 
he  migjht  distinguish  the  vulnerable  spot,  and  the  credulous 
queen  informs  him  that  she  would  sew  a  small  cross  on  it. 

Hagen,  now  in  the  possession  of  these  precious  eecrets,  retires 
quite  delighted,  and  immediately  circulates  the  report  that  the 
Saxons  and  the  Danes,  who  had  menaced  the  Burgundians,  had 
renounced  their  project  of  an  invasion,  and  retreated  to  their 
own  country.  The  question  is  now  no  longer  of  war,,  but  of  a 
brilliant  hunting-party  for  which  all  the  preparations  are 
already  made,  and  to  which  Siegfried  is  invited  by  King 
Gunther  himself. 


202  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

Before  setting  out  for  this  chase,  the  hero  went  to  take  leave 
of  Chrimhild.  The  latter,  disquieted  by  sinister  dreams  which 
she  had  recently  had,  and  full  of  bodeful  presentiments  and  of 
regret  for  having  intrusted  Hagen  with  such  important  secrets, 
endeavors  by  all  sorts  of  prayers  and  caresses  to  prevent  Sieg- 
fried from  joining  the  projected  hunting-party ;  but  the  hero, 
smiling  at  her  fears,  tranquillizes  her  and  leaves  her  with  the 
tenderest  adieus. 

The  chase  took  place  in  a  vast  and  dense  forest ;  and  after 
the  chase  a  repast  was  served  in  the  same  forest — a  repast  at 
which  the  viands  were  abundant,  but  where  wine  was  entirely 
wanting.  It  had  been  forgotten  on  purpose.  Siegfried  was 
mortally  thirsty.  Hagen  proposes  to  conduct  him  and  the  rest 
of  the  party  to  a  fine  spring  which  was  quite  near  there,  and 
where  they  all  might  quench  their  thirst  at  pleasure.  The  in- 
vitation is  gratefully  accepted,  and  they  proceed  toward  the 
spring.  Siegfried  puts  his  sword  and  bow  into  the  hands 
of  Hagen,  places  his  shield  upon  the  ground,  and  in  a  kneel- 
ing posture  bends  over  the  spring  from  which  he  is  about 
to  drink.  Hagen,  seizing  the  moment,  strikes  him  with  his 
lance  on  the  spot  indicated  by  the  cross,  and  flees,  frightened  at 
the  blow  which  he  had  just  inflicted. 

Though  mortally  wounded,  Siegfried  rises  again,  looks  for  his 
sword  and,  failing  to  find  it,  starts  in  pursuit  of  his  murderer 
without  any  other  weapon  except  his  buckler,  which  he  has 
picked  up  from  the  ground.  He  hurls  it  after  Hagen  with  such 
violence,  that  the  buckler  is  shattered  to  pieces  and  Hagen  laid 
prostrate.  But  the  hero  falls  likewise  into  his  blood,  and 
breathes  out  his  last  with  a  torrent  of  imprecations  and  re- 
proaches on  his  perfidious  enemies. 

The  murderers  would  probably  have  left  his  corpse  in  the 
forest ;  but  Hagen  had  his  reasons  for  having  it  carried  into 
the  palace.  He  ordered  it  to  be  thrown,  unwashed  of  its  blood, 
before  the  door  of  Chrimhild,  and  to  be  placed  in  such  a  posi- 
tion, that  it  would  be  the  first  object  to  strike  the  attention  of 
the  unhappy  queen  in  the  morning,  when  she  would  be  coming 
out  to  church. 

We  can  easily  imagine  the  shrieks,  the  tears  and  lamen- 
tations of  Chrimhild  at  a  sight  like  this,  and  the  desolations 
which  the  rumor  of  the  horrible  news  must  have  spread  in  the 
palace,  through  the  city  and  throughout  the  entire  country. 
At  the  obsequies  of  Siegfried,  Chrimhild  openly  accuses  Hagen 
of  being  the  assassin,  and  challenges  him  to  undergo  the  ordeal 
of  blood.  It  was  a  very  generally  prevalent  belief  during  the 
Middle  Age,  that  if  a  man  had  fallen  as  the  victim  of  a  secret 
murder,  the  wound  of  the  dead  body  would  open  again  and 


Analysis  of  the  Nibelungen.  203 

bleed  anew  at  the  approach  of  the  murderer,  whose  guilt  was 
thus  discovered ;  and  the  tribunals  of  justice  had  sometimes 
recourse  to  this  test.  Upon  the  summons  of  Chrimhild,  Hagen 
advances  toward  the  corpse  of  Siegfried,  from  whose  wounds 
the  blood  immediately  begins  to  stream  afresh.  Hagen  per- 
ceives it,  but  he  is  not  the  man  to  be  disquieted  by  things  like 
these. 

Chrimhild  having  thus  become  a  widow,  it  was  at  first  her 
intention  to  return  to  the  country  of  her  deceased  master,  for 
the  purpose  of  spending  the  remainder  of  her  life  there  in  tears 
and  mourning.  But  her  mother  Ute,  and  her  two  younger 
brothers,  Gernot  and  Giselher,  who  had  had  no  share  in  the 
murder  of  Siegfried,  and  who  loved  her  tenderly,  prevailed  on 
her  by  their  prayers  to  remain  with  them  at  Worms,  promising 
her  all  the  attentions  and  all  the  devotion,  that  brotherly 
affection  could  bestow.  She  had  a  spacious  mansion  built  in 
the  proximity  of  the  church,  and  led  from  that  time  forward  a 
life  of  godliness  and  devotion,  without  however  being  able  to 
console  herself  for  her  loss. 

An  interval  of  two  years  passed  away,  during  which  she  lived 
in  fraternal  concord  with  Gernot  and  Giselner,  but  without 
exchanging  a  word  with  Gunther  or  enduring  the  sight  of 
Hagen.  J  inally,  however,  she  became  reconciled  to  Gunther ; 
the  ferocious  Hagen  was  the  only  one  whom  she  excluded  from 
her  pardon,  and  he  indeed  could  easily  do  without  it.  She  had 
the  famous  treasure  of  the  Nibelungen  brought  to  Worms, 
which  Alberich,  the  dwarf,  to  whom  Siegfried  has  intrusted  the 
care  of  it,  had  pronounced  to  be  her  property. 

With  such  a  treasure,  Chrimhild  had  a  superabundance 
of  means  for  doing  good  and  winning  friends.  But  Hagen, 
who  has  become  a  sort  of  an  evil  genius  to  her  and  a  perse- 
cuting demon,  envied  her  this  consolation.  Having  persuaded 
Gunther,  that  this  fatal  treasure  in  the  hands  of  Chrimhild 
would  be  a  power  she  might  use  to  his  detriment,  he  took 
it  upon  himself  to  plunder  her  of  it  by  main  force.  He  kept 
it  in  his  own  charge  for  some  time,  and  finally  threw  it  into 
the  Rhine,  in  the  hope  of  appropriating  it  at  some  future  time. 

Thirteen  years  had  now  elapsed  since  the  death  of  Siegfried. 
During  this  interval,  Attila,  the  King  of  the  Huns,  had  lost 
queen  Helke,  his  first  wife,  and  was  now  on  the  look-out  for  a 
second.  Chrimhild's  name  was  mentioned  to  him  ;  her  beauty 
was  so  highly  lauded,  that  he  was  resolved  to  demand  her  in 
marriage,  although  she  was  a  Christian.  Rudiger,  the  margrave 
of  Bechlare  on  the  Danube,  one  of  his  most  powerful  vassals,  is 
charged  with  the  commission  of  making  this  demand. 

This  Rudiger  plays  from  this  moment  a  conspicuous  and  an 


201  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

% 

interesting  part  in  the  action  of  the  Nibelungen.  He  is  the 
most  amiable  and  the  noblest  character  of  the  whole  poem, 
which  the  poet  appears  to  have  drawn  with  the  greatest  care, 
and  we  might  say  con  amore.  This  is  a  fact  which  I  can  simply 
notice  here,  and  of  which  the  reasons  will  become  apparent 
hereafter. 

Rudiger  arrives  at  Worms  with  a  magnificent  escort  and  i» 
received  there  accordingly.  He  at  once  explains  to  Gunther 
the  object  of  his  mission.  Gunther  demands  three  days  for 
deliberation.  His  friend  and  counsellors  are  all  of  the  opinion, 
that  he  should  accept  the  alliance  of  Attila,  and  consent  to  his 
marriage  with  Chrimhild.  Hagjen  alone  is  of  an  opposite  mind. 
He  is  apprehensive  of  some  misfortune  from  this  union  \  but 
Gernot  and  Giselher,  who  spoke  and  acted  for  the  interest  of 
their  sister,  repel  the  sinister  suspicions  and  insinuations  of 
Hagen,  and  it  is  decided,  that  Chrimhild  should  remain  the 
mistress  of  her  lot. 

Having  become  informed  of  the  intentions  of  Attila,  the  latter 
at  first  promptly  and  positively  rejects  the  proposal,  and  it  ia 
with  great  difficulty  that  her  two  brothers  prevail  on  her  to 
listen  at  least  to  Rudiger  and  to  have  some  explanation  with 
him.  Eager  to  succeed  in  a  mission  in  which  his  master  was 
so  intensely  interested,  Rudiger  tries  every  variety  of  entreaties 
and  of  arguments  to  overcome  the  obstinate  resistance  of  Chrim- 
hild ;  but  the  latter  persists  in  her  refusal  and  rejects  the  advice 
and  prayers  of  her  brothers  a  second  time.  Rudiger,  how- 
ever, discovers  at  last  a  means  of  moving  her.  He  represent* 
to  her,  that  by  marrying  Attila  she  would  have  a  chance  for 
avenging  herself  on  her  enemies,  and  he  pledges  himself  per- 
sonally to  aid  her  in  this  vengeance.  The  unexpected  hope, 
which  these  words  kindle  in  her  heart,  decides  the  question, 
and  she  consents  to  marry  Attila. 

The  necessary  preparations  for  the  journey  are  soon  made, 
and  Chrimhild,  attended  by  a  retinue  of  Burgundians,  who  are 
unwilling  to  quit  her,  takes  her  departure  for  the  land  of  the 
Huns,  under  the  escort  of  Rudiger.  Her  three  brothers  accom- 
pany her  to  a  certain  distance.  At  the  moment  of  separation, 
she  takes  the  tenderest  farewell  of  Gernot  and  of  Giselner,  who 
have  not  ceased  to  love  her,  and  who  are  still  ready  to  do  her 
every  favor.  To  confirm  her  reconciliation  with  Gunther,  she 
embraces  him  tenderly ;,  the  poet,  however,  assures  us  that  this 
was  done  by  the  inspiration  of  the  devil. 

Chrimhild  and  her  escort  arrive  safely  at  Bechlare,  the 
capital  of  Rudiger's  margraviate,  where  Gotelind,  the  wife 
of  the  margrave,  and  the  beautiful  young  Dietelind,  hi& 
daughter,  prepare  her  a  magnificent  reception.  But  nothing 


Analysis  of  the  Nilelungen.  205 

can  equal  the  splendor  and  the  joy  of  the  fetes  that  await  her 
in  the  land  of  the  Huns,  at  Vienna,  where  Attila  has  come  to 
meet  her,  and  where  the  royal  marriage  is  to  be  celebrated. 
Amusements  of  every  kind,  martial  sports  and  banquets,  are 
kept  up  uninterruptedly  for  eighteen  days  in  succession. 
Ohrimhild  is  very  far  from  finding  any  pleasure  in  these  festi- 
vals ;  they  call  to  her  memory  others  which  were  dearer  to 
her — those  of  her  marriage  with  Siegfried — and  the  compari- 
son only  contributes  to  increase  her  melancholy.  Nevertheless, 
she  makes  an  effort  to  restrain  herself,  and  to  reciprocate  the 
assiduity  of  Attila  to  the  best  of  her  ability.  The  rejoicings 
of  the  nuptial  ceremonies  being  at  an  end,  the  king  of  the 
Huns,  with  all  his  court,  retraces  nis  journey,  to  regain  his  ordi- 
nary residence  on  the  lower  Danube. 

After  the  lapse  of  seven  years,  Chrimhild  gives  birth  to  a 
eon  whom  she  does  not  fail  to  have  baptized.  Six  more  years 
pass  away,  and  Chrimhild,  who  daily  becomes  more  popular 
and  beloved  among  the  Huns,  who  is  honored  by  all  the  world 
and  in  the  possession  of  all  the  influence  and  power  she  could 
desire,  might  have  been  a  happy  woman,  if  she  could  only 
have  forgotten  Siegfried.  But  she  does  not  forget  him,  she  for- 
gets nothing  that  has  the  slightest  reference  to  him ;  she  does 
not  cease  to  weep,  to  have  ominous  dreams  and  to  meditate  on 
projects  of  revenge,  until  at  last  she  has  decided  on  one  of 
them. 

Feigning  an  affectionate  desire  to  see  her  friends  and  rela- 
tions from  Burgundia  again  after  so  long  a  separation,  she  en- 
treats Attila  to  invite  them  to  a  visit.  Attila,  who  never 
dreams  of  any  insincerity  in  her  request,  immediately  commis- 
sions two  of  his  minstrels  as  the  bearers  of  a  fraternal  invita- 
tion to  the  three  princes  of  the  Burgundians.  Chrimhild  does 
not  fail  to  give  her  special  instructions  to  the  messengers.  She 
studiously  enjoins  on  them  not  to  mention  to  any  one  in  Bur- 
gundia, that  she  was  leading  a  cheerless  and  an  anxious  life  in 
the  country  of  the  Huns,  and  to  convey,  in  her  behalf,  the  great 
desire  she  had  of  seeing  Hagen  oh  that  occasion. 

The  minstrels  take  their  departure.  They  arrive  at  their 
place  of  destination  and  deliver  their  message  faithfully.  Gun- 
ther  demands  eight  days  for  reflection,  and  in  the  mean  time 
consults  his  friends.  They  are  all  in  favor  of  undertaking  the 
journey.  Hagen  alone  is  of  a  contrary  mind.  He  is  mistrust- 
ful of  Chrimhild,  and  apprehends  some  treacherous  design  on 
her  part.  But  Oernot  and  Giselher,  anxious  to  see  their  sister, 
are  for  accepting  the  invitation. 

The  expedition  to  the  country  of  the  Huns  is  therefore  re- 
solved upon.  It  is  however  determined  that  they  should  only 


206  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

proceed  with  an  escort  sufficiently  strong  to  guard  against  the 
dangers  of  a  stratagem.  The  princes  then  set  out  with  a  reti- 
nue consisting  of  sixty  braves  or  heroes,  of  a  thousand  select 
warriors,  and  of  nine  thousand  ordinary  ones. 

Hagen,  as  we  may  well  surmise,  does  not  remain  behind. 
The  dangers  and  fatigues  which  he  foresees,  are  not  the 
thing  to  trouble  or  detain  him.  Another  warrior,  nearly  as 
redoubtable  as  Hagen,  and  destined  to  act  a  conspicuous  part 
in  the  tragical  adventures  of  this  journey,  figures  among  the 
personages  of  the  martial  escort.  This  is  Yolker,  who  is  also 
an  excellent  player  on  the  flute,  and  the  minstrel  of  the  little 
army. 

At  the  end  of  twelve  days  the  Burgundians  arrived  at  the 
banks  of  the  Danube  ;  but  they  find  there  neither  boat  nor 
ferryman.  Hagen  leaves  the  rest  of  his  companions  and  walks 
along  the  stream  in  search  of  some  means  for  crossing  it.  He 
first  encounters  a  company  of  sirens,  who  are  bathing  in  the 
waters  of  the  river,  and  who  give  utterance  to  various  predic- 
tions respecting  the  issue  of  the  journey  of  the  Burgundians* 
"  Warrior,"  says  one  of  them  to  him,  "  retrace  thy  steps  whilst 
thou  hast  time  to  do  so.  If  ye  arrive  among  the  Huns,  ye  are 
all  doomed  to  perish,  thou  and  thy  companions,  except  the 
priest  which  accompanies  you."  Hagen  is  unwilling  to  believe 
the  prediction ;  another  siren  repeats  it  to  him,  but  he  never- 
theless persists  in  searching  for  the  means  of  conveying  the 
company  across  the  stream. 

After  a  number  of  adventures,  he  discovers  at  last  a  bark 
lying  on  the  shore,  of  which  he  takes  immediate  possession,  and 
in  which  he  himself  ferries  the  Burgundians  to  the  t  opposite 
side.  In  the  midst  of  the  passage,  he  seizes  the  priest  of  the 
company  by  the  throat  and  throws  him  overboard  into  the 
river.  'The  unfortunate  man,  who  does  not  know  how  to  swim, 
is  twenty  times  on  the  point  of  being  swallowed  up  by  the 
waves ;  but  by  an  actual  miracle  he  escapes  at  last  without  in- 

a,  and  having  regained  the  shore  which  the  Burgundians 
just  left,  he  proceeds  on  His  way  back  toward  Worms.  By 
drowning  the  chaplain  of  the  expedition,  Hagen  had  desired 
to  falsify  the  predictions  of  the  Danubian  sirens.  He  is  indeed 
a  little  troubled  about  the  issue  of  his  project,  but  the  idea  ot 
returning  never  occurs  to  him. 

In  passing  through  Bavaria,  along  the  right  bank  of  the 
Danube,  the  Burgundians  are  obliged  to  force  their  way,  and 
to  repel  the  attack  of  one  of  the  chiefs  of  the  country.  Hav- 
ing arrived  at  Bechlare,  they  find  Rudiger,  who  gives  them  a 
most  generous  and  hospitable  reception.  Giselher,  the  young- 
est of  the  Burgundian  princes,  becomes  enamored  of  the  fair 


Analysis  of  the  Nibelungen.  207 

Dietelind,  and  asks  her  in  marriage  of  the  margrave,  who  con- 
sents to  the  proposition.  This  union  is  celebrated  by  four  days 
of  feasting  and  rejoicing,  at  the  end  of  which  the  Burgundians 
again  prepare  to  pursue  their  journey  under  the  conduct  of 
Rudiger,  who  desires  to  present  them  in  person  at  the  court  of 
Attila.  The  lady  of  the  margrave,  the  good  Gotelirid,  makes 
magnificent  parting-presents  to  the  most  prominent  of  her 
guests.  She  gives  Hagen  a  very  valuable  shield,  and  Yolker 
bracelets. 

On  their  arrival  in  the  land  of  the  Huns,  the  visitors  are  re- 
ceived by  Dietrich  of  Yerona,  and  by  his  old  and  trusty  ser- 
vant Hildebrand,  whom  Attila  had  sent  ahead  to  meet  them. 
This  Dietrich  is,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  the  most  conspi- 
cuous and  the  most  popular  of  the  heroes  mentioned  in  the 
ancient  poetic  traditions  of  the  Germans.  Obliged  by  circum- 
stances, of  which  there  can  be  no  question  here,  to  quit  the 
country  of  the  Amalungen,  that  is  to  say,  Italy,  of  which  he 
was  then  king,  he  had  fled  with  a  company  of  brave  followers 
to  the  court  of  Attila,  for  refuge,  where  he  had  since  lived  for 
many  years,  respected  by  all  as  the  chief  of  heroes.  He  is  the 
very  ideal  of  martial  honor,  of  justice  and  fidelity.  He  is 
very  uneasy  in  regard  to  the  consequences  of  the  Burgundian 
visit  to  the  court  of  Attila ;  and  he  informs  them  at  the  very 
outset,  that  Chrimhild  is  not  yet  reconciled  to  the  loss  of  Sieg- 
fried, which  is  tantamount  to  saying  that  they  should  be  on 
their  guard. 

Disquieted  by  such  an  admonition,  the  Burgundian  chiefs 
take  Dietrich  aside  for  the  purpose  of  eliciting  Irom  him  some 
further  and  more  special  information  respecting  the  intentions 
of  Chrimhild.  "What  would  you  that  I  should  tell  you?" 
said  Dietrich  in  reply,  "  unless  it  be  that  I  hear  her  weeping 
and  lamenting  every  morning  ?" 

This  information  comes  too  late.  The  Burgundians  pursue 
their  journey  until  they  finally  arrive  at  the  palace  of  Attila. 
The  Huns,  full  of  curiosity  to  see  the  strangers,  flock  together 
from  every  quarter,  filling  the  avenues  through  which  they 
were  expected  to  pass.  Hagen,  who  had  long  since  been  noto- 
rious among  them  as  the  murderer  of  Siegfried,  attracts  parti- 
cular attention.  His  tall  form,  his  haughty  step,  his  terrible 
figure  strike  the  eyes  of  all. 

Attila,  who  had  really  and  sincerely  desired  the  visit  of  the 
Burgundians,  had  made  every  preparation  for  their  reception. 
As  for  Chrimhild,  as  soon  as  she  was  ushered  into  the  presence 
of  her  brothers,  she  embraced  them  all  most  tenderly,  and  par- 
ticularly the  youngest  of  them,  on  whom  she  showered  her 
most  affectionate  caresses.  But  she  paid  no  attention  to  any 


208  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

one  else.  When  Hagen  perceived  this,  he  began  to  tighten 
the  knots  of  his  helmet,  and  said  :  "  Aha  !  they  are  embrac- 
ing kings  here,  and  do  not  even  salute  their  warriors  I"  Chrim- 
hild  overhearing  these  words,  replied :  "  Be  welcome  to  who- 
ever sees  you  here  with  pleasure !  But,  as  for  me,  what  rea- 
fson  have  I  to  salute  you  or  to  bid  you  welcome?  and  what 
do  you  bring  me  from  the  banks  of  the  Rhine?"  "If  I  had 
known  that  you  were  in  want  of  presents,  I  should  have  better 
provided  myself  with  some,"  was  Hagen's  reply.  "  But  it  was 
quite  enough  for  me  to  carry  my  helmet,  my  cuirass  and  my 
trusty  sword !" 

"  i  want  none  of  your  presents,  I  have  no  need  of  your 
gold,"  replied  the  queen;  "I  have  enough  of  my  own,  to  give 
to  whosoever  merits  it.  But  I  have  suffered  from  the  embezzle- 
ment of  my  treasure  and  from  a  murder,  and  this  indeed  were 
well  worth  some  indemnity  !" 

Thereupon  Chrimhild,  before  ushering  the  Burgundians  into 
the  hall  prepared  for  their  accommodation,  requests  them  to 
surrender  their  swords  and  the  rest  of  their  arms,  promising  to 
return  them  again  afterward.  But  Hagen  protests  and  says  : 
"  No,  no,  my  charming  queen  !  This  must  not  be  !  You  shall 
not  have  the  trouble  of  caring  for  my  buckler  or  my  arms. 
You  are  a  queen,  and  I  have  learnt  from  my  father,  that  it  is 
the  part  of  armed  men  to  protect  their  queens."  "  Alas !"  Chrim- 
bild  then  exclaimed,  "  the  Burgundians  are  on  their  guard ; 
they  must  have  been  informed  of  my  design.  Oh,  coula  I  but 
know  the  man  who  told  them !  I  should  make  him  perish." 

It  is  to  be  supposed  that  Chrimhild  uttered  these  words  aside, 
and  without  having  had  the  intention  of  being  understood. 
Dietrich,  however,  either  heard  or  divined  them,  and  replied 
indignantly  :  "  It  is  I,  who  have  cautioned  these  noble  princes 
and  the  valiant  Hagen  to  be  on  their  guard,  and  none  but  a 
malicious  queen,  like  yourself,  could  blame  me  for  the  deed," 

Chrimhild,  abashed  and  furious  at  this  declaration,  retires 
without  uttering  a  word  ;  but  she  darts  a  glance  at  the  enemies 
behind  her,  and  in  this  glance  resides  the  whole  of  her  design. 
Then  Dietrich,  taking  Hagen  by  the  hand,  said:  "The  words 
just  uttered  by  the  queen  afflict  me  and  I  am  sorry  to  see  you 
ere."  "  I  am  prepared  for  all,"  replied  Hagen,  and  thereupon 
the  two  warriors  separate. 

Whilst  the  three  princes  and  their  retinue  are  most  fraternally 
received  by  Attila,  Hagen  and  Yolker,  to  whom  the  ceremo- 
nies appear  tedious,  step  aside  and  are  about  to  seat  themselves 
together  in  front  of  Chrimhild's  apartments,  for  no  other  pur- 
pose than  that  of  defying  the  queen,  who  had  already  been  so 
mortally  offended.  Chrimhild  perceives  them  ;  and  on  recog- 


i; 


Analysis  of  the  Nibelungen.  209 

nizing  Siegfried's  sword  in  the  hands  of  Hagen,  she  begins  to 
cry  and  to  lament  exceedingly.  Some  of  Attila's  men,  who 
are  present,  inquire  of  the  queen  for  the  cause  of  her  chagrin. 
She  accuses  Hagen,  and  exhorts  them  to  avenge  her. 

The  Huns  arm  themselves  immediately  to  the  number  of  six- 
ty. "  How  now  I  What  ?  Sixty  of  you  think  of  lighting  Hagen  !" 
Chrimhild  then  exclaimed :  "  Arm  yourselves  in  greater  num- 
bers !  Let  all  of  you  be  armed,  as  many  as  are  now  present 
here."  They  then  arm  themselves  to  the  number  of  four  hun- 
dred and  express  themselves  ready  to  march.  "  Wait  yet  a 
moment  longer,"  added  the  queen,  "  I  wish  to  appear  in  person 
before  Hagen,  with  my  crown  on  my  head,  and  to  reproach 
him  in  your  presence  for  the  wrongs  he  has  done  me.  He  will 
not  deny  them,  so  ferocious  and  so  proud  is  he !  And  then 
you  must  do  your  best  to  do  me  justice." 

Hagen  and  Volker  were  fully  aware  of  what  was  going  on 
against  them ;  and  yet  they  remained  from  motives  of  pride 
and  of  defiance ;  they  dreaded  the  reproach  of  being  deserters. 
Chrimhild  then  advanced  at  the  head  of  her  four  hundred  men, 
and  addressing  herself  to  Hagen  in  an  angry  tone,  she  said: 
"  Well,  now,  Hagen  1  How  couldst  thou  be  so  audacious,  as 
to  show  thy  face  in  a  country  where  I  am  queen  ?  How  couldst 
thou  be  so  far  wanting  in  sense  as  to  make  thy  appearance 
in  my  presence  ?"  Hagen  replied  :  "  I  have  followed  my  mas- 
ters, it's  not  my  custom  to  stay  when  they  are  marching." 
"  But  hast  thou  not  merited  my  hatred  ?"  continued  Chrimhild, 
"  didst  thou  not  assassinate  Siegfried  my  husband  ?"  "  A  truce 
to  useless  words !"  replied  the  warrior ;  "  yes,  my  name  is 
Hagen,  it  is  I  that  murdered  Siegfried !  He  was  to  pay  the 
tears  of  Brunhild  with  his  blood.  Yes !  and  once  more  yes, 
queen !  I  am  responsible  for  all  vcu  now  impute  to  me.  Let 
whoever  will,  man  or  woman,  call  me  to  account ;  I  shall  be 
guilty  of  no  falsehood  for  so  small  a  matter !"  "  YQ  hear  it," 
said  Chrimhild  to  her  men,  "  ye  hear  it,  my  brave  warriors ; 
do  me  then  justice  and  revenge  me  now  !" 

At  this  appeal,  the  four  hundred  Huns  look  at  each  other, 
without  venturing  to  commence  the  combat.  The  aspect  and 
renown  of  the  two  champions  inspire  them  with  dread.  They 
retreat,  and  the  two  champions  likewise  retire  on  their  part,  in 
order  to  rejoin  their  companions  in  the  hall  where  Attila  re- 
ceived them. 

When  the  hour  for  the  banquet  had  arrived,  the  Amelungen, 
the  Bnrgundians  and  the  Huns  all  take  their  seats  at  the  table, 
and  they  protract  their  merriment  and  feasting  until  midnight. 
The  Burgundians  then  ask  permission  to  retire,  and  they  are 
conducted  into  a  hall  of  vast  dimensions,  where  beds  had  been 

14 


210  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

prepared  for  them.  Giselher  shows  some  uneasiness  in  regard 
to  tne  designs  of  Chrimhild  ;  but  Hagen  and  Yolker  dispel  his 
fears  and  engage  to  watch  in  arms  for  the  common  safety 
throughout  the  night. 

The  precaution  was  not  superfluous.  Chrimhild  had  given 
directions  to  some  of  her  devoted  followers  to  massacre  Hagen 
during  the  night  in  the  midst  of  his  companions.  But  Yolker, 
perceiving  one  of  their  casques  gleaming  in  the  dark,  rouses 
Hagen  from  his  sleep,  and  Chrimhild's  men  retire  without  mak- 
ing the  attempt. 

At  daybreak  the  Burgundians  rise  and  repair  to  church  in 
armsr  Attila  and  Chrimhild  likewise  make  their  appearance, 
attended  by  a  powerful  escort.  Attila  is  surprised  to  see  his 
guests  completely  armed  and  asks  them  for  the  reason.  Hagen 
simply  replies  that  this  was  their  custom.  They  are  too  proud 
to  confess  their  suspicions  and  to  complain  of  Chrimhild's 
attempts,  of  which  Attila  is  entirely  ignorant. 

After  the  mass — for  it  was  customary  among  the  Huns  to 
say  and  to  attend  mass — commence  the  amusements,  the  jousts 
and  tournaments,  at  which  the  chiefs  of  the  different  nations 
there  assembled  to  vie  with  each  other  in  distinguishing  them- 
selves. But  the  festival  soon  changes  into  a  scene  of  com- 
bat. Yolker  having  deliberately  and  from  a  pure  caprice  of 
ferocity  killed  one  of  Attila's  men,  a  fray  ensues  between  the 
Huns  and  the  Burgundians,  the  former  wishing  to  kill  Yolker 
in  return  and  the  latter  rushing  to  his  defence.  It  is  with 
great  difficulty  that  Attila  restores  order  and  saves  the  mur- 
derer. 

Everybody  now  returns  to  the  palace ;  but  everybody  enters 
it  with  defiance,  with  anger  and  with  feelings  01  resentment 
which  wait  but  for  an  occasion  to  burst  forth  in  a  blaze.  No 
one  is  willing  to  lay  aside  his  arms ;  every  one  expects  to  be  in 
want  of  them.  Attila  protects  his  guests  most  generously  and 
utters  the  most  terrible  menaces  against  whoever  of  his  men 
should  venture  to  attack  them. 

Chrimhild,  however,  more  and  more  incensed,  endeavors 
secretly  by  all  sorts  of  bribes  and  promises  to  gain  Attila's 
warriors  over  to  her  side,  in  order  to  make  them  the  instruments 
of  her  vengeance.  She  addresses  herself  in  the  first  place  to  one 
of  the  chiefs  of  the  Amelun^en,  to  old  Hildebrand,  who,  how- 
ever, rejects  her  offers  and  her  prayers  with  disdain.  She  i& 
more  fortunate  with  Bloedel,  one  of  Attila's  most  important 
vassals.  She  seduces  him  by  the  offer  of  a  beautiful  woman  and 
a  duchy,  and  obtains  his  promise  to  engage  in  the  battle  against 
the  Huns.  Contented  and  full  of  happy  expectations,  she 
enters  now  the  hall,  where  dinner  is  already  served.  They  are 


Analysis  of  the  Nibelungen.  211 

seated ;  and  the  gaiety  of  the  occasion  commences  with  good 
cheer  and  wine. 

In  the  course  of  the  banquet,  Attila  sends  for  young  Orteliebe, 
his  son,  and  introduces  him  by  way  of  friendship  to  the  Bur- 
gundian  princes.  "  Here,"  says  he,  "  is  my  son  and  the  son  of 
your  sister ;  I  hope  that  he  will  grow  up  to  serve  you,  and  it  is 
my  desire  that  you  should  take  him  with  you  to  the  Rhine, 
to  bring  him  up  and  make  a  man  of  him."  "  And  how  can  we 
make  a  man  of,  and  what  service  can  we  expect  from,  an  abor- 
tion like  this  ?"  was  Hagen's  hasty  retort.  "  I  swear  that  I  shall 
not  be  seen  much  in  nis 'company  at  the  palace  of  Worms." 
This  brutal  affront  shocks  the  feelings  of  Attila  very  much.  All 
the  hilarity  of  the  banquet  evaporates  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye.  Every  one  is  silent  and  thoughtful,  and  his  sinister  pre- 
sentiments return. 

But  the  war  had  already  recommenced  from  another  quarter. 
Bloedel  had  kept  the  promise  he  had  made  to  Chrimhild. 
He  had  assailed  the  servants  of  the  Burguiidians  in  the  separate 
hall  where  they  were  eating  their  repast,  with  Hagen's  brother, 
the  intrepid  Dankwart,  at  their  head.  Bloedel  is  killed  at  the 
commencement  of  the  fray,  and  his  warriors  are  repulsed  with  a 
loss  of  five  hundred  men.  But  they  return  with  a  reinforce- 
ment of  two  thousand,  and  the  nine  thousand  servants  of  the 
Burgnndians  are  all  massacred  to  the  very  last  of  them,  toge- 
ther with  twelve  chosen  warriors  beside. 

Dankwart  alone  remaining,  defends  himself  against  the  flood 
of  his  assailants.  Forcing  a  passage  to  the  door  of  the  hall,  he 
plunges  out,  constantly  lighting  while  retreating  toward  the 
hall  where  the  kings  were  dining,  and  where  no  one  knew  as 
yet  anything  of  the  massacre  that  had  just  taken  place.  He 
arrives  and  rushes  in,  covered  with  blood,  with  his  sword  in  his 
hancL  and  without  his  shield,  at  the  very  moment  when  the 
young  prince  Orteliebe  was  going  about  from  table  to  table  and 
introducing  himself  to  guest  after  guest. 

"  You  are  too  much  at  your  ease  here,  brother  Hagen,"  ex- 
claimed Dankwart ;  "  know  that  all  our  servants  and  their 
twelve  chiefs  have  been  butchered  by  the  Huns !"  At  this 
announcement,  Hagen  draws  his  sword.  With  the  first  blow  he 
levels  he  hews  off  the  head  of  little  Orteliebe,  and  makes  it  fly 
into  the  lap  of  its  mother ;  with  a  second  he  kills  the  governor 
of  the  child,  and  with  the  third  cuts  off  an  arm  of  the  minstrel 
who  is  playing  the  flute  for  the  amusement  of  the  company. 
"  Receive  now,"  says  he  to  him,  "  the  reward  for  thy  message 
to  the  Burgundians,"  and  he  continues  to  strike  and  to  kill  to 
the  right  and  to  the  left,  whilst  Yolker,  his  faithful  companion, 
is  imitating  his  example.  The  Huns  defend  themselves  as  well 
as  they  can. 


212  History  of  Provencal  Poebry. 

All  this  had  been  done  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  and  before 
the  three  Burgundian  kings  had  time  to  prevent  the  carnage  by 
their  interference.  They  make  a  momentary  attempt  to  stop  it ; 
but  when  they  see  that  it  ia  impossible  to  do  so,  they  themselves 
draw  their  swords  and  likewise  commence  the  work  of  destruc- 
tion. The  Huns,  who  had  pursued  Dankwart  to  the  very 
entrance  of  the  royal  hall,  hearing  the  confusion  and  the  cries 
of  the  fray,  endeavor  to  force  an  entrance  for  the  purpose  of 
aiding  their  friends.  But  Dankwart,  who  is  stationed  at  the 
door,  repulses  them  and  keeps  them  at  bay. 

Attila  and  Chrimhild  are  in  the  most  terrible  agonies  at  the 
sight  of  the  combat.  Chrimhild  then  turns  to  Dietrich  and 
says  :  "  Noble  chief  of  the  Amelungen,  wilt  thou  suffer  me  to 
perish  without  succor  ?"  "  And  what  succor  can  I  bring  thee, 
my  noble  queen  ?"  was  Dietrich's  reply  ;  "  I  am  in  dread  for 
myself  and  for  my  friends.  The  Burgundians  are  so  furious  in 
their  carnage,  that  it  is  impossible  to  stop  them."  Chrimhild 
renews  her  entreaties,  and  Dietrich  bestirring  himself  at  last 
rejoins:  "  I  will  try  what  I  can  do  ;"  and  thereupon  the  chief 
of  warriors  lifts  up  his  voice  of  thunder — a  voice  which,  in  the 
language  of  the  ancient  poet,  resounded  far  through  the  palace 
like  the  sound  of  a  buffalo-horn. 

At  this  voice  and  at  the  command  of  Gunther,  the  Burgun- 
dians suspend  the  combat  for  a  moment.  Dietrich  then  de- 
mands permission  to  withdraw  his  Amelungen  and  to  take  along 
with  him  whomsoever  he  pleased.  His  request  is  granted. 
Then,  extending  one  hand  to  Chrimhild  and  the  other  to  Attila, 
he  conducts  them  out  of  the  hall  with  six  hundred  men.  Rudi- 
ger  asks  and  obtains  the  same  favor.  He  retires  with  five 
hundred  of  his  followers. 

After  the  departure  of  these  two  chiefs,  the  combat  com- 
mences anew  and  continues  till  all  the  Huns  present  are 
completely  exterminated.  The  Burgundians,  now  victorious, 
take  a  few  moments'  rest,  while  Yolker  and  Hagen,  leaning  on 
their  shields  at  the  entrance  of  the  tower  which  led  to  the  hall, 
insult  and  defy  the  Huns  who  had  remained  without. 

In  this  state  of  affairs,  Giselher,  under  the  apprehension  that 
the  Burgundians  were  going  to  be  assailed  again  by  new  floods 
of  the  enemy,  proposes  to  clear  the  hall  of  the  dead  bodies  with 
which  it  was  encumbered.  Seven  thousand  of  them,  either 
dead  or  dving,  are  thrown  out  of  the  windows  before  the  very 
eves  of  their  friends  or  relatives,  who  lament  that  they  are 
obliged  to  see  the  wounded  perish  in  this  manner,  whose 
life  might  have  been  saved  by  a  little  timely  aid.  "  I  have 
been  confidently  assured  that  these  Huns  are  good  for  nothing 
cowards,"  says  Yolker  at  the  sight ;  "  look  at  them,  how  they  are 
crying  like  women,  instead  of  taking  up  and  attending  to  those 


Analysis  of  the  Nibelungen.  213 

of  them  who  are  merely  wounded."  A  noble  margrave  of  the 
Huns,  hearing  Yolker  speak  in  this  manner  and  taking  his 
advice  to  be  a  friendly  one,  advances  for  the  purpose  of  carry- 
ing off  one  of  his  relatives  whom  he  perceives  wounded  amid 
the  pile  of  the  dead,  and  Yolker  kills  him  with  an  arrow. 

Meanwhile  Attila,  who  is  henceforth  as  furious  against  his 
guests,  as  he  had  at  first  been  benevolent  and  generous  toward 
them,  has  also  armed  himself  and  takes  his  place  at  the  head  of 
his  men,  while  Chrimhild  on  her  part  again  resorts  to  tears,  to 
promises  and  to  entreaties  in  order  to  excite  her  warriors 
against  Hagen.  Inflamed  by  these  her  exhortations,  Iring,  a 
young  Danish  chief,  attached  to  the  service  of  Attila,  demands 
his  arms  for  the  purpose  of  trying  his  luck  against  the  redoubted 
llagen ;  several  of  his  friends  propose  to  follow  him,  but  im- 
pelled by  a  generous  love  of  glory,  Iring,  throwing  himself  at 
their  feet,  conjures  them  to  allow  him  to  fight  the  enemy  alone. 

He  first  directs  his  attack  against  Hagen  and  Yolker  both 
successively ;  and  finding  himself  unable  to  gain  any  advantage 
over  them,  he  falls  upon  other  warriors  of  whom  he  kills 
several ;  then  suddenly  turning  again  to  Hagen,  he  wounds 
him  and  escapes  without  any  hurt.  But  he  scarcely  gives  him- 
self time  to  breathe.  Encouraged  by  the  encomiums  of  Chrim- 
hild and  challenged  by  Hagen,  he  returns  to  the  combat.  But 
his  hour  is  at  hand,  and  Hagen  strikes  him  with  a  mortal  blow. 
Two  of  his  friends,  Irnfried  and  Haward,  advance  in  order  to 
avenge  him,  but  they  are  likewise  slain.  Their  men  then 
rallying  force  a  passage  into  the  hall,  and  the  combat  com- 
mences again  within.  The  new  assailants  fall,  one  after  the 
other,  and  the  Burgundians,  wearied  by  their  desperate  efforts, 
repose  upon  the  bodies  cf  the  slain. 

Their  repose  however  is  soon  interrupted.  At  the  behest  of 
Attila  and  Chrimhild,  the  Huns  precipitate  themselves  against 
them ;  they  defend  themselves  with  the  same  intrepidity  and 
with  the  same  success,  until  the  hour  of  midnight  strikes.  When, 
on  the  morning  of  the  following  day,  they  deliberate  in  regard 
to  their  position,  they  become  convinced  of  the  impossibility  of 
offering  anv  further  resistance  to  an  enemy,  whose  numbers 
they  perceive  increasing  every  moment,  while  their  own  is 
necessarily  diminishing,  and  they  resolve  on  making  an  attempt 
to  come  to  terms  of  peace.  Gunther  and  his  two  brothers  come 
out  to  treat  with  Attila  and  Chrimhild  in  a  conference  which 
the  latter  had  agreed  to.  But  Attila  declares,  that  after  all 
the  mischief  they  had  done  they  had  no  peace  to  expect  from 
him.  Gernot  solicits  at  least  the  favor  of  leaving  the  hall  in 
which  they  were  shut  up,  and  of  dying  by  fighting  in  the 
open  air. 


211  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

Attila  and  the  Huns  would  probably  have  consented  to  this 
request,  but  Chrimhild  refuses  to  grant  it.  Giselher  renews  it 
in  his  turn,  and  craves  the  pardon  of  his  sister  in  consideration 
of  the  tenderness  and  affection  which  he  had  ever  exhibited 
toward  her.  "  You  deserve  no  pardon,"  replied  the  queen, 
"  Since  Hagen  has  murdered  my  son.  Nevertheless,  ye  are  the 
children  of  my  mother,  and  I  will  consent  to  let  vou  go  in 
peace,  if  you  will  but  surrender  Hagen."  "  Never  !  exclaims 
Gernot ;  "  this  can  never  be !  And  if  there  were  ten  thousand 
of  us,  we  would  sooner  perish,  all  of  us,  than  deliver  up  a  single 
one  of  our  number !"  "  Yes,  let  us  die !"  adds  Giselher.  "No 
one  can  prevent  us  from  dying  like  brave  men." 

The  parley  being  broken  off,  Chrimhild  sets  fire  to  the  four 
corners  of  the  palace,  and  in  an  instant  the  flames  envelop  the 
hall  of  the  Burgundians,  who  are  either  suffocated  by  the  smoke 
or  devoured  by  the  heat.  Cries  of  horror  and  dolorous  groans 
are  arising  in  every  direction :  "  Oh,  how  frightful  it  is  to 
perish  in  the  midst  of  the  fire !  How  sweet  it  would  be  to  die 
fighting  in  the  open  air ! — ah !  what  a  horrid  thirst  1" 

When  Hagen  heard  these  lamentations  from  the  door  of  the 
hall,  which  in  conjunction  with  Yolker  he  had  undertaken  to 
defend,  he  shouts  with  a  loud  voice  :  "Let  him  who  is  athirst 
drink  blood !  In  the  midst  of  a  conflagration  like  this,  blood 
is  better  than  wine."  At  these  words  one  of  the  Burgundians 
kneels  down  by  the  side  of  a  corpse,  and  undoing  his  helmet 
begins  to  drink  of  the  blood  that  flowed  from  its  wounds,  and 
though  this  was  the  first  time  he  had  ever  tasted  it,  he  still 
finds  it  very  excellent.  "  Thanks  for  your  advice,  Sir  Hagen," 
exclaimed  the  refreshed  warrior,  as  he  rose ;  "  I  am  much 
obliged  to  you  ;  I  have  quenched  my  thirst  completely  !"  And 
others,  who  heard  him  say  that  the  blood  was  good,  drank  of 
it  in  their  turn  and  felt  themselves  relieved. 

Meanwhile  the  flames  continue  to  penetrate  into  the  hall. 
The  Burgundians,  driven  into  the  background,  protect  them- 
selves with  their  shields  as  well  as  they  can,  and  in  order  to 
prevent  the  bands  of  their  helmets  from  taking  fire,  they  steep 
them  in  blood.  The  conflagration,  however,  gradually  abates 
at  last.  The  hall  was  roofed  in  such  a  way  as  to  resist  the 
effect  of  the  flames.  But  of  all  the  number  of  the  Burgun- 
dians six  hundred  only  remained ;  four  hundred  had  perished 
either  in  combat  or  in  the  flames. 

After  a  few  hours,  which  had  been  a  century  of  inexpressible 
anguish,  Giselher  says :  "  I  think  it  must  be  nearly  daylight, 
I  feel  a  fresh  breeze  rising."  "  Yes,"  says  another,  "  I  perceive 
the  day  approaching,  but  the  day  will  bring  us  no  advantage 
over  the  night.  Let  us  prepare  to  die  with  honor !" 


Analysis  of  the  Nibelungen.  215 

His  word  was  true ;  for,  scarcely  had  daylight  made  its 
appearance,  before  the  Burgundians  were  assailed  anew  by 
multitudes  of  Huns  which  kept  increasing  around  them  every 
moment. 

Rudiger,  the  good  margrave,  touched  by  their  distress,  makes 
a  final  attempt  to  reconcile  them  to  Attila.  But  Dietrich,  to 
whom  he  addresses  himself,  declares  the  king's  unwillingness 
to  listen  to  any  proposals  of  peace.  Rudiger  is  disconsolate ; 
he  is  unable  to  restrain  his  tears ;  he  laments  the  frightful 
destiny  of  the  valiant  warriors,  who  had  been  his  guests,  and 
one  of  whom  was  his  son-in-law.  One  of  Attila's  men,  who  wit- 
nesses this  anguish,  loudly  denounces  him  to  Chrimhild  as  a 
traitor  and  a  coward,  who  only  desires  peace  from  a  lack  of 
courage  to  fight  and  to  fulfill  his  duty  as  a  vassal.  Rudigers 
grief  is  quelled  for  a  moment  by  his  anger.  He  kills  his  tra- 
ducer  by  a  blow  with  his  fist,  and  openly  declares  that  he  can 
not  in  consistency  with  good  faith  fight  against  men,  who  had 
come  to  the  court  of  Attila  under  his  escort  and  protection. 
But  Attila  reproaches  him  sharply  for  this  refusal  to  serve. 
Chrimhild  presses  her  suit  still  more  urgently;  she  reminds 
him  of  the  promise  he  had  formerly  made  at  Worms  to  aid  her 
and  to  avenge  her  on  her  enemies,  and  finally  throws  herself 
at  his  feet  to  implore  his  assistance.  Attila  carries  his  impor- 
tunity to  the  same  extent,  and  the  generous  Rudiger  is  thus 
divided  between  two  contrary  duties,  both  of  which  are  equally 
imperious  and  equally  painful.  "  Oh,  how  unfortunate  I  am  !" 
he  then  exclaims  in  his  distress,  "  to  have  lived  to  see  a  sight 
like  this !  To-day  I  am  compelled  to  lose  my  honor,  my  faith, 
my  probity  and  all  that  God  has  given  me.  Whichever  party 
I  may  serve,  or  whichever  I  may  abandon,  I  still  shall  be  in 
the  wrong,  and  if  I  keep  neutral  and  undivided,  I  shall  be 
blamed  by  all." 

Then  turning  toward  Attila,  he  said ;  "  My  lie^e  and  master, 
take  back  whatever  1  hold  in  fief  from  you  ;  tak:e  back  your 
lands  and  castles ;  I  want  no  more  of  them.  I  am  going  to 
depart.  I  shall  take  my  daughter  by  one  hand  and  my  wife 
by  the  other,  and  I  shall  go  begging  my  bread  throughout  the 
country,  but  I  shall  never  be  wanting  in  my  faith  and 
honor." 

Chrimhild  and  Attila,  however,  are  not  yet  ready  to  accept 
the  refusal ;  they  redouble  their  entreaties  and  their  prayers, 
until  at  last  they  succeed  in  shaking  the  resolution  of  Rudiger.. 
"  The  matter  is  therefore  settled  now,"  exclaimed  the  noble 
margrave,  "  and  I  shall  have  to  give  my  life  to-day  for  the 
benefits  you  have  conferred  on  me  !  I'll  die,  then,  since  you'll 
have  it  so !  In  a  few  moments  my  lands,  my  castles  will  revert 


216  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

to  you  through  a  hand  of  which  I  am  now  ignorant.     I  com- 
mend to  you  my  wife  and  daughter." 

Then  turning  to  his  warriors,  he  said :  "  Quick,  arm  your- 
selves, ye  braves  ;  let  all  of  you  be  armed !  We  are  about  to 
march  against  the  Burgundians."  When  the  latter  perceive 
him  advancing  at  the  head  of  his  men,  they  are  struck  with 
surprise  and  grief.  They  are  now  troubled  for  the  first  time. 
The  idea  of  fighting  against  the  generous  Rudiger,  whom  every- 
body honored,  and  to  whom  they  themselves  were  under  so 
many  obligations,  fills  them  with  horror. 

But  Rudiger  has  already  arrived  within  speaking-distance  of  the 
enemy.  He  sets  his  superb  buckler  down  upon  the  ground  for  a 
moment,  which  was  a  sign  that  he  had  something  to  say  to  them. 
" Defend  yourselves,  ye  valiant  Burgundians!"  he  exclaims, 
"  I  am  constrained  to  attack  you."  Protestations  of  amity  and 
of  regret  are  interchanged  on  both  sides,  and  at  the  moment 
when  the  combat  was  to  commence,  Hagen  suspends  it  once 
more  by  exclaiming :  "  Noble  Rudiger,  here  is  the  magnificent 
shield  which  your  good  lady,  the  margravine,  presented  to  me, 
and  which  I  carried  with  me  as  a  precious  gift  of  friendship  to 
the  country  of  the  Huns.  But  see,  it  is  now  completely  muti- 
lated by  the  blows  of  the  Huns.  How  gladly  would  I  exchange 
my  cuirass  for  a  shield  like  yours!"  "By  giving  you  this 
shield,"  says  Rudiger,  "I  shall  perhaps  offend  the  queen.  But 
here  it  is,  notwithstanding  !  Take  it,  brave  Hagen,  and  may 
you  safely  carry  it  to  the  land  of  the  Burgundians  !" 

On  seeing  Rudiger  thus  depriving  himself  of  his  buckler, 
many  warriors  who  had  never  wept  before,  were  moved  to 
tears.  Hagen  himself  was  touched,  and  declared  that  he  would 
not  fight  against  him. 

Yolker,  having  witnessed  this  scene,  advances  in  his  turn 
toward  Rudiger.  "  Behold,"  says  he,  "  behold  the  bracelets 
which  your  kind  lady  the  margravine  gave  to  me,  recom- 
mending me  to  take  them  with  me  to  the  fetes,  when  we  were 
coming  on.  Will  you  inform  her  that  I  am  wearing  them  ?" 
"  Yes,  brave  Volker,"  was  Rudiger's  reply,  "  I  promise  you  to 
do  so,  if  I  see  her  again  !" 

"  After  this  admirable  incident,  the  effect  of  which  may  be 
compared  to  that  of  a  pure  ray  of  the  sun  in  the  midst  of  a  most 
terrible  tempest,  the  combat  recommences.  Rudiger,  after 
having  made  great  havoc  among  the  Burgundians,  is  assailed 
by  Gernot ;  they  both  fight  for  a  great  while  with  equal  valor, 
and  they  conclude  by  killing  each  other.  After  the  fall  of 
Rudiger,  all  his  followers  are  cut  to  pieces  to  the  very  last  of 
them. 

Meanwhile  the  rumor  of  Rudiger's  death  spreads  in  every 


Analysis  of  the  Nibelungen.  217 

direction,  and  with  this  rumor  an  inexpressible  consternation 
and  sorrow.  Attila  and  Chrimhild  particularly  are  full  of 
despair.  Dietrich  is  unwilling  to  credit  the  odious  news.  Old 
Hildebrand  is  sent  to  ascertain  the  truth  of  it,  and  he  is  accom- 
panied by  a  numerous  troop  of  Amelungen,  all  armed  and  ready 
for  action  in  case  of  an  emergency. 

Hildebrand  sets  out,  and  having  come  within  speaking  dis- 
tance of  the  Burgundians,  he  asks  what  had  become  of  Rudiger. 
The  reply  was  that  he  was  dead,  and  at  this  reply  the  Amelun- 
gen begin  to  weep  and  to  lament  until  their  beards  and  cheeks 
are  completely  inundated  with  their  tears.  "  Now,  then,  ye 
Burgundians,"  replied  Hildebrand  with  a  voice  broken  with 
frequent  sobs,  "  give  up  the  body  of  Rudiger,  that  we  may  render 
the  last  service  to  him  whom  we  would  have  so  gladly  served 
alive !"  "  The  body  of  Rudiger !  No  one  shall  bring  it  to 
you,"  replied  Yolker.  "  You  may  come  yourselves  and  take  it, 
as  it  lies  here  all  besmeared  with  blood.  The  service  ye  wish 
to  render  him  will  be  all  the  more  complete  for  it." 

After  these  insolent  words,  the  altercation  between  the  Ame- 
lungen and  the  Burgundians  becomes  still  sharper,  until  it 
finally  ends  in  a  combat  in  which  all  of  Dietrich's  warriors  are 
killed,  with  the  single  exception  of  Hildebrand,  who  retreats, 
wounded  by  Hagen.  On  the  side  of  the  Burgundians,  Hagen 
and  Gunther  are  the  only  warriors  left  alive. 

Completely  covered  with  blood,  Hildebrand  returns  to  Die- 
trich, who,  seeing  him  wounded,  and  without  giving  him  time 
to  explain  himself,  says  to  him  :  "  You  have  suffered  no  more 
than  you  have  merited !  Why  did  you  break  the  peace  which 
I  had  promised  to  the  Burgundians  ?"  "  We  have  only  de- 
manded the  body  of  Rudiger  and  the  Burgundians  have  refused 
it."  At  these  words,  Dietrich,  no  longer  now  in  doubt  about 
the  death  of  Rudiger,  gives  vent  to  tears  and  lamentations  for 
the  first  time  in  his  life.  "  Give  orders  to  my  men  to  arm 
themselves  at  once,"  he  thereupon  exhorted  Hildebrand ;  "  and 
bring  me  my  arms,  too ;  I  will  proceed  myself  to  question  the 
Burgundians."  "  You  have  no  other  man  besides  myself, 
dear  master,"  was  Hildebrand's  reply  ;  "  all  the  rest  are  dead." 

New  source  of  anguish  to  Dietrich  this,  who  arms  himself 
with  all  possible  speed  and  then  marches  with  rapid  strides  to- 
ward the  Burgundians,  followed  by  Hildebrand.  Having 
arrived  at  the  door  of  the  hall  where  Gunther  and  Hagen  are 
stationed,  ready  to  defend  themselves,  the  hero  puts  his  shield 
upon  the  ground,  as  a  sign  of  pacific  intentions.  He  complains 
of  the  death  of  his  men,  of  that  of  Rudiger,  and  of  their  refu- 
sal to  give  up  the  body  of  the  latter.  "  All  this,"  he  adds, 
"  requires  some  reparation.  Surrender  yourselves  therefore  at 


218  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

discretion  into  m y  hands ;  I  will  protect  you  with  all  my  influ- 
ence and  power,  so  that  none  of  the  Huns  will  dare  to  do  you 
the  slightest  injury.  I  pledge  you  my  word  to  reconduct  you 
to  your  country  and  to  die,  if  need  be,  in  your  defence."  "  May 
God  forbid,"  exclaimed  Hagen,  "  that  two  brave  warriors,  still 
in  possession  of  their  arms  wherewith  they  may  defend  them- 
selves, should  ever  surrender  to  any  man  whoever  he  may  be!" 
"  Very  well,  then,  let  us  see  how  you  will  defend  yourself!" 
was  Dietrich's  reply. 

Hereupon  the  combat  between  the  two  powerful  warriors 
commences.  Dietrich  is  at-  first  obliged  to  employ  all  his  agi- 
lity and  skill  to  avoid  the  blows  of  Hagen  and  of  his  redoubt- 
able Balmung,  Siegfried's  former  sword.  But  after  a  while, 
seizing  the  moment  when  the  Burgundian  exposed  his  side, 
he  wounds  him  with  a  large,  deep  gash.  "  There  you  are 
wounded,  Hagen!"  said  Dietrich  then;  UI  should  acquire  but 
little  honor,  were  I  to  make  an  end  of  you  ;  I  prefer  to  make 
you  prisoner."  While  uttering  these  words,  he  throws  aside  his 
shield,  and  rushing  suddenly  upon  Hagen  incloses  him  in  his 
iron  arms,  binds  him  and  carries  him  thus  bound  to  Chrimhild, 
saying :  "  Spare  him  his  life ;  who  knows  but  that  at  some  fu- 
ture day  he  may,  by  his  faithful  services,  repair  the  mischief  he 
has  done  you  ?" 

Chrimhild  is  filled  with  joy  at  a  spectacle  like  this ;  and  mak- 
ing Dietrich  many  acknowledgments,  she  orders  Hagen  to  be 
transported  into  a  dark  dungeon.  Dietrich  returns  to  Gunther, 
and  after  a  long  combat  throws  him  at  last  upon  the  ground, 
surcharges  him  with  fetters  and  brings  him  before  Chrimhild. 
"  Know,  noble  lady,  know,"  says  he  then  to  her,  "  that  never 
valiant  men  like  these  were  delivered  prisoners  to  a  queen. 
Permit  my  friendship  to  preserve  their  lives."  Chrimhild 
assures  him  that  his  prayer  would  be  granted,  and  the  hero 
retires  weeping. 

But  scarcely  had  he  departed,  when  the  queen  ordered  Gun- 
ther and  Hagen  to  be  thrown  into  separate  prisons.  Then  mak- 
ing her  appearance  before  the  latter,  she  accosted  him  thus : 
"  Hagen,  if  you  will  restore  to  me  the  treasure  of  which  you 
have  robbed  me,  I  will  permit  you  to  return  to  the  country  of 
the  Burgundians."  "  My  noble  queen,"  replied  Hagen,  "  your 
words  are  spoken  to  the  wind.  I  have  sworn,  that  I  would 
never  indicate  or  surrender  the  treasure  of  the  Nibelungen  to 
any  one,  as  long  as  one  of  my  masters  is  alive." 

At  these  words  of  Hagen,  Chrimhild  leaves  him;  but  after 
the  lapse  of  a  few  moments,  she  returns,  holding  a  bleeding 
head  by  its  hair.  "  You  have  no  longer  any  master,"  says  she 
to  Hagen,  as  she  presents  the  head  to  him,  "and  now  you 


Analysis  of  the  Nilelungen.  219 

may  reveal  to  me  the  secret  of  the  treasure."  Hagen,  darting 
a  glance  at  the  head,  recognizes  it  at  once  as  that  of  Gunther, 
and  overwhelmed  with  the  intensest  grief,  exclaims :  "  It  all 
has  come  to  pass,  as  I  have  wished  it.  God  and  myself  now 
only  know  where  the  treasure  of  the  Nibelungen  is.  Thou,  de- 
mon of  a  woman,  wilt  never  know,  nor  ever  own  a  particle 
of  it." 

"  I  shall  have  at  least  this  sword  of  it,"  was  Chrimhild's  re- 
ply ;  "  it  is  my  Siegfried's  ;  he  wore  it  when  I  saw  him  last." 
She  then  seizes  the  sword  by  the  hilt,  and  having  drawn  it  out 
of  the  scabbard  brandishes^it  over  Hagen  and  with  a  single  blow 
cuts  off  his  head. 

Attila,  Hildebrand  and  Dietrich,  meanwhile  arriving  and 
perceiving  what  Chrimhild  had  done,  are  seized  with  horror. 
Hildebrand  cannot  restrain  his  anger  ;  he  rushes  upon  her  and 
strikes  her  with  such  violence,  that  he  kills  her.  Thus  ends  the 
barbarous  tragedy.* 

*  The  poet  concludes  the  terrible  action  of  his  epopee  with  the  following  two  stanzas  : 

Jne  chan  iuch  niht  bescheiden  .  waz  sider  da  gesohach  , 
wan  christen  unt  heiden  .  weinen  man  do  sach , 
wibe  unt  knehte  .  unt  manige  schone  meit . 
die  heten  nach  ir  frjunden ,  diu  aller  grozisten  leit . 

Jne  sage  iu  nu  niht  mere  .  von  der  grozen  not . 
die  da  erslagen  waren  .  die  lazen  ligen  tot . 
wie  ir  dinch  an  geviengen  .  sit  der  Hunen  diet , 
hie  hat  daz  meere  ein  ende  .  daz  ist  der 
Nibelunge  Liet . 

I  cannot  tidings  give,  of  what  did  afterward  take  place. 

Further  than  this  ; — fair  wife  and  knight  were  seen  with  weeping  face ; 

And  eke  the  trusty  yeomanry,  wept  for  their  friends  no  less. 

Thus  have  I  brought  unto  an  end  THE  NIBLUNGER'S  DISTRESS, 

[  V,  Lasaberg's  text  and  Birch's  translation,— Ed,* 


220  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

WALTER  OF   AQUITANIA. 
til.      ANALYSIS     OF     WALTER. 

THE  author  of  the  "  Song  of  the  Nibelungen/'  is  entirely  un- 
known. We  can  only  judge,  from  the  dialect 'and  from  various 
features  of  his  work,  that  he  must  have  belonged  to  that  nume- 
rous and  brilliant  series  of  Minnesingers,  which  flourished  in 
Suabia  from  the  end  of  the  twelfth  to  tne  commencement  of  the 
fourteenth  centuries.  The  composition  of  the  poem  nrnst  there- 
fore be  referred  to  that  interval,  and  certainly  rather  to  the  be- 
ginning than  to  the  end  of  it.  In  fact,  we  have  every  reason 
to  suppose  it  to  be  from  the  first  half  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

Among  the  different  monuments  of  ancient  Germanic  poetry, 
which  are  by  their  subject  related  to  the  poem  of  the  Nibelun- 
gen,  there  are  two  that  are  more  immediately  and  more  ex- 
pressly connected  with  it.  The  one  is  vaguely  entitled  "  The 
Lamentation,"  and  is  generally  appended  to  the  "  Song  of  the 
Nibelungen."  It  is  merely  a  sort  of  compendium,  a  somewhat 
diversified  recapitulation  of  that  portion  of  the  latter  which  de- 
scribes the  scenes  at  the  court  of  Attila.  Its  merits  are  in  other 
respects  quite  indifferent.  It  is  the  work  of  an  unknown  poet 
of  the  fourteenth  century.* 

The  other  work,  which  forms  a  sort  of  counterpart  to  the  lat- 
ter, is  a  short  poem  of  seven  or  eight  hundred  verses  under  the 
title  of  "  The  Horned  Siegfried,"  and  constitutes  a  part  of  the 
poetic  cycle  of  the  "  Heldenbuch,"  or  Book  of  Heroes,  f  The 

*  This  poem  may  be  found  in  Lachmann's  edition  of  the  original  text  of  the  Nibe- 
lungen Lied.  It  is,  however,  not  now  generally  printed  in  connection  with  the  epos, 
to  which  it  was  once  regarded  as  an  indispensable  appendix.  "  It  is  not  in  the  same 
metre  as  the  Nibelungen  Lied,  but  in  eight-syllable  couplets,  and  contains  4560  lines. 
In  the  beginning  the  adventures  of  the  Nibelungen  are  shortly  recapitulated ;  after 
which  King  Etzel  is  introduced,  accompanied  by  Dietrich  of  Berne  and  Hildebrand, 
searching  for  the  fallen  heroes  among  the  ashes  of  the  hall,  where  the  combat  had  taken 
place,  and  lamenting  over  every  one  of  them,  as  they  discover  their  features."  Com- 
pare Henry  Weber  in  the  "  Illustrations  of  Northern  Antiquities,"  p.  211.— Ed. 

t  The  original  of  this  "  Hiirnen  Seyfried  "  may  be  found  in  the  second  volume  of  Von 
der  Hagen  and  Primisser's  "  Heldenbuch  in  der  Ursprache,"  Berlin,  1825.  This  poem 
has  the  same  metrical  structure  as  the  Nibelungen,  and  contains  179  stanzas. — Ed. 


Analysis  of  Walter.  221 

poem  treats  only  of  the  early  adventures  of  Siegfried,  of  his  com- 
bat with  the  dragon,  and  of  the  antecedents  of  his  marriage  to 
Chrimhild.  There  is  a  prose  version  of  it,  which  circulates  as 
a  popular  tale  in  all  the  provinces  of  Germany,  It  is  a  favo- 
rite volume  of  the  bibliotheque  ~bleue  (popular  literature)  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Rhine.  All  these  different  works  are  like  so 
many  threads,  by  which  the  traditions  relative  to  the  particular 
fable  of  the  Kibelungen,  link  themselves  to  the  great  body  of 
the  ancient  poetic  traditions  of  the  Germans. 

The  most  important  peculiarity  to  be  observed  in  all  these 
poems  is,  that  each  of  them  has  its  peculiar  physiognomy:  that 
in  all  of  them  the  same  substance  has  undergone  a  number  of 
characteristic  variations,  which  prove  that  they  are  neither  the 
copy  nor  the  imitation  of  each  other,  but  that  each  of  them  de- 
rives its  origin  directly  and  through  distinct  channels  from  the 
common  source  of  the  primitive  traditions. 

In  my  remarks  on  the  Scandinavian  redaction  of  the  fable  of 
the  Kibelungen,  such  as  it  is  presented  to  us  in  the  Yolsunga 
Saga,  it  was  easy  for  me  to  show,  and  I  have  shown  con- 
clusively, that  this  poetic  chronicle  was  nothing  more  than  a 
union  or  fusion  of  different  popular  or  national  songs  on  the 
isolated  incidents  of  the  event,  which  constitutes  its  sub- 
ject. 

There  is  no  doubt,  but  that  the  great  poem  of  the  Kibelun- 
gen is  likewise  only  a  more  extended  or  more  consistenly 
arranged  redaction  of  several  detached  songs  and  poems  on  the 
same  subject,  more  ancient  than  itself.  It  is  however  not  so 
easy  in  this  instance  to  demonstrate  this  proposition  to  a  cer- 
tainty.* 

Inasmuch  as  the  Germans  were  converted  to  Christianity 
much  sooner  than  their  Scandinavian  brethren,  the  poetic  tra- 
ditions of  pagan  times  must  likewise  have  been  lost,  and  in 
fact  were  lost,  at  a  much  earlier  date  among  the  former  than 
among  the  latter.  The  literature  of  the  Germans  can  show 
nothing  that  corresponds  or  is  equivalent  to  those  songs  of  the 
Elder  Edda,  in  which  we  have  recognized  the  members  of  the 
fable  of  the  Kibelungen  in  their  primitive,  disjected  and 
detached  shape,  still  forming  each  of  itself  a  separate  and 
independent  whole,  apart  from  all  the  rest. 

The  history  of  Germanic  literature,  however,  exhibits  never- 
theless some  vestiges  of  modifications  or  of  successive  transfor- 
mations, which  the  same  fable  has  undergone  before  assuming 
the  final  form,  in  which  it  is  now  fixed,  and  in  which  it  seems 

*  On  this  subject  consult  Wilhelm  Grimm's  "Deutsche  Heldensage;"  Lachmann's 
"  Nibelungen  Lied  in  seiner  ursprunglichen  Gestalt ;"  Grimm's  "  Altdanische  Helden- 
lieder,"  Preface ;  Gervinus'  "  Deutsche  Dichtung,"  vol.  1st. — Ed, 


222  History  of  Provencal  Poetoy. 

destined  to  remain  immortal.  These  vestiges  deserve  to  be 
noticed. 

The  author  of  the  "  Lamentation,"  or  the  "  Complaint  of  the 
Nibelungen,"  of  which  I  have  just  spoken,  concludes  his  work 
with  a  very  curious  historical  epilogue,  in  which  he  conveys  to 
us  the  following  information  : 

It  was  a  certain  bishop  of  Passau,  in  Hungary,  by  the  name 
of  Pelerin,  that  ordered  all  the  adventures  in  the  history  of  the 
Nibelungen  to  be  collected  and  written  out  in  Latin.* 

The  work  was  undertaken  from  motives  of  affection  for  his 
kinsman  Eudiger,  the  margrave  of  Bechlare.  He  employed  a 
certain  master  Conrad  for  this  purpose,  but  we  know  not 
exactly  in  what  capacity ;  whether  it  was  as  translator  or  as  a 
simple  copyist. 

The  author  adds,  that  it  was  after  and  on  the  authority  of 
this  first  Latin  history  of  the  Nibelungen,  that  various  poets, 
his  predecessors,  translated  the  same  adventures  into  German, 
which  afterward  became  familiar  to  all  the  world. 

Pelerin,  the  bishop  of  Passau,  mentioned  in  this  epilogue,  lived 
in  the  course  of  the  tenth  century,  until  the  year  991.  Hudi- 
ger,  the  margrave  of  Bechlare,  who  is  designated  as  his  kins- 
man, died  in  the  year  916.  In  making  this  collection  of  the 
ancient  poetical  traditions,  relative  to  the  Nibelungen,  which 
were  then  in  circulation  in  the  southeast  of  Germany,  it  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  his  intention  to  interpolate  a  eulogy  on  this 
margrave  Rudiger,  who,  as  we  have  already  seen,  really  plays 
a  conspicuous  and  an  admirable  role  in  it. 

According  to  these  conjectures,  all  of  which  are  plausible 
enough,  the  present  poem  of  the  Nibelungen  would  have  had 
for  its  basis  a  Latin  narrative,  redacted  during  the  second  half 
of  the  tenth  century  (from  960  to  980). 

But  this  narrative  itself  was  based  on  old  popular  songs  of 
the  epic  kind,  on  narratives  or  traditions,  which  were  anterior 
to  itself,  and  of  which  we  here  and  there  still  discover  some 
vestiges. 

In  a  Saxon  poem  entitled  "  Beowulf,"  and  composed  during 
the  ninth  century  at  the  latest,  we  find  allusions  to  the  history 
of  Siegfried  and  of  the  famous  dragon  Fafnir,  which  however 
according  to  this  Saxon  tradition  was  not  slain  by  Siegfried 
himself,  but  by  his  father  Sigmund.f 

*  Von  Pazowe  der  bischof  Pilgerin  .  durch  liebe  der  neven  sin  . 
hiez  schriben  disiu  msere  .  wie  ez  ergangen  waere  . 
mit  latinischen  buochstaben  .  daz  manz  fur  ware  solde  haben  . 
wan  im  seit  der  videlaere  .  diu  kuntlichiu  maere  . 
wie  ez  ergienk  unde  geschach  .  wan  er  ez  horte  unde  sach  . 
er  unde  manic  ander  man  .  daz  maere  do  briefen  began  . 
ein  schriber,  meister  Kuonrat . 

Klage,  v.  2145-2151.—  Ed. 
t  This  precious  fragment  is  printed  in  Eccard's  "  Commentarii  de  Rebus  Francije 


Analysis  of  Walter.  223 

I  have  already  alluded  to  those  barbaric  songs  in  the  Frank- 
ish  idiom,  which  Charlemagne  ordered  to  be  collected  and 
committed  to  writing.  E"o  one  has  said  anything  concerning 
the  theme  of  these  songs.  It  is  however  natural  to  suppose, 
that  some  of  them  has  direct  reference  to  those  famous  adven- 
tures of  the  Nibelungen,  which  are  so  intimately  connected 
with  the  heroic  epochs  of  the  Goths,  the  Burgundians  and  the 
Franks  themselves.  All  these  songs  were  lost  at  a  very  early 
day,  especially  among  the  Franks  of  Gaul.  The  bigoted 
repugnance,  which  Louis  le  Debonnaire  exhibited  for  these 
remains  of  the  ancient  Germanic  paganism,  may  perhaps  have 
accelerated  this  oblivion. 

All  that  is  now  left  to  us  of  the  kind,  is  a  single  fragment  of 
sixty  verses  in  one  of  the  Germanic  dialects,  which  we  may 
suppose  with  considerable  probability  to  have  formed  a  part  of 
the  songs  collected  by  Charlemagne,  and  which  might  serve  to 
give  us  a  general  idea  of  them  all.  The  subject  of  this  pre- 
cious fragment  is  an  adventure  of  old  Hildebrand,  of  that  va- 
liant servant  of  Dietrich  of  Yerona,  with  whom  we  are  already 
familiar  as  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  characters  of  the  Nibe- 
lungen,  in  which  he  kills  the  ferocious  Chrimhild.  Without 
belonging  directly  to  the  fable  of  the  Nibelungen,  the  piece  is 
nevertheless  connected  with  it  through  the  medium  of  this  Hil- 
debrand, and  might  perhaps  be  strictly  classed  among  those 
isolated  songs,  which  at  a  later  period  were  reproduced  in  the 
present  form  of  the  fable.* 

In  the  twelfth  century  some  of  these  songs  were  still  pre- 
served by  memory.  In  1130,  a  Saxon  poet  or  minstrel  apprised 
Knod,  the  duke  of  Schleswick,  of  a  conspiracy  then  plotted 
against  him  by  singing  to  him  of  the  treachery,  by  which 
Chrimhild  attracted  her  three  brothers  to  the  court  of  Attila. 

In  the  sixteenth  century,  or  but  a  short  time  before  it,  the 
Danes  still  sung  their  short  detached  poems  on  the  principal 
adventures  of  the  Nibelungen.  Three  of  these  poems  are  still 
preserved  in  the  Danish  collections  of  popular  songs.  All  three 
of  them  treat  of  Chrimhild's  revenge,  and  of  the  massacre  of 
the  Nibelungen  among  the  Huns.  It  is  quite  a  remarkable 
fact,  that  the  authors  of  the  three  poems  or  songs  in  question 
have  followed  the  Germanic  traditions  in  preference  to  those  of 
the  North,  although  the  Danes  belong  to  the  Scandinavian 
branch  of  the  Teutons,  f 

Orientalis,"  torn.  i.  p.  864,  sq. — It  has  also  been  edited  by  Jacob  Grimm,  in  "Die 
beiden  altesten  Gedichte  aas  dem  8ten  Jahrhundert,"  etc.,  Cassel,  1812. — A  reprint  of 
the  original  text,  with  a  Latin  and  English  version  of  it,  is  furnished  us  by  the  author  of 
the  ''Illustrations  of  Northern  Antiquities,"  p.  215-220.— Ed. 

*  Compare  Kemble's  notes  to  his  edition  of  Beowulf,  London,  1835.  Vol.  1st,  page 
258-2G3.  Also  Thorpe's  edition  of  the  same,  Oxford,  1855. 

t  A  few  of  these  Danish  songs  are  given  us  in  English  by  one  of  the  authors  of  the 


224  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

There  is,  however,  a  great  difference  between  the  details  of 
those  Danish  songs  and  those  portions  of  the  Mbelungen,  to 
which  they  correspond.  They  ao  not  appear  to  have  been 
derived  from  the  latter,  but  seem  rather  to  ascend,  by  a  living 
and  an  uninterrupted  tradition,  to  that  primitive  mass  of  shorter 
epopees,  which  preceded  and  entered  into  the  composition  of  the 
final  and  the  great  one. 

In  default  of  all  these  indications  concerning  the  different 
transformations,  through  which  the  Germanic  fable  of  the 
Nibelungen  must  have  passed  before  it  became  the  celebrated 
poem,  which  we  now  have  under  this  title,  an  attentive  exami- 
nation of  the  work  will  suffice  to  enable  us  to  discover  the 
successive  labor  of  diverse  authors,  and  the  impress  of  different 
epochs.  The  traits  of  barbarous  haughtiness  and  courage,  of 
indomitable  ferocity,  of  inexorable  hatred,  must  be  referred  to 
the  primitive  elements,  to  the  pagan  ingredients  of  the  subject. 

The  beliefs  and  the  external  practices  of  Christianity  were 
forced  into  a  violent  adaptation  to  these  primitive  barbaric 
elements,  we  do  not  know  exactly  at  what  time,  but  very 
probably  in  the  course  of  the  tenth  century,  when  the  bishop 
of  Passau  ordered  the  above  named  collection  and  Latin  trans- 
lation of  all  the  songs  and  detached  legends  concerning  the 
adventures  of  the  Nibelungen,  which  were  afloat  in  the  popular 
traditions  of  his  day.  The  ancient  Germanic  manners  had 
certainly  then  already  lost  much  of  their  primitive  rudeness. 
The  age  had  probably  commenced  to  conceive  a  heroism  of  a 
more  humane  and  of  a  milder  type,  than  that  of  the  old  Bur- 
gundians  and  Huns.  I  doubt,  however,  whether  the  character 
of  Rudiger,  as  it  is  portrayed  in  the  present  poem  of  the 
Nibelungen,  could  have  been  invented  in  Germany  at  the  epoch 
of  the  Latin  redaction,  that  is  to  say,  between  970  and  980. 
Several  traits  of  this  character  were,  in  all  probability,  added  by 
tne  poet,  who,  in  the  thirteenth  century  remolded  the  narrative 
composed  in  the  tenth,  under  the  auspices  of  the  bishop  of 
Passau. 

But,  that  the  allusions  to  the  manners  and  usages  of  chi- 
valry contained  in  the  poem  must  all  of  them  be  attributed  to 
the  unknown  Minnesinger,  who  was  its  last  redactor — this  can 
not  be  a  matter  of  any  doubt.  The  tinge  of  gallantry,  with  which 
he  sometimes  invests  those  parts  of  his  subject,  where  he  treats 

"  Illustrations  of  Northern  Antiquities,"  q.  v. — A  collection  of  them,  in  the  German 
language,  in  \V.  C.  Grimm's  "  Altdanische  Heldenlieder,  Balladen,  u.  Marchen."  This 
editor  vindicates  a  high  antiquity  for  these  heroic  songs,  and  points  out  their  relation  to 
those  of  the  Germanic  tribes,  now  no  longer  extant,  in  his  learned  preface  to  the  volume  : 
"  Was  die  Heldenlieder  betrift,  so  tragen  wir  kein  Bedenken,  sie  fiir  uralt  auszugeben, 
und  ihre  Entstehung  weit  zuriick,  ia  die  heiduische  Zeit  des  5ten  u.  6ten  Jahrhunderts, 
zu  schieben.  Es  lebt  der  Geist  jener  furchtbaren  alten  Zeit  in  ihnen,  und  das  Geachlecht 
der  Riesen,  welche  am  Eingange  jeder  Geschichte  stehen."— Ed. 


Analysis  of  Walter.  225 

of  fair  princesses,  of  enamored  warriors  and  of  nuptial  rejoic- 
ings, is  unquestionably  of  his  own  invention. 

I  have  not  the  time  for  carrying  these  observations  any 
further,  but  there  are  some  of  them,  to  which  I  shall  natu- 
rally have  to  return  again  in  the  parallel  I  propose  to  draw 
between  the  poem  of  the  Kibelungen  and  that  of  Walter  of 
Aquitania.  The  latter  is  now  to  occupy  our  attention  ;  and  I 
shall  endeavor  to  give  such  an  idea  of  it,  as  may  serve  as  a  basis 
for  those  ulterior  researches 'and  considerations,  which  a  work 
of  such  varied  interest  and  importance  requires  and  deserves.* 

This  poem  is  not  a  long  one.     It  has  only  fourteen  hundred 


and  fifty  verses.     It  is,  however,  still  too  much  to  admit  of  my 
I  shall  translate  the  greater  part  of  it,  and 
of  the  rest  I  shall  add  a  sufficiently  detailed  epitome,  to  indicate 


translating  it  entire. 


the  progress  and  the  ensemble  of  the  action  with  something 
like  completeness. 

Attila,  having  become  king  of  the  Huns,  was  ambitious  of 
making  for  himself  a  great  name  by  his  victories,  and  he 
accordingly  commenced  to  march  at  the  head  of  his  armies  iri 
search  of  conquest.  The  Franks  were  the  first  enemy  he 
encountered  on  his  expedition.  They  had  a  king  by  the  name 
of  Gibich,  whose  queen  had  just  given  birth  to  a  son  to  whom 
he  gave  the  name  of  Gunther. 

When  it  was  announced  to  him,  that  an  army  of  Huns  had 
passed  the  Danube,  more  numerous  than  the  grains  of  sand 
along  the  stream,  and  than  the  stars  of  heaven,  he  assembled 
his  counsellors  in  order  to  deliberate  on  what  was  best  to  be 
done.  They  came  to  the  unanimous  conclusion,  that  they  would 
rather  submit,  pay  tribute,  and  give  hostages,  than  expose 
themselves  to  ruin,  or  see  their  country  devastated,  their  infants 
and  their  wives  led  captive. 

There  was  then  among  the  Franks  a  noble  chief  of  Trojan 
descent,  having  a  son  called  Hagen,  who,  though  yet  a  little 
boy,  already  promised  to  become  a  valiant  man.  It  was 
decided,  that  Hagen  should  be  sent  to  Attila,  as  a  hostage,  in 
place  of  Gunther,  who  was  as  yet  an  infant  at  the  breast. 

After  the  -conclusion  of  this  peace,  Attila  directed  his  course 
toward  the  kingdom  of  the  Burgundians,  then  a  flourishing  and 
powerful  country  under  a  king  called  Herric.  This  was  a 
noble  king,  but  he  had  no  other  heir  to  his  crown  except  a  little 
daughter  by  the  name  of  Hildegunde. 

The  Huns  had  already  passed  the  Khone  and  the  Saone,  and 

*  Such  of  the  readers  as  may  chose  to  follow  the  author  in  this  analysis  with  the  text 
of  the  poem  before  them,  will  find  it  in  Grimm's  "  Lateinische  Gedichte  aus  dem  lOten 
Jahrhundert,"  Gottingen,  1838 ;  fragments  of  it  in  the  "  Chronicon  Novaliciense,"  which 
is  to  be  found  in  Pertz's  '•  Monumenta  Germ.  Hist.,"  vol.  ix.,  p.  75,  in  Muratori's  "Antiq. 
Ital."  vol.  iii.,  col.  695,  A  German  translation  by  Molter,  Carlsruhe,  1818.— Ed. 

15 


226  History  of.  Provencal  Poetry. 

in  scattered  bodies  were  pillaging  the  country.  Herric  was  at 
Chalons,  when  one  of  his  sentinels-,  directing  his  looks  to  the 
distant  fields,  began  to  exclaim  :  "  What  a  huge  cloud  of  dust ! 
This  is  an  enemy  advancing.  Quick!  Close  the  gates!" 
Instead  of  accepting,  however,  this  call  to  arms,  the  king 
deliberates  and  decides  on  treating.  Going  out  of  the  city,  he 
repairs  to  the  camp  of  the  Huns  with  immense  treasures  and 
concludes  a  peace,  leaving  his  daughter  as  hostage ;  while 
Attila  pursues  his  march  toward  the  west. 

A  prince  by  the  name  of  Alfer  was  then  reigning  in  Aqui- 
tania.  He  had  a  son,  as  yet  a  little  boy,  wno  was  called 
Walter.  This  king  and  that  of  the  Burgundians  had  promised 
each  other  that  their  children  should  be  united  in  marriage  as 
sdon  as  they  were  of  a  proper  age.  When  informed  of  the 
approach  of  the  Huns,  and  of  the  submission  of  the  Franks 
and  the  Burgundians,  Alfer  was  in  great  distress,  and  gave  up 
the  hope  of  defending  himself.  "  Let  us  make  peace,"  said  he 
to  himself,  "  we  shall  not  be  dishonored  for  having  acted  like 
the  Franks  and  the  Burgundians."  Thereupon  he  sends  his 
tribute  and  his  son  Walter  as  a  hostage  to  the  Huns,  who  hav- 
ing now  arrived  at  the  furthermost  limits  of  the  West,  resume 
their  journey  to  their  own  country  with  alacrity  and  joy. 

Attila  treated  the  three  children,  which  he  had  brought  with 
him  as  hostages,  with  the  utmost  tenderness,  and  had  them 
educated  with  the  same  care  as  if  they  were  his  own.  He  wanted 
to  have  the  two  young  boys  constantly  under  his  eye,  and  he  had 
them  instructed  in  everything,  especially  in  martial  exercises, 
in  such  a  manner,  that  they  soon  surpassed  in  point  of  bravery 
and  prudence  the  bravest  and  the  wisest  of  the  Huns.*  Attila 
placed  them  at  the  head  of  his  army ;  they  brought  several 
wars,  which  happened  to  occur,  to  a  glorious  termination,  and 
the  king  loved  both  of  them  more  and  more  every  day. 

Hildeguude,  on  the  other  hand,  pleased  the  wife  of  Attila  so 
much  by  her  graceful  manners,  her  gentleness  and  her  address, 
that  the  queen  intrusted  her  with  the  care  of  her  treasures ;  and 
the  young  captive  was  thus  herself  a  queen  and  the  mistress  of 
her  own  action s.f  Meantime,  Gibich,  the  king  of  the  Franks, 
had  died,  and  his  son  Gunther,  who  had  succeeded  him,  broke 
the  treaty  of  peace  with  the  Huns,  by  refusing  to  pay  them  the 
stipulated  tribute.  Hagen  was  no  sooner  informed  of  this  than 

*  V.  103  :  Qui  simul  ingenio  crescentes  mentis  et  aevo, 
Robore  vincebant  fortes  animoque  sophistas, 
Donee  jam  cunctos  superarent  fortiter  Hunnos. 
Militise  primos  tune  Attila  fecerat  illos ; 
Sed  non  immerito — Ed. 

t  V.  114  :  Et  modicum  deest,  quin  regnet  et  ipsa  ; 

Nam  quidquid  Toluit  de  rebus  fecit  et  actis.— Ed. 


Analysis  of  Walter.  227 

he  fled  secretly  by  night,  and  returned  for  the  purpose  of 
rejoining  his  new  monarch*  Walter  was  at  this  moment  cany- 
ing  on  war  at  the  head  of  his  Huns,  and  his  movements  were 
everywhere  attended  with  success. 

Ospirn,  the  queen,  having  become  informed  of  Hagen's 
escape,  and  fearing  that  of  Walter,  who  was  universally 
regarded  as  the  pillar  of  the  empire,  earnestly  exhorted  Attila 
to  marry  him  to  a  princess  selected  from  the  daughters  of  the 
Huns,  and  provided  with  a  rich  dowry,  in  order  to  be  surer  of 
retaining  him  in  his  service.  The  king  approved  her  advice,, 
and  when  Walter,  who  was  then  away  on  some  campaign,  had 
returned  with  his  army,  he  offered  the  young  warrior  a  beauti- 
ful wife  and  immense  riches.  But  Walter,  who  had  already 
other  designs  in  his  head,  refused,  under  the  pretext  of  being 
unwilling  to  contract  an  alliance  which  might  divert  him  from 
his  military  life  and  from  the  service  of  the  king.  A  new  war- 
having  broken  out  soon  after,  Walter  again  had  the  command- 
of  it,  and  distinguished  himself  even  more  than  ordinarily. 
Upon  his  return  to  the  capital  he  is  received  with  great  demon- 
strations of  delight  on  the  part  of  the  people.  But  the  hero 
withdraws  from  the  scene  of  congratulation  and  of  joy  at  an 
early  hour,  and  without  thinking  of  his  repose,  although  very 
much  fatigued. 

Having  entered  the  palace,  he  immediately  repairs  to  the 
apartments  of  the  king,  where  he  finds  Hildegunde  all  alone. 
Embracing  her  in  the  most  affectionate  manner,  he  says  to  her, 
"  I  am  dying  with  thirst,  go  and  get  me  something  to  drink." 
They  both  were  aware  that  they  had  been  affianced  to  each 
other  from  their  infancy.  Hildegunde  bestirs  herself;  she  im- 
mediately fills  a  large  and  costly  goblet  with  wine,  and  presents 
it  to  Walter.  The  latter  takes  it  in  one  hand,  while  making 
the  sign  of  the  cross ;  and  with  the  otfter  he  holds  and  presses 
that  of  his  affianced,  who,  standing  before  him,  looks  at  him 
without  saying  a  word.  After  having  quaffed  the  beverage, 
the  youth  returns  the  empty  cup  to  her  with  these  words : 
"  Our  lot  is  a  common  and  a  mutual  one,  Hildegunde  ;  we  are 
both  of  us  exiles;  we  have  been  betrothed  to  each  other;  have 
the  affianced  nothing  to  say  to  each  other  ?" 

Hildegunde,  under  the  impression  that  Walter  was  merely 
jesting,  hesitates  a  moment  and  then  replies :  "  Why  dost  thou 
say  what  thou  really  dost  not  desire  and  what  is  not  in  thy 
heart  ?  Canst  thou  still  recognize  me,  poor  captive  that  I  am, 
as  thy  betrothed?" 

"  Far  be  it  from  my  intention  to  trifle  with  thee,"  was  the 
young  warrior's  reply,  "  there  is  no  deceit  in  what  I  say,  Hilde- 
gunde. We  are  alone  here,  and  if  I  could  believe  thee  pos- 


228  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

sessed  of  a  little  tenderness  for  me  and  of  confidence  in  my 
advice,  I  should  instantly  reveal  to  thee  the  secrets  of  my  heart. 

At  these  words,  Hildegunde,  courtesying  to  Walter,  said  to 
him  :  "  Command,  my  lord,  and  whatever  thy  command  may 
be,  it  shall  be  done  with  more  alacrity  than  if  it  were  my  own 
desire."  "  1  am  weary  of  exile,"  rejoined  Walter,  "  I  cannot 
help  thinking  every  day  of  Aquitama,  my  sweet  native  land. 
I  have  therefore  resolved  to  flee  secretly,  and  I  should  already 
have  departed,  had  it  not  been  for  the  chagrin  of  abandoning 
Hildegunde."  a  Whatever  my  master  may  ordain,  pleasure  or 
pain,  my  love  for  him  will  make  it  all  agreeable  and  sweet  to 
me,"  was  Hildegunde's  reply. 

Thereupon  Walter,  continuing  the  conversation,  said  to  Hil- 
degunde in  a  low  voice  :  "  The  queen  has  intrusted  thee  with 
the  care  of  her  treasures.  Select  in  the  first  place,  one  of  the 
king's  helmets,  a  coat  of  mail  and  a  cuirass,  bearing  the  mark 
of  its  workman.  Take  then  two  small  boxes  and  fill  each  of 
them  with  pearls  and  jewels,  to  such  an  extent  that  you  can 
scarcely  carry  them.  Make  four  pair  of  shoes  for  me  and  as 
many  for  thyself,  which  thou  shalt  put  into  the  boxes  to  fill  up 
the  vacant  space.  Order  the  queen's  workmen  to  fabricate 
hooks  for  catching  birds  and  fishes ;  this  will  be  our  food  on 
our  way,  and  I  shall  myself  be  the 'fisherman  and  the  fowler. 
Be  careful  to  have  everything  ready  within  a  week  from  now. 

"  I  will  now  tell  thee  how  I  propose  to  manage  in  regard  to 
our  flight.  Seven  days  hence,  I  shall  prepare  a  great  banquet 
,to  the  king,  the  queen,  the  princes  and  all  the  chiefs  of  the 
land.  I  shall  use  all  the  means  in  my  power  to  make  them 
drink  to  such  an  excess,  that  not  one  of  them  shall  be  capable 
of  perceiving  anything  around  him.  Thou  shalt  drink  no  more 
wine  than  is  absolutely  necessary  to  quench  thy  thirst,  and  when 
.they  all  shall  be  buried  *in  the  sleep  of  inebriety,  we  will  take 
•our  departure  for  the  West." 

Hildegunde  did  all  that  her  lover  had  commanded.  On  the 
seventh  day,  Walter  prepares  a  magnificent  feast,  of  which  it 
would  be  superfluous  to  give  a  description  here.  I  may  also  omit 
relating  in  detail  how  all  the  guests  present  ended  by  falling 
asleep  pell-mell,  and  to  such  an  extent  that  Walter  and  Hilde- 
gunde were  the  only  persons  in  the  palace,  that  remained  in  a 
condition  to  will  or  to  do  a  rational  thing. 

Walter  then  call's  his  lady-love,  and  orders  her  to  bring  the 
different  articles  she  had  prepared  for  the  way,  while  he  him- 
self leads  forth  from  the  stable  his  excellent  charger,  the  very 
best  of  horses,  which  from  its  strength  and  courage  he  had 
called  the  lion.  After  having  saddled  and  bridled  him,  he 
loads  him  with  some  provisions,  and  with  the  two  boxes  filled 


Analysis  of  Walter.  229 

with  precious  objects.  He  himself  thereupon  dons  his  cuirass, 
puts  on  his  helmet,  fits  his  golden  greaves  to  his  feet,  and  girds 
on  two  swords,  according  to  the  usage  of  the  Huns,  a  two-edged 
one  on  his  left  side,  and  a  •  single-edged  one  on  his  right. 
In  his  right  hand  he  holds  a  lance,  in  his  left  a  buckler  and  a 
fishing-rod,  and  thus  provided  and  equipped  he  sets  out  on  his 
inarch,  which  he  begins  with  somewhat  Altering  and  uncertain 
steps.  Hildegunde  follows,  leading  the  horse,  that  carried  their 
treasure,  their  baggage  and  a  few  arrows,  by  its  bridle. 

Thus  they  commenced  and  thus  they  pursued  their  journey. 
They  were  in  the  habit  of  travelling  all  night  long ;  but  at 
sunrise  they  sought  the  woods  for  some  sequestered  spot  where 
they  might  hide  themselves  and  take  their  rest.  Poor  Hilde- 
gunde was  disquieted  by  everything.  Everything  inspired  her 
with  dread,  the  noise  of  the  wind,  the  rustling  of  the  leaves, 
the  flight  of  a  bird.  But  she  was  fleeing  from  the  land  of  exile, 
she  was  returning  to  her  native  soil,  and  this  thought  was  to  her 
a  source  of  strength  and  hope.  They  carefully  avoided  the 
merry  boroughs,  the  fertile  plains,  and  sought  by  way  of  pre- 
ference the  uninhabited  and  wild  places  of  the  mountains  and 
the  forests. 

Meanwhile  they  at  the  palace  of  Attila  awake  at  last  from 
their  long  slumber,  and  the  king  himself  is  the  first  of  the 
number.  He  looks  for  Walter,  he  orders  his  attendants  to 
search  for  him,  he  inquires  of  every  one,  but  none  can  give 
him  any  information  in  regard  to  him.  Nevertheless  he  has 
as  yet  110  sinister  suspicions,  until  queen  Ospirn,  whom  the  dis- 
appearance of  Hildegunde  had  enabled  to  divine  the  whole;, 
comes  to  announce  the  truth  of  the  story  to  the  king. 

Attila,  transported  with  rage  at  the  news,  tears  his  garments,, 
gives  utterance  to  broken  and  delirious  words,  and  refuses  to 
admit  any  one  into  his  presence ;  he  rejects  all  nourishment 
and  drink.  At  night  he  throws  himself  on  his  bed,  but  he  can 
find  no  rest.  He  turns  over  from  one  side  to  the  other ;  he- 
rises  suddenly  and  then  falls  back  again.  After  having  thus 
passed  a  restless  night,  he  summons  his  officers  and  counsellors 
in  the  morning,  and  he  accosts  them  thus :  "  Is  there  any  one 
among  you  that  can  bring  me  back  Walter,  bring  him  back 
bound,  like  a  dog  that  has  escaped  from  his  master  ?  If  there 
is,  let  him  show  himself  and  I  will  cover  and  overload  him  with 
gold." 

Among  those  present,  there  were  dukes,  counts,  valiant  heroes, 
ambitious  of  glory  and  renown  ;  there  were  others  again,  who- 
were  fond  of  gold,  and  yet  none  of  them  was  bold  enough  to- 
venture  on  the  pursuit  of  Walter,  and  to  run  the  risk  of  en- 
countering him  face  to  face  or  of  having  a  passage  of  arms  witht 


230  History  of  Provencal  Poetrt/. 

him.  His  valor  and  his  strength  were  too  well  known  to  them ; 
they  had  seen  him  too  often  cutting  down  entire  troops  of  war- 
riors, without  even  being  wounded  himself.  The  king  could 
therefore  not  prevail  on  any  one  to  go  in  pursuit  of  the  fugi- 
tive. 

And  the  fugitive  continued  to  pursue  his  journey  by  night, 
and  to  pass  his  days  in  the  woods  where  he  occupied  himself 
by  catching  birds  with  every  kind  of  snares.  But  whenever 
he  arrived  at  the  banks  of  some  river,  he  took  out  his  tackle  and 
began  to  fish,  thus  providing,  sometimes  in  one  way  and  some- 
times in  another,  food  for  himself  and  for  his  lady-love,  with 
whom  he  never  took  the  slightest  liberty.* 

Forty  days  had  thus  elapsed,  since  the  young  hero  had  left 
Attila's  residence,  and  on  the  evening  of  the  fortieth  day  he 
arrived  at  the  banks  of  a  great  river  called  the  Rhine,  wnich 
flows  by  a  certain  city,  the  capital  of  a  kingdom,  called  Worms. 
There  Walter  gave  in  payment  of  his  passage  some  fish  which 
he  had  caught  before  in  another  place,  and  after  having  been 
instantly  ferried  across  the  stream,  he  again  pursued  his  home- 
ward journey  with  increased  rapidity. 

On  the  morning  of  the  following  day,  the  boatman,  who  had 
conveyed  him  across  the  stream,  rose  at  a  very  early  hour,  in 
order  to  go  to  Worms,  and  there  carried  the  fish,  which  he  had 
received  as  payment,  to  the  king's  cook.  The  fish  were  cooked, 
and  served  up  on  Gunther's  table,  who  on  examining  them  said 
to  his  cuisimer  :  "  I  never  saw  such  fish  before  in  the  country 
of  the  Franks ;  they  must  be  foreign  fish.  Pray  tell  me  where 
they  come  from."f  The  cook  replied  that  it  was  the  boatman 
who  had  given  them  to  him.  The  king  then  immediately  sends 
for  the  latter,  who  on  his  arrival  recounts  the  manner  in  which 
he  had  obtained  them  in  the  following  terms : 

"Yesterday,  as  I  happened  to  be  on  the  ba»ks  of  the  Rhine, 
I  saw  a  traveller  advancing  toward  me  with  rapid  strides,  who 
seemed  ready  for  combat,  clad  in  steel  from  head  to  foot,  his 
lance  in  one  hand  and  his  buckler  in  the  other.  He  had  the 
appearance  of  being  a  man  of  great  strength ;  for  under  the 
enormous  weight  of  his  arm's  he  marched  with  an  easy  and  a 
rapid  step.  He  was  followed  by  a  young  lady  of  enchanting 
beauty,  leading  a  horse  by  the  bridle,  surmounted  by  two  boxes 
which  at  every  movement  of  the  horse  emitted  a  sound  similar 
to  the  chinking  of  little  bits  of  silver  and  of  gold.  This  is  all 

*  Sicque  famis  pestem  pepulit  tolerando  laborem. 
Namque  toto  tempore  fugae  se  virginis  usu 
Continuit  vir  Waltharius,  laudabilis  hero.— Ed. 

f  V.  443  :  Ergo  istiusmodi  pisces  mihi  Francia  nunquam  ostendit, 
Die  mihi  quantotius,  cuihas  homo  detulit  illos. — Ed* 


Analysis  of  Walter.  231 

that  I  can  tell  about  the  man  who  has  given  me  the  fish  in  pay- 
ment for  his  passage." 

When  Hagen,  who  was  among  the  number  of  the  guests, 
heard  these  words,  he  exclaimed  joyfully :  "  Congratulate  me  ! 
From  what  I  now  hear,  I  am  sure  that  my  friend  Walter  has 
returned  from  the  country  of  the  Huns  !"*  "  Congratulate  me 
too  !"  was  King  Gunther's  exclamation  then,  "  for  God  returns 
me  now  the  treasures  which  my  father  long  ago  was  forced  to 
send  to  King  Attila." 

No  sooner  has  he  said  these  words,  than  he  strikes  the 
table  with  his  foot,  and  rising  abruptly  orders  his  horse  to  be 
saddled  and  brought  to  him,  mounts  it  and  commands  twelve 
of  the  strongest  and  most  daring  of  his  warriors,  with  Hageii 
at  their  head,  to  follow  him.  Hagen,  who  has  not  forgotten 
his  old  friend  and  companion  in  exile,  endeavors  to  divert  the 
king  from  his  design  ;  but  the  latter,  so  far  from  listening  to 
him,  is  all  the  more  impatient  for  it  and  exclaims :  "  Quick !  my 
gallant  warriors,  make  haste !  Let  all  of  you  be  armed ;  put  on 
your  coats  of  mail ;  let  us  not  suffer  a  treasure  to  escape."f 

In  a  moment  they  were  all  ready ;  a  moment  more  and  they 
were  on  the  traces  of  the  king,  anxious  to  overtake  Walter, 
eager  to  despoil  him  of  his  booty.  Hagen  alone  made  another 
attempt  to  check  the  king,  but  the  latter  still  refused  to  listen 
to  his  advice4 

Meanwhile  the  brave  Aquitanian  was  advancing  further  and 
further  from  the  banks  of  the  Rhine,  until  at  last  he  reached  the 
forest  of  the  Yosges.  This  was  a  dense  forest  of  immense  extent, 
full  of  wild  beasts  and  perpetually  resounding  with  the  din  of 
horns  and  the  barking  of  hounds.  In  an  out-of-the-way  part  of 
this  forest  and  in  a  narrow  defile  of  the  mountains  tnere  was 
a  cavern,  formed  not  by  a  subterranean  chasm,  but  by  the 
falling  of  the  mountain-top,  and  within  its  limits  grew  many 
green  herbs  which  were  good  to  eat. 

"  Let  us  ascend  thither,"  said  Walter ;  "  there  I  shall  at  last 

*  V.  446 :  Congaudete  mihi,  quaeso,  quia  talia  novl. 

Waltharius,  collega  meus,  remeavit  ab  Hunis. — Ed. 

f  V.  481 :  Ne  tardate  viri !  praecingite  corpora  ferro ! 
'  *  *  *  *  *r  * 

V.  515 :  Accelerate  viri !  jam  nune  capietis  eumdem. 

Numquam  hodie  effugiet ;  furata  talenta  relinquet. — Ed. 

\  Hagen  uses  the  following  language  in  his  attempt  to  divert  Gunther  from  his 
purpose  i 

V.  520 :  Si  toties  tu  Waltharium  pugnasge  viderea, 
Quotiens  ego  nova  caede  furentem, 
Nunquam  tarn  facile  spoliandum  forte  putares, 

V.  527 :  Quisquis  ei  congressus  erat,  mox  Tartara  vidit. 
0  rex  et  comites,  experto  credite,  quantus 
In  clipeum  surgat,  qua  turbine  torqueat  hastam.— Ed. 


232  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

be  able  to  repose  at  my  ease  and  in  safety."  And  indeed,  he 
was  very  much  in  want  of  it ;  for  ever  since  the  commence- 
ment of  his  flight  he  had  never  had  any  rest  except  by  leaning 
on  his  shield,  and  he  had  scarcely  ever  closed  his  eyes.  This 
time  he  lays  aside  his  armor,  and  placing  his  head  upon  the 
knees  of  his  affianced,  he  says  to  her :  "  Be  on  thy  guard,  Hil- 
degunde ;  the  air  is  pure  and  here  is  a  fine  prospect  over  all  the 
country.  Look  carefully  on  every  side,  and  if  thou  seest  clouds 
of  dust  arising  anywhere,  then  wake  me  gently,  gently  with  a 
light  touch  of  the  hand  ;  and  even  if  thou  shouldst  see  a  whole 
army  advancing  toward  our  hiding-place,  beware,  my  darling,  of 
rousing  me  too  suddenly."  In  uttering  these  words  he  falls  asleep. 

Meanwhile  Gunther,  while  riding  along  with  full  speed,  dis- 
covers footsteps  in  the  dust,  and  he  exclaims,  delighted :  "  On- 
ward !  my  brave  warriors,  we've  found  it !  we've  got  the  trea- 
sure he  has  stolen  !"  But  Hagen  replied :  "  My  master,  hadst 
thou  seen  Walter  as  often  as  I  have  seen  him,  with  his  arms  in 
his  hands,  thou  wouldst  not  be  in  such  a  haste  to  join  him  ; 
thou  wouldst  not  deem  it  so  easy  to  rob  him  of  what  he  holds. 
I  have  followed  the  Huns  to  the  battlefield  ;  I  have  seen  Walter 
at  their  head  combating  the  nations  both  of  the  North  and  of 
the  South,  and  I  have  witnessed  the  fall  of  all  who  ventured  to 
attack  him."  Hagen's  expostulation  was  in  vain.  The  king 
was  constantly  advancing  closer  toward  the  mountain,  until 
Hildegunde  from  the  top  discovered  the  cloud  of  dust  raised  by 
the  feet  of  their  horses.  She  then  awakens  Walter  gently  and 
by  degrees,  and  the  warrior,  with  his  eyes  half  open,  asks  her 
whether  she  saw  anything.  "  I  see,"  says  Hildegunde, "  I  see 
something  like  a  troop  of  men  advancing  from  below." 

Then  Walter,  shaking  off  his  sleep  entirely,  puts  on  his  armor, 
resumes  his  lance  and  buckler,  and  prepares  for  combat.  At 
this  very  moment  Hildegunde  perceives  the  glittering  of  lances 
and  distinguishes  a  body  of  mounted  warriors.  "  There  are  the 
Huns !"  she  then  exclaims  while  falling  on  her  knees,  "  alas, 
there  are  the  Huns  !  O,  my  sweet  master,  cut  off  my  head ; 
and  let  not  her  who  was  to  be  thine  own  be  touched  by  an- 
other !"  *  "  Do  not  say  so,  do  not  speak  thus,  my  gentle 
friend,"  replied  the  youthful  hero ;  "  banish  all  fear  and  let  me 
manage,  Hildegunde  !  God,  who  has  so  often  rescued  me  from 
danger,  will  also  be  my  help  in  this  emergency." 

While  pronouncing  these  words,  he  lifts  up  his  eyes  and  then 
immediately  adds  with  a  smile :  "  No,  no,  these  are  not  the 
Huns ;  they  are  Prankish  bandits,  men  of  the  country,  and  I 

*  Hunps  hie,  inquit,  habemus. 

Obsecro,  mi  senior,  mea  colla  secentur, 

Ut  quae  non  merui  thalamo  tibi  sociari, 

Nultius  jam  ulterius  paciar  consocia  carnis — Ed. 


Analysis  of  Walter.  2!'>3 

perceive  among  them  my  friend  Hagen  ;  I  know  him  by  his 
helmet."  Thereupon  he  takes  his  position  at  the  extremity  of 
the  cavern  and  continues  to  encourage  Hildegunde  who  stands 
trembling  behind  him.  "  No,  no,  I  venture  to  predict  that  not 
one  of  the  Franks  who  comes  to  seek  me  here  will  ever 
return  to  boast  to  his  wife  of  having  taken  anything  from 
me." 

But  scarcely  had  he  finished  these  words,  when  he  condemns 
them  again  as  too  haughty,  and  on  his  knees  beseeches  God  to 
pardon  him.  He  then  takes  a  second  look  at  the  Franks  and 
examines  them  more  closely.  "  Of  all  those  whom  I  see  be- 
low," says  he,  u  I  am  afraid  of  none  but  Hagen.  He  alone 
knows  my  way  of  fighting,  and  though  I  also  know  his  own,  I 
am  well  aware  how  strong  and  brave  he  is.  If  I  get  through 
with  him,  I  have  nothing  to  fear  from  the  rest,  Hildegunde ;  I 
shall  then  still  live  for  you." 

When  Hagen  on  the  other  hand  saw  Walter  so  well  in- 
trenched, he  turns  to  the  king  and  says  :  "  I  beseech  you  again, 
my  lord,  do  not  provoke  this  warrior  !  Send  first  a  messenger 
to  him  to  inquire  after  his  name,  his  family  and  country  ;  from 
whence  he  came,  and  whether  he  would  not  rather  surrender 
his  treasure  than  risk  a  hostile  encounter  with  us.  If,  as  I  pre- 
sume, this  man  is  really  Walter,  Walter  is  a  discreet  and  pru- 
dent man,  and  will  perhaps  comply  with  your  request  from  mo- 
tives of  generosity  and  honor." 

Gunther  approves  the  advice.  He  orders  Kamelon  to  go  and 
make  this  proposal  to  the  stranger.  Kamelon  was  the  governor 
of  the  famous  city  of  Metz.  He  had  been  sent  there  from  the 
country  of  the  Franks  and  it  was  then  his  place  of  residence. 
He  had  come  to  the  court  of  Gunther  for  the  purpose  of  bring- 
ing him  some  presents,  and  he  had  only  arrived  the  day  before 
the  news  from  Walter  became  known.  When  he  had  heard 
the  order  of  the  king,  Kamelon  flies  with  the  speed  of  wind  ; 
he  traverses  the  plain,  ascends  the  mountain,  and  having  ap- 
proached the  young  warrior  within  speaking  distance,  he  thus 
accosts  him  :  "Stranger,  tell  who  thou  art,  whence  thou  comest 
and  whither  thou  art  going  ?" 

"  Tell  me  thyself  first,"  replied  Walter,  "  whether  thou  com- 
est of  thine  own  accord  or  at  the  behest  of  another."  "  It  is  the 
powerful  King  Gunther  who  sends  me  to  get  some  information 
in  regard  to  thy  affairs,"  was  Kamelon's  reply.  "  I  do  not 
know  what  inducement  thy  king  could  have  to  inquire  into  the 
affairs  of  travellers,"  rejoined  Walter ;  "  but  I  am  quite  willing 
to  satisfy  his  curiosity  in  regard  to  mine.  My  name  is  Walte  r 
and  I  was  born  in  Aquitania.  When  yet  an  infant,  my  father 
gave  me  as  a  hostage  to  the  Huns.  I  lived  among  them  for  a 


234:  History  of  Prwenqal  Poetry. 

long  time ;  but  I  have  left  them  at  last,  desirous  of  revisiting 
my  dear  country  and  my  friends." 

"  This  being  so,"  says  Kamelon  then,  "  the  king  orders  thee 
by  my  mouth  to  deliver  up  this  horse,  these  two  boxes  and  this 
young  lady.  If  thou  obeyest,  he  will  spare  thy  life  and  grant 
thee  an  unmolested  passage."  "I  do  not  think  that  I  ever 
heard  such  nonsense  before,"  replied  Walter  with  a  smile. 
"  What  dost  thou  offer  me  on  the  part  of  thy  king? — that,  which 
he  as  yet  does  not  possess  and  which  will  probably  be  never  at 
his  disposal  ?  Is  thy  king  God,  to  promise  me  my  life  ?  Am  I 
in  his  nands  ?  Does  he  keep  me  in  prison  with  my  hands  tied 
behind  my  back  ?  Listen,  however,  to  my  word :  if  thy  mas- 
ter, whom  I  can  see  from  here  all  armed,  does  not  challenge 
me  to  combat,  I  am  willing  out  of  respect  for  his  royal  name  to 
offer  him  a  present  of  a  hundred  golden  bracelets." 

Kamelon  leaves,  for  the  purpose  of  conveying  this  proposi- 
tion to  the  king  and  his  companions.  "  Accept  this  hundred 
of  golden  bracelets,"  says  Hagen ;  "  thou  wilt  then  have  some- 
thing wherewith  thou  mayest  make  presents  to  thy  men.  Ac- 
cept the  bracelets  and  renounce  the  combat !  Thou  dost  not 
know  nor  canst  thou  even  imagine  the  force  and  courage  of  this 
Walter.  I  had  a  dream  last  night,  by  which  I  was  informed, 
that  all  will  not  turn  out  according  to  our  wishes,  if  we  fight. 
Methought  I  saw  thee  fighting  with  a  bear,  which  after  a  long 
struggle  seized  and  devoured  one  of  thy  legs.  I  rushed  to  thy 
assistance,  and  then  the  beast  darted  at  me  and  robbed  me  of  an 
eye." 

"  How  much  thou  art  like  Agarim,  thy  father !"  was  the 
king's  contemptuous  reply.  "  He  too  was  wont  to  tremble  at 
every  forebodement,  and  always  had  his  reasons  for  declining 
combat."  At  these  words  the  gallant  Hagen  is  transported 
with  rage.  "  Very  well  then,  let  the  rest  of  you  fight !  There 
is  the  enemy  you  are  in  search  of.  As  for  myself,  I'll  be  a 
looker  on,  and  I'll  relinquish  to  you  my  share  of  the  spoils." 
He  had  scarcely  uttered  these  words,  when  he  dismounted 
from  his  horse  and  ascended  a  neighboring  hill,  from  which  he 
could  conveniently  survey  the  scene  that  was  about  to  take 
place. 

Then  the  king,  turning  to  Kamelon,  said  to  him :  "  Return 
to  the  stranger  instantly,  and  tell  him  that  I  want  all  his  gold ; 
and  if  he  still  persists  in  his  refusal,  if  he  be  brave  and  valiant 
like  thyself,  then  fight  with  him  and  bring  to  me  the  spoils." 
Kamelon,  the  duke  of  Metz,  returns  at  once  to  the  eminence 
and  calls  to  Walter  from  a  distance :  "  Holla  !  friend,  hearken  ! 
The  king  wants  all  thy  gold,  and  on  that  price  alone  depend 
thy  life  and  safety."  The  young  warrior  makes  him  repeat 


Analysis  of  Walter.  235 

these  words  once  more  and  nearer  to  himself  than  he  had  done 
the  first  time,  and  then  replies  :  "  Thou  art  really  very  impor- 
tunate, my  friend.  Have  I  then  robbed  King  Gunther  ?  Or 
has  this  Gunther  ever  lent  me  aught,  for  which  he  might  exact 
exorbitant  usury,  like  this  ?  Have  I,  in  passing  through  your 
country,  committed  so  many  depredations,  as  to  be  forced  to 
pay  such  heavy  damages  ?  But  no  matter  !  Since  this  people 
is  so  greedy  after  the  property  of  others,  I  will  consent  to  pay 
my  passage  dearly.  Instead  of  one  hundred  bracelets  of  gold, 
I  will  therefore  offer  two  hundred  to  thy  king." 

Kamelon,  indignant  at  these  words,  retorts :  "  No  more  of 
thy  empty  talk!  If  I  get  not  thy  gold,  I'll  have  thy  life." 
Thereupon,  protecting  himself  with  his  shield,  he  hurls  the  jave- 
lin, which  he  was  homing  in  his  hand,  with  all  his  might.  Wal- 
ter avoids  the  javelin,  which  is  buried  in  the  ground.  "You 
have  desired  it,"  says  he,  "  you  have  desired  to  fight ;  very  well 
then,  let  us  fight !  While  uttering  these  words,  he  hurls  his 
javelin  in  his  turn,  which,  striking  Kamelon  on  his  left  side  and 
transfixing  the  hand  with  which  he  was  endeavoring  to  draw 
his  sword  from  its  scabbard,  nails  it  to  the  shoulder  of  his  horse. 
The  wounded  animal  becomes  restless  and  rears  in  its  agony, 
endeavoring  to  throw  its  rider ;  the  latter,  however,  remains 
riveted  to  it  with  one  of  his  hands.  Kamelon  then  throws 
away  his  shield  and  endeavors  with  his  left  hand  to  extract  the 
javelin  that  had  pierced  his  right;  but  at  this  very  instant 
"Walter  pounces  upon  him,  and  after  having  plunged  his  sword 
up  to  the  hilt  in  his  body,  extracts  the  javelin  himself.  The 
knight  and  his  horse  both  fall  together,  one  upon  the  other. 

The  description  of  Walter's  contest  with  eleven  of  the  twelve 
champions  wno  successively  assail  him  for  the  purpose  of  rob- 
bing him  of  his  treasures  is  a  very  long  one,  and  although  there 
is  no  lack  of  picturesqueness  and  variety  in  its  incidents,  I  yet 
have  thought  it  proper  to  abridge  it  considerably.  I  shall 
therefore  only  translate  its  most  characteristic  portions.  Of  the 
rest  it  will  be  sufficient  to  give  an  abstract. 

The  second  champion,  that  presents  himself  for  combat,  is  a 
young  man  by  the  name  of  Kimo,  a  nephew  of  Kamelon,  whose 
death  he  is  full  of  eagerness  to  revenge.  But  in  spite  of  his 
ardor  and  his  bravery  he  falls  after  a  few  moments,  and  makes 
room  for  Gherard,  an  expert  archer,  who  is  also  prostrated  in 
his  turn,  without  having  inflicted  even  a  scratch  of  a  wound  on 
Walter.  The  fourth  assailant  is  a  Saxon  by  the  name  of 
Egfried.  At  this  point  of  the  story  the  text  offers  some  remark- 
able peculiarities,  which  I  now  propose  to  translate. 

Gunther  is  not  at  all  discouraged  at  the  sight  of  the  three 
corpses  of  his  warriors.  He  urges  others  to  march  forward  to 


236  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

the  combat.  Egfried  the  Saxon  advances  in  his  turn,  mounted 
on  a  spotted  charger.  No  sooner  does  Walter  perceive  him 
within  proper  distance  and  ready  to  fight,  than  he  exclaims  : 
"  Tell  me  whether  thou  art  a  tangible  body,  a  veritable  being 
of  flesh  and  bone,  or  whether  thou  art  not  rather  a  mere  airy 
phantom  ?  Never  have  I  seen  any  one  that  resembles  the  sav- 
age spirits  of  the  woods  as  much  as  thou  dost."  Egfried  replies 
with  a  smile  :  "  Thy  Celtic  speech  betrays  too  clearly,  that 
thou  art  born  of  that  race  of  men  which  nature  has  made  buf- 
foons above  all  others.  If  thou  approachest  within  the  reach 
of  my  sword,  thou  mayst  hereafter  relate  to  the  Saxons  that 
thou  hast  combated  a  spirit  of  the  woods  in  one  of  the  moun- 
tains of  the  Yosges.  But  far  off  as  thou  art,  this  javelin  will 
soon  tell  me  whether  thou  art  made  of  spirit  or  of  flesh." 
Thereupon  he  hurls  his  javelin,  the  point  of  which  is  broken  in 
Walter's  shield,  and  the  latter,  discharging  his  missile  in  his 
turn,  says :  "  Here,  take  what  the  buffoon  of  Aquitania  sends 
in  exchange  to  the  spirit  of  the  woods."  The  missile  piercing 
Egfried's  buckler  and  breaking  his  coat  of  mail,  transfixes  his 
lungs. 

The  fifth  combat  I  shall  pass  over  in  silence,  but  the  sixth  is 
extremely  interesting.  A  young  warrior  by  the  name  of  Pata- 
fried,  Hagen's  nephew,  now  advances  against  the  Aquitanian 
hero. 

His  uncle,  perceiving  him  from  the  top  of  the  hill,  endeavors 
to  check  him  and  halloas :  "  Stay,  I  beseech  thee  !  Where  art 
thou  going,  giddy  youth  ?  Dost  thou  not  see  that  death 's  be- 
fore thee T  °Tis  thy  presumption  that  has  made  thee  blind, 
dear  nephew.  Thou  hast  not  strength  enough  to  combat  Wal- 
ter." But  Patafried  is  unwilling  to  listen  to  the  friendly  ad- 
vice ;  the  love  of  glory  impels  him  onward,  and  Hagen's  lamen- 
tations at  his  obstinacy  are  in  vain.  Walter,  though  yet  at  a 
considerable  distance,  nevertheless  perceives  the  chagrin  of  his 
former  companion,  and  addressing  himself  to  Patafried  as 
he  advances  toward  him,  he  says :  "  Brave  youth,  permit  me 
to  give  thee  an  advice.  Do  not  listen  to  thy  blind  impetuosity, 
and  preserve  thyself  for  a  better  lot.  Look  at  these  corpses 
here ;  they  too  were  gallant  men.  Renounce  this  combat,  I 
entreat  thee ;  do  not  constrain  me  to  deprive  thee  of  thy  life  ; 
do  not  render  me  odious  by  thy  death." 

"  Why  dost  thou  trouble  thyself  about  my  death,  thou  inso- 
lent Aquitanian  ?"  was  the  youth's  reply.  "  Desist  from  fur- 
ther words  and  be  ready  to  defend  thyself."  He  then  launches 
his  pike  at  the  Aquitanian.  The  latter  wards  it  off  with  his 
own,  and  the  pike  flies  on  until  it  strikes  the  ground  before  the 
feet  of  Hildegunde,  who  in  her  fright  shrieks  out  aloud ;  and 


Analysis  of  Walter.  237 

after  recovering  to  some  extent  from  her  agitation,  scarcely  ven- 
tures to  raise  her  eyes  to  see  whether  her  friend  was  still  alive. 
Walter  requests  the  young  man  a  second  time  to  retreat ;  but 
the  latter  without  replying  draws  his  sword.  Walter  having  at 
last  become  incensed,  protects  himself  with  his  buckler  and 
evades  the  blow,  but  the  miss  stretches  his  antagonist  flat  upon 
the  ground.  And  it  would  now  have  been  all  over  with  him,  if 
in  his  movement  to  parry  the  blow,  Walter  had  not  fallen  on 
his  knees.  They  both  rise  at  the  same  time.  But  in  the  twink- 
ling of  an  eye,  the  obstinate  young  man  falls  again  to  rise  no 
more. 

After  the  death  of  Gerwit,  the  count  of  Worms,  and  the  sev- 
enth of  the  champions  immolated  by  the  hand  of  Walter,  the 
remaining  warriors  begin  to  vacillate  in  their  resolution  and  to 
beseech  the  king  to  refrain  from  further  hostilities.  But  the 
king,  unable  to  reconcile  himself  to  the  shame  of  failing  in  an 
attempt  which  he  had  thought  so  easy,  exhorts  them  not  to  lose 
their  courage  and  to  avenge  their  companions  like  brave  men. 
Several  of  them  would  have  proceeded  together  to  attack  the 
invincible  Aquitanian,  but  the  position  which  the  latter  had 
adopted  did  not  admit  of  the  approach  of  more  than  one  at  a 
time. 

Walter,  perceiving  their  hesitation  and  embarrassment, 
makes  haste  to  profit  by  it.  He  doffs  his  helmet  and  suspend- 
ing it  on  a  tree  ne  wipes  his  face  which  was  completely  covered 
with  sweat,  and  inhales  for  a  moment  at  his  ease  the  sweet 
freshness  of  the  air  around  him. 

But  lo !  the  hero  is  attacked  by  the  eighth  champion,  who 
darts  at  him  in  full  gallop  before  he  has  had  the  time  to  put 
himself  on  his  guard  again  or  to  don  his  helmet.  But  in  spite 
of  these  disadvantages,  Walter  soon  gets  the  better  of  the  im- 
portunate assailant  without  any  difficulty. 

The  ninth  assault  has  this  interesting  peculiarity  about  it, 
that  it  presents  to  us  a  picture  of  a  mode  of  combat  which  is 
quite  peculiar  to  the  Franks.  Four  adversaries  unite  their 
efforts  against  Walter.  Helmnod  is  the  first  to  advance,  with 
his  angon  in  his  hand,  which  was  to  be  launched  at  Walter.  The 
angon  was  a  sort  of  iron  trident  or  triple  arrow  with  recur vate 
barbs,  attached  to  a  long  cord  or  line,  the  end  of  which  rested 
in  the  hand  of  him  who  was  to  hurl  it.  Helmnod' s  angon  was 
attached  to  three  cords.  He  hurls  it  at  Walter,  and  the  wea- 
pon becomes  instantly  riveted  to  the  hero's  buckler,  Helmnod 
holding  on  'to  one  of  the  cords,  while  Trogunt  and  Tenaste, 
the  tenth  and  the  eleventh  champions,  aided  by  the  king  him- 
self, pull  at  the  three  cords  at  the  same  time,  in  order  to  make 
the  hero  fall  to  the  ground.  They  finally  succeed  in  wresting 


238  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

his  buckler  from  him,  and  they  now  flatter  themselves  with  the 
prospect  of  an  easy  victory,  which  appears  so  much  the  more 
certain,  as  Walter  has  not  yet  found  leisure  to  take  up  his  hel- 


met again. 

But  Walter  remains  erect  and  immovable,  in  spite  of  all  the 
desperate  efforts  of  the  four  champions.  Finally,  however,  irri- 
tated at  a  struggle  in  which  he  expended  his  strength  in  vain, 
he  throws  away  his  buckler  and  rushing  upon  the  four  cham- 
pions kills  Helmnod  and  Trogunt,  before  they  were  able  to 
take  up  their  arms  again,  which  they  had  laid  aside  in  order  to 
pull  at  the  cord  of  the  angon.  Tenaste,  though  already  in  pos- 
session of  his  lance  and  buckler,  is  likewise  vanquished  and  slain. 
King  Gunther  alone  escapes  from  the  blows  of  Walter,  and 
having  mounted  his  steed  flies  straight  to  Hagen,  who  from  the 
eminence  on  which  he  had  remained  had  been  a  witness  to  all 
these  proceedings.  Here  I  shall  stop  abridging  and  recommence 
translating. 

Having  come  up  to  Hagen,  the  king  conjures  him  to  come 
to  his  assistance,  and  to  join  him  in  his  attempt  to  combat 
Hagen.  "  What  a  requirement,"  was  Hagen's  reply ;  "  am  I 
not  a  coward  ? — a  man  whose  blood  is  chilled  at  the  approach 
of  danger?  Did  not  my  sire  turn  pale  at  the  sight  of  an 
arrow,  and  did  he  not  always  have  his  reasons  for  refusing  to 
fight  ?  Hast  thou  not  said  all  this  before  my  companions  in 
arms  ?  Very  well !  I  owe  no  longer  anything  to  a  king  who 
has  spoken  after  this  fashion." 

But  Gunther  redoubles  his  entreaties:  "In  the  name  of 
heaven,  Hagen,  lay  aside  thy  anger,  give  up  thy  spite !  I  have 
offended  thee,  it  is  true,  and  I  acknowledge  it.  But  ask  any 
reparation  thou  mayst  see  fit,  and  there  is  none  but  what  I  am 
willing  to  make  thee.  See  here  thy  comrades  stretched  dead 
upon  the  ground !  Art  thou  not  ashamed  to  let  them  molder 
without  revenge  ?  Could  words  have  inflicted  deeper  wounds 
on  thee  than  the  blows  which  struck  them  dead  ?  Alas !  thy 
resentment  ought  rather  to  be  directed  against  him  who  slew 
them,  and  who  to-day  will  probably  deprive  us  all  of  our  honor. 
To  have  lost  all  these  our  gallant  men  is  a  great  calamity,  but 
to  lose  our  fame  and  glory,  too,  is  much  worse  still.  Oh !  how 
shall  we  wipe  away  so  terrible  a  disgrace?  Where  are  our 
chiefs  ?  the  Franks  will  presently  ask  us  with  a  derisive  smile. 
Whatl  have  all  of  them  been  slain  by  a  single  man,  by  a 
stranger,  by  an  unknown  combatant  ?" 

Hagen  still  hesitates  in  spite  of  all  these  prayers ;  he  thinks 
of  his  former  friendship  toward  Walter,  arid  of  the  years  they 
had  spent  together ;  but  he  sees  his  king  a  suppliant  before 
him,  and,  more  than  all,  he  dreads  the  loss  of  his  heroic  fame, 


Analysis  of  Walter.  239 

in  case  lie  should  persist  in  his  resolution  not  to  fight.  And  yet 
he  at  last  works  up  his  mind  to  it :  "  What  is  it  thou  art  com- 
manding, my  lord  ?"  said  he  to  Gunther ;  "  whatever  it  may 
be,  I  am  ready  to  obey  thee.  Only  let  us  not  attempt  the 
impossible,  let  us  not  perpetrate  any  folly.  I  know  Walter 
well ;  he  would  have  made  of  all  of  mem  what  he  has  made  of 
eleven ;  he  would  have  accomplished  in  the  open  field  what  he 
has  done  in  this  narrow  mountain-pass.  Nevertheless,  since 
thou  meditatest  a  new  assault,  since  shame  even  more  than 
grief  impel  thee  to  revenge,  I'll  sacrifice  my  sense  of  gratitude 
and  I'll  be  ready  to  assist  thee.  But  let  us  not  combat  here. 
Let  us  retreat,  and  let  us  draw  Walter  from  his  vantage-ground. 
Let  us  lay  an  ambuscade  somewhere,  until,  under  the  impres- 
sion that  we  have  left,  he  descends  from  his  eminence  and  pur- 
sues his  journey  across  the  plain.  Then  let  us  attack  him  from 
behind  with  all  our  force  united.  Since  thou  desirest  to  fight, 
be  careful  to  be  ready  for  stern  effort  on  the  occasion.  I'll 
guarantee  that  Walter  will  not  flee,  though  he  may  be  assailed 
by  both  of  us." 

Hagen's  advice  meets  with  the  approbation  of  the  king.  He 
embraces  him  with  joy,  and  both  of  them  depart  in  search  of  a 
place  where  they  might  hide  themselves  conveniently  and  find 
suitable  pasture  for  their  horses. 

At  the  approach  of  night,  the  Aquitanian  deliberates  within 
himself  whether  it  was  expedient  for  him  to  pursue  his  journey 
directly  across  the  plain,  or  whether  it  was  best  to  spend  the 
night  in  safety  in  the  mountain  cave.  He  is  distrustful  of 
Hagen  on  account  of  the  embrace  which  he  had  seen  the  king 
bestow  on  him.  Sometimes  he  apprehends  that  his  two 
adversaries  might  only  have  returned  to  the  city,  in  order  to 
return  again  by  night  with  reinforcements,  and  to  attack  him 
again  by  daybreak;  sometimes  he  again  suspects  that  they 
might  both  be  concealed  in  ambush  somewhere  in  the  vicinity. 
He  is  moreover  totally  unacquainted  with  the  by-ways  of  the 
forest ;  he  might  go  astray,  or  he  might  lead  his  lady-love  to 
the  verge  of  some  precipice  or  to  the  haunts  of  savage  beasts. 
After  having  duly  considered  all  these  things,  he  says  to  him- 
self: "  My  part  is  chosen  ;  I  shall  pass  the  night  here,  and  this 
insolent  king  shall  not  be  able  to  say  that  I've  escaped  into 
obscurity  like  a  robber." 

After  having  uttered  these  words,  he  proceeds  to  cut  bushes, 
branches  and  stakes,  wherewith  he  closes  the  entrance  of  the 
defile.  This  being  accomplished,  he  bends  sobbing  over  the 
corpses  of  those  whom  he  nad  slain,  embraces  them  one  after 
the  other,  and  kneeling  with  his  face  toward  the  east,  and  his 
sword  unsheathed  in  his  hand,  he  pronounces  the  following 


240  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

prayer :  "  I  thank  the  Creator  of  all  things,  him  without  whose 
permission  nothing  can  take  place,  for  having  protected  me 
against  the  attacks  and  insults  of  my  enemies,  and  I  humbly 
beseech  the  Lord,  who  desires  the  destruction  of  evil  but  not 
of  evil-doers,  to  permit  me  to  see  all  these  departed  enemies 
again  in  heaven." 

After  having  finished  his  prayer,  he  rises  and  begins  to  wattle 
some  small  twigs  into  the  shape  of  ropes,  wherewith  he  fastens 
the  six  remaining  horses  of  those  which  had  been  brought  by 
Gunther's  men.  He  then  disencumbers  himself  of  the  weight 
of  his  armor,  and  turning  to  his  young  friend  consoles  her  with 
tender  and  affectionate  words.  They  take  a  little  nourishment, 
and  Walter,  reclining  on  his  shield,  commits  the  first  watch  of 
the  night  to  his  fair  companion,  reserving  the  second,  the 
matinal  and  the  most  perilous  of  the  two,  for  himself.  Hilde- 
gunde,  sitting  by  his  side,  keeps  her  vigils  according  to  her 
custom,  warbling  various  songs  in  order  to  keep  herself  awake. 
On  awaking  from  his  first  nap,  the  Aquitanian  invites  his  love 
to  rest  in  her  turn,  while  he  himself,  in  a  standing  attitude  and 
leaning  on  his  lance,  keeps  watch  in  his  turn  by  her  side.  He 
thus  passes  the  rest  of  the  night,  sometimes  listening  attentively, 
in  order  to  assure  himself  whether  he  did  not  hear  some  noise, 
either  close  at  hand  or  afar  off,  sometimes  looking  toward  the 
east  to  watch  the  approach  of  day. 

At  daybreak,  Walter  strips  the  dead,  not  of  their  garments, 
but  of  their  armors,  their  bracelets,  their  baldricks,  their  hel- 
mets, their  swords,  and  with  all  this  he  loads  four  of  the  six 
horses  of  which  he  had  despoiled  his  enemies ;  he  places  his 
affianced  on  the  fifth  and  keeps  the  sixth  himself. 

After  removing  the  obstructions  from  the  entrance  of  the 
cave,  he  first  advances  a  short  distance  for  the  purpose  of  recon- 
noitering  the  country  around  him  and  of  listening  whether  the 
wind  might  not  bring  some  noise,  that  of  a  horse  marching  or 
shaking  its  bridle,  or  that  of  the  clashing  of  steel.  He  hears 
nothing,  and  he  decides  on  setting  out.  He  puts  the  four  horses 
loaded  with  the  newly-acquired  booty  in  front ;  his  fair  com- 
panion on  her  charger  follows  next,  while  he  himself  in  com- 
plete armor  closes  the  rear,  leading  the  horse,  which  carried 
their  treasure,  by  its  bridle. 

They  had  scarcely  advanced  a  thousand  paces,  when  Hilde- 
gunde  began  to  tremble  in  every  limb ;  on  looking  behind  her, 
she  perceived  two  men  descending  precipitously  from  an 
adjoining  eminence.  "Alas!  our  death  has  only  been 
retarded,"  she  then  exclaims;  "flee,  my  lord,  flee,  they  are 
approaching  toward  us!"  Walter  turning  around,  perceives 
the  two  men,  and  recognizing  them  at  once,  exclaims :  "  No, 


Analysis  of  Walter.  241 

dear  Hildegunde,  no,  I  shall  not  flee.  I  would  rather  fight  once 
more,  I  would  rather  die.  But  we  must  not  yet  despair ;  I 
have  had  many  an  escape  from  greater  perils  than  the  one 
before  us.  Come  I  Take  Lion  by  his  bridle  and  retire  as  quick 
as  possible  to  the  neighboring  woods.  I  will  remain  here  to 
await  the  emergency  and  to  reply  to  those  whom  I  see  coming." 
Hildegunde  retires  in  obedience  to  his  request,  while  Walter 
arms  himself  with  his  shield  and  brandishing  his  lance  tries  the 
unknown  charger  he  had  mounted. 

He  had  scarcely  finished,  when  the  two  adversaries  were 
already  close  at  hand ;  Hagen  behind  and  King  Gunther  in 
advance,  who  thus  accosts  the  Aquitanian  hero :  "  Here  then 
thou  art,  fierce  enemy  of  ours,  out  of  the  lair,  where  thou  hadst 
lain  concealed  and  where  thou  didst  grind  thy  teeth,  like  a 
dog  I  Thou  comest  here  to  fight  on  open  ground,  and  we  shall 
see  whether  the  issue  will  correspond  with  thy  beginning, 
whether  thou  wilt  keep  the  treasure  thou  hast  stolen  and  which 
renders  thee  so  brave." 

The  Aquitanian  hero  scarcely  deigns  to  look  at  the  king,  nor 
does  he  favor  him  with  a  reply.  Turning  to  Hagen  then,  he 
thus  addresses  him :  "  Listen  to  me  for  a  moment,  Hagen  ;  thou 
art  the  only  one  I  wish  to  speak  to.  Tell  me,  what  is  it  that 
could  have  changed  thy  former  amity  so  suddenly  ?  What 
have  I  done  that  thou  shouldst  lift  thy  sword  against  me? 
Alas!  I  had  expected  other  things  of  you!  I  had  imagined, 
that  if  peradventure  thou  shouldst  hear  of  my  escape  from 
among  the  Huns,  thou  wouldst  come  forth  to  meet  me  with 
alacrity,  in  order  to  congratulate  me  on  my  deliverance ;  that 
thou  wouldst  keep  me,  that  thou  wouldst  conduct  me  to  the 
kingdom  of  thy  father.  I  feared  that  thou  mightst  detain  me 
too  long !  When  I  was  forced  to  traverse  unknown  regions,  I 
tried  to  tranquillize  myself;  I  said  to  myself : i  No,  I  have  nothing 
to  fear  from  the  Franks  ;  Hagen  is  there  among  them  !'  Recall 
to  mind  our  infancy,  our  earliest  sports,  and  our  first  arms.  Was 
there  ever  any  quarrel  between  us?  I  loved  thy  father  as  I  did 
my  own,  and  I  forgot  my  own  fair  country  while  I  lived  in: 
thine.  Ah !  I  conjure  thee,  do  not  violate  our  old  friendship, 
and  let  us  refrain  from  fighting  with  each  other !  Dost  thou 
want  gold  ?  I'll  offer  thee  as  much  as  will  content  thy  heart ; , 
I'll  fill  the  hollow  of  thy  shield  with  it." 

To  this  discourse  Hagen  replies  with  an  angry  air :  "  Thou 
beginst  by  striking,  Walter,  and  then  resortest  to  arguments. 
It  is  thou  that  hast  broken  our  former  friendship.  When  so 
many  of  my  companions  and  my  kindred  fell  by  thy  hand, 
didst  thou  not  know  that  I  was  here  ?  Didst  thou  not  recog- 
nize me  by  my  arms  ?  Perhaps  I  might  have  pardoned  thee 

16 


242  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

thy  cruelties,  except  one ;  but  thou  hast  smitten  with  thy  sword 
a  youth  whom  I  cherished  above  all  other  beings  on  earth,  who 
was  dear  to  all,  amiable  and  comely,  a  tender  blossom.  This  is 
the  blow  that  severed  our  union  !  I  do  not  want  thy  gold  ;  I 
want  to  know  whether  thou  art  the  only  brave  man  in  the 
world  ;  I  want  to  avenge  my  nephew." 

Having  spoken  thus,  he  dismounts  his  charger  with  a  back- 
ward leap  ;  Gunther  does  the  same  thing,  and  Walter  is  already 
on  his  feet,  like  themselves.  Hagen  is  the  first  to  launch  his 
terrible  javelin,  which  sweeps  the  air  along  its  course  in  whirl- 
winds. But  Walter,  perceiving  its  approach,  interposes  his 
buckler  obliquely  in  an  instant ;  by  which,  as  by  the  polished 
face  of  marble,  the  gliding  steel  is  turned  aside  and  speeding 
plunges  onward,  until  it  is  completely  buried  in  the  ground. 
Gunther  in  his  turn  hurls  his  spear  ;  but  the  steel  sticks  nerveless 
to  the  buckler's  edge  of  his  antagonist,  who  with  the  slightest 
movement  of  his  arm  precipitates  it  to  the  ground. 

Enraged  by  the  miscarriage  of  their  blows,  the  two  Franks, 
protected  by  their  bucklers,  endeavor  now  to  assail  their  adver- 
sary with  their  swords  in  hand.  But  the  latter  inspires  them 
with  the  terror  of  his  own,  and  repulses  them  whenever  they 
attempt  to  approach  too  close.  Gunther  then  makes  the  mad 
attempt  to  regain  his  javelin,  which  still  stands  firmly  rooted 
in  the  ground  at  the  feet  of  the  Aquitanian  ;  but  the  latter  does 
not  permit  him  to  advance.  The  king  then  beckons  to  Hagen, 
to  interpose  his  person  between  himself  and  Walter,  in  order  to 
intercept  the  movements  of  the  latter,  and  sheathing  instantly 
his  sword  again  for  the  purpose  of  gaining  freedom  of  motion 
for  his  right  hand,  he  stoops  at  last  to  seize  his  javelin.  But 
Walter,  intent  on  all  the  movements  of  his  enemies,  gives 
Hagen  a  vigorous  repulse,  and  having  placed  his  foot  upon  the 
javelin,  at  the  very  moment  when  the  king  was  going  to  grasp 
it,  he  presses  it  upon  the  knee  of  the  latter  until  he  crushes  it. 
He  would  have  been  a  dead  man,  had  not  Hagen,  instantly 
advancing  to  his  support,  guarded  him  with  his  buckler,  while 
he  presented  the  point  of  his  sword  to  the  front  of  the  Aquita- 
nian. The  latter  dodges  to  avoid  the  blow,  and  the  king 
seizes  the  propitious  moment  to  get  upon  his  feet  again,  still 
trembling  at  the  danger  he  had  just  incurred. 

The  combat,  which  had  commenced  at  the  second  hour  of 
the  day,  prolongs  itself  until  the  ninth.  I  deem  it  necessary 
to  cut  short  some  of  its  details,  which  might  prove  trying  to 
the  patience  of  the  reader.  It  may  suffice  to  know,  that  Walter 
and  his  two  adversaries  end  their  encounter  by  inflicting  on 
each  other,  blow  after  blow,  the  most  frightful  injuries  and 
gashes.  The  sword  of  his  antagonist  carries  oif,  at  a  single 


Analysis  of  Walter.  243 

cut,  one-half  of  Gunther's  leg  and  a  foot  besides.  Walter  lias 
his  right  hand  severed  by  the  glaive  of  Hagen,  whom  by  a  stab 
of  his  poniard  he  in  revenge  robs  of  his  right  eye.  The  follow- 
ing is  an  exact  though  somewhat  curtailed  translation  of  the 
conclusion  of  the  poem.  A  few  passages  only  of  a  somewhat 
equivocal  effect  are  omitted  : 

Wounded  and  exhausted  the  three  warriors  at  last  cease  from 
their  combat.  Walter  and  Hagen  maintain  a  sitting  posture  ; 
Gunther  lies  extended  on  the  ground.  The  hero  of  Aquitania 
then  calls  his  trembling  Hildegunde,  who  approaches  the  three 
bleeding  combatants,  in  order  to  dress  their  wounds.  "  Now 
for  a  draught  of  pure  refreshing  wine,"  says  Walter ;  "  pour 
first  for  Hagen,  for  though  he  be  a  faithless  friend,  he  is  yet  a 
valiant  champion.  I  shall  drink  next,  as  having  had  more 
work  than  all  the  rest.  Gunther,  wrho  compels  the  brave  to 
fight,  and  who  himself  does  nothing  worth  the  name  in  combat 
— shall  drink  last." 

Hildegunde  offers  Hagen  to  drink ;  but  the  latter,  although 
consumed  with  burning  thirst,  declines  the  cup  :  "  Give  thine 
affianced,  thy  master,  first  to  drink,"  says  he  to  Hildegunde  ; 
"  for  he  is,  I  must  avow  it,  not  only  a  better  warrior  than  I,  but 
the  best  of  warriors." 

The  Frank  and  the  Aquitanian  thereupon  commence  to 
drink  and  to  converse  merrily  together,  in  memory  of  their 
former  friendship ;  which  finished,  they  lift  up  Gunther,  who 
had  thus  far  remained  prostrate  on  the  ground,  harassed  by  the 
aching  of  his  wounds,  and  having  seated  him  upon  a  horse,  they 
resume  their  respective  routes,  the  Franks  toward  Worms  and 
Walter  toward  Aquitania.  The  reception  of  the  latter  was 
attended  with  great  honor  and  rejoicings.  After  the  death  of 
his  father  he  reigned  in  the  place  of  the  latter  for.  the  space  of 
thirty  years,  and  was  greatly  beloved  by  his  people. 

The  poem  concludes  with  two  verses,  the  purport  of  which 
is,  that  the  versifier  of  the  poem,  weary  of  the  task  he  has  thus 
far  pursued,  is  determined  to  waive  the  celebration  of  the  for- 
midable military  enterprises  and  of  the  many  triumphs  which 
were  achieved  during  the  reign  of  this  monarch. 

Regarded  as  a  mere  oratorical  flourish,  these  lines  would  be 
insignificant  enough.  It  appears,  however,  more  probable,  that 
they  have  a  real  signification,  and  in  that  event  they  imply  a 
continuation  of  or  a  sequel  to  the  poem  of  Walter,  which  we  no 
longer  possess,  and  which  has  shared  the  fate  of  the  introduc- 
tory narrative  of  the  epopee. 


244  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


CHAPTEB  XII. 
WALTER  OF  AQUITANIA, 

IV.    PROVENCAL   OEIGIN   OF   THE   POEM. 

THE  links,  by  which  the  subject  of  the  poem  of  the  Walter  of 
Aquitania  is  connected  with  that  of  the  Nibelungen,  appear 
already  sufficiently  manifest  from  several  general  data,  common 
to  botn  these  epopees.  Thus  both,  for  example,  take  alike  for 
granted  the  existence  of  a  Germanic  kingdom  on  the  left  bank 
of  the  Rhine,  the  capital  of  which  is  Worms,  its  chief  a  king 
called  Gunther,  the  son  of  another  king  whose  name  is  Gibich, 
The  Hagano  or  Hagen  of  the  Latin  poem  is  identical  with  the 
Hagen  of  the  Nibelungen.  There  is  even  this  singular  coinci- 
dence, that  this  latter  personage  occupies  the  second  rank  in 
both  the  poems,  wherein  he  also  figures  as  the  adversary  of  the 
hero.  The  action,  lastly,  of  the  principal  scenes  in  Walter  and 
in  the  Nibelungen  both  is  carried  on  in  the  same  places,  viz. : 
at  the  court  of  Attila  and  in  the  forests  of  the  Yosges. 

These  points  of  coincidence,  however,  which  we  encounter  in 
both  these  poems  are  of  a  vague  and  general  order;  there  are 
others  more  precise  and  intimate,  which  it  is  important  to  indi- 
cate more  in  detail,  and  which  indeed  it  is  equally  easy  to 

A      1    1  •     T_  -Li/«/ 

establish. 

•  The  action  of  the  Latin  poem  is  by  a  number  of  years  ante- 
rior to  that  of  the  Nibelungen ;  it  is  therefore  in  the  latter,  that 
we  would  be  most  likely  to  encounter  traces  of  the  connection 
which  may  subsist  between  the  one  and  the  other,  and  it  is 
here  where  we  do  really  find  them  to  exist.  The  Nibelungen 
contain  diverse  allusions  to  the  adventures  of  Walter — allusions, 
the  tenor  and  value  of  which  it  is  indispensable  to  estimate 
with  proper  circumspection. 

I  shall  notice  in  the  first  place  one,  which  belongs  to  the 
passage  of  the  Nibelungen  in  which  Chrimhild's  first  attempt 
to  destroy  Hagen  is  recounted.  Hagen  and  Yolker,  as  the 
reader  may  remember,  have  just  seated  themselves  beneath  the 
window  of  the  queen,  from  no  other  motive  than  the  pleasure 


Provengal  Origin  of  Walter.  245 

of  defying  her.  Chrimhild  dispatches  four  hundred  warriors 
against  them,  and  they  are  already  advancing  to  assail  them. 
But  after  having  come  into  the  presence  of  the  two  champions, 
their  courage  fails  them ;  they  begin  to  reason  about  the  perils 
of  the  enterprise,  and  they  at  last  mutually  exhort  each  other 
to  return  as  they  had  come.  There  is  one,  among  others,  who 
addresses  his  companion  in  the  following  terms : 

"  Were  one  to  give  me  a  heap  of  gold  as  high  as  yon  tower, 
I  should  not  be  willing  to  attack  that  player  of  the  flute,  so 
great  is  the  terror  I  read  in  his  look.  I  also  know  Hagen,  I 
have  known  him  from  my  boyhood.  Let  them  say  what  they 
may  against  that  brave  hero ;  I  myself  have  seen  him  in  twenty 
battles,  which  have  made  many  a  woman  weep.  Walter  and 
he  signalized  themselves  by  grand  exploits  at  the  time,  when 
they  journeyed  hither  together,  combating  for  King  Attila's 
honor."* 

This  allusion  attests  in  the  most  explicit  manner,  what  the 
action  of  the  Latin  poem  likewise  supposes,  to  wit,  that  Walter 
and  Hagen  had  long  sojourned  among  the  Huns  and  had  fought 
together  in  the  service  of  Attila.  The  following  allusion  enters 
still  further  into  the  subject  of  Walter : 

We  have  seen  that  upon  the  entrance  of  the  Burgundians  into 
the  court  of  Attila,  Hagen  and  Dietrich  of  Yerona  were  indulg- 
ing in  an  exchange  of  friendly  sentiments.  I  must  add  here  a 
particular,  which  I  considered  myself  at  liberty  to  omit  in  a 
summary  abstract  of  the  Nibelungen.  On  perceiving  Hagen 
in  conversation  with  Dietrich,  Attila  is  singularly  struck  with 
the  appearance  of  the  former,  and  inquires  of  those  around 
him,  who  the  chief  of  so  martial  a  person  might  be.  One  of 
the  servants  of  Chrimhild,  who  happens  to  be  present,  eagerly 
replies  that  the  chief  was  Hagen  of  Troneg,  the  son  of  Aldrian. 
Whereupon  Attila  at  once  resumes : 

"  I  knew  Aldrian  well,  wrhen  he  was  my  vassal ;  he  acquired 
much  renown  and  honor  while  in  my  service.  I  made  him  a 
knight,  I  gave  him  of  my  gold,  and  held  him  in  high  esteem  on 
account  of  his  fidelity.  I  also  remember  Hagen  well.  Walter 
of  Spain  and  he,  two  noble  boys,  were  my  hostages,  and  attained 
their  age  of  manhood  at  my  court."  I  sent  back  Hagen  to  his 
home,  and  Walter  fled  with  Hildegunde.\  To  this  the  poet 

*  This  scene  is  from  the  xxixth  Adventure,  which  the  reader  may  consult  either  in 
the  original  or  in  Birch's  translation.  I  add  here  the  beginning  of  the  passage  : 

Do  sprach  aber  ein  ander  .  des  selben  han  ich  muot . 

der  mir  gabe  tverne  .  von  rptem  golde  guot . 

disen  videlare  .  wolde  ich  niht  bestan  . 

durch  sine  swinde  bliche  .  die  ich  an  im  gesehen  han . — Ed. 

t  This  scene  is  described  in  the  concluding  verses  of  the  xxviiith  Adventure.  The 
allusion  to  Walter  is  as  follows : 


History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

adds,  that  the  king  while  speaking  thus  was  indulging  in  rev- 
eries on  olden  times,  on  events  that  had  transpired  long  ago. 

It  is  impossible  to  indicate  the  principal  adventure  of 
Walter  in  a  more  direct  and  explicit  manner.  This  adventure, 
the  elopement  of  the  young  hero  with  Hildegunde  his  affianced, 
constitutes  the  groundwork  of  the  entire  poem. 

A  third  passage  of  the  Nibelungen,  relative  to  Walter, 
is  equally  precise  and  no  less  remarkable  than  the  preceding, 
of  which  it  may  be  called  the  complement  and  consummation, 
for  it  has  reference  to  the  denouement  of  the  poem.  This  pas- 
sage is  found  near  the  end  of  the  Nibelungen. 

Before  attacking  Hagen  with  his  arms  in  his  hands,  Dietrich 
exhorts  him  to  surrender  by  promising  him  life  and  safety. 
Hagen  declines,  and  Hildebrand,  who  is  witness  to  the  refusal, 
is  amazed  at  it,  and  informs  the  haughty  Burgundian,  that  he 
would  have  occasion  to  repent  of  it.  An  altercation  then  ensues 
between  the  two  warriors.  Hagen  reproaches  Hildebrand  with 
having  shortly  before  disgracefully  withdrawn  from  combat. 
To  this  reproach  Hildebrand  retorts  with  another.  "  Who  is 
the  man,"  says  he  to  him,  "  that  remained  tranquilly  seated  on 
his  shield  before  the  cave  in  the  Yosges,  while  W alter  of  Spain 
was  butchering  so  many  of  his  friends  ?"* 

From  these  different  passages  of  the  Nibelungen  we  may 
infer  with  certainty,  that  prior  to  the  epoch  (whatever  it  may 
be)  in  which  this  poem  was  composed,  the  Germans  possessed 
a  poetic  fable,  which  was  substantially  the  same  with  that  of 
Walter  the  Aquitanian. 

The  author  of  the  Nibelungen  was  familiar  with  this  fable  ; 
it  was  present  before  his  imagination  in  all  those  passages  of 
his  work  which  are  analogous  to  it.  His  presupposing  a  gen- 
eral acquaintance  with  it  authorizes  us  to  believe,  that  it  was 
in  a  Germanic  dialect. 

This  fable  was  not,  however,  a  mere  translation  or  copy  of 
the  actual  poem,  but  rather  another  version  of  the  same  subject 
with  differences  and  variations  in  the  accessory  circumstances 
and  details.  The  passages  quoted  from  the  Nibelungen,  how- 
ever rapid  and  imperfectly  developed,  still  indicate  several  of 
these  variations,  and  necessarily  lead  us  to  assume  the  existence 
of  others. 

Da  ich  wol  erchenne  .  allez  Hagenen  sint . 

ez  wrden  mine  gisel .  zwei  watlichiu  kint . 

er  und  von  Spane  Walther  .  die  wohsen  hie  zeman  . 

Hagenen  sande  ich  widere  .  Walther  mit  Hildegunde  entran Ed* 

*  See  the  xxxviiith  or  last  Adventure  of  the  poem.    The  passage  is  as  follows : 
Do  sprach  meister  Hildebrant .  zwi  verwizzet  ir  mir  daz  . 
nu,  wer  was  der  uf  eime  schilde  .  vor  dern  Waschen  stein  saz  . 
do  jm  von  Span  Walther  .  so  vil  der  friunde  sluoc  . 
ouch  habt  ir  noch  ze  zeigen  .  an  iu  selben  genuoc  .  — Ed. 


Provencal  Origin  of  Walter.  247 

Thus,  for  example,  in  the  Latin  poem  Walter  is  called  Walter 
of  Aquitania,  while  in  the  Nibelungen  his  name  is  Walter  of 
Spain. 

In  the  former  it  is  said,  that  Hagen  fled  from  the  court  of 
Attila,  where  he  had  received  the  news  of  Gibich's  death  and 
of  Gunther's  accession  to  the  throne  of  Burgundy.  lu  the 
German  poem  Attila  declares,  that  he  himself  had  sent  back 
Hagen  to  his  home.  In  the  latter  poem  the  father  of  Hagen  is 
called  Aldrian,  in  the  former  Agacien. 

To  the  author  of  the  Nibelungen,  Guntlier  is  a  Burgundian 
and  king  of  the  Burgundians ;  to  the  author  of  Walter,  Gunther 
is  of  Frankish  origin  and  king  of  the  Franks. 

Finally,  in  spite  of  the  minuteness  with  which  the  former  of 
these  two  authors  enters  into  the  details  of  Hagen's  history,  he 
yet  makes  not  the  slightest  allusion  to  the  loss  of  an  eye,  which 
the  Burgundian  warrior  had  sustained  in  his  combat  with  the 
Aquitanian.  This  leads  us  to  presume,  that  in  the  version  of 
Walter's  adventures,  which  was  known  to  the  German  poet,  the 
account  of  the  combat  in  question  was  different  from  that  of 
the  Latin  poem. 

And  the  "Nibelungen  is  not  the  only  poem,  in  which  Walter's 
name  occurs.  This  personage  figures  likewise  in  a  number  of 
those  songs,  which  enter  into  the  composition  of  the  "  Helden- 
buch,"  or  Book  of  Heroes,  and  more  especially  in  that  which  is 
entitled  "  The  Garden  of  Roses."  *  But  here,  with  a  singular 
license  of  the  popular  muse,  Walter  figures  as  a  champion  of 
the  Germanic  race,  as  the  companion  in  arms  of  Siegfried  and 
Hagen,  sustaining,  in  conjunction  with  them,  the  glory  of  the 
Burgundian  name.  This  poetical  naturalization  of  the  Aquita- 
nian warrior  in  Germany  is  another  indication,  from  which,  as 
well  as  from  the  above  mentioned  allusions  of  the  Nibelungen, 
we  may  perceive  the  extent  of  the  popularity,  to  which  the  his- 
tory of  this  hero  had  attained  on  the  other  side  of  the  Rhine. 

The  entire  literature  of  the  Germans,  however,  can  show  us 
at  present  neither  a  poem  nor  a  fragment  of  one,  of  which  Wal- 
ter is  properly  the  hero,  and  which  dwells  on  his  flight  from 
the  Huns  or  his  combat  with  the  twelve  champions  of  Gunther. 
These  poems  have  shared  the  fate  of  so  many  others.  We  find, 
however,  in  the  Sagas  of  Iceland  curious  remains  of  the  same 
legend. 

The  Wilkina-Saga  contains  a  singular  version  of  the  legend 
of  Walter,  which  I  deem  proper  to  communicate.  It  will  not  be 


*  Der  Rosengarten,  which  the  reader  will  find  in  the  first  volume  of  Vender  Hagen's 
edition  of  the  "  Heldenbuch."  Walther  is  introduced  as  combatant  in  the  fifteenth 
rhapsody  of  the  poem.  On  the  two  Gardens  of  Roses,  compare  "Illustrations  of. 
Northern  Antiquities/'  p.  23,  137-166 — Ed. 


24:8  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

out  of  place,  however,  to  say  first  a  few  words  on  the  chronicle, 
of  which  they  constitute  a  part. 

This  Wilkina-Saga*  is  one  of  the- most  singular  compilations 
we  can  conceive  of.  The  author  has  here  collected,  trimmed 
up  and  coordinated,  in  a  more  or  less  abridged  form,  all  the 
poetic  or  romantic  fictions,  with  which  he  was  acquainted,  and 
such  as  he  was  acquainted  with  them,  that  is  to  say,  very  much 
altered  and  disfigured.  His  design  was  to  make  one  individual 
whole  out  of  so  many  different  pieces,  cutting  up  and  parcel- 
ling out  the  respective  legends  for  the  purpose  of  embodying 
them  all,  of  blending  and  dissolving  them  into  each  other. 
Those  of  the  North  and  those  of  Germany  appear  here  inter- 
woven and  confounded  with  others  from  the  South ;  that  of 
Siegfried  with  that  of  Walter ;  those  whose  scene  was  laid  in 
Spain  with  others,  which  had  the  heart  of  Scandinavia  for  their 
theatre. 

It  is  generally  believed,  although  without  any  decisive 
proofs,  that  this  chronicle  was  composed  about  the  year  1250, 
by  a  Norwegian  scholar  of  Drontheim,  by  the  name  of  Biorn, 
who  was  in  the  service  of  Hakon,  the  son  of  Hakon,  king  of 
Norway,  who  died  in  1262,  and  who  was  famous  for  the  zeal, 
with  which  he  patronized  the  Icelandic  translators  of  chivalric 
romances,  at  that  time  in  the  zenith  of  their  popularity  in 
Europe. 

Biorn,  or  whoever  else  may  have  been  the  compiler  of  the 
Wilkina-Saga,  has  added  a  preface,  which  is  curious  enough  for 
the  traits  of  naive  simplicity  in  which  it  abounds.  We  there 
perceive,  that  he  had  collected  all  these  fictions  from  a  histori- 
cal motive,  and  that  he  regarded  them  as  true.  He  gravely 
endeavors  to  explain,  why  the  heroes  of  those  olden  times  had 
such  superior  swords  and  such  strong  arms.  He  does  indeed 
find  something  a  little  strange  and  supernatural  in  the  exploits 
and  qualities  of  those  heroes.  "  But  God,"  he  observes,  "  could 
easily  give  them  all  this  and  even  half  besides." 

The  most  interesting  trait  of  this  preface,  in  a  literary  and 
historical  point  of  view,  is  the  indication  of  the  sources  from 
which  the  compiler  of  the  Wilkina-Saga  had  derived  his  mate- 
rials. He  expressly  declares  that  he  had  adopted  something 
from  the  popular  songs  of  the  Scandinavians,  but  he  at  the  same 
time  confesses  to  have  borrowed  and  translated  the  largest  por- 
tion of  his  work  from  German  sources,  and  the  character  and 
contents  of  his  compilation  confirm  the  truth  of  his  testimony 
on  this  point. 

*  The  Wilkina-Saga,  with  a  Latin  translation,  was  published  by  John  Peringskiold. 
Stockholm,  1705.  An  account  of  this  Saga  in  Mullet's  ^Sagabibliothek,"  vol.  ii.  A  Ger- 
man version  of  it  is  in  Von  der  Hagen's  "Nordische  Heldenromane,"  vols.  i..  ii.,  and 


Provencal  Origin  of  Walter.  249 

Now,  among  the  Germanic  materials  of  the  "Wilkina-Saga  we 
must  undoubtedly  include  a  particular  version  of  the  history  of 
Walter  the  Aquitanian.  "Walter  is  a  person  in  every^  respect 
foreign  to  the  real  traditions  of  the  North,  to  those,  which  form 
the  groundwork  of  the  Edda,  of  the  Volsunga-Saga,  and  of 
the  remaining  Scandinavian  monuments  anterior  to  the  year 
1250,  which  may  be  regarded  as  the  approximative  date  of  the 
Wilkina-Saga.  This  Saga,  the  first  and  the  only  one,  in  which 
Walter  figures,  can  be  nothing  more  than  a  translation  of  a  Ger- 
man narrative  (at  present  no  longer  extant)  of  the  adventures 
of  the  Aquitanian  hero,  and  this  narrative  may,  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent, be  represented  by  this  translation. 

According  to  this  chronicle,  Walter  is  neither  an  Aquitanian 
nor  the  son  of  an  Aquitanian  king.  He  is  the  nephew  of  Her- 
manrick,  and  his  history  is  linked  from  beginning  to  end  to 
that  of  the  latter,  which  occupies  a  conspicuous  place  in  the 
chronicle. 

Samson  of  Salerno,  a  knight  of  prodigious  strength  and  cou- 
rage, who  has  indeed  the  air  of  a  poetic  representative  of  one  of 
the  Norman  conquerors  of  Sicily — this  Samson  becomes  king  of 
Eauille  and  of  several  other  countries,  which  he  had  conquered 
by  dint  of  his  valor.  Hermanrick  is  the  son  of  Samson  ;  he 
succeeds  him  after  his  death,  adds  many  new  conquests  to  those 
he  has  inherited,  and  becomes  the  most  powerful  monarch  of 
his  time.  Among  the  number  of  his  conquests  are  entire  Italy, 
Greece,  and  a  considerable  portion  of  Spain,  rich  countries,  full 
of  flourishing  cities,  among  which  there  is  one,  which  the 
Northern  romancer  designates  by  the  strange  and  embarrassing 
name  of  Waskastein  or  of  Sarcastein,  without  giving  us  any  ex- 
plicit information,  to  which  of  those  countries  it  belongs.  It  is 
to  all  appearances  from  this  fantastic  city,  that  Walter  derives 
the  surname  of  Wasikhanstein,  which  he  bears  in  the  Icelandic 
chronicle,  and  to  which  I  shall  have  again  occasion  to  advert. 

Hermanrick  and  Attila  enter  into  a  mutual  alliance,  and  on 
this  occasion  send  each  other  hostages.  Attila  gives  Hermanrick 
twelve  chevaliers,  with  Osid,  his  nephew,  at  their  head.  Her- 
manrick on  his  part  furnished  to  the  king  of  the  Huns  twelve 
other  chevaliers,  and  among  them  Walter,  the  son  of  one  of  his 
sisters,  then  only  four  years  old. 

Walter  had  already  been  three  years  at  the  court  of  Attila, 
when  Ilias,  the  count  of  Greece,  likewise  obliged,  I  knew  not 
for  what  reason,  to  give  hostages  to  the  king  of  the  Huns,  sent 
him  his  daughter  Hildegunde,  seven  years  ol  age,  which  at  that 
time  was  precisely  that  of  Walter. 

At  this  same  epoch  there  also  resided  at  the  court  of  Attila 
a  personage  of  the  name  of  Hagen ;  but  the  latter  was  not  a 


250  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

hostage,  and  it  appears  not  even  a  stranger.     He  was  simply  a 
warrior  chief  in  the  service  of  Attila. 

^  Walter  and  Hildegunde  fell  in  love  witli  each  other  at  their 
first  interview,  and  they  continued  their  attachment  without 
the  knowledge  of  Attila,  until  one  day,  while  walking  together 
in  the  royal  garden,  where  there  was  a  festival  and  ball,  the 
two  lovers  concerted  a  plan  of  elopement  and  of  mutual  flight 
into  the  kingdom  of  Hermanrick.  I  propose  to  give  the  rest  of 
the  story  in  the  language  of  the  German  romancer,  or  rather  of 
his  Scandinavian  translator.  The  reader  will  thus  become  en- 
abled to  form  a  better  conception  of  the  character  of  this  ver- 
sion, than  he  could  acquire  from  an  abstract,  which  might 
easily  become  tainted  with  a  tinge  of  superfluous  irony. 

"  King  Attila  did  not  become  apprised  of  the  elopement  of 
the  two  lovers  until  the  moment  when  they  were  already  at  a 
great  distance  from  Susat  (his  capital).  They  carried  a  large 
quantity  of  gold  and  precious  things  away  with  them,  and  they 
fled  together  without  having  communicated  anything  about 
their  project  to  any  of  their  friends,  however  intimate. 

"  No  sooner  had  the  king  become  assured  of  the  escape  of 
Walter  and  Hildegunde,  than  he  commanded  twelve  of  his  meji 
to  pursue  them.  <  Bring  me  back  all  the  gold  that  they  have 
robbed  me  of,'  said  he,  '  and  "Walter's  head  into  the  bargain.' 
Among  these  twelve  men  there  was  one  who  called  himself  Ha- 
gen,  the  son  of  Aldrian.  The  twelve  knights  pursued  the  fugi- 
tives with  lively  speed  and  soon  got  within  sight  of  them.* 

"  Walter  instantly  leaps  boldly  from  his  steed,  deposits  Hil- 
degunde and  his  treasure  on  the  ground,  then  mounts  upon  his 
saddle  again,  puts  on  his  helmet  and  begins  to  brandish  his 
lance.  'My  lord,'  says  Hildegunde,  thereupon,  his  lady-love, 
to  him,  '  it  is  a  pity  that  thou  alone  shouldst  combat  these 
twelve  knights ;  flee  rather  and  save  thy  life.'  '  My  lady,'  was 
his  reply,  '  dp  not  weep.  Full  many  a  time  have  I  erewhile 
beheld  cleaving  of  helmets,  sundering  of  shields,  cutting  of  hau- 
berks and  knights  dropping  headless  from  their  chargers ;  nay, 
I  myself  have  even  done  all  this  with  my  own  hands.  I  shall 
soon  have  done  with  these  twelve  warriors.' 

"  Having  spoken  thus,  he  spurs  on  his  steed  in  front  of  them, 
and  this  was  the  beginning  of  a  rough  conflict ;  but  the  combat 
was  already  finished  before  nightfall.  Walter  had  been  se- 
verely wounded,  but  he  had  slain  eleven  of  the  chevaliers. 
Hagen  alone  had  escaped  and  concealed  himself  in  the  forest. 

"  Walter  returned  to  his  lady  and  remained  in  the  wood  with 

*  This  account  of  "  Valther  af  Vaskasteen"  is  contained  in  the  85th,  8Gth,  and  87th 
chapters  of  the  Saga.  Compare  also  Muller's  remarks  in  his  ''Sagabibliothek,"  vol.  ii., 
p.  189-199.— -Ed. 


Provengal  Origin  of  Walter.  251 

her.  Having  elicited  sparks  from  two  flints,  he  lighted  a  large 
fire,  on  which  he  roasted  the  haunch  of  a  wild  boar.  Hilde- 
gunde  and  himself  then  sat  down  to  eat,  and  they  continued 
until  they  had  consumed  all  but  the  bones.  While  this  was 
passing,  Hagen  emerged  from  his  place  of  concealment,  and 
advanced  with  sword  in  hand  toward  the  place,  where  Walter 
was  seated  before  the  fire.  He  hoped  to  kill  him ;  but  Hilde- 
gunde  said  to  Walter :  '  Take  care  of  thyself !  Lo,  there  comes 
one  of  the  enemies,  whom  thou  hast  combated  to-day.'  Walter 
then  grasps  the  bone  of  the  boar,  which  he  had  just  been  pick- 
ing, and  hurling  it  at  Hagen,  strikes  him  with  such  violence, 
that  he  falls  prostrate  to  the  ground.  But  Hagen  remains  in 
this  position  but  an  instant ;  he  rises,  and  mounting  his  charger 
again  gallops  off,  to  render  an  account  of  his  expedition  to 
Attila,  his  royal  master. 

"  Walter  on  his  part  likewise  gets  to  horse  again,  and  con- 
tinues to  ride  on  with  Hildegunde  toward  the  south,  across  the 
mountains,  until  he  arrives  in  the  kingdom  of  Hermanrick." 

We  perceive,  that  this  narrative  is  substantially  the  same 
with  that  of  the  Latin  poem  on  Walter  of  Aquitania,  and  with 
that  other,  to  which  allusion  is  made  in  the  song  of  the  Nibel- 
ungen.  But  in  regard  to  the  accessories  and  details  of  these 
three  narratives,  there  are  striking  and  singular  discrepancies. 
It  appears  to  me  especially  evident,  that  the  Scandinavian  ver- 
sion could  not  have  directly  emanated  from  either  of  the  other 
two.  The  points  on  which  it  differs  from  them  are  salient  and 
numerous. 

It  is,  however,  remarkable  enough  to  find  in  this  Scandina- 
vian version  certain  particulars,  wrhich  seem  to  have  left  their 
imprint  on  the  version  known  to  the  author  of  the  Nibelungen 
— a  circumstance,  which  would  lead  us  to  infer,  that  the  former 
is  older  than  the  latter.  The  Scandinavian  version,  for  exam- 
ple, contains  a  peculiarity,  which  enables  us  to  explain  with 
plausible  accuracy,  why  Walter,  who  in  the  Latin  poem  is 
Walter  of  Aquitania,  becomes  Walter  of  Spain  in  the  Nibel- 
tingen.  I  have  already  remarked,  that  in  the  Wilkina-Saga 
Hermanrick  is  represented  as  ruler  over  twelve  principal  cities 
of  Spain.  And  it  was  to  all  appearances  on  account  of  some 
circumstance  relative  to  these  twelve  cities,  or  to  some  one  of 
them,  that  Walter,  the  nephew  of  Hermanrick,  received,  in  the 
Germanic  traditions,  the  surname  of  Walter  of  Spain,  which 
was  retained  by  the  author  of  the  Nibelungen. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  value  of  this  conjecture,  or  of  those 
which  might  be  made  concerning  the  remaining  variants  of 
Walter's  surname,  it  is  manifest,  that  the  Scandinavian  version 
of  the  history  of  the  Aquitanian  hero,  when  compared  with  the 


252  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

Latin  redaction  of  the  same  is  nothing  more  than  a  barbarous 
travesty,  an  arid  rdsume',  destitute  of  all  the  interest  and  charm, 
by  which  the  details  of  the  latter  are  pervaded.  A  poetic 
fable,  however,  can  only  become  altered  to  such  an  extent  and 
lose  so  much  of  its  primitive  tenor  by  a  traditional  circulation 
of  a  long  period,  and  this  always  presupposes  a  great  popularity. 
And  this  is  an.  additional  reason  to  believe,  that  the  adventures 
of  Walter  of  Aquitania  were  very  popular  in  Germany  from  an 
epoch,  probably  very  near  that  of  the  composition  of  the  poem, 
until  the  thirteenth  century. 

And  this  history  did  not  remain  within  the  confines  of  Ger- 
many ;  it  found  its  way  even  to  the  Slavic  nations,  who  modified 
or  remodelled  it  after  their  fashion  and  appropriated  it.  Bogu- 
phali,  bishop  of  Posen,  who  died  in  1253,  wrote  a  chronicle  of 
Poland,  in  which  he  gravely  inserted  the  adventures  of  Walter 
as  a  fact  in  its  national  history.* 

According  to  this  chronicle,  there  was  "  once  upon  a  time"  a 
famous  chevalier,  by  the  name  of  Walter  the  Strong,  possessor 
of  the  fortress  of  Tyneg,  in  the  environs  of  Cracow.  This 
Walter,  while  yet  in  his  youth,  had  crossed  the  Rhine  and  had 
lived  for  a  long  time  at  the  court  of  I  know  not  what  king  of 
the  Franks,  where  there  was  at  the  same  time  another  young 
prince,  Allman  by  name,  who  had  come  there  to  acquire  the 
polish  of  courtly  manners. 

This  prince  sued  for  the  hand  of  Helgunda,  the  daughter  of 
the  Frankish  king ;  but  the  latter  could  not  comply  with  his 
request.  Walter  had  already  found  favor  in  her  eyes ;  she 
loved  him  and  had  consented  to  elope  with  him  to  Poland. 

The  slighted  prince,  however,  having  discovered  the  project 
of  the  two  lovers,  was  firmly  resolved  to  thwart  them.  Return- 
ing with  all  possible  speed  to  his  own  country,  on  the  banks 
of  the  Rhine,  he  gives  orders  to  all  the  boatmen,  that  they 
should  not  convey  to  the  opposite  bank  any  man,  that  might 
arrive  in  company  with  a  woman,  for  less  than  a  marc  of  gold 
as  the  price  of  passage,  and  without  instantly  informing  the 
king  of  the  event. 

And  accordingly  when  Walter  arrived  at  the  bank  of  the 
stream  and  demanded  a  passage,  he  was  asked  a  marc  of  gold 
and  a  courier  was  at  once  dispatched  to  convey  the  intelligence 
to  the  king.  Walter,  not  having  a  marc  of  gold  about  him  to 
pay  for  his  passage,  crossed  the  river  on  horseback  with  Hel- 
gunda behind  him.  But  when  he  had  arrived  on  the  other 
side,  he  there  found  Allman  in  arms,  and  a  terrible  combat 
ensued  immediately  between  the  two  rivals.  As  long  as  the 

*  Bishop  Boguphali's  travesty  of  the  story  of  Walter  is  contained  in  his  "Chroni- 
con  Polonise,"  which  forms  a  part  of  the  "  Rerum  Silesicarum  Scriptores,"  vol.  1st.— Ed. 


Provengal  Origin  of  Walter.  253 

prince  saw  Helgunda  before  him,  and  while  "Walter  was  fight- 
ing with  his  back  to  her,  the  former  had  the  advantage  over 
the  latter.  But  when  "Walter  was  driven  back,  so  as  to  have 
in  his  turn  Helgunda  before  him,  he  cast  his  eyes  upon  her,  and 
at  the  sight  of  her  his  strength  and  fury  were  augmented  to 
such  a  degree,  that  he  slew  his  adversary,  and  then  pursued 
his  journey  without  any  further  molestation. 

Up  to  this  point  we  still  recognize  a  travesty  of  "Walter  of 
Aquitania  in  this  history.  But  in  the  whole  of  the  sequel 
these  Polish  traditions  do  not  appear  to  have  the  slightest  con- 
nection either  with  the  Latin  poem  concerning  Walter,  or  with 
its  different  Germanic  versions,  and  I  have  consequently  no- 
thing further  to  say  about  them. 

These  are  the  most  unequivocal  indications,  which  I  have 
been  able  to  discover  in  the  Teutonic  literature  of  the  Middle 
Age,  concerning  the  knowledge  and  the  fate  of  the  poem  of 
Walter  in  Germany.  Thus  far  this  poem  exhibits  every  ap- 
pearance of  a  work  composed  by  and  for  the  benefit  of  Ger- 
mans ;  and  to  these  first  data  respecting  the  origin  of  the  work, 
it  is  necessary  to  add  a  circumstance,  which  up  to  the  present 
day  has  been  deemed  sufficient  to  augment  their  weight  in  the 
minds  of  many.  The  earliest  manuscripts,  from  which  the 
poem  of  Walter  was  first  made  known  to  the  literary  world, 
were  discovered  in  some  of  the  libraries  of  Germany. 

The  first  of  these  manuscripts,  which  in  the  course  of  the  last 
century  was  found  in  the  archives  of  one  of  the  Bavarian  monas- 
teries, was  designated  to  be  a  production  of  the  thirteenth  or 
fourteenth  century.  And  this  is  all  correct.  A  hundred  and 
sixteen  verses,  however,  are  wanting  at  the  end. 

But  the  greatest  curiosity  about  this  manuscript  is,  that  about 
the  year  1780  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  one  Jonathan  Fischer, 
who  published  it  at  Leipsic  in  a  small  quarto  volume.  To  this 
he  added  a  large  medley  of  notes — most  of  them  superfluous, 
to  say  the  least — and  a  preface  of  admiration,  in  which  he 
exhibits  very  little  more  esprit  or  discrimination,  than  in  the 
notes. 

A  year  or  two  after,  Frederick  Molter  discovered  a  second 
manuscript  of  Walter,  in  the  ducal  library  at  Carlsruhe.  This 
was  not  only  complete,  but  invaluable  on  account  of  its  anti- 
quity. All  those,  who  saw  it  then,  and  who  have  seen  it  since, 
are  of  the  unanimous  opinion,  that  it  is  of  the  ninth  century. 
From  this  manuscript  Molter  made  a  bad  translation  of  the 
poem  into  German  verse,  which  he  published  in  1782.  In 
1792,  twelve  years  after  the  publication  of  Fischer's  incomplete 
text,  this  same  editor  added  the  conclusion  of  the  poem  from  the 
manuscript  of  Carlsruhe. 


254  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

At  the  time,  when  these  discoveries  and  publications  were 
going  on  in  Germany,  the  interest,  which  the  literary  monu- 
ments of  the  Middle  Age,  both  national  and  foreign,  were  then 
inspiring  in  Germany,  was  as  yet  confined  to  a  very  limited 
circle  of  learned  men,  generally  without  any  critical  discrimi- 
nation or  guiding  ideas,  who  had  scarcely  a  suspicion  of  the 
manner,  in  which  these  monuments  are  to  be  studied,  and  who 
not  even  distinctly  knew,  what  to  look  for  in  them.  They  con- 
sequently bestowed  very  little  care  either  upon  the  text  or  upon 
the  translation  of  the  poem  of  Walter  ;  and  no  one  ever  thought 
of  assigning  to  this  composition  a  definite  place  in  the  literary 
history  of  the  Middle  Age. 

Some  years  after,  however,  when  the  history  of  this  literature 
became  the  object  of  more  general  interest  and'  a  favorite  sub- 
ject of  research  among  many  men  of  distinguished  talent,  who 
endeavored  to  bring  philosophy  to  the  aid  of  erudition,  and 
who  were  accustomed  to  consider  the  different  departments  of 
the  history  of  humanity  from  a  sufficiently  elevated  point  of 
view,  to  discover  the  links,  by  which  they  are  connected  to- 
gether, so  as  in  fact  to  form  but  one  and  the  same  history— it 
was  then,  I  say,  that  the  Latin  poern  of  "Walter  began  to  attract 
more  general  attention.  The  different  points,  by  which  the  ac- 
tion, which  constitutes  its  subject,  is  brought  in  contact  with 
that  of  the  Nibelungen,  and  through  the  latter  with  the  ensem- 
ble of  the  poetic  traditions  of  Germany,  were  then  for  the  first 
time  recognized  and  appreciated.  No  one  now  hesitated  to 
perceive  in  this  poem  a  translation  from  an  original  in  the  Ger- 
manic dialect,  which  like  the  Heldenbuch  and  the  Nibelungen 
constituted  part  and  parcel  of  the  ancient  national  poetry  of 
the  Germans. 

But  notwithstanding  all  this,  a  more  careful  consideration  of 
certain  peculiarities,  of  certain  traits,  and  even  of  the  general 
spirt  of  the  work,  would  have  led  to  many  an  objection  to  this 
verdict.  I  shall  here  only  indicate  one ;  and  this  is  not  even 
the  most  serious. 

The  manuscripts  of  the  poem  of  "Walter,  which  were  disco- 
vered in  Germany,  do  not  offer  us  any  indication  repecting  the 
author  of  this  poem.  But  the  style  ot  the  work  presents  certain 
peculiarities,  which,  properly  distinguished  and  appreciated, 
ought  to  have  led  to  some  doubts  in  regard  to  the  validity  of 
the  opinion,  which  attributes  this  work  to  a  German  author. 
In  spite  of  his  solemn  pretensions  to  a  correct  and  elegant  latin - 
ity,  the  versifier  of  the  adventures  of  Walter  of  Aquitania  has 
suffered  certain  barbarisms  and  forms  of  expression  or  phrases, 
which  are  foreign  to  the  genius  of  the  Latin  language,  to  escape 
his  pen.  These  very  faults,  however,  since  they  unquestionably 


Provengal  Origin  of  Walter.  255 

proceeded  from  the  vernacular  idiom  of  the  author,  might  fur- 
nish us  some  light  in  regard  to  his  country. 

The  words  of  barbaric  origin,  which  occur  in  the  text  of 
the  work  in  question  are  not  numerous ;  they  do  not  exceed 
twelve.  Two,  at  the  most,  may  be  of  Germanic  extraction, 
though  they  are  likewise  found  in  the  Neo-Latin  languages. 
Two  are  Celtic  ;  and  as  for  the  rest,  we  do  not  know  exactly,  to 
what  language  to  refer  them.  It  seems,  however,  more  proper 
and  nearer  the  truth,  to  attribute  them  to  some  one  of  those 
ancient  idioms  of  Gaul,  which  are  now  for  the  most  part  lost, 
than  to  the  ancient  Germanic  dialects,  of  which  considerable 
remains  are  yet  extant.  In  support  of  the  former  conjecture 
we  may  bring  another  one,  still  more  plausible. 

Besides  the  barbarisms  of  individual  words,  which  occur  in 
the  text  of  Walter,  there  are  others,  which  have  reference  to  its 
phraseology  and  style.  Now,  the  majority  of  these  are  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  genius  of  the  Romansh  idioms,  and  appa- 
rently could  have  only  emanated  from  the  pen  of  a  man,  who 
was  accustomed  to  think  and  feel  in  some  one  of  these  idioms. 
From  all  this  it  would  appear  to  have  been  more  natural  to 
attribute  the  poem  on  Walter  of  Aquitania  to  an  Italian,  a 
Spaniard,  or  a  Gallo-Roman,  than  to  a  German. 

But  at  the  present  day,  there  is  no  longer  any  room  for  con- 
jecture on  this  point.  Two  additional  manuscripts  of  the  poem 
in  question,  recently  discovered,  the  one  in  Belgium,  in  the 
Municipal  Library  of  Brussels,  the  other  at  Paris,  in  the  Royal 
Library,  have  made  the  author  of  this  composition  known  to  us 
with  certainty.  The  manuscript  of  Brussels  designates  a  monk 
of  the  Abbey  of  Fleury,  or  of  Saint  Benedict  on  the  Loire,  by 
the  name  of  Gerald,  as  the  author,  and  this  statement  is  con- 
firmed and  developed  by  the  manuscript  of  the  Royal  Library. 

In  the  latter  of  these  manuscripts,  the  text  of  the  poem  is 
preceded  by  a  dedication  of  twenty-two  leonine  verses  of  the 
most  insipid  and  semi-barbarous  description.  The  author  of 
this  dedication  asserts  himself  to  be  also  that  of  the  poem,  and 
gives  his  name  as  Gerald.  Though  not  appearing  expressly  in 
the  quality  of  monk,  he  still  gives  us  to  understand,  with  suf- 
ficient clearness,  that  he  really  was  one.  Gerald  dedicates  his 
work  to  one  of  his  ecclesiastical  brethren,  Archambauld  or 
Erkambaldus  by  name,  to  whom  he  gives  the  title  of  bishop. 
."  Do  not  misapprehend,"  says  he  to  him,  "  this  little  book ;  it 
is  not  the  glory  of  God  that  is  celebrated  in  it,  but  the  marvel- 
lous exploits  of  a  warrior  called  Walter,  who  was  maimed  in 
several  combats." 

We  thus  perceive  it  to  be  a  clearly  and  fully  established 
fact,  that  the  poem  of  Walter  of  Aquilania  was  composed  on 


256  History  of  Provengal  Poetry* 

the  banks  of  the  Loire,  near  the  confines  of  Frankish  Gaul  and 
the  Aquitania  of  the  Middle  Age,  and  composed  by  a  monk 
by  the  name  of  Gerald,  whose  vernacular  jdiom  we  have  every 
reason  to  assert  to  have  been  a  Komansh  idiom,  and  more  pro- 
bably that  of  the  South  than  that  of  the  North. 

It  is  much  more  difficult  to  determine  the  date  of  this  com- 
position. I  have  just  said  that  the  author  had  a  brother  bishop 
or  archbishop,  whom  he  calls  Archambauld.  This  circumstance 
might  furnish  us  a  clue  to  the  discovery  of  the  epoch  in  ques- 
tion, provided  we  had  a  complete  list  of  the  bishops  of  Frankish 
Gaul ;  it  might  be  possible,  perhaps,  to  dietinguish  among  all 
the  bishops,  who  bore  this  by  no  means  uncommon  name  of 
Archambauld,  the  particular  one  to  whom  this  monk  Gerald 
dedicated  his  verses.  But  in  the  present  catalogue  of  bishops, 
as  given  in  the  "  Gallia  Christiana,"  I  have  found  but  one  of  the 
name  of  Archambauld  or  Erchenbaldus,  and  this  was  the  bishop 
of  Strasbourg  in  960. 

If,  as  the  scholars  of  Germany  maintain,  the  manuscript  of 
"Walter  at  the  library  of  Carlsruhe  is  really  of  the  ninth  cen- 
tury, it  is  manifest  that  the  Erchenbaldus,  to  whom  this  work 
was  dedicated,  must  have  lived  at  least  a  century  and  a  half 
before  the  personage  designated  as  the  bishop  of  Strasbourg 
in  960 ;  and  there  are  other  reasons,  which  induce  us  to  con- 
sider the  poem  in  question  of  an  earlier  date  than  the  middle 
of  the  tenth  century.  The  thoroughly  classical  and  even  Yir- 
gilian  pretensions  of  the  author  betray  an  epoch  much  nearer 
to  the  time  of  Charlemagne  and  the  restoration  of  Latin  letters, 
which  took  place  under  the  auspices  of  this  emperor. 

Fischer,  on  the  other  hand,  the  first  editor  of  the  poem, 
undoubtedly  goes  back  too  far,  when  he  refers  the  date  of  its 
composition  to  the  sixth  century.  The  inaccuracies  and  ihcon- 
gruities  of  the  author's  style  are  of  a  character  which  befits  the 
ninth  century  much  better  than  the  sixth.  At  the  latter  epoch, 
the  Latin,  although  already  very  much  degenerated,  was  still 
in  general  use,  and  it  was  yet  much  easier  to  avoid  the  influ- 
ence of  the  popular  idioms. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  epoch  of  Gerald  the  monk, 
there  is  one  thing  more  certain  and  more  important  to  be  estab- 
lished. It  is,  that  this  monk  was  not  exactly  the  author  of  the 
poem ;  as  he  invented  neither  the  action  nor  the  actors.  All 
that  he  did  was,  to  reduce  to  verse,  and,  at  the  utmost,  to  am- 
plify with  some  ornaments,  some  classical  accessories,  a  story  of 
a  more  ancient  date  and  of  a  more  popular  tone.  This  is  a  fact 
which  monk  Gerald  himself  seems  to  acknowledge,  implicitly 
at  least,  toward  the  close  of  his  work.  He  concludes  with  an 
epilogue  of  four  verses,  in  which  he  informs  us  that  what  he 


Provencal  Origin  of  Walter.  257 

has  related  concerning  the  adventures  of  Walter  was  but  the 
smallest  part  of  them — was,  in  fact,  nothing  more  than  the  be- 
ginning. During  the  thirty  years  of  his  alleged  reign,  the  hero 
is  supposed  to  have  waged  other  wars  and  to  have  accomplished 
other  prodigies  of  valor,  in  the  enumeration  of  which  our  monk- 
ish versifier  assures  us,  that  he  had  not  the  courage  to  engage. 
Two  verses  at  the  end,  which  have  the  appearance  of  being  a 
postscript  of  the  copyist,  likewise  contain  an  allusion  to  the 
ancient  popularity  of  the  Aquitanian  hero:  "This,"  says  he, 
"  is  the  poem  of  Walter,  a  man  celebrated  for  his  exploits,  but 
terrible." 

The  question  now  arises :  When,  and  in  what  language,  was 
this  first  history  of  Walter  composed,  which  served  as  a  basis 
to  the  poem  of  Gerald  ?  Was  it  in  the  Romansh  idiom  2  Was 
it  in  the  Latin  ? 

To  all  these  questions  we  can  only  reply  by  conjectures,  but 
these  conjectures  we  shall  probably  be  able  to  support  by  sub- 
sequent investigations.  For  the  present  I  can  only  announce 
them  in  the  most  general  manner,  and  I  shall  confine  myself  to 
the  simple  statement,  that  the  earliest  history  of  Walter  must 
have  been  written  in  the  course  of  the  seventh  century,  and  in 
Aquitania.  Its  language  was  probably  the  vulgar  or  semi- 
barbarous  Latin,  which  was  then  still  spoken  or  understood  in 
that  country.  The  peculiarities  of  style,  which  we  have  already 
noticed  in  the  later  version,  are  in  all  probability  the  relics  of 
this  popular  original,  which,  as  idiomatic  forms  of  the  vernacu- 
lar Komansh,  occasionally  break  through  the  pedantic  pomp 
of  the  monkish  translation  or  redaction. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  character  of  this  lost  orig- 
inal of  Walter,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  can  scarcely  set  it  entirely 
aside  in  an  examination  of  the  questions  to  which  the  latter 
may  give  rise.  This  point  being  granted,  I  proceed  at  once  to 
broach  the  most  interesting  of  these  questions.  "  Is  there,  and 
in  what  cense  can  there  be  said  to  be,  any  historical  event  at 
the  foundation  or  in  the  accessories  of  the  poem  concerning 
Walter  ?" 

The  subject  of  the  poem  presents  itself  in  the  shape  of  an 
episode,  as  an  incident  of  the  grand  expedition  of  Attila  into 
Gaul,  which  took  place  in  the  year  450.  This  expedition  is 
even  briefly  described  in  the  first  hundred  verses  of  the  epos, 
but  this  is  done  in  a  very  unhistoripal  manner. 

The  Burgundians,  whom  the  author  already  supposes  to  be 
established  on  the  Saone,  were  then  still  in  possession  of  the 
tract  of  country  situate  between  the  Rhine  and  the  Yosges.  It 
is  true,  that  in  that  situation  they  offered  an  impediment  to  the 
progress  of  Attila,  but  they  did  not  treat  with  him,  nor  did 

17 


258  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

they  give  him.  any  hostages ;  they  were  not  even  exposed  to  the 
perplexity  of  deliberation.  Suddenly  assailed  by  the  Huns, 
they  were  almost  completely  exterminated,  and  among  the  lost 
was  their  chief  Gundikaire,  who,  according  to  the  German 
scholars,  was  the  same  personage  with  the  Gunther  of  the  Nibe- 
lungen. 

From  the  banks  of  the  Rhine  Attila  advanced  toward  the 
west ;  but  he  did  not  penetrate  into  Aquitania,  nor  did  he  even 
pass  the  Loire.  Having  laid  siege  to  Orleans,  he  was  obliged 
to  raise  it  at  the  approach  of  Aetius,  and  to  retreat  as  far  as 
the  plains  of  Chalons  on  the  Marne,  on  which  the  famous  bat- 
tle was  fought,  in  which  he  was  completely  defeated  and 
obliged  to  evacuate  the  country  without  receiving  any  hostages, 
either  from  Aquitania  or  from  any  other  province. 

The  greater  part  of  Aquitania  was  then  still  governed  by 
Roman  officers,  and  still  constituted  a  part  of  the  empire.  It 
was  therefore  only  by  a  romantic  fiction,  that  the  author  of 
Walter  could  have  made  of  this  country  in  450  a  separate  king- 
dom, with  a  prince-chief  of  its  own  by  the  name  of  Alfier.  The 
details  of  the  former,  therefore,  offer  us  nothing  that  is  properly 
historical  relative  to  Attila's  great  occidental  expedition.  But 
there  are  historians  who  admit  a  second  invasion  of  the  same 
country  by  the  same  conqueror.  In  support  of  this  opinion 
they  adduce  the  testimony  of  Jornandes,  who  is  indeed  very 
explicit  on  this  point.  This  historian  asserts,  without  any  hesi- 
tation, that  Attila,  burning  to  revenge  himself  of  his  defeat  at 
Chalons,  on  the  Visigoths  and  on  the  Alani,  who  as  auxiliaries 
of  the  empire  were  then  settled  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Loire, 
entered  into  Gaul  a  second  time ;  and  on  this  occasion  he  might 
have  penetrated  into  the  heart  Aquitania.  But  Thorismund, 
then  king  of  the  Yisigoths,  hastening  to  his  encounter,  is  said 
to  have  defeated  and  repulsed  him  again. 

It  is  not  my  business  here  to  discuss  the  value  of  the  testi- 
mony of  Jornandes,  in  order  to  establish  a  fact,  concerning 
which  no  other  historian  says  a  single  word.  I  have  but  one 
observation  to  make,  and  it  is  this,  that,  even  if  we  were  in- 
clined to  regard  this  second  expedition  as  true  as  it  is  improba- 
ble, the  historical  allusions  contained  in  the  poem  of  Walter 
will  not  square  with  it  any  better  than  with  the  first. 

There  is,  therefore,  nothing,  either  in  the  accessories  or  in 
the  main  groundwork  of  the  poem,  which  could  be  admitted  as 
historical,  unless  it  be  the  fact  itself  of  Attila's  expedition  into 
Gaul,  in  its  most  general  and  abstract  form.  But  it  is  manifest 
that  the  poet  did  not  propose  the  delineation  of  this  event,  on 
which  he  scarcely  ever  dwells,  as  the  principal  object  of  his 
composition  ;  he  only  wanted  to  make  it  the  basis,  the  frame- 


Provencal  Origin  of  Walter.  259 

work  of  his  real  subject,  which  presents  itself  to  us  with  all  the 
appearances  of  a  poetic  fiction. 

.But  this  very  fiction  may  have  a  historical  aim  or  motive. 
Poetry,  and  more  especially  the  epopee,  though  outside  of  the 
limits  of  history,  is  never  entirely  detached  from  it.  What- 
ever it  invents,  it  almost  invariably  invents  for  some  historical 
design,  in  order  to  celebrate  some  actual  facts,  some  grand 
event,  some  conspicuous  personage,  some  memorable  epoch  in 
the  life  of  a  nation. 

Supposing  now  the  poem  of  Walter  to  have  originated  in  a 
similar  motive,  it  is  important  that  we  should  examine  into  the 
nature  of  this  motive. 

The  hero  of  the  poem,  Walter,  is  a  Gallo-Roman  of  Aqui- 
tania,  from  the  country  beyond  the  Loire,  and  in  order  that 
there  might  be  nothing  equivocal  about  the  design  of  the  poet, 
who  wishes  to  distinguish  him  from  the  Germans,  he  makes 
him  speak  Celtic,  and  represents  a  Frank  as  reproaching  him 
for  belonging  to  a  race  which  was  naturally  given  to  merri- 
ment and  buffoonery — a  characteristic  at  that  time  generally 
attributed  to  the  Aquitanians,  and  especially  to  the  Yascones, 
who  were  then  the  leaders  of  the  ton  in  Aquitania. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  poem  to  the  end  of  it,  Walter  is 
represented  as  the  enemy  of  the  Franks,  as  distrustful  of  them, 
and  as  professing  toward  them  the  contempt  of  a  civilized  man 
toward  uncouth  barbarians.  When  designating  them  collec- 
tively and  in  a  general  manner,  he  calls  them  bandits  and  bri- 
gands of  Franks  (Fraud  nebulones),  and  he  makes  many  a 
haughty  allusion  to  their  cupidity  and  love  of  plunder.  He 
indeed  treats  with  their  king,  Gunther,  for  a  moment,  not  how- 
ever as  with  a  redoubted  adversary,  but  as  with  a  robber,  who 
had  taken  him  at  an  advantage,  and  whom  it  was  possible  and 
expedient  to  get  rid  of  with  a  little  gold. 

But  it  is  especially  in  point  of  martial  prowess,  that  the 
singer  of  Walter  represents  his  hero  as  superior  to  the  Ger- 
mans. Twelve  of  Gunther- s  most  valiant  champions  have  come 
in  pursuit  of  him,  in  order  to  plunder  him.  Seven  of  them 
assail  him,  one  after  the  other,  and  every  one  of  them  falls  in 
the  combat,  which  we  might  be  inclined  to  find  too  unequal 
for  the  glory  of  the  conqueror.  At  last  the  three  remaining 
champions,  seconded  by  their  king,  assail  the  invincible  Aqui- 
tanian  all  at  once  ;  but  they  only  nght  to  meet  with  the  fate  of 
their  seven  comrades  in  arms,  and  Gunther  can  only  save  him- 
self by  a  precipitate  flight. 

Hagen,  the  murderer  of  Siegfried  the  hero  of  the  Nibelungen, 
the  warrior,  whom  certain  Germanic  fables  make  the  son 
of  an  evil  genius  or  demon,  in  order  to  account  for  his  fero- 


260  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

cious  disposition,  his  bravery  and  his  prodigious  strength — 
Hagen  is  the  only  one  among  the  Franks  capable  of  confronting 
Walter,  and  yet  he  does  not  venture  to  challenge  him  to  single 
combat ;  he  joins  King  Gunther  in  order  to  attack  him,  and  the 
two  Franks  united  can  obtain  no  advantage  over  the  Aquita- 
nian.  Finally,  as  if  for  the  purpose  of  insuring  the  rank  of  the 
latter  on  a  still  firmer  basis,  the  poet  proclaims  him  through 
the  mouth  of  Hagen  himself  as  the  strongest  and  most  valiant 
of  warriors. 

There  is  nothing  in  all  this,  I  repeat  it,  which  could  be  con- 
sidered as  positively  historical.  But  it  is  even  more  difficult 
not  to  perceive  in  all  this  a  marked  poetical  intention,  the  more 
or  less  direct,  the  more  or  less  va^ue  expression  of  some  event 
or  fact.  It  can  not  be  without  design,  and  as  it  were  by  hazard, 
that  a  poet,  a  writer  of  romances,  a  subject  of  the  Franks,  and 
perhaps  himself  of  Frankish  origin,  in  bringing  personages  of 
the  conquered  race  in  collision  with  personages  from  among 
the  conquerors,  should  have  exalted  the  former  at  the  expense 
of  the  latter.  It  may  be  assumed  as  a  general  truth,  that  epic 
poetry  has  always  wished  to  do  what  it  appears  to  have  done, 
unless  this  were  so,  it  would  be  impossible  to  connect  its  his- 
tory with  that  of  humanity. 

This  being  taken  for  granted,  it  is  not  difficult  to  divine  the 

?rime  intention  or  the  principal  motive  of  the  poem  of  Walter, 
t  was  the  author's  design  to  celebrate  some  conspicuous  per- 
sonage of  Aquitania,  some  chief  of  the  tribes  south  of  the  Loire, 
opposed  in  point  of  interest  and  situation  to  the  Franks, 
who  were  the  rulers  of  the  rest  of  Gaul.  But  although  the 
hypothesis,  thus  announced,  is  extremely  probable,  it  is 
also  very  vague,  and  I  confess,  that  it  appears  to  me  impos- 
sible to  establish  it  in.  such  a  manner  as  to  give  entire  satisfac- 
tion. 

At  the  epoch  in  which  the  action  of  the  poem  is  supposed  to 
have  taken  place,  the  Yisigoths  were  not  yet  masters  of  the 
whole  of  Aquitania ;  they  only  occupied  the  southern  strip  of 
it.  But,  setting  aside  historical  precision  on  this  point,  there 
would  be  certain  reasons  to  suspect  that  the  first — that  is  to 
say,  the  veritable  author  of  Walter — might  really  have  been  a 
Gallo-Koman  or  a  Visigoth  inspired  with  the  idea  of  celebrating 
the  glory  of  the  exploits  of  the  Yisigoths.  This  people  acted  a 
distinguished  part  in  the  invasion  of  Attila,  and  contributed 
more  than  any  other  to  the  winning  of  the  battle  at  Chalons. 
We  know,  moreover,  that  from  the  very  moment  at  which  they 
were  brought  in  contact  with  the  Franks,  the  Yisigoths  had 
become  their  adversaries.  Beaten  once  at  Vougle*  by  Ciovis, 
they  had  exacted  more  than  one  revenge  for  this  defeat,  and 


Provengal  Origin  of  Walter.  261 

had  maintained  themselves  in  Septimania  in  spite  of  all  the  at- 
tempts on  the  part  of  the  Merovingians  to  dislodge  them. 

There  is  something  in  these  general  data,  which  at  first  view 
seems  to  square  tolerably  well  with  the  historical  motive  of 
the  poem  of  Walter.  But  these  data  cannot  be  separated 
from  others,  which  do  not  lend  themselves  so  readily  to  the 
same  supposition.  It  cannot  be  admitted,  for  example,  that  a 
poet  writing  for  the  purpose  of  enhancing  the  glory  of  the  Visi- 
goths, should  have  represented  them  as  paying  tribute  and 
giving  hostages  to  Attila,  especially  as  they  were  those  who 
claimed,  and  not  without  just  cause,  the  best  part  of  the  honor 
won  by  his  defeat.  Finally,  the  care  wTith  which  the  panegyrist 
of  Walter  characterizes  him,  as  an  Aquitanian,  as  a  man  of  the 
Celtic  race  and  tongue,  does  not  permit  us  to  attribute  to  this 
panegyrist  the  project  of  celebrating  a  Yisigothic  chief,  any 
more  than  a  Prankish  one.  It  was  undoubtedly  his  design  to 
extol  the  glory  of  a  Gaul,  of  a  hero  of  Gallo-Eoman  origin  or 
sympathy. 

Among  the  historical  personages  of  the  fifth  century,  who  by 
their  exploits  against  the  Barbarians  acquired  a  certain  popular 
celebrity  in  the  empire,  and  more  particularly  in  Gaul,  there 
are  three,  who  at  first  sight  might  appear  to  have  been  able  to 
inspire  the  author  of  Walter  with  some  such  idea.  These  were 
the  famous  Aetius,  Ecdicius  the  Arvernian,  son  of  the  emperor 
Avitus,  one  of  the  last  of  the  magistri  equitum  of  the  empire, 
and  Count  ^Egidius,  the  father  of  Syagrius,  the  last  Roman 
chief  in  Gaul,  who  was  conquered  by  Clovis. 

The  boyhood  of  Aetius  was  similar  in  every  respect  to  that 
of  Walter  the  Aquitanian.  Surrendered  to  Attila  as  a  hostage, 
he  was  educated  at  his  court,  received  his  first  lessons  in  the 
art  of  war  there,  and  contracted  relations  with  the  Huns,  which 
exercised  a  great  influence  on  his  subsequent  career  and  des- 
tiny as  general  of  the  empire. 

Ecdicius,  who  was  from  the  country  of  the  Arverni,  and  con- 
sequently an  Aquitanian,  made  heroic  efforts  to  defend  his 
country  against  Euric,  the  formidable  king  of  the  Visigoths. 
And  he  was  also  victorious,  as  long  as  it  was  possible  for  him 
to  fight.  But  the  Arverni  were  abandoned  to  the  Barbarians, 
whom  they  had  always  repulsed,  by  the  empire  itself. 

As  for  Count  ^Egidius,  every  one  knows  that  he  was  the  last 
of  the  Roman  chiefs  that  were  victorious  in  Gaul.  Successively 
the  ally,  the  king  and  the  enemy  of  the  Franks,  his  relations 
with  them  were  of  so  complicated  and  singular  a  character,  that 
history  has  never  as  yet  unravelled  them  completely. 

The  careers  of  these  three  personages  unquestionably  present 
phases,  by  which  it  seems  that  each  of  them  might  have  become 


262  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

the  hero  of  a  poem  like  that  of  Walter.  But  each  of  these 
three  suppositions  has  also  its  improbable  sides,  and  I  could  not 
seriously  adopt  any  one  of  them. 

It  now  remains  to  hazard  but  one  more  conjecture — a  con- 
jecture still  very  vague  and  unsatisfactory,  but  nevertheless  the 
only  one  which  I  can  here  consent  to  notice.  It  is  connected 
with  a  long  series  of  events,  which,  for  want  of  space  to  indi- 
cate them  all,  I  am  obliged  to  sum  up  in  a  single  fact. 

From  the  end  of  the  sixth  to  the  end  of  the  ninth  centuries, 
the  history  of  the  Gallo-Roman  tribes  south  of  the  Loire  and 
the  Garonne  was  but  a  long  succession  of  struggles  against  the 
domination  of  the  Franks — of  struggles  which  were  scarcely 
and  but  incompletely  suspended  during  the  energetic  reign  of 
Charlemagne.  The  first  chiefs  of  these  tribes,  in  this  warlike 
opposition,  were  men  of  the  country,  Gallo-Romans.  These 
were,  however,  soon  joined  by  other  chiefs  of  the  Merovingian 
race,  who  assumed  the  title  of  dukes  of  Aquitaiiia,  and  were  in 
this  position  the  natural  enemies  of  the  Franks,  then  masters  of 
the  territory  north  of  the  Loire. 

Seconded  with  energy  and  enthusiasm  by  the  tribes  and 
powerful  nobles  of  the  country,  they  rapidly  wrested  from  the 
last  Merovingians  all  the  provinces  situate  on  the  Garonne  and 
Loire,  and  even  the  cantons  on  the  left  bank  of  the  latter  of 
these  rivers. 

It  was  the  great  task  of  the  Carlovingians,  after  their  acces- 
sion to  power,  to  reconquer  all  these  provinces  and  the  comple- 
tion of  this  task  by  Irepin,  after  ten  years  of  a  war  which 
absorbed  all  his  forces,  all  his  courage  and  all  his  military 
genius,  constituted  his  chief  glory. 

Charlemagne,  having  become  heir  to  Aquitania  reconquered, 
had  no  idea  of  incorporating  a  country  so  rebellious,  so  passion- 
ately fond  of  its  independence,  into  the  mass  of  his  states.  He 
allowed  it  to  remain,  as  he  did  Italy,  a  separate  kingdom,  to 
which  he  assigned  a  special  task,  the  noble  task  of  coping  with 
the  Arabs,  and  of  forcing  them  back  from  the  southern  base  of 
the  Pyrenees  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  Ebro.  But  after  the 
death  of  Charlemagne,  Aquitania  resumed  its  natural  position ; 
it  again  commenced  to  maKe  war  upon  the  Frankish  monarchy, 
and  ended  by  disengaging  itself  anew.  It  was  this  province 
that  gave  the  signal  for  the  general  dismemberment  of  the  Car- 
lovingian  empire. 

This  struggle  of  four  centuries  gave  rise  to  the  development 
of  an  Aquitanian  nationality,  an  Aquitanian  pride  and  interests, 
which  made  themselves  felt  in  all  the  great  political  changes  of 
Gaul,  in  opposition  to  the  government,  that  had  originated  in 
the  Frankisn  conquest.  A  rivalry  and  antipathies  became 


Provencal  Origin  of  Walter.  263 

established  between  the  two  nations,  in  consequence  of  which 
neither  of  them  saw  anything  but  absurdities  or  vices  in  the 
distinctive  peculiarities  of  the  other.  In  the  eyes  of  the  Franks, 
the  Aquitanians  were  a  frivolous,  conceited,  corrupt  and  pleas- 
ure-greedy set  of  men.  To  the  Aquitanians,  the  Franks  were 
barbarians,  men  of  gross  and  ferocious  passions,  ignorant  of 
every  art  but  that  of  warfare  and  of  pillage.  I  have  already 
adduced  several  curious  examples  of  this  antipathy,  which  be- 
long to  the  end  of  the  tenth  century  ;  but  it  is  evident  that  the 
contrast  and  the  hatred  between  the  two  people  must  have 
been  still  greater  at  the  epochs  of  their  struggle. 

But,  to  return  now  to  the  poem  of  Walter,  it  appears  to  me, 
that  if  there  is  anything  in  the  poem  in  question  which  might 
be  construed  into  an  allusion,  however  vague,  to  certain  histo- 
rical events,  the  allusion  ought  to  have  reference  to  this  ancient 
struggle  between  the  Aquitanians  and  Franks.  If  it  was  the 
main  intention  of  the  poet  to  celebrate  the  glory  and  the  valor 
of  some  military  leader,  it  seems  to  me,  that  this  leader  could 
only  be  one  of  the  sovereign  dukes  of  Aquitania,  who  acquired 
renown  in  Gaul,  from  the  end  of  the  sixth  to  the  middle  of  the 
eighth  conturies. 

Of  all  these  chiefs  Waifer,  the  brave  antagonist  of  Pepin,  is" 
the  most  celebrated,  and  it  is  to  him  that  our  thoughts  are  first 
directed  in  searching  for  the  hero  of  our  poem  among  the  Aqui- 
tanian  princes.  The  leading  characteristics  of  the  poem,  how- 
ever, appear  to  me  to  contain  something,  that  can  only  be 
attributed  to  a  personage  of  a  more  ancient  date  than  that  of 
Waiter.  I  should  be  more  inclined  to  regard  Walter  as  the 
poetic  representative  of  some  one  of  these  earlier  Gallo-Roman 
dukes  of  Wasconia  or  Aquitaine,  who  took  advantage  of  the 
decline  of  the  Merovingian  monarchy,  in  order  to  reconquer 
from  it  all  the  territory  included  between  the  Loire  and  the 
Pyrenees. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  value  of  these  conjectures,  which 
I  shall  not  pursue  any  further  for  fear  of  becoming  tedious,  the 
points,  which  may  be  regarded  as  established  with  reference  to 
the  poem  of  Walter,  are,  that  this  poem  is  a  Gallo-Roman  pro- 
duction of  a  date  anterior  to  the  ninth  century ;  that  it  was  early 
known,  and  for  a  long  time  popular  in  Germany,  where  it  met 
with  the  fate  of  all  popular  poetry ;  that  in  other  words  it  un- 
derwent numerous  modifications,  of  which  the  last  were  the 
greatest  and  the  grossest.  It  has  furthermore  been  shown,  that 
the  unknown  author  of  the  Nibelungen  must  have  had  before 
him  one  of  the  Germanic  versions  of  this  poem  when  he  com- 
posed his  own.  It  is  less  certain,  but  nevertheless  extremely 
probable,  that  the  Gallo-Eoman  author  of  Walter  possessed,  on 


264:  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

his  part,  some  acquaintance  with  the  poetic  traditions  of  the 
Germans  concerning  the  tragical  adventures  of  the  Nibelungen. 
His  character  of  Hagen,  though  divested  of  some  of  its  asperi- 
ties, is  essentially  the  same  as  that  of  the  latter  and  there  is  no 
evidence,  that  he  himself  was  the  inventor  of  this  character. 
Finally,  it  follows  from  all  this,  that  literary  communications 
existed  between  Gaul  and  Germany,  as  early  as  the  ninth 
century. 

Germany  and  Norway,  however,  were  not  the  only  parts  of 
Europe,  where  the  legend  of  Walter  the  Aquitanian  was  so  ex- 
tensively known  and  popular  during  the  Middle  Age ;  it  is 
certain,  that  this  legend  was  scarcely  any  less  renowned  in  Italy, 
or  at  any  rate  in  certain  parts  of  Italy  than  in  the  North. 

We  still  possess  fragments  of  an  extensive  chronicle  of  the 
monastery  of  Novalese,  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Cenis,  which  was 
composed  about  the  year  1060,  by  an  anonymous  monk  of  that 
monastery.  This  monk  quotes  certain  ancient  biographies  of 
the  principal  abbots  or  friars  of  his  monastery.  Several  of 
these  biographies  were,  according  to  his  own  account,  already 
lost  at  the  time  he  wrote,  and  he  only  knew  them  from  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  convent ;  but  others  were  still  extant,  and  had 
furnished  him  the  materials  for  his  chronicle.  He  had  also  in 
his  possession  a  copy  of  the  poem  of  Walter,  in  the  shape  in 
which  it  is  still  known  to  us,  and  gives  an  abstract  of  it  in  prose, 
in  which  he  occasionally  interweaves  a  verse  from  the  text. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Independently  of  these  extracts,  the 
author  of  the  chronicle  relates  concerning  an  ancient  monk, 
whose  name  was  likewise  Walter,  diverse  traditions,  which  he 
had  collected  either  from  the  inmates  of  the  monastery  itself,  or 
from  the  mouth  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  surrounding  localities. 
According  to  these  curious  traditions,  this  monk  Walter  was 
the  same  personage,  that  had  gone  through  the  adventures 
enumerated  in  the  poem.  It  was  a  warrior  of  royal  descent, 
renowned  everywhere  for  his  uncommon  strength  and  braver v. 
After  a  reign  of  many  years  and  exhibitions  of  prowess  with- 
out number,  this  warrior,  resolved  thenceforward  to  occupy 
himself  exclusively  with  heaven,  had  assumed  the  habit  and  the 
staff  of  a  pilgrim,  and  had  gone  abroad,  visiting  all  the  monas- 
teries, in  search  of  one  well  regulated  and  sufficiently  austere, 
where  it  was  his  intention  to  remain  in  retirement  for  the  rest 
of  his  days.  He  had  already  wandered  over  many  a  country, 
when  he  at  last  arrived  at  the  monastery  of  Novalese,  which 
he  at  once  selected  as  his  place  of  seclusion,  and  where,  as  the 
humblest  of  all  the  brethren,  he  solicited  the  post  of  gardener. 

He  continued  to  reside  there  for  a  long  time,  leading  a  life 
of  holy  devotion,  but  nevertheless  finding  from  time  to  time 


Provengal  Origin  o*  Walter.  265 

occasion  for  giving  proof  of  his  former  bravery.  Having  been 
sent  one  day,  for  example,  against  a  band  of  robbers,  who  had 
plundered  the  monastery  of  a  portion  of  its  harvest- crop,  he 
exterminated  them  all  without  any  other  weapon  except  the 
shoulder  of  a  calf,  which  he  found  grazing  in  the  field,  and 
which  he  dislimbed  with  the  most  admirable  dexterity. 

He  had  thrice,  himself  alone,  repulsed  a  flood  of  Saracens, 
who  had  come  to  assail  the  monastery.  The  chronicler  of 
Kovalese  also  relates,  that  there  was,  and  that  he  himself  had 
seen,  in  the  adjacent  parts,  a  certain  marble  column  in  ruins. 
He  adds  that  the  villagers,  the  people  of  the  place,  called  the 
column  the  "  hit-a-blow  of  Walter,"  because  the  latter  had  sent 
it  prostrate  to  the  ground  by  a  blow  with  his  fist.* 

All  these  traditions  and  others,  from  which  I  will  save  the 
reader,  can  scarcely  be  conceived  in  any  other  sense  than  as 
reminiscences,  as  a  popular  echo,  not  of  the  poem  of  Walter, 
but  of  the  ancient  romantic  legend  concerning  the  same  per- 
sonage in  Latin  or  Romansh  prose,  of  which,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  the  present  poem  was  but  a  part,  but  the  com- 
mencement. Among  the  lives  of  the  celebrated  monks  of  the 
monastery  of  Novalese,  which  our  monastic  chronicler  alleges 
to  have  formerly  existed  there,  and  to  have  been  subsequently 
lost,  was  that  of  monk  Walter.  There  is  everything  to  warrant 
the  supposition,  that  this  pretended  life  was  nothing  more  than 
the  fabulous  legend  of  the  Aquitanian  hero  in  its  primitive 
form.  The  author,  according  to  the  conventional  usage  of  his 
age,  had  undoubtedly  made  Walter  end  his  days  in  a  monas- 
tery, and  probably  in  the  very  one  at  Novalese.  For  the  his- 
torian  of  this  monastery  gives  us  the  remarkable  piece  of  infor- 
mation, worth  our  notice  here,  that  there  was  always  to  be 
found  there  a  goodly  number  of  illustrious  personages  from 
various  parts  of  Gaul.  At  Novalese,  as  elsewhere,  Walter  may 
have  been  regarded  as  a  real  personage,  the  legend  as  a  veri- 
table history,  and  as  soon  as  the  romance  was  once  lost  or  for- 
gotten, the  traditions,  which  survived  it  in  the  monastery  and 
in  the  country,  could  easily  have  become  disfigured  to  the  ex- 
tent in  which  we  find  them,  toward  the  middle  of  the  eleventh 
century. 

*  To  these  fictions  concerning  Walter,  the  Frenchman  Rochex  adds  a  still  more  curi- 
ous one,  and  makes  the  hero  a  Hungarian !  "  Ce  Waltharius  e"toit  Ongre  de  nation 
.  .  constable  d'Ongrie.  .  .  il  cut  une  sainte  dame  pour  femme,  premiere  dame 
de  la  reine  d'Ongrie.  .  .  ils  se  re"solurent  d'abandonner  la  cour.  .  .  ils  en  sor- 
tirent  done  secretement,  la  femme  habillee  en  habit  d'homme,  ct  se  vinrent  rendre  a 
1'abbe",  qui  e"toit  alors  a  la  Novalese.  .  .  il  leur  demanda,  quelle  e"toit  leur  profession ; 
ils  re"pondirent  avec  respect,  qu'ils  ne  scavoient  que  celle  de  jardinier.  .  .  Cette 
femme,  toujours  tenue  pour  un  homme,  passa  plus  de  cent  anne"es  de  vie  dans  cette 
abbaye  en  grande  opinion  de  saintete",  la  ou  elle  finit  ses  jours.  .  .  et  il  est  de  croire, 
qu'elle  fut  reconnue  etant  morte,  et  que  son  mary  raconta  ce  qu'ils  e"toyent." — Ed. 


266  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

It  is  to  Muratori  that  we  are  indebted  for  the  publication  of 
the  fragments,  which  I  have  quoted  from  the  chronicle  of 
Novalese.*  They  constitute  a  part  of  his  extensive  collection 
of  original  authorities  on  the  history  of  Italy,  which  appeared 
during  the  course  of  the  last  century.  The  scholars  of  Italy  at 
first  paid  no  attention  to  .these  fragments.  But  immediately 
after  the  publication  of  the  text  of  the  poem  on  Walter,  they 
began  to  occupy  themselves  with  the  investigation  of  the  sub- 
ject; and  as  they  then  found  the  documents  and  traditions, 
relative  to  this  personage,  in  Italy,  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Cenis, 
they  readily  persuaded  themselves  that  he  must  have  been  an 
Italian,  and  that  the  poem,  of  which  he  was  the  hero,  had  been 
composed  in  Italy. 

In  1784,  Count  Napione  of  Turin,  a  litterateur  of  some  note, 
published  in  a  large  biographical  work  on  illustrious  Piedmon- 
tese  a  notice  of  the  chronicle  of  Novalese  and  of  its  author,  in 
which  notice  he  naturally  had  occasion  to  speak  of  the  poem  of 
Walter.f  He  does  not  hesitate  to  attribute  this  poem  to  the 
chronicle  of  Novalese,  assigns  the  year  800  as  the  probable  date 
of  its  composition,  and  represents  it  as  the  first  tentative,  and, 
as  it  were,  the  archetype  of  the  chivalric  romance,  thus  claim- 
ing for  Italy  the  honor  of  this  poetic  invention.^ 

These  few  assertions  contain  so  many  critical  and  logical 
errors,  that  it  would  occupy  too  much  01  our  time  to  examine 
them  all.  Fortunately,  however,  there  can  be  nothing  less  es- 
sential ;  for  some  of  the  facts,  which  I  have  already  announced 
as  certain,  are  more  than  sufficient  to  show  the  falsity  of  these 
assertions,  and  I  shall  therefore  not  dwell  on  them  any  longer. 

After  having  treated  the  history  of  the  poem  of  Walter  at  so 
great  (perhaps  too  great)  a  length,  I  shall  scarcely  be  able  to 
find  time  to  say  anything  concerning  the  poem  itself.  Luckily 
the  subject  is  a  simple,  a  circumscribed  one,  and  a  few  rapid 
observations  will  suffice  to  give  us  some  idea  of  it.  We  must 
not  expect  to  find  in  Walter  the  grandeur,  the  variety,  the  ter- 
rible play  of  passion,  the  wild  originality,  which  distinguish 
the  action  of  the  Nibelungen.  But  in  its  modest  proportions 
and  in  its  simplicity,  the  action  of  this  poem  is  destitute  neither 
of  interest  nor  of  character.  There  is  something  picturesque 
and  touching  in  the  situation  of  this  young  couple,  as  they  are 
traversing  barbarous  countries  in  their  flight,  travelling  only  by 
night,  never  halting  except  in  deserted  places,  and  reduced  to 

*  Muratori :  "  Scriptores  Rerum  Italic.,"  vol.  iii.,  col.  965.  This  Chronicon  Noyalici- 
ense,  with  all  the  fragments  relative  to  Waltharius,  has  since  been  edited  with  admirable 
care  by  Bethmann,  in  Pertz'  "  Monum.  Germ.  Hist.,"  vol.  ix.,  p.  75,  sqq.—  Ed. 

t  Cf.  his  "  Vite  ed  Elogi  d'  illustri  Italiani,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  28,  sqq.— Ed. 

i  "  Essendo  questo  ii  piu  antico  componimento  di  tal  genere.  che  mostrar  possa  1' 
Italia."  Id.,  p.  28.— Ed. 


Provengal  Origin  of  Walter. 

the  necessity  of  shunning,  like  a  deadly  peril,  the  encounter  of 
a  human  face. 

Nevertheless,  the  interest  of  the  story  does  not  at  all  increase, 
until  the  moment  when  Gunther,  apprised  of  Walter's  elope- 
ment, sets  out  in  pursuit  of  him,  with  the  design  of  robbing  him 
of  his  treasure  and  his  bride.  The  quarrel  between  the  king 
and  Hagen  could  not  be  more  true  to  nature,  nor  better  intro- 
duced to  motive  the  part  acted  by  the  latter,  who,  by  refusing 
to  join  in  the  combat,  suspends  the  denouement  for  a  while, 
and  gives  Walter  new  opportunities  for  the  exhibition  of  his 
heroism. 

The  dramatic  part  of  the  poem,  from  the  moment  when  the 
Aquitanian  and  the  Franks  are  confronting  each  other,  is,  upon 
the  whole,  very  beautiful.  The  description  of  the  combat  is 
done  with  great  care,  and  varied  with  a  great  deal  of  ingenuity. 

In  regard  to  character,  Walter  is  a  hero,  who  has  nothing  in 
common  with  those  of  the  Nibelungen.  He  is  a  civilized  and 
Christian  hero,  who  to  the  strength  and  intrepidity  of  the  war- 
rior adds  nobleness  of  heart  and  humanity.  The  prayer  which 
he  utters,  while  kneeling  over  the  corpses  of  those  whom  he 
had  slain  in  self-defence,  is  truly  a  sublime  trait. 

The  lay  of  the  Kibelungen  likewise  contains  characters  of  a 
noble  and  humane  description ;  but  these  characters  are  in  con- 
tradiction with  the  rest,  and  delineated  in  accordance  with  the 
chivalric  manners  of  the  thirteenth  century;  they  are,  in  short, 
such  as  then  actually  existed  or  were  imagined  to  exist  in  Ger- 
many. 

It  is  not  so  with  Walter.  Whatever  he  says  or  does,  that  we 
admire  as  generous,  is  nothing  more  than  the  natural  and  sim- 
ple expression  of  a  heroic  soul  developed  by  culture.  The 
ideas,  the  conventional  manners  of  chivalry  are  here  made  of 
no  account.  The  entire  poem  does  not  contain  a  single  allusion 
to  the  usages  of  chivalry. 

The  same  observation  might  be  applied  to  the  love  of  Walter 
and  Hildegunde.  Everything  about  it  is  simple,  natural,  con- 
cise. The  two  lovers  prove  that  their  affection  is  a  genuine 
one.  They  barely  announce  it  in  few  words,  without  any  en- 
thusiasm, without  any  effort  to  add  passion  to  their  language. 
Walter  has  already  the  air  of  the  master,  who  one  day  is  ex- 
pected to  command,  and  Hildegunde  that  of  the  spouse,  whose 
duty  it  will  be  to  obey.  In  all  this  there  is  nothing  that  could 
be  said  to  have  the  remotest  resemblance  to  the  gallantry  of 
chivalry. 

From  the  whole  of  this  discussion  the  reader  will,  I  hope, 
conclude  with  myself,  that  this  little  poem  of  Walter  was  really 
worth  reclaiming  for  the  literature  of  the  south  of  Gaul,  to 


268  History  of  Provenqal  Poetry. 

which  it  incontestably  belongs.  I  have  conducted  this  vindi- 
cation to  the  best  of  my  ability  and  without  any  hesitation. 
The  literature  of  the  Germans  and  that  of  the  Italians,  which 
have  likewise  claimed  it  for  themselves,  are  too  rich  in  their 
own  productions  to  refuse  the  politeness  of  this  restitution.* 

*  The  author  has  here  expended  considerable  ingenuity  in  an  attempt  to  vindicate  a 
Provencal  origin  for  the  primitive  poetical  elements,  from  which  the  Latin  epopee  in 
question  was  redacted  into  the  form  in  which  it  has  come  down  to  us.  Although  he 
did  not  fail  to  notice  the  fact,  that  a  Germanic  origin  was  asserted  by  the  savans  of  the 
other  side  of  the  Rhine,  yet  he  has  failed  to  adduce  the  proofs,  direct  and  conjectural, 
upon  which  his  Germanic  neighbors  based  their  claim.  The  author  of  the  "Cosu*  Sancti 
GaUi"  (Pertz'  "Mon.  Germ.  Hist.,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  118),  Ekkardus  IV.  (f!070),  states  express- 
ly, that  the  poetical  life  of  JValtharius  manu  fortis  was  composed  by  his  predecessor, 
Ekkardus  I.  (f973),  who  is  represented  as  having  written  it  m  his  youth,  while  yet  at 
school,  and  from  the  dictation  of  his  master ;  and  that  he  himself,  at  the  request  of  Ari- 
bo,  the  archbishop  of  Maintz,  corrected  the  barbarisms  and  Teutonic  peculiarities  of 
the  poem,  at  the  time  of  his  residence  in  the  archbishop's  city.  His  language  is  as  fol- 
lows: After  enumerating  several  other  poetical  compositions  of  Ekkardus  I.,  some  of 
which  are  yet  extant,  he  adds,  •'  Scripsit  et  in  scolis  mtirice  magistro,  vacillanter  quidem, 
quia  in  affectione  non  in  habitu  erat  puer,  vitam  Waliharii  manu  fortis,  quam  Magontise 
positi,  Aribone  archiepiscopo  jubente,  pro  posse  et  nosse  nostro  correximus  ;  barbaries 
enim  et  idiomata  ejus  Teutonem  adhuc  affectantem  repente  latinum  fieri  non  patiuntur. 
Unde  male  docere  solent  discipulos  semi-magistri,  dicentes  :  Videte,  quomodo  disertis- 
Bime  cor  am  Teutone  aliquo  proloqui  deceat,  et  eadem  serie  in  latinum  verba  vertite. 
Quee  deceptio  Ekkehardum  in  cpere  itto  adhuc  puerum  ftfellit  ;  sed  postea  non  sic  ;  ut  in 
lidio  Charromannico  (i.  e., '  Laudes  Carlomanni,'  which  was  another  poem  by  the  same 
author)."  Pertz,  the  editor  of  Ekkard,  remarks  ad  locum,  that  there  seems  to  be  ecarcly 
any  room  for  doubting  that  the  poem  here  meant  is  the  celebrated  epos  of  Walter  the 
Aquitanian;  especially  when  it  is  manifest  from  the  context  of  the  work  itself,  that  its 
author  was  a  young  man,  a  monk,  and  a  Teuton,  as  appears,  1st,  from  the  conclusion 
of  the  poem  ;  2dly,  from  certain  passages  derived  from  the  rfgula  of  St.  Benedict ;  3dly, 
from  the  word  Paliure,  which  in  the  German  language  signifies  Hagen.  To  these  proofs 
Gervinus  adds — 4thly  (and  in  direct  opposition  to  what  our  author  has  advanced  in  this 
chapter),  that  the  character,  sentiments,  passions,  developed  in  the  action  of  the  poem, 
are  of  the  primitive  Germanic  type,  even  more  so  than  those  of  the  Nibelungen,  and  so 
remote  from  the  chivalric  sentimentality  of  the  period  of  the  Crusades,  as  to  have  misled 
the  earlier  editor,  Molter,  into  the  error  of  referring  the  poem  to  the  6th  century  of  our 
era  ("Geschichte  d.  deutsch.  Dichtung,"  vol.  i.,p.  88-91).  Gervinus  asserts  it  as  prob- 
able, that  the  epos  in  question  was  composed  between  the  years  920  and  940  A.D.,  and 
that  it  was  the  joint  production  of  the  two  monks  of  St.  Gallen  here  named,  i.  e.,  of 
Ekkard  I.  and  of  his  master ;  that  the  substance  of  their  Latin  redaction  was  either  de- 
rived from  a  German  poem,  in  the  hands  of  the  authors,  or  communicated  to  them  by  a 
German  minstrel ;  that  at  a  subsequent  date,  Gerald,  the  Italian,  may  have  done,  what 
Ekkard  IV.  reports  himself  to  have  undertaken  about  a  century  later,  i.  e.,  emended 
and  transcribed  the  production  of  his  monastic  ancestors.  Ekkard  IV.  is  also  known  as 
the  Latin  translator  of  Ratpert's  poetical  eulogy  or  ode  on  fit.  Callus ;  and  we  have 
thus  direct  proof  of  his  having  been  a  poet,  as  well  as  a  writer  of  chronicles  ;  but  as  to 
whether  the  text  of  Walter,  now  in  our  possession,  is  the  one  redacted  by  him,  it  is  im- 
possible to  decide.  For  further  information  on  this  subject  I  must  refer  to  Grimm's 
"  Lat.  Gedichte  aus  d.  lOten  Jahrhundert,"  and  to  A.  Heyde's  article  in  Haupt's  Zeit- 
echrift,  9, 150  sqq.,  where  M.  Fauriel's  position  on  this  point  is  examined  more  particu- 
larly. Mone  likewise  maintains  Walter  an  originally  German  epos,  written  in  the  style 
and  measure  of  the  Nibelungen,  and  subsequently  turned  into  Latin.  He  finds  proofs  of 
it  in  certain  phrases  reminding  us  of  passages  in  the  Heldenbuch  and  other  poems  of  the 
old  Teutonic  type.  See  his  extended  remarks  in  the  "  Archiv.  d.  Gesellsch.  fttr  altere 
deutsche  Geschlchtkunde,"  vol.  ii.,  p,  92,  sqq. — Ed. 


The  Influence  of  the  Arabs.  269 


CHAPTER  XHL 

THE   INFLUENCE   OF   THE   ARABS. 

IF  what  I  have  advanced  in  the  last  chapter  with  reference 
to  the  poem  of  "Walter  be  true ;  if  this  work  is  really  what  it 
has  appeared  to  me  to  be,  an  inspiration  of  the  Aquitanian 
spirit,  th'e  expression  of  a  Gallo-Roman  opposition  to  the  con- 
quest and  the  dominion  of  the  Franks,  then  it  may  be  regarded 
as  the  germ  of  an  entire  class  of  Provencal  romances,  in  which 
it  will  be  impossible  for  us  to  mistake  the  inspiration  and  the 
expression,  which  I  am  now  about  to  examine  more  especially. 

I  have  already  remarked,  and  I  shall  have  more  than  one 
occasion  to  repeat  what  I  had  said,  that  among  the  events  which 
must  have  struck  the  imagination  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  South 
and  furnished  them  with  themes  for  poetry,  it  is  necessary  to 
include  the  rebellions  and  wars,  in  consequence  of  which  the 
dignitaries,  who  with  the  title  of  dukes,  marquises  and  counts, 
were  governing  the  provinces  of  the  Frankish  monarchy,  suc- 
ceeded at  last  in  converting  these  provinces  into  little  inde- 
pendent kingdoms  of  their  own.  Some  of  these  dignitaries 
were  men  of  distinguished  capabilities  and  of  great  energy  of 
character,  who  seemed  to  be  much  better  fitted  for  the  exercise 
of  power  than  the  degenerate  descendants  of  Clovis  or  of  Charle- 
magne. Some  of  these  had  a  singular  and  tragical  fate,  as  for 
example,  Bernard,  the  famous  Duke  of  Septimania,  who  was 
assassinated  by  Charles  the  Bald,  of  whom  he  was  generally 
reputed  to  be  the  son.  Others,  like  the  no  less  famous  Gerard 
de  Roussillon,  kept  up  an  adventurous  warfare  against  their 
kings,  in  which,  victorious  and  vanquished  in  their  turn,  they 
were  obliged  to  undergo  the  greatest  diversity  of  fortune.  The 
majority  of  these  revolting  cnieftains  were  popular  in  the -pro- 
vinces which  they  succeeded  in  detaching  from  the  monarchy ; 
and  the  inhabitants  of  these  provinces  sustained  them  willingly 
in  their  attempts  to  make  them  independent.  This  was  parti- 
cularly the  case  in  Aquitania  and  in  the  remaining  parts  of  the 
South,  which,  having  been  the  last  to  submit  to  the  dominion 
of  the  Carlovingians,  were  also  the  first  to  shake  it  off. 


270  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

The  tentatives,  the  conquests  and  the  misadventures  of  these 
military  leaders,  although  they  offered  little  that  might  be 
called  remarkable  or  heroic,  were  still  calculated  to  furnish,  and, 
as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  actually  did  furnish  noble  arguments 
for  the  nascent  epopee  of  southern  Gaul. 

But  by  far  the  most  interesting  and  most  popular  subjects, 
adopted  by  this  fruitful  branch  of  mediaeval  poetry,  were  derived 
from  the  wars  of  the  Christians  against  the  Arabs  of  Spain,  on 
the  frontiers  of  the  Pyrenees.  I  now  propose  to  give  a  sum- 
mary sketch  of  the  history  of  these  wars.* 

The  Arabs,  already  masters  of  Spain,  made  their  first  descent 
upon  Septimania  in  715.  In  1019  they  made  a  fruitless  at- 
tempt to  reconquer  Narbonne,  and  this  is  their  last  invasion  of 
the  soil  of  Gaul  with  which  we  are  acquainted.  Between  these 
two  expeditions  there  is  an  interval  of  three  hundred  years, 
during  which  the  Mussulman  conquerors  of  Spain,  arid  the  in- 
habitants of  the  countries  north  of  the  Pyrenees,  were  almost 
incessantly  at  war  with  each  other.  This  long  struggle  may 
be  divided  into  four  distinct  periods. 

From  715  to  732,  the  year  of  the  battle  of  Poitiers,  the  duty 
of  combating  Islamism  and  the  Arabs,  for  the  benefit  of 
Europe,  devolved  chiefly  upon  the  people  of  the  south  of  Gaul, 
and  more  especially  upon  the  Aquitanians,  -who  were  then 
already  independent  of  the  Frankish  monarchy.  Under  the  con- 
duct of  their  brave  duke  Eudes,  they  gained  several  important 
victories  over  the  enemy,  whom  they  repulsed  several  times 
from  Aquitania,  until  in  the  year  732,  Abderrahman  (the 
famous  Abderame  of  the  chronicles),  defeated  Eudes  at  the 
walls  of  Bordeaux,  and  spread  like  a  torrent  over  the  entire 
south  of  Gaul. 

From  this  date  to  778,  the  Franks,  first  under  the  command 
of  Charles  Martel,  and  subsequently  under  that  of  Charlemagne, 
continued  in  their  turn  the  struggle  against  the  Mussulmans. 
During  this  second  period  of  the  war  Charles  Martel  expelled  the 
Arabs  from  Provence,  and  also  deprived  them  of  Septimania, 
which  they  had  conquered  from  the  Goths.  Charlemagne  un- 
dertook his  famous  expedition  to  the  valley  of  the  Ebro ;  but, 
defeated  at  Saragossa,  he  was  obliged  to  retire,  and  lost  the 
flower  of  his  army  at  Koncesvalles.  In  778  Charlemagne  created 
the  kingdom  of  Aquitania,  which  was  of  more  extensive  dimen- 
sions than  had  been  the  independent  duchy  of  that  name.  At 
that  time  the  Gallo-Romans  of  the  south,  in  conjunction  with 
the  Aquitanians,  again  undertook  the  task  of  combating  the 
Mussulmans ;  but  the  war  was  henceforth  carried  on  under 

*  Compare  Michaud,  "  Histoire  des  Croisades,"  and  Reinaud's  "  Invasions  des  Sar- 
razins  en  France,  Savoie,  La  Suiese,"  etc. — Ed. 


The  Influence  of  the  Arabs.  271 

leaders  of  the  Frankish  race.  These  leaders  are  the  first  who 
reconquered  from  the  Arabs  a  number  of  cantons  and  cities  on 
the  eastern  coast  of  Spain,  and  established  new  Christian  settle- 
ments there. 

When  the  provinces  of  the  South  had  at  length  detached 
themselves  definitively  from  the  Carlo vingian  monarchy,  the 
chiefs  and  the  inhabitants  of  these  provinces  continued  the  war 
against  the  Arabs,  but  rather  from  a  religious  zeal,  or  from  the 
commencement  of  a  chivalric  impulse,  than  from  any  further 
necessity  of  self-defence.  Those  Moors  and  Saracens,  at  first  so 
terrible,  were  then  no  longer  feared.  The  reign  of  the  Ommi- 
ades  was  nearly  at  an  end,  and  the  country  was  on  the  point  of 
relapsing  into  the  same  state  of  anarchy,  from  which  the  chiefs 
of  this  glorious  dynasty  had  rescued  it. 

We  perceive  from  this  brief  outline,  that,  with  the  exception 
of  the  period  during  which  Charles  Martel,  at  the  head  of  his 
Franks,  conducted  the  war  against  the  Arabs  in  person,  this 
war  was  always  maintained  by  the  Gallo-Romans  of  the  south, 
by  the  Aquitanians,  the  Septimanians,  and  the  inhabitants  of 
Provence.  As  the  natural  allies  of  the  Spaniards  of  Gallicia 
and  of  the  Asturias,  these  nations  fulfilled,  in  common  with  the 
latter,  the  special  task  of  repelling  the  efforts  which  the  Arabs 
successively  made,  first  to  penetrate  into  the  heart  of  Europe, 
and  subsequently  to  maintain  their  power  in  Spain. 

In  this  struggle  nothing  was  wanting  that  could  develop  and 
ennoble  the  poetic  instinct,  then  already  awakened  in  the 
south  of  Gaul.  Everything  there  conspired  to  elevate  its  im- 
portance. The  enthusiasm  of  religion  and  that  of  glory,  the 
abrupt  alternations  of  victory  and  defeat,  the  striking  or  unex- 
pected incidents  of  war,  which  in  an  age  of  faith,  of  ignorance 
and  of  simplicity  were  readily  adopted  as  miracles ;  nay,  even 
the  ancient  renown  of  the  countries,  the  mountains,  rivers, 
cities,  which  were  the  habitual  theatre  of  this  war,  all  contri- 
buted to  spread  a  certain  special  interest,  a  certain  poeti- 
cal refulgence. 

Equal  to  the  Christians  in  point  of  bravery,  the  Arabs  were 
far  in  advance  of  them  in  civilization ;  and  it  was  incontestably 
from  them,  that  the  former,  in  the  course  of  this  war,  derived 
the  first  examples  of  heroism,  of  humanity,  of  generosity  toward 
the  enemy — in  short,  of  something  chivalric,  though  long  before 
chivalry  had  received  its  name  and  its  consecrated  for- 
mulas. * 

*  On  the  influence  of  the  Saracens  upon  the  chivalry  and  culture  of  the  West,  com- 
pare Von  Hammer-Purgstall's  "Litteraturgeschichte  der  Araber,"  vol.  lst,p.xc.-xcv.t 
and  vol.  5th,  p.  3 ;  says  he,  "  Durch  den  Verkehr  der  Kreuzfahrer  mit  den  Syrern  und 
^Egyptern,  und  den  der  christlichen  Spanier  mit  den  Arabern  und  Mauren  ging  ara- 
bische  Wissenschaft  und  Poesie  in  das  mittagige  Frankreich  und  Sicilien  tiber,  und  die 
gothische  Baukunst  ward  durch  die  saracenische  veredelt."— Ed, 


272  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

In  spite  of  the  repugnance,  which  the  Gallo-Romans  of  the 
South  did  not  cease  to  cherish  toward  the  Franks,  as  Long  as 
they  could  only  see  in  them  their  conquerors  and  masters, 
these  nations  nevertheless  loved  those  valiant  chiefs  of  the 
Frankish  race,  who  distinguished  themselves  in  the  contest 
against  the  Saracens.  They  regarded  them  as  their  own  in  a 
certain  sense,  and  frankly  expressed  their  admiration  for  ex- 
)loits,  which  were  achieved  for  their  own  benefit  and  at  their 


Several  of  these  chiefs  have  rendered  themselves  conspicuous 
in  history,  but  none  of  them  has  attained  so  much  popularity 
and  £clat  as  Duke  William,  surnamed  the  Pious.  Charlemagne 
commissioned  him,  in  780,  to  command  the  troops  of  the  king- 
dom of  Aquitania,  at  a  moment  when  this  kingdom  was  men- 
aced by  a  formidable  invasion  of  the  Arabs,  who  were  seconded 
by  an  insurrection  of  the  Yascones.  From  this  moment  to 
the  time  when  he  retired  as  a  monk  to  a  deserted  region  of 
the  Cevennes,  he  was  always  at  the  head  of  the  Christians 
against  the  infidels,  and  his  valor  was  crowned  with  glory  even 
on  those  occasions  on  which  he  was  defeated. 

These  different  wars,  I  mean  those,  which  were  waged  be- 
tween the  kings  and  their  revolting  officers,  as  well  as  those  of 
the  Arabs  against  the  Christians,  were  eminently  poetical.  They 
were  in  fact  poetry  already  made,  and  even  the  simplest  or 
crudest  expression  of  it  was  already  enough  to  accomplish  some 
object,  to  perpetuate  some  event.  That  there  existed  in  the 
south  of  Gaul,  and  at  an  early  date,  poetical  compositions  on 
these  wars,  written  with  a  view  to  delineate  their  principal  inci- 
dents, this  cannot  be  a  matter  of  serious  doubt.  But  we  are  not 
now  in  possession  of  any  of  these  verses ;  we  have  not  even  a 
specimen  left  us,  and  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  form  even  a 
conception  of  them. 

Judging,  however,  by  way  of  analogy  from  what  we  know 
concerning  the  origin  and  development  of  the  epic  poetry  of 
other  times  and  in  other  countries,  we  may  affirm,  that  the 
poetical  pieces  in  question  neither  were,  nor  could  be,  anything 
more  than  popular  songs,  the  subject  of  each  of  which  was  not 
a  complicated  series  of  events,  but  a  single  isolated  event, 
and  which  were  all  destined  to  be  sung  in  the  streets  and  in 
public  places,  in  the  presence  of  crowds  of  hearers  from  the 
lower  classes  of  society.  The  very  destination  of  this  kind  of 
poetry  excluded  necessarily  all  long-winded  compositions,  and 
even  those  of  moderate  extent. 

These  songs,  preserved  by  tradition  and  successively  aug- 
mented by  new  accessories,  in  which  the  historical  ingredients 
were  more  and  more  supplanted  by  the  marvellous,  were  gra- 


The  Influence  of  the  Arabs.  273 

dually  merged  into  those  primitive  epopees  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, some  of  them  relating  to  the  wars  with  the  Saracens  and 
others  to  those  of  the  dukes  in  rebellion  against  their  kings,  of 
which  I  shall  have  to  speak  again  hereafter.  All  that  I  can  do 
here,  is  to  indicate  their  primordial  germ. 

And  it  is  not  only  on  arguments  of  general  probability,  that 
I  rely  in  attributing  such  an  origin  to  these  epopees.  Definite 
facts  can  be  adduced  in  support  of  this  opinion,  which  deserve 
to  become  known,  not  as  of  any  importance  in  themselves,  but 
on  account  of  their  connection  with  a  general  fact  of  great 
moment  in  the  history  of  poetry. 

There  is  still  extant  a  manuscript  of  a  French  romance,  which 
will  occupy  our  attention  at  some  length  hereafter,  concerning 
which,  however,  it  is  proper,  that  I  should  say  a  few  words  at 
present.  This  romance,  entitled  GuiUaume  au  court  nez*  (au 
cornet)  or  William  with  the  short  nose,  is  one  of  the  most  cele- 
brated of  its  kind,  and  one  of  those,  the  history  of  which  it 
would  be  most  interesting  to  investigate.  The  William,  who  is 
the  principal  hero  of  this  poem,  is  the  same  Duke  William,  sur- 
named  the  Pious,  whom  I  have  characterized  above  as  the 
Christian  chief,  that  had  won  the  greatest  distinction  and  fame 
in  the  wars  of  the  Aquitanians  against  the  Arabs.  The  work 
is  of  enormous  extent.  Of  all  the  poems  of  the  West,  this  is, 
as  far  as  my  acquaintance  goes,  the  one,  which  comes  nearest 
to  the  colossal  dimensions  of  the  Hindu  epopee.  It  contains 
scarcely  less  than  eighty  thousand  verses. 

This  poem  is  evidently  nothing  more  than  the  final  amplifica- 
tion, made  probably  toward  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
of  one  and  the  same  subject,  which  had  already  been  augmented 
several  times  in  succession,  and  which,  in  its  original  form,  con- 
sisted only  of  a  small  number  of  popular  songs,  composed  in 
the  South,  on  the  very  spots  which  had  been  the  theatre  of  the 
glory  and  piety  of  the  hero.  And  this  is  precisely  the  testimony 
of  the  ancient  anonymous  biographer  of  William,  who  in  ex- 
press terms,  though  somewhat  paraphrastically,  says  the  same 


"  Where  can  you  find,"  says  he,  "  a  dance  among  the  young, 
an  assembly  of  people  or  of  men-at-arms  and  nobles,  on  the  eve 
of  a  saint's  day,  where  one  may  not  hear  them  singing  sweetly 
and  in  well-modulated  words  of  the  goodness  and  greatness  of 
William,  of  the  glory  he  achieved  in  the  service  of  Emperor 

*  Guittiaume  au  court  nez  is  one  of  the  so-called  chanson  de  gestcs,  and  the  work  of 
the  Trouveres  of  the  north  of  France.  This  immense  epos  consists  of  eighteen  branches 
or  grand  divisions,  of  which  at  the  time,  when  Fauriel  wrote,  only  one  had  been  pub- 
lished. The  rest  is  still  in  MSS.,  in  the  different  libraries  of  Europe.  An  account  cf 
this  work,  from  the  pen  of  M.  Fauriel  himself,  is  contained  in  the  xxiid.  vol.  of  the  "  His- 
toire  littSraire  de  la  France,"  p.  435-^551  —  Ed. 

18 


274  History  of  Provencal  Poefoy. 

Charles,  of  the  victories  he  won  over  the  infidels,  of  all  that  he 
suffered  at  their  hands,  of  all  that  he  repaid  them  ?"* 

It  was  impossible  to  attest  in  plainer  terms  the  existence  and 
the  popularity  of  the  primitive  songs,  of  which  the  exploits  of 
William  were  the  subject.  In  regard  to  the  epoch,  however,  to 
which  this  testimony  and  consequently  the  songs  under  con- 
sideration are  to  be  referred,  the  question  is  far  more  doubt- 
ful. In  the  opinion  of  Mabillon,  the  biography,  from  which 
this  passage  is  derived,  dates  from  the  ninth  century,  and  this 
opinion  is  quite  tenable.  But  what  is  beyond  all  doubt,  is,  that 
the  life  in  question  is  anterior  to  the  eleventh  century ;  there- 
fore the  songs,  to  which  it  refers  must  belong  to  the  tenth,  at 
least,  and  there  is  every  indication,  that  at  that  remote  epoch 
these  songs  contained  already  the  germs  of  all,  that  was  after- 
ward developed  and  paraphrased  in  the  romances. 

There  is  no  one,  but  what  has  either  read  or  heard  of  the 
celebrated  chronicle,  attributed  to  Turpin.  It  is  a  Latin  narra- 
tive of  Charlemagne's  great  expedition  to  the  valley  of  the 
Ebro  and  incorrectly  attributed  to  Turpin  or  Tilpin,  the  arch- 
bishop of  Eheims,  who  died  in  800,  fourteen  years  before 
Charlemagne.  It  is  not  anterior  to  the  end  of  the  eleventh 
century,  or  to  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth,  and  its  author  is 
unknown.  He  appears,  however,  to  have  been  a  monk.  The 
work  is  not  a  long  one  ;  it  has  less  than  eighty  pages ;  but  it 
would  be  difficult  to  scrape  together  a  greater  amount  of  enor- 
mous falsehoods  and  platitudes,  than  those  contained  in  this 
small  number  of  sheets.  Nevertheless  it  includes,  and  is  con- 
nected with,  some  curious  data  relating  to  the  literary  history 
of  the  Middle  Age. 

It  contains,  in  the  first  place,  the  proof,  that  before  the  epoch, 
at  which  it  was  composed,  a  species  of  popular  epic  songs  like 
those,  to  which  I  have  just  alluded,  was  in  circulation  among 
the  inhabitants  of  Gaul.  Chapter  XL  presents  us  with  a  census 
of  the  forces,  with  which  Charlemagne  made  his  descent  on 
Spain  and  of  the  different  chiefs  by  whom  these  forces  were 
commanded.  Among  these  chiefs  there  is  one  named  Hoel, 
count  of  Nantes,  with  reference  to  whom  the  author  adds: 
kt  There  is  a  song  about  this  count,  which  is  still  heard  sung  in 
our  day,  and  in  which  it  is  said,  that  he  accomplished  wonders 
without  number."f  A  circumstance  like  this  is,  by  its  very 

*  Qui  chori  juvenum,  qui  convening  populornm,  praecipue  militum  ac  nobilium  virorum ; 
quae  vigilise  sanctorum  dulce  non  resonant  et  modulatis  vocibus  decantant,  qualis  et 
quantus  fuerit  (Wilhelmus  dux),  quam  gloriose  sub  Carolo  glorioso  militavit,  quam  for- 
titer,  quamque  victoriose  barbaros  domuit  et  expuguavit?  etc.,  etc.  This  biography  is 
printed  in  Mabillon,  Acta  Sanct.  Ord.  Benedict.  Saec.  Quart.  Pars.  I.  p.  67  sqq — Ed. 

t  (Eilu3  comes  urbis,  quae  vulgo  dicitur  Nantas,  cum  duobus  millibua  heroum.  De 
hoc  canitur  in  cantilena  uiqut  in  hodiernum  diem,  quia  innumera  fecit  mirabilia." — It  is 
somewhat  curious  to  notice,  in  the  enumeration  of  these  forces,  that  the  venerable  pre- 


The  Influence  of  the  Arabs.  275 

nature,  too  indifferent  or  insignificant,  to  be  either  a  fiction  or  a 
lie.  I  now  proceed,  while  speaking  of  this  chronicle,  to  add 
some  other  proofs  in  support  of  the  same  fact. 

Jouffroy,  a  monk  of  Saint  Martial,  and  prior  of  Yigeois  in 
Limousin,  has  left  us  a  very  curious  chronicle,  of  great  impor- 
tance to  the  history  of  his  age  and  country,  and  even  to  that 
of  the  Middle  Age  in  general.*  Being  desirous  of  reading 
the  pretended  work  of  lurpin,  which  every  one  then  took  in 
earnest  and  as  a  veritable  history,  he  sent  to  Spain  for  a  copy 
of  it,  which  he  received  and  cherished  as  an  invaluable  treasure. 
The  letter,  which  he  wrote  on  this  subject  to  his  brethren  of  the 
monastery  of  Saint  Martial  begins  as  follows :  "  I  have  just 
had  the  pleasure  to  receive  the  history  of  the  glorious  triumphs 
of  the  invincible  King  Charles  and  of  the  illustrious  Count  Ro- 
land's exploits  in  Spain.  I  have  corrected  them  most  carefully 
and  ordered  a  copy  .to  be  made  of  them.  I  was  induced  to  do 
so  from  the  consideration,  that  we  have  thus  far  known  nothing 
of  these  events,  except  what  we  could  learn  from  the  chansons 
of  the  Jongleurs." 

These  songs  of  the  Jongleurs,  which  the  prior  of  Yigeois  found 
so  incomplete,  compared  with  the  history  of  Turpin,  although 
itself  very  short,  could  only  have  been  songs  of  the  same  de- 
scription with  those  I  have  already  noticed,  that  is  to  say,  still 
shorter  and  more  concise,  than  the  famous  history,  probably 
equally  false,  but  more  amusing  and  more  poetical. 

I  shall  now  go  a  little  further  and  hazard  a  conjecture,  which, 
I  confess,  appears  to  me  to  have  much  in  its  favor,  and  to  be 
extremely  probable.  I  cannot  but  regard  the  pretended  cho- 
nicle  of  Turpin  as  a  sort  of  interpolation  and  monkish  amplifi- 
cation, in  bad  Latin,  of  certain  popular  ballads  in  the  vulgar 
idiom  on  Charlemagne's  descent  on  Spain.  After  having  once 
found  their  way  into  the  body  of  the  insipid  chronicle,  the 
majority  of  these  songs,  the  bad  and  the  indifferent  both,  must 
easily  have  become  confounded  with  it ;  and  it  would  be  impos- 
sible to  distinguish  them  now  on  a  ground,  with  which  by  their 
platitude  and  falsity  they  find  themselves  in  a  sort  of  harmony. 
But  we  also  find  here  and  there  in  this  same  chronicle  some 
isolated  traits,  some  passages,  which,  however  much  altered  we 
may  suppose  them,  still  bear  the  imprint  of  a  certain  enthusiastic 
and  savage  poetry,  by  which  they  stand  out  in  prominent  relief 
from  the  monkish  paraphrase,  by  which  they  are  enveloped, 
and  in  which  they  are  in  a  measure  lost. 

late  himself  is  not  forgotten  among  the  champions  of  the  expedition.  He  is  put  at  the 
first  of  the  list:  "  E?o  Turpinus  Archiepiscppus  Rhemensis,  qui  dignis  monitia  Christi 
fidelem  populum  ad  bellandum  forte m  et  animatum,  et  a  peccatis  absolution  reddebam, 
et  Saracenos  propriis  armis  saepe  expugnabam." — Ed. 

*  This  chronicle  is  published  in  Labbaeus,  Bibliotheca  Librorum  Manuscriptorum,  vol. 
ii.,  p.  280.  Portions  of  it  may  also  be  found  in  Bouquet's  Becueil  des  Historiens  des 
Gaules  et  de  la  France,  vol.  x.,  xi.,  and  xii.— Ed. 


276  History  of  Provenqal  Poebry. 

Such  appears  to  me  to  be,  among  others,  the  passage,  in 
which  the  last  moments  and  the  death  of  Roland  are  depicted. 
I  shall  endeavor  to  give  some  idea  of  it.  It  is,  however,  first 
necessary  to  remark,  in  order  to  render  the  situation  of  the  hero 
intelligible,  that  Charlemagne  has  repassed  the  Pyrenees  and 
finds  himself  already  in  the  plains  of  Gascony,  with  the  bulk 
of  his  army.  Twenty  thousand  Christians,  who  had  remained 
behind,  have  been  exterminated  at  Roncesvalles,  with  the  excep- 
of  a  hundred,  who  fled  to  the  woods  for  refuge.  Roland  rallies 
them  again  by  means  of  his  famous  ivory  horn  and  plunges  a 
second  time  into  the  midst  of  the  Saracens,  of  whom  he  slays  a 
large  number,:  King  Mamie  among  others.  But  in  this  second 
encounter  the  hundred1  Christians,  who  had  survived  the  first 
carnage,  all  perish,  with  the  exception  of  Roland  and  three  or 
four  others,  who  again  disperse  into  the  woods.  I  shall  now 
proceed  to  translate,  imitating  the  ancient  style  of  the  chronicle,* 
as  far  as  my  desire  to  remain  intelligible  will  permit  me : 

"  Charles  had  already  passed  the  defiles  of  the  mountains  and 
had  not  the  slightest  suspicion  of  what  had  passed  behind  him. 
Then  Roland,  breathless  for  having  fought  so  long,  covered  all 
over  with  bruises  from  the  stones  that  had  been  hurled  at 
him,  and  wounded  in  four  places  by  the  lances  of  his  enemies, 
retires  from  the  scene  of  combat,  lamenting  beyond  all  measure 
over  the  death  of  so  many  Christians  and  of  so  many  valiant 
men.  Passing  on  through  the  woods  and  by-paths,  he  reaches 
at  last  the  foot  of  mount  Cezere.  There  he  dismounts  his  horse 
and  throws  himself  down  under  a  tree  by  the  side  of  a  huge 
mass  of  rocks,  in  the  midst  of  a  meadow  of  the  finest  grass,  above 
the  valley  of  Roncesvalles.  He  had  Durandal,  his  trusty  sword, 
of  marvellous  lustre  and  keenness,  hanging  by  his  side.  He 
drew  it  from  its  sheath,  and  holding  it  up  before  his  eyeSj  he 
began  to  weep  saying :  c  O,  my  fair,  my  trusty  and  beloved 
sword !  In  whose  hands  art  thou  now  going  to  fall  ?  Who  will 
become  thy  master  ?  Ah !  Well  may  he  call  himself  a  lucky 
man,  he  who  shall  find  thee !  He  could  not  but  strike  terror 
into  his  enemies  in  battle,  for  the  least  wound  made  by  thee  is 
mortal.  Oh  what  a  pity,  wert  thou  to  come  into  the  hands  of 
an  ungallant  man  !  But  how  much  greater  the  misfortune,  if 
thou  shouldst  fall  into  the  power  of  a  Saracen  !'  And  thereupon 
he  began  to  dread,  lest  Durandal  might  be  found  by  an  infidel, 
and  he  wanted  to  break  it  before  dying.  He  struck  three  blows 

*  This  passage  is  found  in  chapter  xxii.  of  the  chronicle  attributed  to  Turpin,  of  which 
I  add  here  a  sentence  or  two,  as  a  specimen  of  the  style  :  '*  Carolus  veto  cum  suis  ex- 
ercitibus  jam  montis  fastigia  transierat,  et  qnse  post  tergum  facta  fuerant,  ignorabat. 
Tune  Rolandus,  tanto  bello  fatigatus,  de  nece  Christianorum  et  tantorum  virorum  dolens, 
,  Saracenorumictibus  magnis  etpercussionibus  acceptis  afflictus,  usque  ad  pedem  portuum 
•Cicerae  per  nemora  solus  pervenit,  et  ibi  sub  arbore  .quadem  juxta  lapidem  marmoreum, 
qui  ibi  erectus  eratin  prato  optimo  super  Ronciaevallem,  equo  desiliit,"  etc.,  etc.— Ed. 


The  Influence  of  the  Arabs.  277 

against  the  rock,  which  stood  by  the  side  of  him,  and  the  rock 
was  cloven  in  two  from  top  to  foot,  and  yet  the  sword  was  left 
entire." 

If  this  fragment  can  be  regarded,  as  seems  probable  to  me, 
as  a  relic,  more  or  less  mutilated,  or  at  any  rate  a  reflex  of  some 
one  of  those  ancient  jongleur-ballads  on  the  wars  between  the 
Arabs  and  the  Christians  of  Gaul,  it  proves  something  more  than 
the  existence  of  songs  of  this  kind  at  a  very  remote  period ;  it 
also  proves  that  the  wars  in  question  had  something  about  them 
that  was  poetical  and  favorable  to  poetic  inspiration. 

By  turning  over  the  pages  of  this  singular  chronicle  of  Tur- 
pin,  I  think  I  could  find,  scattered  here  and  there,  additional 
traces  of  a  popular  poetry,  which  must  have  been  anterior  to 
its  composition.  But  this  attempt  might  easily  become  too 
circumstantial  and  arbitrary.  I  shall  therefore  abandon  it,  and 
prefer  to  search  in  other  chronicles,  more  ancient,  of  a  graver 
tone,  and  really  historical  in  their  conception,  for  surer  and  more 
striking  proofs  of  the  sort  of  influence,  which  I  attribute  to  the 
Arab,  over  the  poetry  of  the  Middle  Age. 

Between  the  years  791  and  795,  that  people  made  several 
grand  incursions  into  Septimania.  The  inhabitants  fled  in 
great  consternation  from  every  part  of  the  lower  country,  with 
whatever  of  their  goods  and  chattels  they  could  carry  with 
them,  and  withdrew  into  the  mountains.  A  band  of  these  fu- 
gitives traversed  several  branches  of  the  Cevennes,  until  at  last 
they  arrived  in  a  sequestered  valley  by  the  name  of  Conques, 
not  far  from  the  confluence  of  the  Lot  and  the  torrent  of  Dor- 
dun.  At  the  head  of  this  band,  there  was  a  chief  called  Datus 
or  Dado,  who,  in  801  or  802,  founded  a  chapel  there,  which 
some  years  after  was  destined  to  become  the  monastery  of  Con- 
ques, one  of  the  most  celebrated  in  all  the  southern  country, 
and  one  concerning  which  I  shall  have  presently  occasion  to 
speak  again.  Thus  far  everything  is  historical  and  extremely 
probable.  But  when  we  come  to  read  the  motives  from  which 
Datus  is  alleged  to  have  built  the  chapel,  the  poetry  and  fic- 
tion already  begin  to  appear,  in  my  opinion,  and  I  can  do  no- 
thing more  than  translate  and  quote  by  way  of  extracts. 

The  Saracens  having  made  an  invasion  into  Rouergue,  Datus 
with  his  companions  took  up  arms  for  the  purpose  of  aiding 
the  chiefs  of  the  country  to  repulse  the  infidels.  But  scarcely 
had  he  left  Conques  behind  him,  when  a  detachment  of  Sara- 
cens penetrate.d  there  and  carried  off  everything,  men,  women, 
children  and  chattels.  Meanwhile  the  army,  of  which  they 
formed  a  part,  was  at  last  driven  out  of  Rouergue,  and  the  Christ- 
ians, who  had  taken  up  arms  against  it,  all  returned  to  their 
respective  homes,  those  of  Conques  included  among  the  rest. 


278  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

But  what  was  the  surprise  and  grief  of  Datus  and  his  com- 
rades, when,  on  returning  to  their  firesides,  they  found  that  the 
Saracens  had  left  them  nothing !  They  had  made  prisoners  of 
all  the  inhabitants,  and  among  them  was  the  aged  mother  of 
Datus,  his  sole  companion,  his  only  consolation. 

Transported  with  rage  and  despair,  Datus,  at  the  head  of  his 
companions,  bereaved  and  furious  like  himself,  sets  out  at  once 
in  pursuit  of  the  robbers.  He  follows  their  trail  for  some  time, 
but  he  is  not  able  to  join  them  in  the  open  field  ;  they  have 
already  retired  into  a  fortified  castle,  where  they  had  deposited 
their  booty  in  safety.  He  makes  an  attempt  to  take  the  place  ; 
but  it  is  strong  and  well  guarded,  and  the  assailants,  too  few  in 
number,  are  soon  repulsed. 

Datus,  their  chief,  had  made  himself  conspicuous  among 
them  by  his  valor,  the  brilliancy  of  his  armor  and  the 
choice  beauty  of  his  horse,  which  was  superbly  saddled  and 
caparisoned.  A  Moor,  who  has  eyed  him  from  the  height  of  a 
turret,  accosts  him  with  the  following  words :  "  Tell  me,  young 
and  fair  Christian,  what  has  brought  thee  hither  ?  Hast  thou 
come  to  search  for,  hast  thou  come  to  ransom  thy  mother  ? 
Thou  canst  easily  do  so,  if  thou  pleasest.  Give  me  thy  fine 
charger,  saddled  and  caparisoned  as  he  is,  and  thy  mother  shall 
be  returned  with  all  the  spoils  that  we  have  carried  away  from 
thee.  But,  if  thou  refusest,  thou  shalt  see  thy  mother  welter- 
ing in  her  blood  before  thee."  * 

Datus  did  not  credit  the  proposition,  nor  the  serious  menace, 
or  perhaps  he  regarded  them  as  an  insult.  However  that  may 
be,  he  retorted  with  the  mad  reply :  "  Do  what  thou  pleasest 
with  my  mother,  perfidious  Moor  !  I  care  naught  for  thy  me- 
nace !  But  this  horse,  which  moves  thy  envy,  this  fair  horse 
never  shall  be  thine ;  thou  art  not  worthy  to  touch  its  bridle."  f 

Thereupon  the  Moor  disappeared,  but  he  instantly  came  for- 
ward again,  leading  the  mother  of  Datus  on  the  rampart. 
There  the  infuriated  enemy,  after  having  first  cut  off  the  two 
mammae  of  the  aged  lady,  struck  off  her  head  and  hurled  it  at 
Datus,  exclaiming :  Yery  well,  then,  keep  thy  fine  charger  and 
receive  thy  mother  without  a  ransom ;  there,  take  her !"  Da- 

*  "  Date  sagax,  nostras  modo  quae  res  vexit  ad  arces 
Te  sotiosque  tuos,  dicito,  namque  precor. 
Si  modo,  quo  resides,  tali  pro  mnnere  nobis 
Dedere  mavis  equum,  quo  faleratus  abis, 
Nunc  tibi  mater  eat  sospes,  seu  cetera  praeda ; 
Sin  autem,  ante  oculos  funera  matris  habes." 

Lib.  i.,  v.  235-240.— Ed. 

t  "  Funera  matris  age  ;  nee  mihi  cura  satis  ; 

Nam  quern  poscis  equum,  non  unquam  dedere  dignor ; 
Improbe,  baud  equidem  ad  tua  frena  decet." 

V.  241-243.—  Ed. 


The  Influence  of  the  Arabs.  279 

tus,  seized  with  horror  at  this  sight  and  at  the  language  of.  his 
antagonist,  runs  up  and  down  the  field  with  the  most  frantic 
agitation,  now  weeping  and  then  screaming,  like  one  out  of  his 
senses.  He  passes  several  days  in  this  frenzied  condition,  and 
recovers  from  it  only  to  fall  into  one  of  the  most  melancholy 
depression.  It  was  then,  that  he  formed  the  resolution  to  spend 
the  rest  of  his  days  in  solitude  and  penitence,  and  that  he 
ordered  the  construction  of  the  hermitage,  which  was  destined 
to  become  the  monastery  of  Conques.* 

This  narrative,  with  all  these  circumstances  and  details,  is  to 
be  found  in  a  biography  of  Louis  le  Debonnaire,  written  in  La- 
tin verse  by  an  Aquitanian  monk,  known  under  the  name  of 
Ermoldus  Nigellus.f  The  work  is  a  very  curious  one,  and 
although  composed  in  verse,  is  still  seriously  and  strictly  histo- 
rical. It  is  not  necessary  here  to  examine,  from  what  sources 
Ermoldus  may  have  derived  this  narrative,  which  he  certainly 
did  not  himself  invent.  But,  whatever  may  have  been  its 
source,  it  is  undoubtedly  nothing  more  than  a  fable. 

At  the  epoch,  at  which  the  event  is  supposed  to  have  taken 
place,  the  Arabs  did  not  push  their  expeditions  beyond  Carcas- 
sone,  where  they  only  stopped  to  plunder  and  to  devastate  the 
country.  They  did  not  advance  this  time  as  far  as  the  moun- 
tains of  Rouergue,  where  they  never  had  any  military  establish- 
ment or  fortress.  The  poetic  fiction  manifests  itself  in  all  these 
details  of  the  adventure,  and  it  manifests  itself  with  consider- 
able originality  and  force.  A  fiction,  like  this,  is  an  additional 
fact  to  prove,  how  profoundly  the  imaginations  of  the  south 
were  affected  by  the  invasions  of  the  Arabs,  and  how  much 
they  were  disposed  to  connect  the  marvellous  and  the  poetical, 
to  which  they  aspired,  with  the  existence  and  the  influence  of 
these  dreaded  and  admired  enemies. 

This  adventure  of  Datus  does  not  exceed  the  dimensions  of  a 
popular  song,  not  even  of  one  of  the  shortest,  so  that  we  have 
not  thus  far  encountered,  in  the  period  now  under  considera- 
tion, any  vestige  of  a  poetic  composition  of  some  length  and  of 
anything  like  a  complicated  invention.  But  toward  the  close 

*  "  Omnibus  amissis,  sumptis  melioribus  armis, 
Incola  mox  heremi  coepit  inesse  prius. 


Turn  rex  et  Datus  primo  fundamina  Concis 

•ant." 
and  263-264.— Ed. 


Infigunt,  monarchis  castra  futura  parant." 
Id.  v.  253-254 


t  He  was  one  of  the  intimate  friends  and  flatterers  of  Pepin,  the  king  of  Aquitania. 
Accused  of  an  attempt  at  treason  against  the  emperor,  he  was  banished  to  Strasbourg, 
where,  in  826,  for  the  sake  of  obtaining  his  pardon,  he  undertook  to  celebrate  the  ex- 
ploits of  Louis  in  an  epos  of  four  books.  This  being  ineffectual,  he  composed  two  ele- 
gies to  Pepin,  in  which  he  invokes  the  latter  to  defend  his  innocence  and  to  commise- 
rate his  unhappy  lot.  All  these  pieces  may  be  found  in  Pertz,  "  Mouum.  Ger.  Hist.," 
vol.  ii.,  p.  464  B*qq.~-- Ed. 


2SO  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

of  the  tenth  century,  or  at  the  commencement  of  the  eleventh, 
I  find  certain  traces  of  the  existence  of  a  work,  to  which,  were 
it  not  in  Terse,  the  name  of  romance  or  novel  in  the  modern 
and  even  quite  modern  sense  of  the  term,  might  properly  he  ap- 
plied ;  for  it  would  then  be  a  historical  romance.  But,  ro- 
mance or  poem,  the  composition  in  question  relates  principally 
to  the  Arabs  of  Spain,  and  the  remarks,  which  I  shall  have  to 
make  upon  it,  will  confirm  what  I  have  already  said  respecting 
the  indications  of  a  literary  influence,  which  the  latter  exerted 
upon  the  south  of  France.  But  before  broaching  this  subject,  it 
is  necessary  to  make  a  digression  of  some  length,  for  which  I 
now  ask  the  indulgence  of  the  reader. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  tenth  and  at  the  commencement  of 
the  eleventh  centuries,  there  lived  at  Angers  a  priest  by  the 
name  of  Bernard,  who  was  at  the  head  of  the  Episcopal  church 
of  that  city.  This  priest,  it  appears,  had  a  great  devotion  for 
Saint  Fides,  the  virgin  martyr,  the  object  of  special  veneration 
in  the  city  of  Agen  and  in  many  other  places  of  the  South. 
Having  repaired  to  Chartres,  about  the  year  1010,  he  passed 
some  time  there,  during,  which  he  frequently  visited  a  chapel, 
situated  outside  the  walls  of  that  city  and  dedicated  to  his 
favorite  saint.  He  there  had  often  occasion  to  converse  with 
Fulbert,  the  bishop  of  the  city,  who  had  many  things  to  say 
about  the  miracles  daily  wrought  by  Saint  Fides  at  the 
monastery  of  Conques,  of  which  she  was  the  patroness.  These 
miracles  were  then  creating  a  great  deal  of  excitement,  and 
surpassing  the  miracles  wrought  here  and  there  in  other  parts 
of  the  country  to  such  an  extent,  that  Bernard  himself  hesitated 
to  believe  them.  When  the  renown  of  these  miracles,  however, 
continued  unabated,  Bernard  commenced  to  be  tormented  with 
doubts.  He  resolved  to  clear  up  the  mystery  of  the  matter,  and 
to  assure  himself  by  personal  examination  of  whatever  there 
was  exaggerated  or  false  in  the  reports  he  had  heard  upon  the 
subject.  He  accordingly  made  a  solemn  vow  to  go  on  a  pil- 
grimage to  Conques,  in  the  rugged  mountains  of  Rouergue. 
This  monastery  is  the  same  as  the  one  already  known  to  us 
from  the  very  poetical  legend  respecting  its  foundation,  which 
I  have  given  above,  and  with  which  the  immediate  sequel 
stands  in  admirable  correspondence. 

Various  obstacles  at  first  opposed  the  accomplishment  of 
Bernard's  vow,  but  he  was  at  last  enabled  to  commence  his 
journey,  to  his  infinite  delight,  and  arrived  safe  and  sound  at 
Concpes.  No  sooner  was  he  on  the  spot,  than  he  began  to 
inquire  about  the  miracles  of  Saint  Fides;  and  he  at  once 
became  acquainted  with  a  multitude  of  them,  all  of  them  more 
or  less  surprising,  and  well  authenticated,  too,  undoubtedly,  for 


The  Influence  of  the  Arabs.  281 

he  no  longer  exhibited  the  slightest  difficulty  about  believing 
them. 

He  wrote  an  account  of  twenty-two  of  these  miracles  on  the 
spots  on  which  they  had  been  wrought,  and  dedicated  this 
account  to  FuTbert,  the  bishop  of  Chartres.  The  exact  date  of 
this  performance  we  do  not  know,  but  it  must  have  been  com- 
posed before  1026,  which  was  the  year  in  which  the  bishop 
died.* 

These  twenty-two  miracles  constitute  as  many  histories,  the 
majority  of  which  are  trivial  enough,  and  such  as  Bernard 
might  unquestionably  have  heard  in  great  abundance  at  Con- 
ques  or  in  the  adjacent  parts.  The  greater  part  of  these  histo- 
ries he  gives  as  coming  from  the  mouths  of  the  very  persons 
who  had  experienced  them,  or  from  the  testimony  of  witnesses, 
either  ocular  or  at  any  rate  contemporary,  and  he  represents 
himself  as  having  been  in  a  situation  to  convince  himself  of  the 
truth  of  the  facts  related.  Finally,  he  declares  to  have  abridged 
them  all  considerably,  with  the  exception  of  one,  which  he 
affirms  to  have  written  under  the  dictation  of  the  hero  himself, 
and  that  without  the  slightest  alteration  or  curtailment. 

This  history,  the  only  one  which  he  gives  entire,  is  the  first 
of  the  collection,  and  although  it  is  very  insipid,  I  am  still 
obliged  to  say  a  few  words  about  it,  because  it  probably  will 
furnish  us  the  key  to  several  others,  or  at  any  rate  to  the  one 
to  which  I  propose  to  direct  the  attention  of  the  reader. 

Bernard,  in  the  first  place,  mentions  in  his  account  a  priest 
of  Khodez  or  its  neighborhood,  by  the  name  of  Gerard,  whom 
he  represents  as  still  living  at  the  time  he  wrote.  This  priest 
had  with  him  at  his  house  a  young  man  by  the  name  of  Wibert 
or  Guibert,  who  was  his  nephew  or  god-son,  and  who  acted  as 
his  agent  or  steward.  Guibert  being  desirous,  like  so  many 
others  of  his  contemporaries,  to  pay  a  visit  to  Saint  Fides, 
assumed  the  habit  of  a  pilgrim,  or  the  romieu,  as  it  was  then 
called  in  that  country,  and  piously  directed  his  footsteps  toward 
Conques.  While  on  his  way,  he  had  the  misfortune  to  meet 
his  godfather,  Gerard,  who,  for  reasons  not  mentioned  in  the 
story,  was  extremely  enraged  to  find  the  young  man  in  a  pil- 
grim's habit  on  his  way  to  Conques.  Assisted  by  two  or  three  of 
his  companions,  he  made  an  attack  upon  the  unfortunate  Wibert, 
and  after  having  deprived  him  of  both  his  eyes,  threw  him 
bleeding  upon  the  ground.  But  Saint  Fides  was  not  going  to 
suffer  one  of  her  faithful  servants  to  be  maltreated  in  this  man- 

*  This  account  is  published  in  Holland's  "  Acta  Sanctorum,"  Octob.  torn.  iii.  p.  300,  sqq. 
under  the  title  of  "Miracula  S.  Fidis  (t.  e.  Fidei),  auctore  Bernardo  Andegavensia 
scholse  magistro  conscripta."  The  dedication  is  contained  in  the  "  Prologus  auctoris," 
on  the  same  page. — Ed. 


282  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

ner,  out  of  love  for  her.  A  snow-white  dove  immediately 
descended  from  heaven,  picked  up  the  exterminated  eyes  with 
her  bill  and  carried  them  directly  to  Conques.  I  refrain  from 
giving  all  the  details  of  the  miracle.  It  will  suffice  to  know, 
that  Wibert  remained  blind  for  an  entire  year ;  but  at  the  end 
of  the  year,  Saint  Fides  appeared  to  him  in  a  dream  to  inform 
him,  that  if  he  wanted  to  see  his  eyes  again,  he  would  only 
have  to  go  to  Conques  to  look  for  them,  fie  went  accordingly 
and  brought  them  back,  not  in  his  hand,  but  in  his  head,  in 
their  orbits  and  as  good  as  ever. 

It  is  not  a  matter  of  indifference  to  know,  what  Wibert  did 
during  the  year  in  which  he  went  without  his  eyes.  "  He  prac- 
tised, says  his  historian,  "  the  profession  of  a  Jongleur,  subsist- 
ing from  the  contributions  of  the  public,  and  gaining  so  much 
money  and  living  so  well,  that  he  no  longer  cared  about  the 
loss  of  his  sight."  *  This  passage  from  the  life  of  Wibert  is  the 
only  one  that  has  a  certain  bearing  on  the  history  of  literature. 
There  might  be  some  uncertainty  in  regard  to  the  signification 
of  the  word  Jongleur  in  this  connection.  But  in  a  man  deprived 
of  sight,  like  Wibert,  the  profession  in  question  could  only 
mean  that  of  an  itinerant  singer  or  reciter  of  poems  of  every 
sort,  of  legends,  of  heroic  songs,  of  more  or  less  fabulous 
accounts  of  ancient  wars. 

This  Wibert  had  himself  related  the  whole  of  his  history  to 
Bernard,  and  undoubtedly  arranged  it,  too,  so  that  the  latter 
had  only  the  trouble  of  writing  it  from  dictation.  But  is  this 
history  the  only  one  which  the  credulous  Bernard  received  on 
the  authority  of  the  Jongleur  ?  This  Jongleur  unquestionably 
knew  others  even  more  marvellous  than  his  own,  and  if  among 
those,  which  the  excellent  scholar  has  left  us,  there  were  any 
one,  which  bore  the  manifest  traces  of  poetic  fiction,  this  would 
be  precisely  the  one  to  be  attributed  to  the  mouth  of  the  blind 
rhapsodist  of  Rouergue.  And  really,  among  the  twenty- 
two  histories  in  question,  there  is  one  which  exhibits  all  the 
characteristics  of  a  romantic  fiction,  which  Bernard  must  have 
found  written  somewhere,  or  which  was  derived  either  directly 
or  indirectly  from  the  recital  of  some  Jongleur. 

Unluckily,  Bernard  has  only  given  us  some  scattered  traits 
of  this  history  without  any  rigorous  connection  or  development. 
But  these  traits  are  still  sufficient  to  leave  no  doubt  in  regard 
to  the  character  and  oddity  of  this  fable.  I  add  it  here  entire, 
and,  as  far  as  necessary,  in  the  very  language  of  the  author. f 

*  "  lisdemqne  sanus  effectus,  eodem  anno  arte  joculari  publicum  quaeritavit  victum, 
indeque  quaestum  occoepit;  adeo  nt  (sicut  modo  assolet  referre)  oculos  ultra  habere 
non  curaret,  tanta  eum  et  lucri  cupiditas,  et  commodi  jocunditas  delectabat."  Id.  p. 
303,  c.  9 Ed. 

t  For  the  original  of  this  account  see  "  Acta  Sanctorum,"  Octob,  torn,  iii.,  p.  327  :— 
"De  quodam  Raimundo,  naufragium  passo  et  S.  Fidis  auxilio  liberate. "— £cf. 


The  Influence  of  the  Arabs.  283 

Raimond,  a  rich  and  noble  personage,  seignior  of  a  bourgade 
or  village  called  Bousquet,  in  the  environs  of  Toulouse,  under- 
took a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  Having  first 
descended  into  Italy,  he  travelled  over  a  part  of  it,  and  wishing 
to  make  the  remainder  of  his  journey  by  sea,  he  repaired  to 
Luni,  an  ancient  city  on  the  coast  of  Italian  Liguria,  which  was 
destroyed  in  924  by  the  Hungarians,  but  which  we  must  sup- 
pose still  existing  at  the  epoch  of  Raimoad's  pilgrimage. 

After  having  embarked  according  to  his  project,  our  pil- 
grim found  at  first  the  sea  and  winds  propitious.  But  a 
tempest  having  suddenly  arisen,  the  vessel  was  driven  against 
the  rocks  and  shattered.  Pilot,  seamen,  passengers,  in  a  word, 
all  on  board  were  lost,  with  the  exception  of  Raimond  and 
a  slave  or  servant,  whom  the  latter  had  taken  along  with  him. 
The  slave  clung  to  a  plank  from  the  ship  and  landed  safely 
on  the  shores  of  Italy,  from  whence  he  returned  to  Toulouse. 
Having  presented  himself  before  the  lady  of  Bousquet, 
he  gave  her  an  account  of  his  personal  adventures,  and  as  he 
had  no  doubt  but  that  Raimond  had  perished  in  the  ship- 
wreck, he  at  the  same  time  announced  the  death  of  their  com- 
mon master. 

The  lady  of  Bousquet  assumed  all  the  airs  of  affliction,  cus- 
tomary on  such  occasions.  But  being  a  woman  of  a  volatile 
disposition,  she  was  really  delighted  in  her  heart  to  have  gotten 
rid  of  a  husband  whom  she  did  not  love.  She  soon  found  her- 
self surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  new  admirers,  and  among  them 
there  was  one,  of  whom  she  became  desperately  enamored, 
and  to  whom  she  abandoned  the  manor  and  the  property  of 
Raimond. 

The  latter,  however,  was  not  dead,  as  his  servant  had  be- 
lieved and  reported.  He  had  seized  a  fragment  of  the  shat- 
tered vessel,  and  with  the  assistance  of  St.  Fides,  which  he 
incessantly  invoked,  he  floated  for  three  entire  days  upon  the 
waves,  without  perceiving  a  single  human  being,  or  a  monster 
of  the  deep.  Driven  by  the  winds  toward  the  coast  of  Africa, 
distracted  and  almost  annihilated  by  exhaustion  and  anxiety, 
he  was  already  on  the  point  of  perishing,  when,  according  to 
our  legendist,  he  unexpectedly  fell  in  with  a  party  of  pirates 
from  Turlande.  The  astonished  pirates  picked  him  up,  and 
having  taken  him  into  their  ship,  inquired  after  his  name  and 
country.  But  Raimond,  so  far  from  being  able,  in  his 
state  of  heaviness  and  languor,  to  make  any  reply  to  their 
questions,  did  not  even  understand  them.  Nolens  volens,  the 
pirates  left  him  leisure  to  recover  his  senses  again,  and  when 
they  had  reached  the  shore,  they  took  him  with  them  to  their 
country. 


284:  History  of  Provencal  Poebt*y. 

When  the  nourishment  and  attention  which  he  received 
had  in  a  measure  restored  his  strength,  he  was  again  questioned, 
and  he  replied  that  he  was  a  Christian.  But  instead  of  avow- 
ing his  rank  and  his  profession  of  a  soldier,  he  represented  him- 
self as  a  man  accustomed  to  the  labor  of  the  field.  After  this 
declaration,  a  spade  was  put  into  his  hands  and  he  was  set  to 
work  on  a  patch  of  ground.  He  was,  however,  soon  worn  out 
by  a  kind  of  labor  to  which  he  was  not  accustomed,  and  which 
his  swollen  and  lacerated  hands  refused.  He  consequently 
acquitted  himself  badly  of  his  task,  and  was  rudely  beaten  and 
maltreated  for  it.  Then  recovering  his  former  self  again,  he 
solemnly  resolved  to  know  no  other  occupation  but  that  of  war, 
and  to  handle  no  other  instruments  than  arms.  His  masters 
wanted  at  once  to  know  what  to  make  of  this  declaration. 
They  put  him  to  the  test,  and  finding  him  wonderfully  expert 
in  managing  the  lance  and  shield,  and  in  every  other  kind  of 
martial  exercise,  they  admitted  him  into  their  army.  He  ac- 
companied them  in  several  expeditions,  and  always  conducted 
himself  so  bravely,  that  they  at  last  advanced  him  to  the  post 
of  a  commander. 

Meanwhile  a  war  broke  out  between  the  Africans  of  Tur- 
lande,  among  whom  Raimond  lived  as  prisoner,  and  other 
Africans,  whom  the  author  designates  by  the  name  of  Barba- 
rins.  To  all  appearances  these  are  the  Berbers,  the  original 
inhabitants  of  northern  Africa,  whom  the  author  intends  to 
designate  by  this  name ;  from  which  it  follows  implicitly,  that 
the  Turlanders  must  have  been  Arabs.  In  this  war  the  Bar- 
barins  had  the  advantage ;  they  exterminated  or  dispersed 
the  Turlanders,  and  Raimond  was  again  made  prisoner. 

The  new  masters  of  the  seignior  of  Toulouse  soon  recognized 
his  merit  and  his  bravery.  They  consequently  treated  him 
with  honor,  and  permitted  him  to  join  them  in  all  their  wars. 
But  these  were  not  intended  to  be  the  last  of  Raimond's  adven- 
tures. 

The  Berbers,  who  had  beaten  the  Turlanders,  had,  in  their 
turn,  some  difficulty  with  the  Arabs  or  Saracens  of  Cordova, 
who  defeated  them  and  took  Raimond  away  from  them. 

Among  these  new  masters  he  found  still  more  abundant  and 
better  occasions  for  giving  proofs  of  his  valor,  than  among  the 
former,  and  he  now  rose  to  still  higher  honors.  There  was  no 
perilous  conjuncture  in  which  they  did  not  count  on  him,  and 
never  was  their  reckoning  disappointed.  Among  other  enemies 
which  they  vanquished  by  his  assistance,  our  legendist  men- 
tions the  Aglabites,  Arab  chiefs  of  a  part  of  Africa,  in  fre- 
quent collisions  with  the  Ommiades  of  Spain. 

But  a  war  soon  broke  out  between  the  Saracens  of  Cordova 


The  Influence  of  the  Arabs.  285 

and  Don  Sancho  of  Castile,  a  powerful  count  and  gallant  war- 
rior. The  latter  was  victor,  and  Raimond  was  again  a  pri- 
soner. Raimond  acquainted  him  with  his  name,  his  country, 
and  with  all  his  singular  adventures.  Don  Sancho,  amazed 
and  touched  by  the  story  of  his  sufferings,  restored  him  to  his 
liberty,  loaded  him  with  presents  and  honors,  and  retained  him 
a  few  days  at  his  residence. 

At  the  moment  when  Raimond,  delighted  at  the  idea  of  be- 
ing free  again,  was  about  to  return  to  nis  own  fireside,  a  celes- 
tial form  appeared  to  him  in  a  dream,  and  said  to  him :  "  1  am 
Saint  Fides,  whose  aid  thou  didst  so  earnestly  invoke  in  ship- 
wreck. Depart  and  remain  tranquil ;  thou  snalt  recover  thy 
manor."  *  Rejoiced  at  this  vision,  without  however  being  able 
to  comprehend  its  meaning,  he  left  his  benefactor  and  crossed 
the  Pyrenees,  in  a  state  of  perfect  happiness.  "When  he  had 
arrived  near  Bousquet,  he  was  informed  that  his  wife  had  mar- 
ried another  husband,  who  was  then  living  with  her  in  his 
castle.  Disconcerted  by  this  news,  and  scarcely  daring  to 
think  of  it,  he  resolved  to  wait  and  see  what  Saint  Fides  was 
going  to  do  for  him,  and  he  kept  himself  concealed  in  the  cabin 
of  one  of  his  peasants,  who  did  not  recognize  him,  changed  as 
he  was  from  fifteen  years  of  absence  and  of  hardships,  and  dis- 
guised in  the  habit  of  a  pilgrim. 

He  had  already  been  in  this  cabin  for  some  time,  when  a 
woman,  who  had  formerly  been  his  concubine,  observing  him 
one  day  while  he  was  taking  a  bath,  recognized  him  by  a  cer- 
tain mark  he  had  on  his  body.  u  Art  thou  not,"  she  exclaimed, 
"  that  Raimond  who  formerly  went  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Jeru- 
salem, and  who  was  reported  to  have  been  lost  at  sea  ?"  f  Rai- 
mond was  going  to  deny  it,  but  the  woman,  sure  of  the  testi- 
mony of  her  eyes,  persisted  in  taking  him  for  what  he  was. 
Once  mistress  of  so  important  a  secret,  she  was  unable  to  keep 
it  to  herself;  she  ran  at  once  to  the  chateau  in  order  to  inform 
the  lady  of  Bousquet,  that  her  first  husband  was  not  dead ; 
that,  on  the  contrary,  he  had  returned,  and  was  concealed  in  a 
neighboring  cabin,  which  she  pointed  out. 

The  intelligence  was  a  source  of  great  sorrow  to  the  lady,  and 
her  mind  was  immediately  occupied  with  devising  some  plan 
for  getting  rid  of  this  returning  husband.  But  Saint  Fides  kept 
a  watchful  eye  upon  him,  and  warned  him  in  a  dream  to  leave 
the  cottage  of  his  serf  at  once.  In  obedience  to  her  summons, 

*  "Sancta  Fides  ei  dormienti  apparuit ;  ego  sum,  inquiens,  Sancta  Fides,  cujus  nomen 
naufragus  tarn  constanter  invocasti ;  vade  securus,  quia  amissura  honorem  recupera- 
bis."  Id.  p.  328,  c.  18 — Ed. 

t  "Tune  es,  ait,  ille  Raimundus,  qui  dudum,  Hierosolymam  tendens,  sequore  mersua 
credebaris  ?  Quo  negante,  ilia  adjecit :  Hoc,  inquiens,  verum  est,  nee  me  tuam  prse- 
sentiam  celere  poteris,  cum  qua  olim  consuevisti.  Id.  p.  328,  c.  19. — Ed. 


286  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

he  left  in  haste  and  went  to  a  seignior  of  the  adjacent  parts 
by  the  name  of  Escafred,  a  powerful  and  generous  man,  who 
had  always  been  his  friend,  and  who  at  this  unexpected  meet- 
ing was  even  more  cordial  than  ever  before.  He  at  once  as- 
sembled his  vassals,  his  relations  and  friends,  and  at  their  head 
went  forth  to  assail  the  usurper  of  Bousquet.  The  latter  was 
driven  away  disgracefully,  and  Raimond  recovered  his  estates. 

As  to  his  wife,  he  would  have  readily  pardoned  her  having 
taken  another  husband  in  his  absence ;  but  he  was  unwilling  to 
excuse  her  project  to  destroy  him,  after  she  had  heard  of  his 
arrival,  and  on  that  account  repudiated  her. 

Such  is  the  groundwork,  the  rough  sketch  of  a  history,  of 
which  the  legendist  has  only  indicated  the  general  outlines,  thus 
depriving  them  of  all  the  interest  and  character  which  they 
might  have  had  in  their  connection  and  more  complete  deve- 
lopment. There  is  not  one  of  these  outlines  in  which  the  arid 
hand  of  the  abbreviator  does  not  become  apparent ;  and  if  there 
could  be  any  doubt  in  this  respect,  this  doubt  would  be  dissi- 
pated by  the  conclusion  of  the  abstract.  This  is  a  sort  of  post- 
scriptum,  in  which  the  author  returns  to  one,  at  least,  of  the 
numerous  particulars  omitted  in  his  narrative.  He  explains 
himself  as  follows :  "  To  add  a  small  item  to  the  preceding,  it  is 
related  that  the  pirates,  who  first  fell  in  with  Roland,  made  him 
drink  a  potion  of  a  powerful  herb,  and  of  such  magic  virtue, 
that  forgetfulness  at  once  laid  hold  on  those  who  drank  of  it, 
and  that  they  lost  all  recollection  of  their  family  and  home."* 

The  singularity  of  this  legend  arises  from  the  incongruity  of 
its  different  data,  which  makes  itself  apparent  at  the  first  glance. 
I  do  not  now  refer  to  the  invocation  and  the  apparition  of 
saints ;  for  these  are  matters  of  course  at  every  epocn,  and  more 
especially  at  the  one  in  question.  It  is  far  more  important  to 
remark,  that  it  contains  historical  allusions  of  considerable  in- 
terest. Such  are,  for  example,  those  respecting  the  perpetual 
wars  of  the  Arabs  and  the  Berbers,  or  of  the  Ommiades  of  Cor- 
dova with  the  Aglabites  of  Africa.  The  battle,  mentioned  in 
this  account  as  having  taken  place  between  the  Arabs  of  Cor- 
dova and  Count  Don  Sancho  of  Castile,  is  undoubtedly  the 
battle  of  Djebal-Quinto,  which  this  count  and  his  ally,  Soliman 
ben  el  Hakem,  chief  of  the  African  troops  of  the  Peninsula, 
gained  (in  1009  or  1010),  over  Mohammed  el  Mohdi,  the  king 
of  Cordova. 

To  these  ingredients  of  the  story,  Christian  on  the  one  hand 

*  "Utautemin  superioribus  paucis  suppleam,  addunt  etiam,  ilium  a  primis  piratis 
potionem  herbae  potentem  assumpsisse,  et  ita  magicis  praecantationibus  tactam,  ut 
gemel  ex  ea  bibentesadeo  lethea  oblivione  heberentur,  ut  nee  genus  ultra,  nee  domum 
meminisse  possint."  Id.,  p.  339,  c.  20.— Ed. 


The  Influence  of  the  Arabs. 

and  historical  on  the  other,  must  be  added  those  of  an  antique 
or  Homeric  type.  The  fact  is  a  singular  one,  but  nevertheless 
beyond  a  doubt.  The  principal  incidents  of  the  history  of  Rai- 
mond  of  Bousquet,  which  I  have  just  described,  are  borrowed 
from  the  Odyssey.  It  is  in  imitation  of  Ulysses,  that  the  chev- 
alier of  Toulouse  is  tossed  about  for  three  days  on  the  waves, 
suspended  from  a  fragment  of  his  shipwrecked  vessel,  and  that 
he  invokes  Saint  Fides,  as  the  Grecian  hero  did  Minerva.  The 
Arab  pirates,  anxious  to  retain  him  in  their  service  after  having 
discovered  his  military  prowess,  make  him  drink  the  potion  of 
oblivion,  which  Circe  poured  out  for  the  hero  of  Ithaca,  in  order 
to  deprive  him  of  the  memory  of  Penelope  and  of  his  native 
island.  After  his  return  to  his  home,  finding  a  rival  in  posses- 
sion of  his  chateau,  Raimond  conceals  himself  in  the  cottage  of 
one  of  his  peasants,  as  Ulysses  at  the  house  of  his  good  herd 
Eumajus.  The  two  heroes,  disguised  for  a  time  and  strangers 
at  their  own  homes,  are  recognized  in  nearly  the  same  manner. 
In  the  denouement  the  imitation  is  more  indirect  and  vague. 
Raimond  stands  in  need  of  the  assistance  of  an  old  friend,  in 
order  to  recover  his  castle  and  to  punish  his  rival,  while  Ulysses 
revenges  himself  alone  on  the  insolent  pretenders,  who  have 
made  themselves  the  masters  of  his  house.  Much  is  also  want- 
ing to  make  the  lady  of  Bousquet  a  Penelope ;  but  characters 
like  this  were  not  in  fashion  in  the  age  of  chivalry,  and  ladies 
might  be  in  the  wrong  in  the  narratives  of  the  romancers. 

We  have  quite  enough,  no  doubt,  of  what  this  history  con- 
tains, that  is  manifestly  borrowed  from  the  Odyssey,  to  strike 
and  embarrass  the  writer  of  a  literary  history.  "Whence  did  our 
author  derive  his  knowledge  of  the  poem  of  Homer?  This 
poem  had  never,  to  our  knowledge,  been  translated  into  Latin  ; 
and  even  if  it  had,  how  can  we  suppose  a  copy  of  this  transla- 
tion in  the  mountains  of  Rouergue  or  in  the  plains  of  Toulouse, 
at  the  end  of  the  tenth  century  or  at  the  commencement  of  the 
eleventh  ? 

There  are  many  things  in  favor  of  the  supposition,  that  the 
imitations,  which  I  have  pointed  out  above,  are  not  immediate 
and  direct,  but  mere  traditional  reminiscences.  It  is  not  even 
necessary  to  trace  these  traditions  as  far  back  as  the  epoch,  at 
which  the  Massilian  rhapsodists  recited  the  poems  of  Homer  in 
the  Grecian  cities  of  the  south  of  Gaul.  We  can  connect  them 
with  a  more  recent  epoch,  when  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  served 
as  the  basis  of  instruction  in  Greek  at  the  schools  for  the  study 
of  this  language,  which  continued  to  exist  in  the  south  of  Gaul 
until  the  end  of  the  fourth  and  even  of  the  fifth  centuries. 

Be  that,  however,  as  it  may ;  with  the  exception  of  this  sin- 
gularity and  of  whatever  historical  elements  it  may  contain, 


History  of  ProvenQdL  Poetry. 

this  legend  of  Eaimond  of  Bousquet,  considered  in  itself  and  as 
a  whole,  appears  to  me  to  be  nothing  more  than  an  abstract  of 
a  romantic  notion,  invented  to  please  and  to  amuse,  the  interest 
of  which  depended  chiefly  on  the  admiration  and  the  curiosity 
which  the  Arabs  of  Spain  at  that  time  excited  in  all  the  nations 
of  their  vicinity,  and  particularly  in  those  of  the  south  of  France, 
which  then  had  scarcely  any  other  relations  with  them  than 
the  voluntary  intercourse  of  commerce  and  of  business.  I  do 
not  hesitate  to  cite  this  fiction  as  a  new  proof  of  the  influence, 
which  the  Andalusian  Arabs  exercised  directly  or  indirectly  on 
the  imagination  of  the  latter.  It  is  still  more  curious  as  a  con- 
firmation of  a  certain  filiation,  by  which,  as  we  have  endea- 
vored to  show,  the  first  literary  tentatives  of  the  Middle  Age 
linked  themselves  to  the  productions  of  the  Latin  literature  in 
the  last  stages  of  its  decadence.  It  is  here  where  the  Antique 
and  the  New,  the  last  echo  of  the  pagan  Epopee  and  the  first 
infantine  lispings  of  the  Christian  and  the  chivalric  are  still  con- 
founded, but  only  in  order  to  become  distinct,  soon  and  forever. 


William  of  Poitiers.  289 


CHAPTEK  XIV. 

WILLIAM     OF     POITIERS. 

IT  is  a  curious  and  interesting  circumstance,  that  a  prince, 
and  one  who  was  conspicuous  among  the  princes  of  his  time, 
William  IX.,  Count  of  Poitiers,  should  figure  at  the  head  of 
the  list  of  Provencal  poets,  designated  by  the  name  of  Trouba- 
dours.* This,  however,  does  not  imply,  that  he  was  the  most 
ancient  of  these  poets ;  it  will,  on  the  contrary,  appear  from 
the  sequel,  that  he  was  not.  It  only  implies,  that  he  is  the  first 
of  those  whose  works,  either  entire  or  in  fragments,  have  come 
down  to  us.  Not  only  were  there  before  him  and  in  his  day, 
men  versed  in  the  art  of  "  finding  "  (trobar\  though  the  latter 
was  then  as  yet  in  its  infancy,but  there  were  even  schools  for 
instruction  in  certain  traditional  maxims  of  this  art.  This  is  a 
fact,  with  reference  to  which  I  deem  it  necessary  to  enter  into 
some  explanations,  after  whieh  I  shall  resume,  and  be  able  to 
pursue  more  methodically,  what  I  sh#ll  have  to  say  respecting 
the  Count  of  Poitiers. 

Among  the  noble  families  of  Limousin,  which  flourished  and 
enjoyed  a  certain  degree  of  distinction  during  the  Middle  Age, 
that  of  the  viscounts  of  Yentadour  occupies  a  conspicuous 
place,  f  The  first  of  its  members  who  rendered  it  illustrious, 
was  Archambaud  the  First,  viscount  of  Comborn  and  of  Yenta- 
dour, who  died  at  a  very  advanced  age,  subsequently  to  the 
year  992.  The  traditions  of  the  country  represent  him  as 
figuring  in  a  multitude  of  battles,  where  he  distinguished  him- 
self under  the  command  of  Emperor  Otho  I.  But  the  most 
famous  and  the  most  glorious  of  all  his  exploits  was  to  have 
defended,  in  single  combat,  the  honor  of  the  empress,  who  had 
been  falsely  accused  of  adultery  by  interested  calumniators.  In 
all  this  there  is  undoubtedly  nothing  more  than  fiction, 
or  falsehood,  but  the  people  seldom  invents  fictions,  except  in 
honor  of  those  who  have  already  some  foundation  of  renown  to 
support  them. 

*  Compare  Raynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  115. — Ed. 

f  On  these  viscounts  see  Gaufredi  Chronicon,  in  Bouquet's  Becueil  dea  hist,  des  Gaules 
et  de  la  France,  vol.  xii.— Ed. 

19 


290  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

The  third  descendant  of  Archambaud  II.,  Ebles  or  Ebolus 
HL,  who  was  born  about  the  year  1086,  is  only  known  in  the  ge- 
nealogical line  of  the  viscounts  of  Yentadour  under  the  designa- 
tion ot  the  Cantor  or  "  Singer,"  a  surname,  which  was  bestowed 
on  him  on  account  of  his  passionate  fondness  for  the  new  Pro- 
vencal poetry.  It  was  he  that  first  introduced  into  his  family 
this  taste  for  polite  culture,  for  which  his  son,  Ebles  1Y.,  who 
died  in  1170  at  a  very  advanced  age,  was  particularly  distin- 
guished. The  prior  of  Yigeois,  who,  in  his  invaluable  chro- 
nicle, has  carefully  collected  the  notices  and  traditions  of  the 
twelfth  century  relative  to  the  family  of  the  Yentadours,  re- 
marks in  characterizing  Ebles  IY.,  that  even  in  old  age  he 
still  continued  to  love  the  "verses  of  alacrity  and  joy/'*  as 
the  prior,  with  admirable  propriety,  designates  the  productions 
of  Provencal  poesy.  "We  shall  hereafter  hear  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  Troubadours  celebrate  the  {poetic)  school  of  Ebles 
IY.,  a  school  in  which  it  is  extremely  probable,  that  this  Trou- 
badour himself  had  learnt  his  art. 

This  being  granted,  I  now  proceed  to  show,  the  Ebles  IY. 
and  Ebles  ILL  were  not  the  predecessors,  but  only  the  contem- 
poraries of  William  of  Poitiers,  and  even  somewhat  later  than 
the  count,  f  We  cannot,  therefore,  rank  them  among  the  num- 
ber of  those  who  made  Provencal  verses  before  the  latter.  The 
fact  however  proves,  what  will  be  more  clearly  established 
hereafter,  that  from  the  first  decennia  of  the  twelfth  century, 
the  new  Provencal  poetry  was  already  cultivated  at  the  court 
of  Poitiers,  and  in  the  chateaux  of  Limousin. 

But  the  idiom  of  this  poetry  was  not  that  of  Poitou ;  it  could 
be  nothing  more  than  the  literary  idiom  of  its  inhabitants,  and 
the  same  remark  is  applicable  to  Limousin,  though  not  in  the 
same  degree ;  for  the  idiom  of  this  latter  country  was  much 
more  closely  related  to  the  literary  Provencal,  than  that  of  the 
former.  Neither  Poitou  nor  Limousin  could  therefore  have  been 
the  cradle  of  this  poetry,  though  it  was  cultivated  there  by  the 
count  of  Poitiers  and  the  seigniors  of  Yentadour.  It  was  in- 
troduced there  from  somewhere  else,  from  some  place  situated 
further  toward  the  south,  nearer  to  the  coasts  of  the  Mediterra- 
nian.  But  I  shall  not  advance  at  present  any  conjecture  in  re- 
gard to  its  original  locality ;  all  that  I  shall  conclude  from 
tnis  fact  is,  that  in  order  to  allow  this  Provencal  poetry  the 
requisite  time  to  spread  from  its  native  place  to  Yentadour,  and 
especially  to  Poitiers,  we  must  necessarily  suppose  it  to  have 

*  Usque  ad  senectam  cannina  alaeritatis  dilexit. 

f  Compare  the  above  quoted  chronicon  of  Gaufredus  of  Vigeois.  He  says  of  Ebolua 
III.  (chapt.  69) :  "  Erat  valde  gratiosus  in  cantilenis.  Qua  de  re  apud  Guillelmum 
est  cusecutus  maximum  favorem ;  verumtamen  in  alterutrum  sese  invidebant,  si  quia 

altcruin  obuubilare  posset  iuurbanitatis  nota,"  etc.— Ed. 


WiUiam  of  Poitiers.  291 

originated  some  years  before  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth 
century. 

William  IX.,  count  of  Poitiers  and  duke  of  Aquitania,  was 
born  in  1071.  Tn  1086,  when  he  was  scarcely  in  his  fifteenth 
year,  he  inherited  the  domains  of  his  ancestors,  which  com- 
prised entire  Gascony,  nearly  all  the  northern  half  of  Aqui- 
taine ;  moreover,  Poitou,  Limousin,  Berry,  and  Auvergne. 

His  father,  Gui  Geoffroi,  or  William  V I1L,  a  prince  of  the 
most  devoted  piety  and  of  great  austerity  of  manners,  had 
zealously  figured  among  those  numerous  nobles  of  the  south  of 
France,  whom  Pope  Gregory  YII.  had  made  his  devoted  cham- 
pions, and  on  whose  support  he  depended  in  the  execution  of 
his  comprehensive  plans  of  religious  and  political  organization. 

William  IX.  had  none  of  the  inclinations  of  his  father,  and 
followed  none  of  his  examples.  He  either  did  not  comprehend 
the  grand  projects  of  the  Roman  pontiff,  or  else  he  disdained 
them.  Urban  II.  wrote  him  frequently,  but  it  was  always  to 
complain  of  him,  or  to  reproach  him  for  some  act  of  violence 
toward  the  churches  or  the  priests. 

He  was  active  and  brave,  because  bravery  and  activity  were 
at  that  time  the  indispensable  conditions  for  the  acquisition  or 
the  maintenance  of  power.  But  the  most  distinctive  traits  of 
his  character  appear  to  have  been  a  want  of  respect  for  the 
established  forms  of  religion,  uncommon  in  his  day,  an  unbri- 
dled love  of  pleasure,  and  a  jocularity,  ever  ready  to  degenerate 
into  buffoonery. 

Married  very  young  to  a  princess  of  the  house  of  Anjou,  he 
soon  repudiated  her,  in  order  to  make  room  for  his  second  nup- 
tials with  Philippa,  the  daughter  of  William  IV.,  count  of  Tou- 
louse, and  niece  to  the  famous  Raimond  of  Saint  Gilles.  But 
this  marriage,  instead  of  being  a  bond  of  peace  between  the 
two  seigniories,  proved  on  the  contrary  a  cause  of  perpetual 
feuds  and  discord. 

Every  one  knows  that  the  first  crusade  was  preached  at  Cler- 
mont  in  1095 ;  and  it  is  also  known,  that  nearly  all  the  nobles 
of  the  South  enlisted  in  its  support  under  the  auspices  of  Rai- 
mond  of  Saint  Gilles,  who  was  the  most  powerful  among  them, 
and  destined  to  become  their  chief.  William  IX.  was  of  the 
small  number  of  those,  who  rendered  themselves  remarkable 
by  refusing  to  take  the  cross,  and  this  position  on  his  part  was 
really  somewhat  surprising.  He  was  in  the  flower  of  manhood, 
of  a  robust  and  healthy  constitution,  and  if  he  was  not  suscep- 
tible of  religious  enthusiasm,  he  was  at  any  rate  fond  of  war, 
of  glory  and  of  grand  adventures.  But  he  had,  as  we  shall  see 
presently,  his  reasons  for  remaining  in  Aquitaine,  while  all 
his  neighbors  were  on  their  way  to  Syria. 


292  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

In  the  month  of  October  of  the  year  1096,  Raimond  of 
Saint  Gilles  left  Europe  for  the  Holy  Land  at  the  head  of  a 
hundred  thousand  men,  which  the  historians  of  the  time  some- 
times distinguish  by  the  separate  names  of  Aquitanians,  Goths 
and  Provencals,  and  which  at  other  times  they  again  confound 
under  the  latter  of  these  names.  Of  all  the  leaders  of  this  cru- 
sade, Raimond  of  Saint  Gilles  was  probably  the  one  who  had 
entered  into  the  religious  motives  of  the  enterprise  with  most 
enthusiasm.  It  was  never  to  return  again,  that  he  quitted  his 
rich  domains,  the  fair  banks  of  the  Rhone,  and  his  magnificent 
city  of  Toulouse.  He  had  made  a  vow  to  die  where  Jesus 
Christ  had  died,  and  in  consequence  of  this  vow,  he  had 
bequeathed  all  his  estates  to  Bertrand,  the  eldest  of  his 
sons. 

It  would  occupy  too  much  of  our  time,  and  it  is,  moreover, 
foreign  to  my  subject,  to  discuss  the  character  of  Bertrand, 
after  his  accession  to  the  power  of  his  father.  It  is  sufficient 
to  say,  that  by  this  conduct  he  made  a  number  of  powerful  ene- 
mies in  his  capital,  who  conspired  against  him.  This  quarrel 
was  precisely  what  the  heart  of  "William  of  Poitiers  longed  for. 
By  virtue  of  his  marriage  with  Philippa,  he  thought  himself 
entitled  to  the  county  of  Toulouse,  and  he  had  only  waited  for 
the  departure  of  Raimond  in  order  to  assert  these  claims.  He 
effected  an  easy  alliance  with  the  faction  at  variance  with  Ber- 
trand, and  supported  by  it  in  his  plans,  he  took  possession  of 
Toulouse,  proclaimed  himself  its  count,  and  established  his  resi- 
dence there.  He  passed  two  or  three  years  in  the  unmolested 
enjoyment  of  his  conquest,  and  he  was  still  there  toward  the 
close  of  the  year  1099.  It  was  there,  that  he  received  the  great 
intelligence  of  the  taking  of  Jerusalem  by  the  crusaders,  and  of 
the  establishment  of  a  Cnristian  kingdom  in  Syria.  At  the  re- 
ceipt of  this  intelligence,  which  resounded  lite  a  shout  of  tri- 
umph and  of  joy  from  one  end  of  Europe  to  the  other,  fresh 
bands  of  crusaders  arose  in  every  direction,  ready  to  march  to 
the  succor  of  the  small  number  of  those  who  had  remained  in 
Syria.  At  this  time  William  of  Poitiers  himself  was  carried 
away  by  the  universal  impulse,  or  else  he  did  not  venture  to 
remain.  But  we  are  unable  to  give  the  precise  moment  at 
which  he  resolved  at  last  to  assume  the  cross.  It  is  certain, 
however,  that  between  this  moment  and  that  of  his  departure, 
he  was  involved  in  difficulties  which  were  very  unlike  prepara- 
tions for  a  pilgrimage. 

In  the  course  of  the  year  1100  he  evacuated  the  city  and 
county  of  Toulouse.  We  do  not  know  preciselv  whether  he 
was  driven  out  by  Count  Bertrand's  party,  whicn  might  gra- 
dually have  gained  the  advantage  over  him,  or  whether  he 


William  of  Poitiers.  293 

voluntarily,  in  order  to  return  to  Poitou,  where  the  new  turn 
of  events  had  in  fact  a  claim  upon  his  presence. 

Hilarius,  the  bishop  of  Poitiers,  had  just  convoked  a  conven- 
tion of  bishops  in  that  city,  at  the  head  of  which  it  was  his 
intention  to  excommunicate  Philip  the  First,  king  of  France,  on 
account  of  his  adulterous  connection  with  the  wife  of  the  count 
of  Anjou.  The  king,  having  been  informed  of  this  project, 
wrote  at  once  to  William,  beseeching  him  not  to  suffer  his 
suzerain  to  be  excommunicated  before  his  eyes,  and  William, 
who  on  every  other  occasion  cared  very  little  for  his  duties  as  a 
vassal,  was  firmly  decided  not  to  neglect  them  on  this. 

The  bishops,  in  obedience  to  the  summons  of  Saint  Hilarius, 
met  at  Poitiers  in  the  course  of  October,  and  held  their  sessions 
under  the  presidency  of  John,  the  legate  of  Pope  Urban  II. 
They  had  already  had  several  meetings,  and  the  day,  on  which 
the  excommunication  was  to  be  fulminated  against  the  king, 
was  already  decided  upon.  This  was  the  very  day,  for  whicn. 
William  was  waiting,  in  order  to  give  an  exhibition  of  his  cour- 
age. Followed  by  a  band  of  men-at-arms,  he  rushed  like  a 
madman  into  the  church,  where  the  bishops  were  assembled, 
and  with  a  menacing  voice  declared  to  them,  that  he  would  not 
suffer  his  suzerain  to  be  excommunicated  in  the  very  city,  which 
he  himself,  Count  William,  held  in  feoff  from  him.  But  legate 
John  was  a  man  above  the  fear  of  menaces.  He  reassures  the 
bishops,  exhorts  them  to  perform  their  duty,  and  the  sentence 
of  excommunication  is  pronounced  in  the  presence  of  William 
and  in  despite  of  his  opposition. 

Transported  with  rage  and  yet  not  venturing  to  lay  violent 
hands  upon  the  bishops  in  the  church  itself,  William  leaves  it 
instantly  and  gives  orders  to  close  all  the  gates  of  Poitiers,  so 
that  no  one  of  the  excommunicators  might  escape  him.  The 
gates  were  closed  accordingly,  and  the  bishops  remained  for 
some  days  in  the  most  embarrassing  situation.  Nevertheless 
they  all  succeeded,  one  after  the  other,  in  eluding  his  vigilance  at 
last,  and  their  escape  passed  for  a  miracle.  The  fact  is,  that 
violence  and  cruelty  were  not  among  William's  vices,  and  it  is 
very  probable,  that  he  was  not  in  earnest  in  his  endeavors  to 
get  possession  of  the  persons  of  the  menaced  bishops,  and  that  he 
saw  or  suffered  them  to  escape  without  any  chagrin.  It  was 
enough  for  him  to  have  frightened  them,  and  to  have  given 
himself,  in  the  eyes  of  Philip,  the  air  of  a  devoted  vas- 
sal. 

Meanwhile  William  had  ordered  all  those  of  his  subjects, 
whose  duty  or  inclination  it  was  to  follow  him  to  the  crusade, 
to  repair  to .  Limoges,  as  their  place  of  rendezvous.  By  the 
spring  of  1101,  they  were  all  assembled  there,  and  he-  himself 


294:  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

joined  them  without  any  delay.  The  assembly  was  a  numerous 
and  a  brilliant  one ;  it  was  composed  of  thirty  thousand  com- 
batants, all  Aquitanians  or  Gascons,  exclusive  of  a  host  of  un- 
armed pilgrims.  There  were  in  connection  with  all  the  crusades 
a  multitude  of  women,  who  were  neither  Clorindas  nor  Her- 
minias,  but  it  is  probable,  that  there  may  have  been  a  larger 
number  in  a  crusade  of  Aquitanians,  commanded  by  William 
IX.,  than  in  any  other  ;  one  historian  makes  it  as  high  as  thirty 
thousand ;  another  rests  content  with  the  vague  statement,  that 
the  count  of  Poitiers  recruited  swarms  of  young  damsels  for 
his  expedition. 

It  was  at  the  moment  of  his  departure,  at  the  head  of  this 
multitude,  that  William  composed  one  of  those  poems,  which 
are  still  extant,  a  sort  of  adieu  to  his  native  land  and  to  his  eldest 
son,  an  infant  of  three  or  four  years,  which  was  born  to  him  at 
Toulouse,  -during  his  residence  in  that  city.  This  piece  is  not 
one,  in  which  we  can  look  for  any  poetry ;  it  is,  however,  never- 
theless curious,  as  being  the  most  ancient  in  all  the  collections 
of  the  Troubadours,  to  which  we  can  attach  a  precise  date. 
Nor  is  there  a  lack  of  a  certain  moral  or  historical  interest  in 
the  grand  simplicity,  with  which  the  author  gives  expression  to 
his  sentiments  in  the  most  serious  conjuncture  of  his  life.  Here 
then  is  the  piece,  translated  as  well  as  the  obscurity  of  certain  pas- 
sages, and  the  extreme  simplicity  of  the  whole  would  permit  me : 

"  A  desire  to  sing  has  seized  me,  and  I  shall  sing  of  that 
which  afflicts  me.  1  am  going  to  quit  the  command  of  Limou- 
sin and  of  Poitou." 

"  I  shall  depart  into  exile ;  I  shall  leave  my  son  behind  me  in 
war,  in  affright  and  peril,  to  the  mercy  of  all  those  who  wish 
him  ill." 

"  'Tis  a  hard  thing  for  me  to  abandon  the  seigniory  of  Poi- 
tiers ;  but  it  must  be  so.  I  leave  it,  and  I  commit  my  domain  and 
my  son  to  the  care  of  Folques  d'Anjou." 

"  Poor  infant !  If  Folques  of  Aniou,  if  the  king  from  whom 
I  hold  my  honors,  does  not  protect  nim,  the  rest,  seeing  him  so 
young  and  forsaken,  will  come  to  assail  him." 

"  Alas  !  If  he  is  not  skillful  and  brave,  I  once  being  far  from 
him,  they  will  soon  have  accomplished  his  ruin,  these  traitors 
of  Angevins  and  Gascons." 

"  I  was  brave,  I  was  valiant  (and  well  could  I  have  defended 
him) !  but  lo !  we  must  part ;  I  must  go  afar  off,  to  visit  him, 
to  whom  the  pilgrims  go  to  sue  for  mercy !" 

"  I  leave,  therefore,  all  that  I  loved,  my  chivalry  and  my 
joy  ;  I  depart  without  further  delay  to  the  place  where  sinners 
seek  their  peace." 

"  I  implore  my  companions'  mercy.     Let  them  pardon  me, 


William  of  Poitiers.  295 

if  I  have  wronged  them ;  and  may  the  God  of  Heaven  too  par- 
don me !  I  beseech  him  in  Romansh  and  in  Latin." 

"  I  have  been  gallant  and  jocund ;  but  God  no  longer  wishes 
me  to  be  so.  I  am  unable  to  support  my  sadness,  so  near  am  I 
to  my  departure !" 

"  I  pray  all  my  friends  to  assist  me  at  the  hour  of  death. 
Time  was  when  I  sought  after  pleasure  and  sport,  both  abroad 
and  in  my  dwelling." 

"  Adieu,  now,  diversions  and  sports !  Adieu,  now,  furred 
robes  of  vair  and  of  gray ;  adieu,  ye  fine  vestments  of  silk  f"* 

It  is  manifest  enough,  that  a  young  prince,  bold  and  gallant, 
who  spoke  thus  at  the  moment  of  joining  the  crusade,  must 
have  yielded  but  slowly  and  with  an  unwilling  heart  to  the 
general  impulse,  to  the  point  of  honor  demanded  by  the  epoch. 
The  enterprise  was  far  more  serious  to  a  man,  to  whom  all 
that  was  grave  had  the  air  of  disorder  or  of  a  contradiction. 

"William  passed  through  France  from  the  Loire  to  the  Rhine, 
and  having  crossed  the  latter  of  these  rivers,  directed  his  course 
through  Germany  and  Hungary  toward  Constantinople.  While 
on  his  route,  he  joined  two  other  armies  of  crusaders,  of  which 
one  was  French,  commanded  by  Hugh,  the  count  of  Yerman- 
dois,  brother  to  Philip  the  First,  king  of  France,  and  the  other 
German,  under  the  command  of  Guelf  (Welf),  the  duke  of 
Bavaria,  and  of  the  duchess  Ida,  his  wife. 

These  three  armies,  forming  all  together  a  mass  of  upward  of 
a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men,  arrived  at  Constantinople  at 
the  same  time.  They  remained  there  for  several  weeks,  in  order 
to  repair  their  wasted  energies.  In  the  month  of  June,  about 
the  harvest-season,  they  crossed  the  strait,  and  commenced  their 
operations  in  Asia  Minor,  eager  to  reach  Jerusalem.  But 
Jerusalem  was  still  far  off,  and  the  route  was  difficult  and  well 
guarded  by  the  Turks,  who  had  just  destroyed  successively, 
within  an  interval  of  fifteen  days,  two  other  expeditions  of  cru- 
saders as  strong  as  the  present,  which  was  the  third  in  the  order 
of  arrival,  and  which  appeared  under  no  better  auspices  than 

*  Raynouard  :  vol.  iv.  page  83.    Piece  No.  1.    Strophes  1-11. 

(1)  Pus  de  chantar  m'es  pres  talens,  (6)  De  proeza  e  de  valor  fui, 
Farai  un  yers  don  sui  dolens ;  Mais  ara  nos  partem  abdui ; 

Non  serai  mais  obediens  Et  ieu  vauc  m'en  lay  a  selui 

De  Peytau  ni  de  Lemozi.  On  merce  clamon  pelegri, 


*       *        *       * 


(2)  Ieu  m'en  anarai  en  eyssilh ;  (10)  Totz  mos  amicx  prec  a  la  mort 
Laissarai  en'guerra  mpn  filh,  Qu'il  vengan  tuit  al  meu  conort, 

E  gran  paor  et  en  parilh ;  Qu'ancse  amey  joi  e  deport 

E  iaran  li  mal  siey  vezi.  Luenh  de  me  et  en  mon  aizi. 

***** 


Aissi  gnerpisc  joy  e  deport 
E  var  e  gris  e  sembeli — Ed. 


296  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

the  rest.  It  had  scarcely  entered  upon  its  march  into  the 
country,  when  the  Turks  already  commenced  to  burn  the  har- 
vest-fields before  it,  and  to  obstruct  or  poison  the  cisterns,  wells 
and  springs  with  such  success,  that  at  the  end  of  a  few  days  the 
army  experienced  all  the  torments  of  hunger  and  of  thirst.  In 
this  condition,  it  reached  at  last  the  valley  of  the  Halys,  and  no 
sooner  was  it  at  the  banks  of  the  river,  than  the  entire  mass  of 
men  plunged  into  it  precipitately,  without  any  precaution,  with- 
out order  or  discipline,  and  with  an  impetus,  of  which  no  words 
can  convey  any  adequate  idea,  unless  it  be  perhaps  the  admira- 
bly energetic  verse  of  a  popular  Greek  song:  "Oh  terrible 
Turks!  Allow  us  now  to  drink;  you'll  kill  us  afterward!" 
And  this  was  in  fact  the  moment,  which  the  Turks  had  chosen 
to  pounce  upon  them.  The  hardship  of  the  carnage  was  almost 
their  only  one ;  but  this  must  still  have  been  considerable,  on 
account  of  the  large  number  of  those  who  perished. 

William  of  Poitiers  was  one  of  those,  who  saved  themselves. 
He  fled  on  foot,  accompanied  by  a  single  man,  according  to 
some,  and  by  six,  according  to  others.  He  directed  his  course 
toward  the  neighboring  castle  of  Tarsus,  then  in  the  power  of 
the  first  crusaders  and  under  the  command  of  a  chevalier  by  the 
name  of  Bertrand.  The  count  was  well  received  and  passed 
some  days  there,  endeavoring  to  forget  his  recent  disaster. 
Tancred  of  Normandy  no  sooner  .was  informed  of  this,  than  he 
invited  William,  by  a  courteous  message,  to  his  residence  at 
Antioch,  of  which  he  was  then  master.  The  invitation  was 
accepted  with  alacrity,  and  the  count  spent  the  winter  of  1101- 
1102  in  the  splendid  and  opulent  city  of  Antioch. 

When  spring  had  come,  he  repaired  to  Jerusalem  in  the 
capacity  of  a  simple  pilgrim.  After  having  visited  the  Holy 
Sepulchre  and  having  nothing  more  to  do  in  Syria,  he  longed 
with  all  his  heart  for  his  fair  native  Aquitaine.  His  plans  of  a 
speedy  return,  however,  were  thwarted  by  diverse  obstacles,  and 
it  was  not  until  toward  the  end  of  the  year  1102,  that  he  could 
accomplish  his  purpose. 

He  scarcely  had  arrived  at  Poitiers,  when  he  went  to  work 
to  compose  a  poem — a  piece  now  probably  no  longer  extant — 
on  the  adventures  and  the  issue  of  his  expedition  to  the  Holy 
Land. 

The  subject  was  certainly  not  a  gay  one ;  for  the  enterprise 
had  cost  William  thousands  of  his  subjects,  the  elite  of  his  vas- 
sals and  immense  riches.  All  Aquitaine  was  in  mourning ;  but 
William  had  not  the  faculty  of  looking  at  the  tragical  side  of 
human  events.  Judging  from  the  poem  in  question  according 
to  the  testimony  of  contemporary  authors,  it  was  a  burlesque 
picture  of  the  subject,  a  piece  of  indecent  buffoonery,  but 


William  of  Poitiers.  297 

probably  original  and  gay,  as  there  were  still  those  who  could 
laugh  at  it. 

During  the  interval  from  his  return  to  the  year  1114,  history 
has  very  little  to  say  about  William.  It  scarcely  offers  us  an 
occasional  glimpse  of  him,  engaged  as  he  was  with  all  his 
neighbors  in  a  rapid  alternation  of  petty  wars  and  truces  of 
short  duration,  in  which  we  do  not  know  either  what  he  gained 
or  what  he  lost.  It  is  quite  possible,  that  in  all  these  quarrels 
he  only  sought  for  occasions  to  enhance  his  fame  as  an  excel- 
lent chevalier.  For  it  is  a  trait  in  his  character  and  life,  worth 
our  observation,  that  William  IX.,  count  of  Poitiers,  was  one 
of  the  first  of  the  great  feudal  nobles  of  the  south  of  France, 
who  figure  in  the  history  of  the  Middle  Age  with  pretensions 
to  the  glory  of  chivalry,  then  still  quite  in  its  infancy. 

The  events  of  his  life  subsequently  to  the  year  1114  begin 
again  to  leave  some  traces  in  history.  It  was  in  the  spring  of 
that  year  that  he  was  excommunicated  by  the  bishop  of  Poitiers 
on  account  of  some  scandal,  in  regard  to  which  the  historians 
of  the  time  are  not  agreed,  and  which  it  is  of  little  importance 
to  investigate.  But  the  particulars  of  the  excommunication  are 
quite  piquant,  and  they  portray  the  characters  of  the  bishop 
and  of  the  count  so  well,  that  they  deserve  a  place  in  our  ac- 
count. 

The  bishop,  after  having  reprimanded  William  to  his  face  for 
the  conduct  by  which  he  had  incurred  the  excommunication, 
was  already  on  the  point  of  pronouncing  the  dreaded  formula, 
when  William,  suddenly  interrupting,  threatened  to  kill  him  if 
he  dared  to  finish.*  The  bishop,  pretending  to  hesitate,  col- 
lected himself  for  a  moment,  and  then  pronounced  the  rest  of 
the  sentence  with  additional  emphasis.  "  Strike  now,"  says  he 
to  the  count,  "  I  have  finished."  "  No,"  replied  William  coolly, 
again  quite  master  of  himself,  "  I  do  not  like  you  well  enough 
to  send  you  into  Paradise."f  And  he  chased  him  out  of  the 
city. 

It  was  either  shortly  before  or  after  this  adventure  that  Wil- 
liam, finding  the  circumstances  favorable,  resumed  his  former 
favorite  project  of  gaining  -possession  of  the  city  of  Toulouse. 
There  was  something  in  the  blood  of  Raimond  of  Saint  Gilles, 
which  determined  all  his  descendants  to  go  to  the  Holy  Land 
to  combat  and  to  die.  The  eldest  son  of  Eaimond,  Bertrand, 


rum, 
volvit,  strk 

t  "Ita  officio'suo,  ut  sibi  videbatur,  peractcf  ....  (episcopus)  collum  tetendit: 
/erf,  inquiens,  feri  !  At  Willelmus  refractior  consuetum  leporem  intulit,  ut  diceret : 
Tantum  certe  te  odi,  ut  nee  meo  te  dignor  odio,  nee  ccelum  unquam  intrabis  me® 
manus  ministerio."— Ed. 


298  History  of  Provenqal  Poetry. 

who  had  been  in  the  unmolested  possession  of  the  county  of 
Toulouse  since  the  year  1100,  when  William  had  evacuated 
it — Bertrand  had  embarked  for  Syria  in  1109,  with  the  in- 
tention never  to  return  again.  He  had  a  son,  ten  or  twelve 
years  old,  whom  he  had  taken  with  him.  The  county  of  Tou- 
louse he  had  transferred  to  his  young  brother  Alphonse,  sur- 
named  Jourdain,  from  the  circumstance,  that  he  was  born  at 
Jerusalem,  and  that  his  father  Kaimond  had  him  carried  to  the 
Jordan,  to  be  baptized  in  the  waters  of  the  sacred  river. 

Alphonse  had  not  yet  passed  his  sixteenth  or  his  seven- 
teenth year ;  and  whether  he  already  governed  by  himself  or 
was  still  directed  by  a  council  of  regents,  there  arose  against 
him  in  the  city  of  Toulouse  a  faction,  which  was  determined  to 
upset  his  authority.  William  at  once  formed  an  alliance  with 
this  faction,  and  with  its  aid  made  himself  master  of  Toulouse 
a  second  time. 

This  city,  which  had  not  entirely  lost  its  ancient  importance, 
became  now  one  of  the  centres  01  the  new  civilization,  which 
had  commenced  to  dawn  from  all  parts  of  the  South ;  and  it 
would  appear,  that  in  the  ambition,  by  which  William  was  im- 
pelled to  its  appropriation,  there  was  a  certain  attraction  of  the 
man  of  culture  to  the  politeness,  the  literature  and  the  beautiful 
idiom  of  its  inhabitants.  He  established  his  residence  there 
this  time  as  well  as  the  first,  but  he  appears  to  have  been 
obliged  to  struggle  and  intrigue  against  the  party  of  young 
Alphonse,  which  was  that  of  the  country  itself,  and  which  did 
not  regard  itself  as  vanquished. 

Two  or  three  years  passed  away  in  this  doubtful  state  of 
affairs,  without  any  serious  change  either  in  the  fortunes  of 
William  or  in  that  of  the  inhabitants  of  Toulouse.  But  about 
the  year  1118  the  provinces  between  the  Rhone  and  the  Pyre- 
nees became  involved  in  a  general  movement  on  the  part  of 
Spain  against  the  Arabs. 

Alphonso  the  First,  king  of  Aragon,  perceiving  the  Mussul- 
man powers  of  the  country  more  and  more  divided  among 
themselves,  took  politic  and  energetic  measures  to  profit  by 
their  contentions  and  to  aggrandize  himself  at  their  expense. 
He  made  a  chivalric  appeal  to  the  principal  seigniors  north  of 
the  Pyrenees,  and  they  gallantly  responded  to  it. 

With  their  forces  united  to  his  own,  and  at  the  head  of  both, 
he  besieged,  in  the  year  1119,  the  great  and  powerful  city  of 
Saragossa,  and  starved  it  into  a  surrender.  In  the  following 
year  he  entered  the  territory  of  the  Mussulmans,  and  there  won 
the  battle  of  Cotenda,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and  decisive 
which  the  Christians  had  thus  far  fought  against  the  Arabs. 

William  of  Poitiers  took  part  in  all  these  expeditions,  in 


William  of  Poitiers. 

which  his  conduct  was  that  of  a  gallant  chevalier.  He  had 
contributed  considerable  forces,  but  these  forces  were  levied 
exclusively  in  Poitou,  or  in  his  other  domains.  It  seems  that 
he  did  not  venture  to  conduct  the  Toulousains  to  this  war,  or 
perhaps  the  latter  did  not  wish  to  follow  him. 

And  they  really  did,  from  that  time,  entertain  the  plan  of 
driving  him  from  the  city,  and  of  recalling  young  Alphonse. 
In  quitting  Toulouse,  William  had  left  one  of  his  vassals,  Wil- 
liam of  Montmorel,  to  command  in  his  place.  The  Toulousains, 
however,  soon  rebelled  against  this  lieutenant,  and  obliged  him 
to  take  refuge  in  the  Chateau  Narbonnais,  which  constituted  a 
part  of  the  fortified  circumvallation  of  the  city,  and  which  was 
the  ordinary  residence  of  the  count. 

William  heard  of  this  insurrection,  while  yet  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Pyrenees,  and  it  was  undoubtedly  with  the  intention 
of  suppressing  it  and  of  declaring  war  against  Alphonse  Jour- 
dain,  that  he  made  an  alliance  with  Raimond  Berenger  III., 
count  of  Barcelona,  who  was  likewise  at  variance  with  Al- 
phonse, on  account  of  certain  difficulties  relative  to  Provence. 

And  the  war  was  actually  commenced.  It  appears  even  that 
it  was  a  very  lively  and  protracted  one,  but  history  has  almost 
nothing  to  say  about  it.  All  that  we  know  about  it  is,  that  the 
Toulousains  exhibited  considerable  enthusiasm  for  the  cause  of 
their  young  count  Alphonse.  They  laid  siege  to  the  Chateau 
Narbonnais,  and  forced  the  lieutenant  of  William  of  Poitiers  to 
surrender.  After  this,  when  the  news  reached  them  that  Al- 
phonse Jourdain  was  himself  besieged  in  Prague  by  the  count 
of  Barcelona,  they  marched  to  his  deliverance,  and  brought 
him  back  in  triumph  to  Toulouse,  where"  he  afterward  remained 
in  the  unmolested  possession  of  his  power. 

William  of  Poitiers  did  probably  not  abandon  the  hope  of 
reconquering,  at  some  future  day,  the  city,  which  he  coveted 
so  much.  But  he  did  not  live  long  enough  to  see  a  third 
chance  to  succeed  in  his  project.  He  died  on  the  tenth  of 
February,  1127. 

I  have  now  given  the  most  interesting  and  the  most  positive 
facts  that  I  have  been  able  to  collect  relative  to  the  life  of  Wil- 
liam IX.,  count  of  Poitiers  and  duke  of  Aquitania.  The 
writers  who  were  his  contemporaries,  or  nearly  so,  in  speaking 
of  him,  are  all  agreed  in  what  they  have  to  say  in  regard  to  the 
fundamental  traits  of  his  character.  Geoffroy,  the  prior  of 
Yigeois,  represents  him  as  a  man  that  was  carried  away  by  his 
fondness  for  the  other  sex,  and  on  that  account  incapable  of 
following  out  any  serious  design. 

William  of  Malmesbury  makes  him  a  sort  of  esprit  forty  who 
boldly^and  with  self-complacency  denied  the  existence  of  a  God 


300  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

and  of  a  Providence,  but  who  was  endowed  with  the  talent  of 
making  all  those  who  heard  him  laugh  by  his  facetiousness  and 
bons  mots*  Oderic  Yital  says  in  a  few  words,  that  he  was 
brave,  courageous  and  excessively  jovial,  so  that  in  his  buf- 
fooneries he  left  even  the  buffoons  by  profession  far  behind 
him.f 

Finally,  the  extremely  valuable  biographical  traditions  of  the 
Troubadours,  which  were  collected  during  the  twelfth  century, 
and  which  are  generally  of  a  purely  historical  character,  repre- 
sent the  count  of  Poitiers,  as  one  of  the  most  courteous  men  in 
the  world,  and  as  one  of  the  greatest  libertines ;  in  other  res- 
pects, however,  an  excellent  and  gallant  chevalier  and  a  man 
of  unbounded  liberality.  "  He  understood  the  art  of  making 
verses  (II  sut  bien  trouver)  and  of  singing  to  perfection,"  they 
add,  "  and  went  about  the  world  a  great  while,  in  order  to  im- 
pose upon  the  ladies.";): 

It  was  not  without  design,  that  I  have  extended,  as  far  as  I 
could  do  so  without  departing  from  my  subject,  these  notices 
on  the  character  and  life  of  the  count  of  Poitiers.  I  wished  to 
be  able  to  affirm,  that  in  this  character  and  in  this  life  there  is 
nothing,  that  implies  a  decided  poetic  instinct.  In  all,  that  I 
have  said  about  William,  there  is  nothing  that  betrays  a  poet, 
much  less  an  original  poet,  at  any  rate  as  far  as  serious  poetry 
is  concerned.  This  single  observation  might  perhaps  suffice  to 
show,  that  the  count  of  Poitiers  could  not  have  been  the  first 
of  the  Troubadours. 

The  pieces  which  are  left  us  of  this  author  are  of  a  very 
limited  number.  Considered  in  themselves  and  with  reference 
to  their  poetical  merit,  they  have  no  interest  whatever,  and  they 
might  be  destroyed  without  depriving  Provencal  poetry  of  a 
single  characteristic  trait.  There  is,  therefore,  nothing  to  be 
looked  for  in  these  pieces,  as  far  as  agreeableness  or  beauty  is  con- 
cerned. If  on  the  other  hand,  however,  we  search  them  for  facts 
or  indications  with  reference  to  the  general  history  of  the  Trou- 
badours and  of  their  poetry,  the  case  is  quite  a  different  one. 
These  very  pieces,  however  insignificant  in  every  other  respect, 

*  "Erat  tune  Willelmus  comes  Pictavorum  fatuus  et  lubricus,  qui  priusquam  de 
Hierosolyma  ....  rediit,  ita  pmne  yitiorum  volutabrum  premebat,  quasi  crederet  am- 
mo, fortuito  a^i,  non  providentia  regi.  Nugas  porro  suas  salsa  quadam  venustate  con- 
diens  ad  facetias  revocabat,  audientibus  rictus  cachinno  distendens,"  etc.  "  De  gestia 
Begum  Angl.,"  lib.  v.,  p.  170.— Ed. 

f  "  Hie  audax  fuit  et  probus,  nimiumque  jucundus,  facetos  etiam  histriones  facetiis 
guperans  multiplicibus."  Oderici  Vitalis  "Hist.  Eccles."  apud  Bouquet,  vol.  xii.,  p. 
684,  c.— Ed. 

%  •'  Lo  corns  de  Peitieus  si  fo  uns  dels  maiors  cortes  del  mon,  e  dels  maiors  trichadora 
de  dompnas ;  e  bons  cavalliers  d'armas,  e  lares  de  dompneiar.  E  taup  ben  trobar  et 
cantor :  e  anet  lone  temps  per  lo  mon  per  enganar  las  domnas."  Raynouard,  vol.  v. 
p.  115.  "  Parnasse  Occitanien,"  p.  1.  Crescimbeni,  "  Istoria  della  volgar  Poesia,"  vol.  ii. 
p.  190.— Ed. 


William  of  Poitiers.  301 

become  invaluable,  when  regarded  in  this  light,  for  we  can  de- 
rive from  them  a  great  deal  of  interesting  and  reliable  informa- 
tion on  the  subject  of  Provencal  poetry.  It  is  in  this  connection, 
and  with  a  view  to  this  historical  purpose,  that  I  have  examined 
them  and  still  propose  to  speak  of  them.  The  facts,  to  which 
this  examination  must  be  directed,  are  of  a  very  delicate  nature, 
but  nevertheless  quite  positive,  and  among  the  number  of  those 
which  it  is  important  to  observe  and  to  appreciate  in  investigat- 
ing new  and  difficult  portions  of  literary  history. 

The  different  manuscript  collections  of  the  poetry  of  the 
Troubadours,  with  which  we  are  acquainted,  offer  us  only  tea 
pieces  under  the  name  of  the  count  of  Poitiers,  and  these  pieces 
together  do  not  quite  contain  five  hundred  verses.  It  is  quite 
probable,  that  he  composed  a  larger  number  of  them,  exclu- 
sively even  of  the  lost  poem  on  the  Aquitanian  crusade.  Among 
the  ten  pieces,  however,  which  are  attributed  to  him,  there  are 
two,  which  the  most  unpretending  criticism  could  not  admit 
among  the  number  of  his  works.  For,  in  the  first  place,  the 
style  differs  too  greatly  from  his  to  be  a  mere  shade  or  modifi- 
cation of  it ;  and  secondly,  the  two  poems  in  question  are  found 
in  other  manuscripts  under  different  names  from  that  of  the 
count  of  Poitiers.  These  two  circumstances  united  decide  the 
question. 

In  regard  to  the  eight  remaining  pieces,  as  all  the  manuscripts 
agree  in  attributing  them  to  the  count  of  Poitiers,  and  as  there 
is  nothing  contained  in  any  of  them  to  contradict  this  testimony 
of  the  manuscripts,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  admit  and  to  consider 
them  as  productions  of  William  IX.  These  then  are  the  pieces, 
which  I  propose  to  examine,  in  order  to  see  what  inferences, 
relative  to  the  history  of  Provengal  poetry,  it  may  be  possible 
to  derive  from  them. 

Of  the  eight  pieces  in  question,  six  are  of  the  amatory  kind 
and  two  only  appertain  to  other  species.  I  have  but  a  word 
to  say  about  the  latter  and  I  shall  commence  with  it.  One  of 
these  two  species  is  that,  of  which  I  have  already  given  a  trans- 
lation, and  in  which  William,  at  the  moment  of  his  departure 
for  the  Holy  Land,  bids  adieu  to  his  son  and  to  his  seigniory. 

The  other  is  much  more  fantastical  and  might  prove  a  source 
of  great  embarrassment  to  one,  who  took  it  into  his  head  to 
look  for  a  serious  sense,  or  even  for  any  sense  whatever  in  it. 
It  is  a  mere  extravaganza,  to  which  I  shall  revert  again  here- 
after. For  the  present  it  will  be  sufficient  for  my  purpose  to 
have  simply  noticed  it.  I  proceed  now  to  the  consideration  of 
the  amatory  pieces.  Of  the  six  poems  of  this  order  I  can  commu- 
nicate two,  and  I  shall  translate  them  presently.  But  it  is  neces- 
sary to  give  first  some  idea  of  the  rest,  and  here  I  experience  a 


302  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

difficulty ;  for  these  pieces  are  outrageously  licentious.  I  shall 
confine  myself  to  a  rapid  exposition  of  their  respective  subjects. 
In  one  of  these  pieces,  the  count  of  Poitiers  unfolds  his  theory 
of  love  and  endeavors  to  show  the  folly  and  the  vanity  of  jea- 
lousy on  the  part  of  husbands  and  even  on  the  part  of  lovers. 

The  three  other  pieces  properly  belong  to  the  narrative  class, 
and  there  is  scarcely  a  doubt,  but  that  in  them  the  author  makes 
shameless  allusions  to  real  adventures  of  his  life.  There  is 
one,  in  which  he  recounts  the  good  luck  he  had  in  representing 
himself  dumb  to  two  ladies,  whom  he  accidentally  met  on  a 
journey  into  the  country.  In  another  he  speaks  of  two  ladies, 
whom  he  loved  equally,  but  of  which  each  desired  exclusive 
possession  of  his  heart,  under  the  allegory  of  two  superb  coursers, 
which  pleased  and  suited  him  both. 

Notwithstanding  the  traits  of  merriment  and  drollery,  which 
mitigate  to  some  extent  the  obscenity  of  these  pieces,  they  are 
nevertheless  upon  the  whole  the  unconstrained  and  serious  ex- 
pression of  a  gross  depravity,  which  may  have  been  in  part  that 
of  the  age,  but  in  which  there  is  certainly  also  much  that  is 
purely  individual. 

The  last  two  pieces  by  the  count  of  Poitiers,  which  still  re- 
main to  be  examined,  are  love-longs,  like  the  preceding,  but 
this  is  all  they  have  in  common  with  them.  "We  cannot  with- 
out astonishment  find  productions,  so  dissimilar  in  this  respect, 
confounded  under  the  same  name. 

I  subjoin  here  a  few  stanzas*  from  the  first  of  these  two  pieces, 
faithfully  translated,  except  perhaps  one  or  two  passages,  which 
I  am  not  sure  of  having  rendered  with  exactness. 

"  I  experience  such  delight  in  love,  that  I  wish  to  abandon 
myself  entirely  to  it ;  and  since  I  wish  to  live  by  love,  I  ought, 
if  "it  were  possible,  to  be  completely  happy.  My  new  thought 
shall  hereafter  be  my  ornament ;  the  world  shall  see  and  hear 
of  it." 

"  I  ought  not  to  depreciate  myself  and  still  I  dare  not  praise 
me.  But  if  ever  the  joy  of  love  could  flourish,  mine  ought  to 
bring  forth  blossoms,  above  all  others.  It  ought  to  shine  res- 
plendent over  every  other,  just  as  the  sun  upon  a  cloudy  day." 

"  All  pride  must  be  abased  before  my  lady,  and  every  power 

*  Raynouard :  vol.  iii.  p.  3.    Piece  No.  II.    Strophes  1,  2,  3,  4,  6,  6. 

Mout  jauzens  me  prenc  en  araar  Mas,  si  anc  nulhs  joys  poc  florir, 

Un  joy  don  plus  mi  vuelh  aizir ;  Aquest  den  sobre  totz  granar, 

E  pus  en  joy  vulh  revertir,  E  part  los  autres  esmerar. 

Ben  deu,  si  puesc,  al  miellis  anar ;  Si  cum  sol  brus  jorns  esclarzir. 
Quar  mielhs  or  n'am  estiers  cuiar  *       *       *       * 

Qu'om  puesca  vczer  ni  auzir. 

Totz  joys  li  deu  hnmiliar, 

leu,  so  sabetz,  no  m  dey  gabar,  E  tota  ricors  obezir 

Ni  de  grans  laus  no  m  say  formir ;  Mi  dons  .    .    .    .  etc.,  etc — Ed, 


William  of  Poitiers.  303 

must  obey  her,  on  account  of  her  gracious  address,  her  sweet 
and  charming  look."  .  .  . 

"  From  the  joy  of  such  a  lady  a  dying  man  might  revive,  and 
out  of  grief  for  her  a  man,  though  in  the  bloom  of  health,  might 
perish.  She  can  make  fools  of  the  wise,  render  ugly  the  most 
handsome,  convert  the  most  courteous  man  into  a  boor,  the  boor 
into  a  courtier." 

"  A  fairer  one  than  she  cannot  be  found.  Nor  eye  can  see 
nor  mouth  can  name  her  equal.  I  have  chosen  her  as  mine,  in 
order  to  refresh  my  heart  and  to  renew  my  body,  so  that  it  never 
may  grow  old." 

The  traits,  which  constitute  the  character  of  this  piece,  are 
still  more  marked  and  better  expressed  in  the  second,*  of  which 
the  following  is  nearly  the  whole : 

"Since  we  behold  again  the  meadows  clad  in  green,  the 
orchards  blooming,  the  rivulets  and  fountains,  air  and  winds 
grown  bright  again,  it  is  but  just,  that  every  one  should  cull  the 
part  of  joy,  that  falls  to  him." 

"  Of  love  I  cannot  but  speak  well ;  and  if  I  should  not  gain 
the  slightest  good  by  it,  no  matter  [  Perhaps  I  did  not  merit 
any  more.  And  yet  it  would  be  such  a  pleasing  joy  and  so 
easily  bestowed,  to  obtain  a  glimpse  of  hope  !" 

"  Thus  have  I  always  been  deceived  !  For  never  yet  have  I 
been  happy  for  having  loved,  and  1  shall  never  be  so.  I  do, 
however,  just  as  my  heart  prompts,  although  I  well  know,  that 
it  is  all  in  vain." 

"  'Tis  thus,  that  I  assume  the  air  of  one  insensate,  longing  for 
what  I  cannot  have.  Alas !  The  proverb  is  two  true,  that, 
'  He,  who  has  a  great  desire,  has  great  power;  if  not,  woe  be  to 
him !' 

"  Whoever  wants  to  love,  must  first  of  all  be  ready  to  serve 
the  entire  world.  He  must  be  skilled  in  doing  noble  actions 
and  must  beware  of  speaking  vulgarly  at  court. 

The  contrasts  between  these  pieces  and  those,  to  which  I  pre- 
sently shall  scarcely  venture  to  allude,  is  as  striking  as  it  can 
possibly  be.  It  extends  itself  to  everything  about  them  ;  to  the 
form,  the  tone,  the  ideas  and  the  sentiments  conveyed  by  them 

*  Raynouard :  vol.  v.  page  117.    Strophes  1,  2, 4, 

Pas  vezem  de  novelh  florir  Pero  lemnena 

Pratz,  e  vergiers  reverdezir  Dona  gran  joi  qui  be  mante 

Bias  e  fontanas  esclarzir,  LOB  aizimcus.    .    .    . 

Auras  e  vens,  *       *       *       *       * 

Ben  deu  quascus  lo  joy  jauzir 

Don  es  jauzens.  Obediensa  deu  portar 

A  mantas  gens  qui  vol  amar, 

D'  amor  non  dei  dire  mas  be,  E  coven  li  que  sapcha  far 

Quar  non  ai  ni  petit  ni  re,  Faigz  avinens, 

Quar  ben  leu  plus  no  m*  en  core ;  E  ques  guart  en  cort  de  parlar 

Vilanamens.— Ed. 


304  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

The  love,  which  constitutes  the  burden  of  the  latter,  has  nothing 
whatever  in  common  with  that,  which  is  represented  in  the 
former.  This  is  an  enthusiastic,  a  delicate  and  a  respectful 
sentiment,  which  elevates  and  deifies  its  object.  In  a  word,  it 
is  chivalric  gallantry  with  all  its  refinements,  its  formulas  and 
its  characteristic  usages.  This,  however,  we  shall  exhibit  in 
a  clearer  light  hereafter. 

We  may  be  sure,  that  in  the  two  pieces,  which  I  have  just 
translated,  the  count  of  Poitiers  did  not  express  sentiments, 
which  were  really  his  own.  Nor  was  the  conception  of  love, 
as  there  conveyed,  his  own.  He  certainly  would  have  been 
the  last  man  in  the  world  to  imagine  such  a  thing.  In  speak- 
ing as  he  did,  he  only  expressed  the  sentiments  and  ideas  at 
that  time  generally  in  vogue,  at  least  among  the  higher  classes 
of  society  in  the  South.  There  was  then  already  a  method 
for  the  portraiture  of  these  sentiments  and  ideas,  a  poetry 
of  a  specific  character,  which  was  already  that  of  the  Trou- 
badours, still  young,  perhaps,  and  as  yet  incapable  of  its 
later  loftier  flights,  but  nevertheless  older  than  the  count  of 
Poitiers,  and  constituting  already  an  original  system  of  estab- 
lished principles  and  forms.  This  is  an  interesting  fact  in  the 
history  of  Provencal  poetry,  and  one  which  I  think  I  can 
establish  to  a  certainty.  I  think  I  can  see  in  the  pieces,  com- 
posed by  the  count  of  Poitiers,  diverse  allusions  to  the  poeti- 
cal system  of  the  Troubadours,  all  of  which  oblige  us  to  adopt 
the  supposition,  that  this  system  must  have  been  organized 
and  already  in  vogue  for  a  certain  length  of  time,  at  the 
epoch  when  they  were  made. 

I  have  a  little  while  ago  spoken  of  a  piece  by  William  IX., 
which  I  have  characterized  by  the  epithet  extravagant.  In 
order  to  j  ustify  this  qualification,  I  have  only  to  translate  the 
first  stanza,  of  which  the  following  is  a  literal  rendering : 

"  I  am  about  composing  a  piece  of  verse  about  a  pure  non- 
entity ;  for  I  shall  therein  treat  neither  of  myself,  nor  of  an- 
other ;  neither  of  love,  nor  of  youth,  nor  of  any  other  matter. 
It  is  a  long  time  since  I  once  composed  it,  while  I  was  sleep- 
ing on  Mount  Chenal." 

The  piece  contains  seven  or  eight  additional  stanzas  symme- 
trical with  this ;  they  all  of  them  consist  of  an  assemblage  of 
contradictory  expressions,  associated  together  for  the  sole  pur- 
pose of  offering  to  the  mind  a  series  of  incongruous  ideas  or 
images,  calculated  to  surprise  or  to  amuse  it  for  a  moment  by 
their  extravagance  disguised  under  a  serious  form. 

We  find  in  the  Provencal  manuscripts  other  pieces  similar  to 
this.  There  is  one,  among  others,  by  Kaymbaud  of  Orange, 
to  which  the  author  gives  the  singular  but  very  appropriate 


William  of  Poitiers.  305 

title  of  "I know  not  what."  Troubadours  of  a  graver  charac- 
ter, and  of  more  distinguished  talents  than  either  William  IX. 
or  Kambaud  of  Orange,  as  for  example,  Giraud  de  Borneuil, 
did  not  disdain  this  sort  of  composition.  They  constituted,  in 
fact,  one  of  the  minor  lyrical  forms,  cultivated  by  the  Trouba- 
dors,  and  were  a  part  of  their  poetic  system. 

It  is  not  impossible,  although  not  probable,  that  the  piece  by 
the  count  of  JPoitiers,  which  we  have  just  considered,  was  the 
first,  and  as  it  were  the  model  of  the  species.  But  even  if  it 
were,  this  want  of  a  certain  diversion  in  minds  of  an  eccentric 
or  refined  turn  might  be  regarded  as  a  proof,  that  the  serious  poet- 
ry of  the  Troubadours  must  have  existed  long  before  this  time. 
And  there  are  indeed  many  things  in  favor  of  the  supposition, 
that  at  the  epoch  at  which  oddities,  like  the  one  in  question, 
found  poets  and  hearers,  there  must  have  been  already  in  circu- 
lation many  of  those  grave  and  wearisome  compositions,  which 
are  never  wanting  in  any  of  the  collections  of  the  Troubadours. 

Another  species  of  poetic  composition,  of  frequent  occur- 
rence in  these  collections,  and  almost  as  singular  as  the  preced- 
ing, but  of  a  more  elevated  tone,  and  much  more  characteristic, 
is  that  of  the  tensons,  or  poetic  combats.  These  are  pieces,  in 
which  two  or  more  interlocutors  support  opposite  sides  of  some 
question,  connected  with  some  point  of  chivalric  gallantry. 
The  count  of  Poitiers  never  composed  any  ten  sons ;  or  rather, 
he  never  figures  as  an  interlocutor  in  any  of  the  pieces  which  are 
left  us  from  his  pen.  But  he  expressly  alludes  to  them  in  one 
of  his  poems,  and  this  allusion  is  sufficient  to  establish  the  fact, 
that  this  sort  of  poetic  challenge  was  customary  in  his  time,  and 
undoubtedly  before  him,  among  the  poets  of  the  Provencal 
tongue. 

we  have  now  discovered  three  kinds  of  lyrical  productions, 
peculiar  to  the  Troubadours,  all  of  which  are  represented  in  the 
writings  of  the  count  of  Poitiers  either  by  formal  imitations  or 
by  allusions.  They  are  the  chivalric  love  songs,  the  tensons, 
and  lastly,  those  incongruous  medleys,  which  never  seem  to 
have  had  any  other  name  except  that  of  I  know  not  what. 

Independently  of  these  allusions,  the  poems  of  the  count  of 
Poitiers  contain  others  no  less  significant,  on  various  special 
and  characteristic  points  relating  to  the  poetics  of  the  Trouba- 
dours. In  this  system  of  poetry,  for  example,  the  musical  art 
is  inseparably  connected  with  that  of  the  poet.  Every  poet 
was  his  own  composer,  and  generally  singer  too.  There  were 
certain  established  terms  for  distinguishing  in  every  poetic 
composition,  the  special  work  to  be  performed  by  each  of  these 
arts  respectively.  That  of  the  poetry  was  denominated  mots  or 
words,  that  of  the  music  son  or  sound.  Now  one  of  the  pieces 

20 


History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

olTWilliam  IX.  contains  a  passage,  which  alludes  to  all  this  as 
to  poetical  laws  already  settled. 

There  is  another  circumstance  no  less  remarkable.  The  word 
trobar  (French  trouver,  "  to  find,  invent "),  by  which  the  Pro- 
vencals designate  the  spontaneous  act  of  the  poetic  imagination, 
and  the  sort  of  creation  which  is  the  result  of  it,  is  already  em- 
ployed in  this  sense  in  the  writings  of  the  count  of  Poitiers, 
feut  this  word  could  only  have  been  used  in  such  a  special  ac- 
ceptation at  an  epoch,  when  the  poetic  genius  had  already 
acquired,  by  dint  of  certain  developments,  the  consciousness  of 
its  inherent  nobleness  and  power.  If  we  could  ascertain,  where 
and  when  it  was  first  employed  in  this  sense,  we  should  then 
know,  from  this  single  circumstance,  the  cradle  of  the  poetry 
of  the  Troubadours  and  the  exact  date  of  its  birth.  But  these 
beginnings  involve  inquiries  which  men  never  think  of  making 
in  time. 

Finally,  we  learn  from  certain  passages  of  the  writings  of 
William  IX.,  that  the  material  organization  of  Provencal  poetry 
at  the  time  of  this  count,  was  already  fundamentally  the  same, 
as  we  find  it  at  a  subsequent  epoch ;  that  is  to  say,  there  were 
two  poetical  classes  or  professions,  in  intimate  and  necessary 
relation  with  each  other,  and  fulfilling  each  its  peculiar  part  of 
one  common  task,  to  wit,  that  of  the  Troubadours  or  poets  and 
musical  composers,  and  that  of  the  Jongleurs  or  itinerant  singers 
and  reciters  of  the  compositions  of  the  first. 

I  shall  now  endeavor  (and  the  matter  is  not  a  difficult  one) 
to  recapitulate  and  to  express  all  these  particular  facts  in  one 
general  leading  fact. 

If  we  admit  that  the  count  of  Poitiers  wrote  the  majority  of 
his  pieces  from  the  age  of  twenty  to  that  of  forty,  it  follows, 
that  the  latter  were  composed  during  the  interval  from  1090  to 
1110  ;  and  there  is  every  probability,  that  this  was  really  the 
case. 

The  examination  of  these  pieces  furnishes  us  evidence,  that 
at  that  epoch  there  existed  in  the  south  of  France  two  sorts  or 
orders  of  poetry. 

The  one  was  that  primitive  Provencal  poetry,  which  origin- 
ated during  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries,  from  the  reminiscen- 
ces of  the  Graeco-Roman  poetry,  and  was  modified  in  a  Christ- 
ian sense  by  the  intervention  of  the  priests  and  monks.  It  is 
to  this  crude,  uncouth,  spontaneous,  but  vague  and  indetermi- 
nate order  of  poetry,  that  we  must  assign  the  epic  songs,  the 
popular  love  and  dancing  songs,  the  pious  hymns,  the  legends 
of  saints  and  the  romantic  narratives,  of  wnich  I  have  either 
spoken  historically,  or  given  specimens. 

The  second  order  of  poetry  existed  by  the  side  of  the  former, 


William  of  Poitiers.  307 

but  it  was  in  every  respect  distinct  from  it.  This  was  then  an 
entirely  new  kind  of  poetry,  systematic,  refined,  exclusive — a 
poetry  of  the  courts  and  castles,  of  which  the  only  or  the  princi- 
pal theme  was  love,  such  as  the  chivalry  of  the  South  had  made 
or  endeavored  to  make  it. 

These  two  orders  of  poetry  are  clearly  to  be  distinguished  in 
the  compositions  of  the  count  of  Poitiers,  who  no  more  invented  , 
the  one  than  he  did  the  other,  but  who  cultivated  both  of  them,  y 
The  older  and  most  popular  of  the  two  offered  him  the  liberty 
of  which  he  stood  in  need,  to  express  his  individual  mode  of 
thinking  or  of  feeling,  and  to  recount  his  personal  adventures. 
The  other,  more  delicate  and  more  ideal,  was  the  poetry  in 
fashion  at  the  courts  of  the  South ;  and  it  was  necessary  for  him 
to  cultivate  it  likewise,  were  it  from  no  other  motive  than  from 
the  vanity  of  being  in  the  ton. 

Subsequently  to  the  epoch  of  the  count  of  Poitiers,  the  new 
poetry  of  the  Troubadours  absorbed,  gradually  and  almost  en- 
tirely, the  ancient  popular  poetry,  which  had  preceded  it  three 
centuries,  and  which  ended  by  imprinting  its  character  and 
imposing  its  forms  upon  the  former.  This  is  a  revolution  which 
I  propose  to  discuss  hereafter  in  its  proper  place. 


308  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

CHIVALRY   CONSIDERED  IN  ITS    RELATIONS    TO    PROVENCAL    POETRY. 

BEFORE  entering  upon  the  examination  of  the  poetry  of  the 
Troubadours,  I  shall  have  to  give  some  general  idea  of  chivalry. 

~£    1,*        1,       J.1      _      /• __1__J.1       _  _         ___     1 '3  1  •        * 


singu- 
lar system  of  institutions,  commonly  designated  by  the  name 
of  chivalry,  to  point  out  its  precise  origin,  or  to  trace  the  pro- 
gress of  its  development  throughout  entire  Europe.  I  have 
only  to  consider  the  institution  in  question,  as  it  existed  in  the 
south  of  France,  and  then  even  I  am  exempt  from  embracing  it 
as  a  whole ;  all  that  is  necessary  for  me  is  to  indicate  its  con- 
nection with  the  poetic  system  of  the  Troubadours.  But  even 
when  thus  circumscribed,  the  subject  has  still  its  difficulties  and 
its  exigencies,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  I  shall  be  able  to  suc- 
ceed in  my  design,  without  connecting  what  I  have  to  say  on 
chivalry  with  a  rapid  sketch  of  its  general  history. 

During  the  long  anarchy,  which  followed  the  dissolution  of 
the  Carlovingian  monarchy,  all  the  remaining  moral  and  social 
forces  were  spontaneously  called  into  play  in  favor  of  the  ree's- 
tablishment  of  some  sort  of  order.  But,  in  a  state  of  isolation, 
these  forces  could  accomplish  nothing,  and  some  of  them,  long 
since  the  enemies  of  each  other,  instead  of  acting  in  concert 
against  the  general  anarchy,  only  profited  by  it  to  exacerbate 
their  mutual  hostility. 

Thus,  for  example,  the  military  or  feudal  caste,  which  had 
nearly  all  the  political  power  in  its  hands,  and  which,  from  the 
commencement  of  the  Frankish  conquest,  had  always  been  hos- 
tile to  the  clergy,  was  then  more  opposed  to  it  than  ever.  More 
than  ever  before,  did  this  turbulent  and  greedy  caste  now  vex 
or  pillage  the  churches,  and  menace  the  independence  of  the 
clergy.  The  latter  employed  all  their  energy  and  care,  in  order 
to  maintain  their  possessions  and  their  dignity  against  these  at- 
tacks, and  the  history  of  this  struggle  is,  in  a  great  measure, 
that  of  society  itself  at  the  epoch  in  question. 


I 


Its  Relations  to  Chivalry.  309 

Among  the  numerous  ideas  suggested  to  the  clergy  by  the 
necessity  of  self-defence,  there  is  one  which  here  deserves  our 
special  notice.  It  was  that  of  creating  in  the  very  heart  of 
this  feudal  caste,  which  was  always  ready  to  trouble  society 
and  the  church,  a  party  especially  devoted  to  the  support  of 
both.  The  attempt  was  partially  successful,  and  gave  rise  to  a 
sort  of  revolution  in  the  feudal  order,  which  manifested  itself 
in  various  ways,  but  more  particularly  by  a  characteristic 
change  in  the  ordinary -method  of  military  investitures. 

Among  the  Germans,  the  day  on  whicli  a  man  was  received 
among  the  number  of  the  warriors  of  his  tribe,  was  one  of  the 
most  solemn  in  his  life,  and  the  occasions  for  the  reception  of 
new  warriors  were  those  of  great  rejoicing  to  the  tribe  itself; 
for  they  were  always  attended  with  a  certain  display  of  cere- 
monies, of  the  spirit  and  the  motives  of  which  Tacitus  has  left 
us  so  admirable  an  account.* 

The  Germans  continued  to  cherish  their  ideas  and  usages  on 
this  point,  after  they  had  established  themselves  in  the  pro- 
vinces of  the  empire,  and  the  act  of  the  investiture  of  arms  pre- 
served among  them  all  its  ancient  importance.  Now  as  the 
principal  ceremony  of  this  investiture  consisted  in  begirding 
the  young  warrior  with  the  sword  or  with  the  baldric  by  which 
it  was  suspended,  it  was  from  this  circumstance  that  it  derived 
the  names  by  which  it  was  usually  designated  in  the  Latin  of 
the  time.  To  take  the  baldric  or  to  gird  about  the  baldric,  were 
expressions  habitually  used  to  designate  the  act  in  question. 

At  a  later  period,  under  Charlemagne  and  Louis  le  Debon- 
naire,  the  military  girdle  was  considered  as  the  sign  or  symbol 
of  political  capacity.  To  lose  or  lay  aside  the  baldric  was  tan- 
tamount to  a  civil  degradation. 

The  counts,  the  dukes,  the  kings,  and  probably  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  feudal  order,  without  any  distinction,  preserved  this 
ancient  Germanic  custom  of  the  investiture  of  arms,  until  about 
the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century.  To  give  or  to  receive  this 
investiture  still  continued  to  be  called  to  take  or  to  receive  the 
military  ~baldric,  or  more  simplv  the  military  order ',  the  militia. 
The  term  militia-man  or  military  man  (miles,  vir  militaris) 
was  then  employed  to  designate  a  personage  of  the  feudal  caste, 
as  during  the  first  centuries  of  the  conquest  the  name  of  Frank 
had  designated  a  man  of  the  conquering  race. 

The  investiture  of  arms,  as  long  as  it  remained  a  traditional 
usage  of  ancient  Germany,  was  nothing  more  than  a  civil  or 

*  De  Germania,  c.  xiii.  "  Sed  arma  sumere  non  ante  cuiquam  moris,  quam  civitas 
suffecturam  probaverit.  Turn  in  ipso  concitio,  vel  principum  aliquis  vel  pater  vel  pro- 
pinquus  scuto  frameaque  juvenem  ornant :  haec  apud  illos  toga,  hie  primus  juventae 
ionos :  ante  hoc  domus  pars  videntur,  mox  reipublicse,  etc.— Ed. 


310  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

political  ceremony.  It  was  customary  for  the  young  warrior  to 
receive  his  arms  from  the  hands  of  another  warrior,  older  than 
himself;  but  there  is  nothing  to  justify  the  presumption,  that 
this  was  done  in  a  place  exclusively  devoted  to  that  purpose. 
"We  do  not  know  whether  the  young  warrior  was  required  to 
take  an  oath ;  but  even  if  this  had  been  so,  the  oath  could  only 
have  been  a  civil  or  political  one. 

All  this  was  changed  during  the  latter  half  of  the  eleventh 
century,  an  epoch  at  which  the  clergy  were  attempting  to  bring 
about  the  revolution  in  the  military  order,  to  which  I  have  al- 
ready referred  above.  We  then  find  the  priests  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  power  of  investing  the  youthful  warriors  of  the  feu- 
dal order  with  their  first  arms.  1?he  ceremony  was  no  longer 
performed  indiscriminately  in  any  place,  but  in  the  churches. 
It  was  no  longer  a  purely  civil  or  political  ceremony,  but  a 
mixed  one,  which  now  borrowed  a  part  of  its  solemnity  from 
religion.  The  neophyte  warrior  was  required  to  take  an  oath, 
and  this  oath,  which  was  dictated  by  the  Church,  distinctly  an- 
nounced, on  the  part  of  the  latter,  the  project  it  entertained  in 
directing  or  reforming  the  military  caste.* 

The  warrior  thus  instructed  by  the  priest  was  no  longer,  or 
was  at  any  rate  no  longer  supposed  to  be,  the  turbulent  and 
haughty  warrior,  who,  measuring  his  right  by  his  physical 
strength  or  courage,  regarded  everything  his  own,  which  he 
could  plunder  with  impunity.  He  was  now  a  champion  of  the 
Church,  who  had  received  his  arms  only  in  order  to  consecrate 
them  to  the  defence  of  religion,  to  the  protection  of  the  feeble 
against  the  strong,  of  the  oppressed  against  the  oppressor.  In 
short,  he  was  a  knight  or  chevalier  in  the  historical  and  charac- 
teristic acceptation  of  the  term. 

"We  thus  perceive,  that  the  institution  of  chivalry,  in  its  origin 
and  primitive  form,  was  nothing  more  than  an  attempt  on  the 
part  of  the  clergy  to  transform  the  brutal  and  turbulent  force 
of  the  feudal  soldiery  into  a  well-organized  power  for  the  de- 
fence of  the  Church  and  of  Society.  It  was  an  appeal  to  what- 
ever there  was  generous  and  humane  in  the  warrior  caste  in 
opposition  to  its  perversity,  its  violence,  and  its  barbarity. 

This  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  clergy  was  connected  with 
others,  which  were,  however,  only  an  expansion  of  the  former ; 
as  for  example,  the  institution  of  the  Peace  and  of  the  Truce  of 
God,  and  the  Crusades.  But  this  is  not  the  place  for  unravel- 
ling or  tracing  the  threads  by  which  these  different  events  are 
linked  together. 


i.,  p.  xc.-xcv.,  and  vol.  v.,  p.  3.— Ed. 


Its  Delations  to  Chivalry.  311 

But  chivalry  neither  did  nor  could  remain  what  the  clergy 
had  originally  made  it.  It  soon  shook  off  the  sacerdotal  influ- 
ence, and  only  aspired  to  virtues,  of  which  some  were  odious 
and  others  indifferent  to  the  priests  and  monks.  The  institu- 
tion of  chivalry  in  its  earliest  form  had  been  a  sort  of  truce  or 
momentary  alliance  between  the  clergy  and  the  order  of  war- 
riors. But  the  alliance  was  but  a  short-lived  one,  and  the 
struggle  between  the  two  castes  soon  recommenced  with  more 
intensity  than  ever. 

The  passions,  the  interests,  the  vices,  and  the  virtues  of  the 
feudal  order  did  not  find  sufficiently  free  play  in  the  chivalry 
of  the  clergy.  The  religious  enthusiasm  itself,  the  grand  source 
of  clerical  influence  and  power  over  the  warriors,  had  among 
these  men  something  that  was  uncertain,  savage,  and  unman- 
ageable. The  knight,  the  feudal  soldier,  was  indeed  desirous 
to  serve  his  religion  and  his  faith,  but  he  was  not  always  in  a 
humor  to  serve  them  under  the  direction  and  in  the  interest  of 
a  class  of  men  whom  he  did  not  like — of  a  clergy,  which  he  re- 
presents as  hankering  after  lands  and  treasures,  and  always 
ready  to  cry  alarm  or  to  pronounce  anathemas  against  those 
to  whom  it  was  indebted  ix>r  all  it  had,  however  little  disposi- 
tion they  might  exhibit  to  take  back  what  they  had  given. 
This  warrior  was  sincerely  religious,  but  he  was  so  after  his 
own  fashion,  with  all  his  ignorance,  his  pride,  his  adventurous 
propensities  and  his  wants,  which  were  always  greater  than 
the  means  at  his  command  for  satisfying  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  military  caste  became  gradually  more 
civilized  in  consequence  of  the  general  progress  of  society,  and 
independently  of  the  personal  efforts  and  motives  by  which  the 
clergy  had  endeavored  to  reform  it.  Now,  the  views  of  the 
Church,  as  expressed  in  the  institution  of  chivalry,  were  quite 
consistent  with  the  development  of  several  germs  of  civilization, 
existing  toward  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century,  but  not 
with  that  of  all  of  them.  There  was  already  at  this  epoch  in 
the  south  of  Europe,  and  especially  of  France,  a  manifest  and 
decided  movement  of  a  reviving  civilization,  which  had  com- 
menced under  the  auspices  of  the  feudal  order,  and  was  con- 
ducted by  it.  A  certain  degree  of  refinement  and  of  politeness 
began  to  be  regarded  as  a  natural  sign  of  power  and  elevation 
of  rank.  There  already  existed  a  sort  of  respectful  considera- 
tion for  the  fair  sex,  a  disinterested  disposition  to  admiration 
and  to  tenderness,  as  if  there  were  already  a  presentiment  of 
the  moral  ascendency,  which  woman  was  destined  to  hold  in 
society.  Finally,  display,  magnificence,  liberality,  and  a  gen- 
erous use  of  force,  began  to  be  the  surest  means  to  the  attain- 
ment of  glory  and  renown  among  those  in  power.  Chivalry 


312  History  of  Provencal  Poefoy. 

was  a  sort  of  form  for  all  these  sentiments,  for  all  these  princi- 
ples of  civilization ;  they  entered  there  spontaneously,  they  daily 
increased  in  number  and  in  influence,  until  at  last  they  be- 
came the  ^dominant  party.  It  was  through  these  sentiments 
and  principles,  that  the  institution  gradually  assumed  an  en- 
tirely different  form  from  that  which  the  ecclesiastical  power 
had  attempted  to  give  to  it,  and  that  it  eventually  became  an 
object  of  horror  to,  that  power. 

This  chivalry,  however,  even  at  the  epoch  of  its  greatest 
spendor,  in  the  south  of  France,  can  manifestly  not  be  considered 
as  a  positive,  fixed,  and  regular  institution,  uniformly  under- 
stood and  practised  by  all  those  who  had  adopted  it.  It  is 
rather  a  complex  and  refined  system  of  manners  and  opinions, 
pretty  generally  predominant  in  feudal  society ;  a  certain  ideal 
of  moral,  social,  and  military  perfection,  quite  generally  ac- 
knowledged and  respected,  but  at  the  same  time  one  to  which 
every  one  aspired  freely,  and  about  the  realization  of  which  he 
was  more  or  less  in  in  earnest,  according  to  his  character,  his 
passions,  his  condition,  and  the  incidents  of  his  life. 

The  system  of  chivalry,  at  the  time  of  its  first  appearance, 
and  while  yet  in  the  hands  of  the  clergy,  was  animated  by  two 
sentiments,  which,  though  they  did  not  exclude  each  other  re- 
ciprocally, were  nevertheless  distinct,  and  of  which  each  might 
indifferently  become  the  dominant  or  the  principal  one,  accord- 
ing to  the  spirit  of  the  times  or  individuals.  They  were,  on 
the  one  hand,  a  zeal  for  religion  or  the  creed,  and,  on  the 
other,  that  generous  interest  in  oppressed  weakness,  which, 
when  carried  to  a  certain  degree  of  vivacity,  will  easily  deter- 
mine any  man  to  compromise  himself  in  favor  of  the  weak, 
and  in  opposition  to  the  strong. 

It  was  not  the  latter  of  these  sentiments  that  had  preponder- 
ated in  the  earliest  days  of  the  institution ;  it  had,  in  fact,  no 
existence  there,  and  was  only  called  into  exercise  so  far  as  it 
was  implicitly  contained  in,  and,  as  it  were,  enveloped  by  the 
then  more  powerful  motives  of  religion  and  of  faith. 

During  the  twelfth  century,  however,  it  was,  on  the  contrary, 
that  generous  sympathy  for  weakness  and  misfortune  in  their 
struggle  against  the  aggressions  of  unjust  and  brutal  force,  that 
gradually  became  the  dominant  sentiment  of  chivalry.  It  was 
the  imperious  and  noble  impulse  to  sustain  the  oppressed 
against  the  oppressor,  that  became  the  ideal  end  of  all  the 
actions  of  the  knight.^  It  was,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  from 
this  very  side,  that  chivalry  developed  itself  with  the  greatest 
degree  of  energy  and  originalitv. 

But  notwithstanding  its  perfect  identity  in  all  who  adopted 
it,  notwithstanding  the  unity  and  the  simplicity  of  its  principle, 


Its  delations  to  Chivalry.  313 

chivalry  could  nevertheless  neither  manifest  itself  nor  act  pre- 
cisely in  the  same  manner  or  in  the  same  degree  in  all  the  per- 
sonages of  the  feudal  order.  The  difference  of  rank,  of  situation, 
and  of  power,  among  these  personages,  necessarily  involved 
another  in  their  actions,  and  even  in  their  ideas  as  chevaliers. 
A  duke,  a  count,  an  independent  seignior  in  the  possession  of 
lands,  of  vassals,  and  of  subjects,  had  inevitably,  in  his  quality 
of  knight,  obligations  if  not  of  a  different  nature  at  any  rate 
more  complex  and  varied,  than  the  simple  feudal  warrior,  who 
had  no  other  title  than  that  of  knight,  no  other  wealth  except 
his  lance  and  sword,  no  other  end  but  that  of  gaining  applause 
by  feats  of  prowess. 

1  shall,  in  the  first  place,  consider  the  chivalry  of  the  superior 
class  of  the  feudal  order.  In  doing  so,  I  shall,  however,  give 
to  this  class  the  greatest  possible  extension ;  that  is  to  say,  I 
shall  include  in  it  all  the  proprietors  of  great  and  small  cha- 
teaux. 

The  individuals  of  this  class  being  born  with  inclinations,  of 
a  more  elevated  character,  most  susceptible  of  culture,  most 
ambitious  of  renown,  were  naturally  the  readiest  to  adopt  the 
ideas  of  chivalry.  It  was  through  them  that  these  ideas  entered 
more  or  less  into  the  exercise  of  feudal  power,  and  into  the 
various  relations  of  the  seigniors,  either  among  themselves  or 
toward  their  vassals,  and  to  society  itself.  •• 

From  the  moment  these  chivalrous  ideas  had  attained  to 
a  certain  degree  of  stability  and  influence,  it  was  no  longer 
enough  fot  the  chief  of  a  seigniory  to  be  powerful  and  happy, 
or  to  enjoj  the  advantages  and  privileges  of  his  condition  at  his 
leisure.  He  was  bound,  by  virtue  of  the  principles  of  chivalry, 
to  make  a  generous  use  of  his  power,  to  prefer  honorable  hard- 
ship to  ind<\lent  repose,  to  interfere  for  the  reparation  or  the 
punishment  \of  every  injustice  committed  under  his  eye,  or 
within  the  reach  of  his  command. 

The  folio winig  passage,  from  a  Troubadour  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, gives  us^  sufficiently  correct  general  idea  of  the  duties  of 
a  powerful  feudal  seignior,  pretending  to  distinction  among  his 
equals  by  the  Banner  in  which  he  undertook  to  perform  his 
part  as  a  knight: 

"  By  eating  w\ll  and  sleeping  softly,"  says  he,  "  a  man  may 
lead  an  easy  life.\  But  he  who  wishes  to  rise  to  eminence  of 
worth,  must  need\  subject  himself  to  roughest  hardship.  He 
must  exert  his  utmost  here  and  there,  must  take  away  and  give 
according  to  the  ex&ency  of  the  time  and  place." 

At  a  time  when  alithe  laws  were  equivocal,  badly  established, 
and  sustained  solely  W  individual  forces,  every  one  of  which 
was  constantly  in  operation,  constantly  ready  to  assail  or  to  do- 


314  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

fend  ;  when  acts  of  violence  were  of  daily  occurrence,  and 
resulted  even  more  from  the  necessity  of  things  than  from  the 
vices  of  the  individual ;  at  such  a  time,  I  say,  the  task  of  main- 
taining not  only  one's  own  rights,  but  also  those  of  others,  those 
of  the  weak — in  a  word,  the  task  of  the  knight — was  the  most 
difficult  and  hazardous  that  we  can  possibly  conceive  of.  The 
task  was  even  an  impossible  one  ;  and  the  heroism  of  chivalry 
consisted  in  a  devotion  to  duty  which  acted  without  reflection, 
without  calculation,  and  with  no  other  motive  than  that  of 
obedience  to  a  noble  impulse. 

It  would  be  a  source  of  satisfaction  to  establish  this  interven- 
tion on  the  part  of  chivalry  in  the  political  and  social  relations 
of  the  Middle  Age  by  positive  facts,  which  at  the  same  time 
might  aid  us  to  determine  its  nature  and  extent.  But  facts  of 
this  kind  are  not  among  those  which  history  collects,  when  it  is 
written  in  the  shape  of  chronicles  and  by  ignorant  monks.  The 
poetic  documents  alone  oifer  us  some  vestiges,  which  are  still 
precious,  in  spite  of  the  obscurity  by  which  they  are  enve- 
loped. 

v  ery  frequently  the  acts  of  violence  or  oppression,  which 
claimed  the  intervention  of  the  knight,  were  domestic  transac- 
tions, acts  of  conjugal  or  paternal  authority,  which,  however 
immoral  or  unjust  they  might  be,  were  still  performed  under 
the  sanction  of  society  and  of  the  law.  The  chevalier,  however, 
was  never  embarrassed  by  any  such  consideration.  He  held 
himself  bound  to  redress  the  wrongs  of  society  and  cf  the  law, 
whenever  he  had  the  power  to  do  so. 

A  singularly  curious  epistle  of  Karnbaud  de  Yaqueiras,  one 
of  the  most  prominent  of  the  Troubadours,  to  Boniface,  the 
Marquis  of  Mqntferrat,  recalls  several  traits  from  tte  life  of  this 
seignior,  who  was  one  of  the  most  celebrated  cf  his  time.* 
Among  these  traits,  there  are  two  which  deserve  m)re  especially 
to  be  quoted  here,  as  illustrative  of  the  chivalric  policy  of  the 
twelfth  century.  The  first  of  them  I  give,  somewnat  modified 
and  elucidated— less,  however,  than  it  stood  in  need  of. 

Boson  d'Anguilar,  one  of  the  vassals  and  frieads  of  Boniface, 
loved  a  young  lady  by  the  name  of  Isaldina  Adhemar.  But 
the  parents  of  the  latter  were  unwilling  to  le*  him  have  her  in 
marriage;  and,  fearing  undoubtedly  lest  she  might  be  ^carried 
away  by  violence,  they  put  her  under  the  protection  of  Albert, 
the  Marquis  of  Malaspina,  one  of  the  ancestors  of  the  Malaspina, 
who  at  a  later  period  rendered  himself  irimortal  by  his  hos- 
pitality to  Dante,  while  the  latter  was  a  ftgitive  and  an  exile. 

*  An  account  of  this  epistle,  with  a  specimen  of  its  versification  is  given  by  Ray- 
nouard,  vol.  ii.  page  259.  The  different  kinds  of  poetcal  epistles  from  the  pens  of 
Troubadours  are  examined  page  256-274 — Ed. 


Its  Relations  to  Chivalry.  315 

Boson  d'Anguilar,  deprived  of  all  he  loved,  fell  sick  and  lay 
upon  his  couch,  ready  to  die.  There  was  but  one  way  to  save 
him.  It  was  to  return  to  him  his  lady-love  ;  and  in  order  to  do 
so,  it  was  necessary  to  go  and  fetch  her  by  main  force  from  the 
chateau  of  Malaspina.  This  task  was  undertaken  by  Boniface 
in  a  nocturnal  expedition,  of  which,  however,  the  poet  does  not 
give  the  particulars,  though  he  himself  had  taken  part  in  it. 
The  Marquis  Boniface  entered  the  chateau,  found  Isaldina,  car- 
ried her  away  by  force,  and  gave  her  to  the  unhappy  youth  who 
was  perishing  from  love  to  her. 

The  other  trait,  which  is  still  more  characteristic,  is  also  re- 
lated with  greater  perspicuity,  with  a  little  more  detail ;  and  its 
tone  is  piquant  and  poetical  on  account  of  its  naive  simplicity. 
I  think  I  must  give  it  literally  translated.  "  Let  me  remind 
you,  Seignior  Marquis,"  says  Kambaud  to  Boniface,  "  let  me 
remind  you  of  Aimonet  the  Jongleur,  and  of  the  news  which 
he  once  came  to  bring  you  to  Montaut,  concerning  Jacobina, 
whom  they  wanted  to  carry  off  to  Sardinia,  and  to  marry 
against  her  wishes.  You  then  began  to  sigh  a  little,  and  you 
remembered  the  kiss,  which  she  had  given  you  a  few  days 
before,  in  taking  leave  of  you,  after  having  besought  you  so 
graciously  to  defend  her  against  her  uncle,  who  plotted  to  dis- 
inherit her  unjustly." 

"  And  immediately  you  ordered  five  of  your  most  valiant 
knights  to  get  upon  the  saddle,  and  we  began  to  ride  at  night 
after  supper,  you,  Guyet,  Hugonet  d'Alfar,  Bertaudon,  who 
guided  us  with  admirable  skill,  and  myself  (for  I  must  not  for- 
get myself  in  such  a  gallant  affair.)  It  was  I  that  rescued 
Jacobina  from  the  port,  at  the  very  moment  they  were  going 
to  embark  her." 

"  She  had  scarcely  been  seized,  when  a  cry  suddenly  was 
raised  by  land  and  sea,  and  a  host  of  pedestrians  and  riders  were 
instantly  at  our  heels.  The  pursuit  was  an  ardent  one,  and  the 
way  we  then  decamped !  We  thought  we  had  already  luckily 
escaped  from  all  of  them,  when  those  from  Pisa  came  to  assail 
us  in  their  turn.  And  as  they  passed  before  us,  riding  in  such 
close  array,  and  when  we  saw  so  many  cavaliers,  so  many  hau- 
berks, so  many  resplendent  helmets,  when  we  beheld  so  many 
banners  floating  in  the  air,  let  none  inquire,  whether  we  were 
frightened!  We  concealed  ourselves  between  Albenga  and 
Final,  where  we  heard  the  blast  of  many  a  horn  and  cornet,  the 
cry  of  many  an  ensign  all  around  us.  There  we  remained  two 
days  without  drinking  or  eating ;  but  on  the  evening  of  the 
second  day  we  arrived  at  the  castle  of  the  seignior  of  Pu/clair, 
who  was  so  delighted  with  what  we  had  accomplished,  and  who 
received  us  with  so  much  consideration,  that  he  would  have 


316  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

willingly  offered  you  his  bright-eyed  daughter  Aiglette,  if  you 
had  desired  to  accept  her.  On  the  following  morning,  you,  as 
seignior  and  powerful  baron,  married  his  son  to  Jacobina,  to 
whom  you  compelled  them  to  surrender  the  entire  country  of 
Yentimille,  which  she  was  to  have  inherited  after  the  death  of 
her  brother,  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  her  uncle,  who  had 
desired  to  deprive  her  of  it." 

After  having  seen  a  great  knight  and  seignior  exposing  him- 
self without  any  hesitation  to  a  manifest  peril,  in  order  to  res- 
cue an  oppressed  niece  from  the  hands  of  an  uncle  who  was  her 
oppressor,  or  reputed  to  be  such,  we  will  now  be  sufficiently 
prepared,  I  think,  to  see  another  compromising  himself  in  order 
to  sustain  the  ravisher  of  a  new  Helena,  reclaimed  and  pursued 
by  a  new  Menelaus. 

Pierre  of  Maenzac,  a  poor  knight  of  Auvergne,  who  lived 
during  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century,  was  at  the  same 
time  a  Troubadour.  He  celebrated  in  his  songs,  and  served  for 
some  time  the  lady  °f  Bernard  de  Tiercy,  one  of  the  castellans 
of  the  country.  The  lady  did  not  rest  content  with  his  songs 
and  services.  For  reasons,  which  the  Provencal  biographer 
does  not  mention,  but  which  were  probably  of  an  extraordinary 
character  and  not  very  creditable  to  the  seignior  of  Tiercy,  she 
suffered  or  caused  herself  to  be  carried  away  by  her  lover. 
This  was  grand  booty  for  a  poor  chevalier,  who  had  neither  a 
castle  where  to  deposit  it  for  safety,  nor  servants-at-arms  to 
defend  it.  But  the  ravisher  was  loved  and  protected  by  the 
dauphin  of  Auvergne,  and  according  to  certain  ancient  frag- 
ments of  the  annals  of  the  Troubadours,  this  dauphin  was  one 
of  the  wisest  and  most  courteous  chevaliers  in  the  world,  one 
of  the  most  generous  of  men,  the  best  of  warriors,  and  perfectly 
conversant  with  all  the  arts  of  love  and  war.  With  such  a 
patron,  Pierre  of  Maenzac  could  not  consider  himself  lost.  He 
conducted  the  lady  of  Tiercy  to  one  of  the  dauphin's  chateaux, 
where  she  was,  however,  immediately  reclaimed  by  her  hus- 
band. The  ravisher  and  his  chivalric  patron  declared  that  she 
should  not  be  returned,  and  this  refusal  gave  rise  to  a  war,  and, 
as  far  as  we  can  judge  from  the  somewhat  dry  and  too  succinct 
account  of  the  old  Provencal  biographer,  to  a  very  serious  war. 
The  Church — that  is  to  say,  the  bishop  of  Clermont — undoubt- 
edly became  interested  in  favor  of  the  injured  husband ;  they 
united  their  forces  and  made  a  common  attack  upon  the  dau- 
phin of  Auvergne.  The  latter,  however,  defended  himself 
bravely,  and  the  couple,  of  which  he  had  declared  himself  pro- 
tector, was  not  separated.* 

*  Compare  Bayiiouard,  vol.  v.,  p.  317 :  "  Trobava  de  la  moller  d'BN  Bernat  de 
Tierci.  Tant  cantet  d'ela,  e  taut  la  onret  e  la  servi,  que  la  domna  se  laisset  envolar  ad 


Its  Relations  to  Chivalry.  317 

If  we  renounce,  for  a  moment  at  least,  the  pretension  to 
judge  these  chivalric  exploits  of  the  twelfth  century  according 
to  the  standard  of  our  present  ideas  concerning  morality  and 
social  order,  so  as  to  see  them  only  in  the  light  of  facts,  we 
cannot  deny  them  a  certain  degree  of  historical  importance. 
They  show  us  clearly  that  the  most  exalted  and  most  hazardous 
principles  of  chivalry  are  far  from  being  mere  speculations  that 
had  only  a  reality  and  power  in  the  chivalric  fictions  of  the 
Middle  Age.  They  prove  that  the  redressers  of  wrongs,  and 
especially  of  the  wrongs  of  damsels  and  of  ladies,  are  really 
historical  personages,  which  served  as  the  model  for  those  of 
the  romances.  In  fine,  there  is  nothing  wanting  in  the  exploits 
in  question  but  the  details,  unfortunately  suppressed  by  writers, 
who  cared  nothing  for  the  curiosity  or  the  instruction  of  future 
generations,  in  -order  to  convince  us  that  the  real  life  of  the 
chevaliers  of , the  twelfth  century  did  not  leave  so  much  to  the 
imagination  of  contemporary  romancers,  as  we  might  be  in- 
clined to  think. 

The  duty  of  the  knight  in  regard  to  the  oppressed  and  the 
unfortunate  was,  however,  not  always  so  laborious  or  painful. 
The  adversities  which  he  could  alleviate  by  sharing  his  posses- 
sions with  the  needy,  were  the  most  ordinary  and  the  most  nu- 
merous. And  it  is  indeed  true,  that  next  to  a  courage,  which 
rose  superior  to  every  prudential  consideration,  liberality  was 
the  highest  virtue  of  the  knight.  It  would  be  difficult  to  exag- 
gerate the  rigor  of  chivalric  morality  on  this  point. 

The  manner  of  acquisition  was  equally  unimportant  in  the 
eyes  of  the  knight.  To  refuse  anything  was  always  reputed  to 
be  disgraceful  in  him.  It  is  nothing  more  than  natural  artless- 
ness,  very  common  in  the  chivalric  manners  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, when  we  hear  a  knight  of  considerable  rank,  such  as,  for 
example,  the  Marquis  Albert  de  Malaspina,  repel  the  charge 
of  robbery  preferred  against  him  by  the  Troubadour  Kambaud 
de  Yaqueiras,  and  justify  himself,  with  the  naive  conceit  that 
he  is  doing  it  to  admiration,  in  the  following  terms :  "  Yes,  by 
heavens !  Rambaud,  I  confess  that  I  have  many  a  time  taken 
away  by  force  the  property  of  others,  but  I  have  done  so  from 
a  desire  to  give,  and  not  to  increase  my  riches,  nor  to  add  to  a 
treasure  which  I  wanted  to  amass."* 

el ;  e  mena  la  en  un  castel  del  Dalfin  d'Alverne ;  e'l  marit  la  demandet  molt  com  la 
glesia,  e  com  gran  guerra  qu'en  fetz ;  e'l  Dalfins  lo  mantenc  si  que  mais  no  11  la  ren- 
det."— Ed. 
*  Baynouard,  vol.  iv.,  page  9,  strophe  3  : 

"  Per  dieu,  Rambautz,  de  so  us  port  guerentia, 
Que  mantas  vetz,  per  talen  de  donar, 
Ai  aver  tol,  ea  non  per  manentia 
Ni  per  thesaur  qu'ieu  volgues  amassar." — Ed. 


318  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

The  Troubadours  and  their  commentators  can  never  find 
terms  strong  enough  to  recommend  or  to  praise  the  virtue  of 
liberality  in  the  hero  of  the  Middle  Age.  The  following  are  a 
few  specimens  of  the  lessons,  which  one  of  them  addresses  to  a 
young  noble,  who  is  ambitious  to  become  a  distinguished  che- 
valier :  "  Spend  largely,  and  keep  a  fine  mansion  without  door 
and  without  key.  Do  not  listen  to  malevolent  talkers,  and 
do  not  put  a  porter  there  to  strike  with  his  club  either  squire, 
or  servant,  or  vagabond,  or  Jongleur,  that  may  desire  to 
enter."  "I  consider  every  baron  young,"  says  fiertrand  de 
Born  (and  here  the  term  young  is  synonvmous  with  noble), 
"  when  his  mansion  costs  him  much.  He  is  young,  when  he 
gives  largely  without  measure ;  young,  when  he  burns  the  bow 
and  arrow.  But  old  (that  is  to  say,  ignoble  and  destitute  of 
merit)  is  every  baron,  who  never  puts  anything  in  pledge,  and 
who  hoards  corn,  bacon  and  wine.  He  is  old,  if  he  nas  a  horse 
that  one  migjht  call  his  own."*  It  is,  moreover,  a  .fact,  and  one 
which  surprises  us  still  more  than  the  doctrine  just  advanced, 
that  there  were  not  wanting  nobles  who  adopted  it  in  earnest, 
and  observed  it  almost  to  the  very  letter. 

If  in  his  capacity  as  a  knight,  every  seignior  owed  his  pro- 
tection and  his  services  to  every  man  who  stood  in  need  of 
them,  he  owed  them  still  more  especially  to  his  vassals,  to  those 
who  were  immediately  dependent  on  him.  He  found  therefore 
ordinarily,  even  within  a  very  limited  jurisdiction,  enough  to 
^o  to  maintain  that  justice,  that  concord  and  alacrity  which 
he  was  called  upon  to  maintain  everywhere.  If  to  be  a  ter- 
ror to  the  wicked  and  the  strong  was  always  and  everywhere 
an  indispensable  condition  of  the  ability  to  serve  the  good  and 
the  feeble,  this  was  still  more  strictly  necessary  within  the  cir- 
cle of  feudal  relations. 

And  accordingly  we  find  the  barons,  who  prided  themselves 
on  their  chivalry,  extremely  jealous  and  distrustful  of  every- 
thing that  might  infringe  upon  their  rights  or  power.  This  is 
perhaps  the  only  point  in  which  the  duties  of  chivalry  were 
completely  in  harmony  with  the  personal  ambition  of  the  chiefs 
and  the  interests  of  feudalism.  The  satirical  poetry  of  the 
Troubadours  abounds  in  bitter  expressions  of  vituperation  and 
contempt  toward  the  barons,  who  suffered  themselves  to  be 
robbed  by  a  hostile  force  of  what  they  had  once  called  their 
own,  and  which  they  would  have  been  praised  for  giving  away 
or  squandering  voluntarily. 

By  whatever  standard  we  may  judge  these  opinions  and 

*  Thig  contrast  between  young  and  aid  is  carried  on  in  an  entire  piece  (Raynou- 
ard,  vol.  iv.,  p.  261-263),  and  applied  to  the  dona  or  lady,  as  well  as  to  the  man  or 
htm.— Ed. 


Its  delations  to  Chivalry.  319 

virtues  of  chivalry,  it  is  certain,  at  least,  that  their  practice  in 
general  was  disinterested  and  attended  with  self-denial ;  it  is 
certain  that  the  life  of  the  feudal  suzerain,  whether  small  or 
great,  which  was  already  of  itself  a  life  of  agitation,  of  hard- 
ships, of  abrupt  alternations  between  war  and  peace,  of  broils 
and  of  intrigues,  was  rendered  still  more  tempestuous  by 
its  complications  with  the  adventurous  exigencies  of  chi- 
valry. 

The  knight  stood  consequently  in  need  of  a  powerful  and 
constant  internal  motive  to  sustain  him  in  the  efforts  and  sacri- 
fices which  he  was  incessantly  called  upon  to  make,  and  even 
to  fulfill  in  part  the  duties  imposed  upon  him  by  his  oath,  to 
take  the  side  of  the  oppressed  in  every  emergency.  A  reli- 
gious zeal,  spontaneous  and  independent  of  the  influence  of  the 
clergy,  had  undoubtedly  still  great  power  over  the  sentiments, 
the  ideas,  and  the  acts  of  the  knight.  But  nevertheless,  this 
zeal  was  often  wanting ;  it  had  its  distractions  and  its  limits. 
Among  the  habits  and  the  obligations  of  the  knight,  there  were 
some,  in  which  pride  and  the  turbulence  of  passion  acted  too 
conspicuous  a  part,  to  make  it  possible  even  for  the  simplest 
and  obtusest  conscience  to  attach  any  religious  motives  to  them. 
Men  like  the  chevaliers  of  the  twelfth  century,  who  were  still 
half-savages  as  far  as  reason  and  intelligence  were  concerned, 
and  whose  purest  sentiment  was  nothing  more  than  the  gene- 
rous impulse  of  military  prowess,  needed  a  more  immediate,  a 
more  tangible — in  short,  a  less  elevated  motive,  than  was  that 
of  religion,  to  incite  them  to  the  performance  of  acts  of  social 
virtue.  This  motive  chivalry  found  in  love.  The  chief  end  of 
all  the  enterprises  and  efforts  of  the  knight  was  to  please  a  lady, 
chosen  by  himself,  to  be  at  once  the  judge  and  the  approver  of 
his  merit. 

There  has  been  so  much  vague  discussion  about  chivalric 
gallantry,  that  nothing  but  a  sense  of  the  indispensable  neces- 
sity of  saying  something  about  it,  in  order  to  give  a  precise  and 
correct  idea  of  Provencal  poetry,  could  induce  me  to  speak  of 
it  again. 

It  is  an  established  fact,  that  during  the  twelfth  centurv,  and 
in  the  south  of  France  more  than  anywhere  else,  the  elites  of 
feudal  society,  who  piqued  themselves  on  giving  the  tone  in 
the  manners  of  the  time,  and  on  taking  the  lead  in  the  progress 
of  social  culture  and  of  civilization,  had  adopted  and  brought 
into  vogue  ideas  and  conventional  usages  in  all  that  related  to 
matters  of  love,  which  gradually  assumed  a  conspicuous  place 
in  the  system  of  chivalry,  until  they  finally  became  its  very 
essence.  That  which  the  monuments  of  Provencal  poetry,  the 
historical  documents  relative  to  that  poetry,  as  well  as  history 


320  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

properly  so  called,  permit  us  to  see  or  to  divine  concerning  the 
ideas  and  the  usages  in  question,  constitutes  a  very  singular 
system,  of  which  we  have  scarcely  any  suspicion,  and  which 
in  some  respects  it  is  very  difficult  to  expound.  I  shall,  there- 
fore, in  advance,  solicit  the  indulgence  of  the  reader,  on  account 
of  the  vagueness  and  obscurity,  to  which  the  want  of  space  and 
the  reserve  of  decency  alike  exposes  me. 

In  order  to  be  sure  of  giving  a  correct  conception  of  this  sin- 
gular theory  of  chivalric  love,  it  will  be  necessary  for  me  in  the 
first  place,  to  make  a  few  general  remarks  on  the  subject  of 
marriage,  as  it  existed  among  the  higher  classes  of  feudal  so- 
ciety, during  the  period  under  consideration. 

In  the  south  of  France,  the  women  were  legally  entitled  to 
hold  fiefs  and  every  kind  of  power  attached  to  them.  *  From 
this  political  capacity  of  woman,  it  necessarily  followed,  that 
the  lordly  proprietors  found  marriages  the  most  ordinary  and 
the  surest  means  to  increase  their  domains  and  their  authority ; 
and  as  ambition  was  the  dominant  passion  of  these  chiefs,  every 
consideration  of  morality,  of  sentiment,  or  of  inclination,  was 
excluded  from  their  marriage  plans.  In  general,  every  baron 
in  search  of  a  wife,  sought  one  from  motives  of  pure  political 
convenience ;  and  every  baron,  who  gave  his  daughter  in  mar- 
riage, gave  her  from  considerations  which  were  equivalent  to 
those  of  the  suitor.  Marriage,  therefore,  among  the  members  of 
the  feudal  caste,  was  nothing  more  than  a  treaty  of  peace,  of 
amity  or  alliance  between  two  seigniors,  of  whom  the  one 
took  the  daughter  of  the  other  as  his  wife. 

Unions  thus  founded  upon  the  interests  of  an  unbridled  am- 
bition or  upon  the  complicated  calculations  of  convenience, 
were  necessarily  very  fragile.  They  found  themselves  every 
moment  in  opposition  to  new  interests,  to  other  unforeseen  con- 
veniences. For  this  there  was  but  one  remedy,  a  remedy  which 
was,  however,  an  easy  one  and  always  in  readiness — repudiation. 
If  a  noble,  already  married,  had  in  contemplation  some  politi- 
cal arrangement,  which  could  only  be  effected  by  means  of  a 
new  marriage,  he  had  only  to  pretend  that  he  was  cousin  in  the 
fourth  degree  to  the  wife  he  did  not  want  any  longer.  The 
Church  was  then  at  hand  to  pronounce  his  divorce,  in  order  to 
give  him  the  liberty  to  enter  by  a  new  marriage  into  a  new 
political  situation.  It  would  be  difficult  to  say  to  what  extent 
the  popes  and  bishops  of  the  Middle  Age  contributed  to  the 
misery  and  degradation  of  married  women,  by  favoring  and 
provoking  the  most  dishonorable  repudiations. 

This  prolonged  barbarity  of  the  feudal  marriage  relation  gave 
rise  to  the  most  singular  moral  and  social  phenomena.  Of 
those  first  germs  of  civilization,  which  we  have  seen  fermenting 


Its  Relations  to  Chivalry.  321 

and  developing  themselves  in  the  eleventh  century,  that  new 
sentiment,  that  respectful  enthusiasm,  which  then  already 
tended  to  become  the  principle  of  disinterested  actions,  was  the 
most  deep-rooted  and  the  most  energetic.  This  new  sentiment, 
however,  could  not  manifest  itself  freely  and  become  a  moral 
force,  a  principle  of  heroism,  in  conjugal  relations  like  those 
which  I  have  just  endeavored  to  describe. 

Far  from  it.  It  was  rather  in  contradistinction  to  these  rela- 
tions, and  as  if  with  a  view  to  compensate  for  their  defects,  that 
the  love  of  chivalry  developed  itself ;  and  if  anything  can  aid 
us  in  forming  a  correct  conception  of  the  exaggerated  preten- 
sions, the  refinements  and  the  subtilties  of  this  love,  it  is  the  pre- 
carious and  interested  motives  of  the  feudal  marriage-tie.  The 
sufferings  to  which  the  women  were  exposed  as  wives,  explain, 
to  a  certain  extent,  the  adoration  which  they  exacted  and  ob- 
tained as  the  ladies  of  the  chevaliers. 

In  the  opinion  of  the  Troubadours,  who  have  expounded,  re- 
expounded,  and  subtilized  its  metaphysics  in  every  sense,  love 
is  the  ultimate  and  highest  principle  of  all  virtue,  of  all  moral 
merit,  of  all  glory.  This  they  regarded  as  a  fundamental  and 
established  doctrinal  point,  of  which  they  do  not  even  seem  to 
have  been  very  anxious  to  vary  the  expression. 

Wherever  love  exists,  and  from  the  very  moment  of  its  com- 
mencement, it  manifests  itself  by  a  certain  disposition  of  the 
soul,  by  a  peculiar  and  distinct  impulse,  to  which  the  Trouba- 
dours give  the  name  of  joi,  a  term  for  which  the  English  word 
"joy,"  in  spite  of  the  material  identity  of  the  two,  would  be 
but  an  incomplete  and  incorrect  equivalent. 

The  ancient  Provencal  word  joi  is  one  of  those  substantives, 
which,  in  consequence  of  a  singular  refinement  of  that  language, 
have  two  forms,  precisely  like  the  adjectives,  one  masculine 
and  the  other  feminine,  which  are  not  employed  indifferently, 
one  for  the  other,  but  which,  on  the  contrary,  serve  to  indicate 
positive  differences  in  the  same  object,  analogous  to  those 
which  nature  has  established  between  the  two  sexes.  Thus, 
for  example,  the  Provencal  wordjoia,  the  feminine  form  of  joi, 
expresses  a  state  of  entertainment  or  of  a  purely  passive  hap- 
piness, in  which  the  soul  only  aims  at  self-concentration  and 
repose.  The  word  joi,  on  the  contrary,  taken  in  the  rigorous 
and  philosophical  acceptation,  which  it  undoubtedly  sometimes 
has,  expresses  something  expansive  and  energetic,  a  certain 
happy  exaltation  of  the  sentiment  and  charm  of  life,  which 
tends  to  manifest  itself  by  actions  and  efforts  worthy  of  the 
object  loved. 

When  manifested  by  such  acts  and  by  such  efforts,  this  im- 
pulse, this  happy  exaltation  assumes  the  names  of 

21 


322  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

(bravery),  valor  (manly  worth,  valor),  cortezia  (cdurteous- 
ness),  solatz,  and  others  still,  according  to  the  diversity  of  the 
circumstances  under  which  it  may  appear. 

The  valor  or  worth  of  the  knight  consisted  more  especially 
in  martial  courage,  in  an  adventurous  love  of  peril,  in  the  vo- 
luntary quest  of  noble  hardships. 

The  exercise  of  valor  is  always  more  or  less  dependent  upon 
chance.  War  has  its  truces,  and  perils  may  be  wanting,  even 
to  the  man  who  seeks  for  them.  But  the  virtue  of  cortezia 
can  be  practised  at  all  times,  and  can  fill  up  the  necessary  in- 
tervals between  the  adventures  of  war.  It  consists  in  doing, 
on  every  occasion  and  for  whoever  may  stand  in  need  of  it, 
something  beyond  the  requirements  of  simple  justice  or  the 
promptings  of  mere  natural  sympathy. 

The  joy  of  love^  finallv,  according  to  Provencal  ideas,  is  a 
perennial  enthusiasm,  which  creates  occasions  for  exhibiting 
itself,  when  they  are  not  offered  accidentally.  Hence  the  chi- 
valric  festivals,  the  jousts,  the  tournaments,  which  I  only  name 
in  passing,  and  for  the  purpose  of  indicating  the  moral  point  of 
view,  from  which  they  present  themselves  in  the  theory  of  chi- 
valric  gallantry. 

Love  being  thus  the  principle  of  all  virtue,  of  all  moral  worth, 
the  first  and  the  most  important  business  of  the  chevalier,  who 
was  ambitious  of  beingj  really  what  every  knight  desired  to  ap- 
pear, was  the  choice  of  a  lady,  whose  love  and  esteem  became 
the  end,  and  at  the  same  time  the  recompense,  of  all  his  actions. 

That  in  reality  and  practice,  the  advantages  of  beauty,  of 
youth,  and  of  rank  had  much  to  do  in  determining  the  choice 
which  the  chevalier  made  of  his  lady,  is  a  fact,  about  which 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  Nevertheless,  taking  matters  as  they 
are  presented  to  us  by  a  multitude  of  authentic  examples,  it 
would  appear  that  the  chevalier  sought  his  lady,  by  way  of 
preference,  among  those  who  had  attained  to  the  highest  renown 
lor  virtue,  grace,  and  amiability ;  so  that  ordinarily  there  was 
more  of  morality  than  sensuality  in  the  motives  of  his  choice. 
Now  the  extent  of  the  fame  of  a  lady  depended  in  general  upon 
the  amount  of  homage,  which  she  received  from  the  Trouba- 
dours, and  also  more  or  less  from  the  celebrity  of  these  Trouba- 
dours themselves.  The  lady  who  was  best  sung  was  ordinarily 
also  best  served  in  matters  of  love ;  and  this  is  one  of  the 
^  principal  points  of  contact  between  chivalry  and  Provencal 
poetry. 

From  the  moment  the  chevalier  had  resolved  upon  the 
choice  of  his  lady,  there  was  a  necessary  and  marked  progres- 
sion in  his  relations  toward  her.  The  Troubadours,  who  have 
expended  the  greatest  care  and  precision  in  describing  the 


Its  Relations  to  Chivalry.  323 

stages  of  tliis  progression,  differ  somewhat  in  the  enumeration 
which  they  make  of  them.  They  include  more  or  less  in  the 
number,  according  as  they  have  in  view  the  mere  theory  or  the 
realities  beyond  the  limits  of  the  theory.  I  shall  translate  the 
most  positive  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  curious  passage, 
which  I  have  been  able  to  find  on  this  subject  in  the  gallant 
metaphysics  of  these  poets.  As  the  English,  however,  has  no 
precise  terms  for  rendering  the  distinctions  expressed  by  the 
Provencal,  I  must  inform  the  reader,  in  advance,  that  those, 
which  I  shall  employ,  must  be  regarded  as  mere  approxima- 
tions, which  I  was  obliged  to  venture  in  default  of  better  ones. 

"There  are,"  says  the  Troubadour  whom  I  quote,  "four 
degrees  in  love ;  the  first  is  that  of  the  hesitant  (feigneire),  the* 
second,  that  of  the  suppliant  (pregaire\  the  third,  that  of  the 
accepted  one  (entendeire),  and  the  fourth,  that  of  the  lover  (drut). 
He  who  would  fain  love  a  lady  and  often  goes  to  court  her, 
without,  however,  venturing  to  talk  to  her  of  love,  such  a  one 
is  a  timid  hesitant.  But  if  the  lady  does  him  so  much  honor  and 
holds  out  such  encouragement  to  him,  that  he  dare  tell  her  of 
his  anguish,  he  is  then  justly  termed  suppliant  (a  suitor).  And 
if  by  talking  and  by  praying  he  succeeds  so  well,  that  she  re- 
tains him  and  gives  him  ribbons,  gloves,  or  girdle,  he  is  then 
elevated  to  the  rank  of  an  accepted  one.  If,  finally,  it  pleases 
the  lady  to  concede  her  love  by  means  of  a  kiss  to  her  loyal 
servant,  she  then  makes  him  her  amic  (friend  or  lover)." 

It  was  a  moment  of  very  solemn  importance  in  the  life  of  a 
chevalier,  when,  after  a  series  of  more  or  less  protracted  trials, 
he  was  at  last  accepted  as  her  servant  by  the  lady  of  his  choice. 
The  ceremonial,  which  usually  attended  this  acceptation,  would 
alone  suffice  to  attest  the  importance  attached  to  it.  It  was 
invariably  and  exactly  copied  from  the  one  by  which  the  suze- 
rain and  vassal  solemnized  the  occasion,  on  which  they  entered 
into  the  respective  obligations  of  service,  of  protection  and  of 
fealty,  which  was  one  of  the  most  important  social  transactions 
at  the  epochs  in  question. 

Kneeling  before  his  lady,  and  with  his  two  hands  folded  be- 
tween her  own,  the  chevalier  devoted  himself  entirely  to  her, 
swore  solemnly  that  he  would  serve  her  faithfully  until  death, 
and  protect  her  by  every  means  in  his  power  against  harm  and 
insult.  The  lady,  on  her  part,  declared  her  willingness  to  ac- 
cept his  services,  pledged  him  the  tenderest  affections  of  her 
heart,  and  as  a  sign  of  the  union,  which  thenceforward  was  to 
subsist  between  them,  she  ordinarily  presented  to  him  a  ring, 
and  then  raising  him  from  the  ground,  she  gave  him  a  kiss, 
which  was  always  the  first,  and  often  the  only  one  he  was 
entitled  to  receive  from  her. 


324  History \  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

All  this  was  called,  in  the  language  of  the  times  and  of  the 
ceremony,  on  the  part  of  the  lady  "retaining  a  man  or  cheva- 
lier," and  on  the  part  of  the  latter,  "becoming  the  man  or 
servant  of  the  lady."  And  in  order  that  there  might  be  every 
possible  analogy  between  this  vassalage  of  love  and  the  feudal 
vassalage,  the  chevalier  was  permitted  to  give,  and  in  fact, 
very  frequently  gave  the  title  of  "  seignior,"  in  the  masculine 
form,  to  his  lady. 

Y/hatever  might  be  the  duration  or  the  consequence  of  this 
union,  it  was  never  thoughtlessly  contracted  ;  it  was  always  an 
affair  of  the  gravest  importance  in  the  life  of  those  who  en- 
tered into  it.  It  also  happened  quite  frequently,  that  recourse 
was  had  to  the  ceremonies  of  religion,  in  order  to  render  it 
more  solemn ;  and  there  can  be  scarcely  any  doubt,  but  that 
the  ecclesiastics  were  in  the  habit  of  blessing  this  union  be- 
tween the  ladies  and  the  knights.  Once  consecrated  by  a 
priest,  this  union  was  considered  inviolable,  and  could  not  again 
be  dissolved  except  by  the  intervention  of  a  priest.  Nothing 
can  attest  the  solemnity  of  this  union  more  strongly,  than  to  see 
how  scrupulously,  and  with  what  naive  singleness  of  conscience, 
the  guaranties  of  religion  were  invoked  in  forming  it.  They 
did  not  wish,  it  seems,  that  an  engagement,  ordinarily  so  com- 
pulsory and  melancholy,  as  was  at  that  time  feudal  marriage, 
should  have  anything  more  solemn  and  more  sacred  than  that 
between  a  lady  and  ner  knight,  which  was  always  voluntary 
and  always  coveted. 

That  the  theory  and  practice  of  chivalric  love  tended  to 
reduce  marriage  to  its  most  immediate  and  its  grossest  neces- 
sity, will  be  sufficiently  apparent  from  all  that  I  have  thus  far 
said  upon  the  subject.  But  it  is  curious  to  know  the  ideas  by 
which  they  had  arrived  at  this  result,  and  by  which  they 
thought  it  could  be  justified. 

And  it  was  not  only  to  the  most  active  sex,  but  indifferently 
to  both  sexes,  that  love  thus  had  become  a  necessary  motive, 
•  the  principle  of  every  virtue.  Now,  according  to  the  ideas  of 
chivalry,  the  exaltation  of  desire,  of  hope,  ana  of  self-sacrifice, 
by  which  love  manifests  itself,  and  in  which  it  principally  con- 
sists, could  not  have  any  moral  merit,  nor  could  it  become  a 
real  incentive  to  noble  actions,  except  on  certain  conditions. 
It  was  to  be  perfectly  spontaneous,  receive  no  law  except  its 
own,  and  could  only  exist  for  a  single  object. 

Every  habit  or  mode  of  existence  tending  to  blunt  it,  neces- 
sarily compromised  its  moral  character  as  well  as  its  force.  To 
deaden  or  destroy  it,  was  not  only  to  deprive  the  soul  of  its 
brightest  enjoyment — it  was  running  the  risk  of  reducing  it  to 
a  state  of  the  most  degrading  inertness;  it  was  exposing  it  to. 


Its  Relations  to  Chivalry.  325 

the  habitual  disgusts  of  society  and  of  life ;  it  was  robbing  it  of 
every  occasion  for  feeling,  employing,  and  perfecting  the  most 
generous  faculties. 

The  first  consequence  of  this  mode  of  thinking  was,  that  love, 
in  its  genuine  sense,  was  declared  impossible  in  marriage.  A 
woman  could  only  feel  her  ascendency  and  dignity,  as  a  moral 
being,  in  relations  where  everything  on  her  part  was  a  gift,  a 
voluntary  favor,  and  not  in  relations  where  she  had  nothing  to 
refuse,  or  where  she  could  no  longer  attach  a  value  to  anything 
that  might  be  desirable  in  her.  ,  A  favor  accorded  to  a  lover 
might  be  the  reward  or  the  condition  of  a  heroic  action,  and 
this  favor  might,  on  that  account,  itself  assume  the  appearance 
of  a  moral  act.  It  could  not  be  the  same  with  a  favor  accorded 
to  a  husband ;  for,  however  acceptable  it  might  be  to  the  latter, 
it  was  his  due.  It  was  equally  lost,  in  this  instance,  either  as 
an  incentive  to  a  noble  action,  or  as  a  reward  for  one  already 
accomplished. 

These  ideas  respecting*  the  incompatibility  of  love  and  mar- 
riage are  already  sufficiently  surprising,  and  perhaps  they  even 
went  beyond  what  I  have  just  endeavored  to  express.  I  find 
in  a  Provencal  piece  the  following  passage,  which  I  translate 
literally.  "  A  husband  would  act  contrary  to  the  principle  of 
honor  if  he  pretended  to  act  the  part  of  a  chevalier  toward  his 
lady,  as  the  goodness  neither  of  the  one  nor  of  the  other  could 
thereby  be  increased,  and  as  no  advantage  could  result  to  either 
of  them,  which  did  not  already  exist  dejure" 

But  whatever  may  be  our  conclusions  in  regard  to  the  truth 
or  the  morality  of  these  ideas,  it  is  certain  that  they  were  openly 
and  generally  avowed  during  the  twelfth  century,  wherever 
there  were  those  who  prided  themselves  on  their  chivalric  cul- 
ture, and  particularly  in  the  south  of  France.  The  facts,  which 
go  to  establish  the  preponderance  of  these  ideas,  are  so  numer- 
ous that  I  could  not  adduce  them  all ;  I  shall  therefore  select 
only  a  few  of  the  most  salient. 

The  principle,  that  love  could  not  exist  within  the  limits  of 
wedlock,  was  so  generally  acknowledged,  that  it  was  even 
deemed  impossible  to  continue  between  the  husband  and  wife, 
who  had  been  lovers  before  they  were  married.  Several  of  the 
decisions  of  the  most  ancient  GOUTS  d?  amour  are  founded  on  this 
principle,  which  is  there  enforced  with  a  rigor  bordering  on  ex- 
travagance.* I  shall  give  one  of  them. 


Handschriften ;"  Diez'  "Die  Poesie  der  Troubadours ;'  Ginguen<§'s  "Hist,  litter,  de 
I'ltalie."    Older  authorities  are  Nostre-Dame's  "Vies  des  Poetes  Proven9aux,"  and 


326  History  of  ProvengdL  Poetry. 

A  chevalier  loved  a  lady,  who  being  already  smitten  with 
another  love,  could  not  respond  to  his.  Unwilling,  however,  to 
deprive  him  of  every  hope,  she  had  promised  to  accept  him  as 
her  servant,  if  she  should  happen  to  lose  the  other  chevalier, 
already  in  possession  of  her  heart.  Shortly  after  this,  she  mar- 
ried the  latter  of  the  two,  and  thereupon  the  former,  to  whom 
she  had  made  the  promise,  demanded  its  fulfillment.  The  mar- 
ried lady  affirmed,  that  she  owed  him  nothing,  since,  so  far  from 
having  lost  the  chevalier  she  loved,  she  had  taken  him  for  her 
husband.  This  gave  rise  to  a  dispute,  which  the  celebrated 
Eleanor  of  Poitiers  was  called  upon  to  decide.  She  condemned 
the  lady  to  keep  her  promise,  on  the  ground  that  she  had  really 
lost  her  first  lover  by  marrying  him.* 

It  was  therefore  really  from  the  manners  and  opinions,  which 
predominated  in  the  high  feudal  society  of  the  South,  that  this 
anti-conjugal  point  of  chivalric  morality  passed  into  the  fictions 
of  the  romancers.  But  we  must  resort  to  the  latter,  if  we  wish 
to  find  it  expressed  with  a  frankness  .and  a  naivete,  which  are 
trulv  ideal. 

There  is  a  Provencal  romance,  entitled  Philomena,  a  crude 
legend,  half-chivalric  and  half-monkish,  composed  in  the  course 
of  the  twelfth  century,  by  some  monk  from  the  vicinity  of  the 
Pyrenees,  with  a  view  to  celebrate  the  founding  of  the  famous 
abbey  of  Kotre-Dame  de  la  Grasse.  f  In  this  romance  we  read 
of  the  Moorish  king  Matran — how  he  was  beleagured  in  Nor- 
bonne  by  the  army  of  Charlemagne.  Oriunde,  the  wife  of  this 
Matran,  and  Paladin  Roland  have  had  occasion  to  see  each 
other,  and  to  see  each  other  so  well,  as  to  become  enamored 
of  each  other,  without  having  even  had  any  conversation.  Ro- 
land found  the  means  of  sending  the  queen  a  ring  of  gold, 
which  she  accepted  as  a  pledge  of  the  union  of  their  hearts. 
It  happened  one  day,  that  Matran's  Saracens  after  having  made 
a  sortie  from  the  city,  retreated  in  great  confusion,  defeated 
and  pursued  by  the  troops  of  Charlemagne.  Oriunde,  already 
secretly  resolved  to  become  baptized  out  of  love  for  Roland, 
and  delighted  with  this  defeat  of  the  Mussulmans,  insults  them 
merrily  for  their  cowardice.  I  will  here  let  the  romancer 
speak  for  himself : 

more  especially  chaplain  Andreas'  "  Liber  de  arte  amandi  et  de  reprobatione  amoris." 
—Ed. 

*  The  language  of  Eleanor  (as  quoted  by  Raynouard  from  Andreas)  is  "  Comitissae 
Campaniae  obviare  sententisc  non  audemus,  quae  firmo  judicio  diffinivit,  non  posse  inter 
conjugates  amorem  suas  extendere  vires,  ideoque  laudamus,  ut  prsenarrata  imilier  pol- 
licitum  praestet  amorem." — Ed. 

t  On  this  romance  and  on  that  of  Gerard  de  Roussillon,  see  Raynouard's  "  Choix  de 
Poes.  des  Troubad.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  283;  and  his  "  Lexique  Roman,"  vol.  i.  The  one  is  in 
prose,  the  other  in  verse.  These,  together  with  Jaufre,  are  the  only  Provencal  ro- 
mances that  have  come  down  to  us  entire,  although  there  are  fragments  and  vestiges  of 
many  others. — Ed. 


Its  Relations  to  Chivalry. 

"  And  when  Matran  had  heard  Oriunde,  he  replied,  that  she 
had  spoken  very  badly,  and  that  all  that  she  had  said,  had  been 
suggested  by  her  love  for  Roland,  which  she  would  have  occa- 
sion to  repent  on  some  future  day.  And  the  queen,  perceiving 
that  Matran  only  spoke  thus  from  motives  of  jealousy,  replied : 
My  lord,  attend  to  your  war,  and  leave  the  business  of  making 
love  to  me.  You  shall  reap  no  dishonor  from  my  conduct, 
since  I  love  so  noble  a  baron,  and  one  so  admirably  skilled  in 
arms  as  Roland,  the  nephew  of  Charlemagne,  whom  I  love 
with  a  chaste  affection !  When  Matran  heard  this,  he  retired 
from  the  presence  of  the  queen,  quite  angry  and  disappointed !" 
— He  had  apparently  nothing  to  object  to  so  natural  an  ex- 
planation. 

So  naive,  and  one  might  almost  say  so  crude,  a  manner  of 
bringing  out  one  of  the  most  perilous  points  in  the  theory  of 
chivalric  love,  seems  to  me  to  be  the  strongest  possible  evi- 
dence of  the  popularity  and  authority  of  this  theory. 

The  following  passage  is  in  every  respefct  more  remarkable, 
more  profound,  and  more  expressive.  It  is  derived  from  the 
Provencal  romance  of  Gerard  de  Rousillon,  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  and  most  curious  of  its  kind,  and  among  the  number 
of  those,  which  have  the  best  claim  to  a  more  especial  conside- 
ration hereafter.  All  that  is  necessary  for  us  to  know  here, 
in  order  to  be  able  to  appreciate  the  passage,  which  I  propose 
to  quote,  is,  that  Gerard  de  Rousillon  is  enamored  of  a  prin- 
cess, whose  name  he  does  not  mention,  but  who  becomes  em- 
press by  espousing  Charles  Martel,  while  he  himself  is  content 
to  marry  the  sister  of  the  very  princess  whom  he  had  loved, 
whom  he  continues  to  love,  and  whom  he  is  happy  to  see 
elevated  to  the  highest  rank.  After  their  respective  marriages, 
which  we  must  suppose  to  have  been  celebrated  at  the  same 
time,  and  in  the  same  place,  the  new  empress  and  her  lover 
Gerard,  are  on  the  point  of  separating  for  an  indefinite  period, 
the  former,  in  order  to  repair  to  the  court  of  King  Charles,  the 
latter,  to  return  to  his  county  of  Rousillon.  But  they  neither 
could  nor  desired  to  part  with  each  other,  without  first  con- 
firming and  consecrating  by  a  suitable  ceremony  the  pure 
liaison  of  love,  which  had  long  subsisted  between  them.  I 
will  now  begin  to  translate. 

"By  the  following  morning,  at  daybreak,  everybody  was 
to  leave.  Gerard  took  the  queen  apart  beneath  a  tree,  and 
she  was  attended  by  two  counts  and  by  her  sister.  There 
Gerard  began  to  speak,  saying :  4  Tell  me  now,  lady  of  the  em- 
peror, what  think  you  of  the  exchange  I  have  made,  by  resign- 
ing you  for  an  object  of  less  value?' — '  Say  for  a  worthy  object 
and  one  of  high  value,  my  lord.  But  it  is  really  true  that  you 


32&  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

have  made  me  queen,  and  that  out  of  love  for  me,  you  have 
wedded  my  sister.  Be  witnesses  and  guaranties  to  me,  ye  two 
counts  Gervais  and  Bertelais,  you  too,  my  dear  sister,  the  con- 
fidant of  my  thoughts,  and  you  especially,  Jesus  Redeemer! 
Be  it  known  to  you  all,  that  I  give  my  love  to  the  duke 
Gerard,  together  with  this  ring,  and  with  this  brilliant  flower 
from  my  necklace.  I  love  him  more  than  I  do  my  father  or  my 
husband,  and  I  cannot  refrain  from  tears  at  his  departure.' J: 

"Thereupon  they  separated;  but  their  love  remained  un- 
changeol  ever  after,  nor  did  it  ever  give  rise  to  any  impropriety 
of  conduct,  nor  to  anything  but  tender  wishes  and  secret 
thoughts." 

Though  very  brief,  this  passage  nevertheless  characterizes 
admirably  the  beautiful  side  of  chivalric  gallantry.  It  shows 
very  clearly,  with  what  assurance  and  with  what  composedness 
of  conscience,  a  lady  of  high  rank  could  swear  eternal  tender- 
ness to  the  friend  of  her  choice,  at  the  very  time  of  her  leaving 
the  church  where  she  had  just  sworn  fidelity  to  a  husband, 
whom  she  had  accepted  from  mere  motives  of  social  conve- 
nience. It  also  shows  still  better,  in  what  conditions  of  reserve 
and  purity  an  oath  like  the  latter  could  be,  if  not  commend- 
able, at  any  rate  innocent. 

It  is  an  undoubted  fact,  that  in  the  most  elevated  theory  of 
chivalric  love,  every  species  of  sensuality  was  rigorously  ex- 
cluded from  the  relations  subsisting  between  the  chevalier  and 
his  lady.  But  it  must  be  confessed,  that  this  theory  is  not  the 
one,  of  which  we  encounter  the  largest  number  of  vestiges  in 
the  historical  and  poetical  documents,  relating  to  the  chivalric 
manners  of  the  twelfth  century.  These  documents,  on  the 
contrary,  offer  us  a  multitude  of  more  or  less  positive  passages, 
of  more  or  less  express  allusions,  all  of  which  indicate  a  less 
austere,  a  less  spiritual  theory  than  the  one  we  have  just  con- 
sidered, but  nevertheless  one  that  is  still  far  above  the  realities 
of  vulgar  life. 

The  man  who  is  tormented  by  voluptuousness  was  declared 
incapable  of  love.  This  principle  was  strictly  in  harmony 
with  a  system,  which  excluded  from  the  idea  of  love  every- 
thing that  tended  to  deaden  its  enthusiasm.  It  was,  how- 
ever, inconvenient  on  the  other  hand,  to  deprive  desire  of  every 
element  of  sensuality.  Between  these  two  extremes,  a  sort 
of  very  tender  middle-ground  was  established,  to  which  the 
chevaliers  and  ladies,  who  earnestly  embraced  the  opinions 
concerning  the  nature  of  chivalric  love,  confined  themselves  to 
the  best  of  their  ability.  There  were  consequently  lawful 
favors  and  enjoyments,  which  formed  a  series,  graduated  ac- 
cording to  certain  rules.  The  poems  of  the  Troubadours  are 


Its  Relations  to  Chivalry.  329 

full  of  passages  and  allusions,  which  mark  this  graduation  by 
a  multitude  of  formulas  and  common-places,  the  monotony 
and  uniformity  of  which  seem  to  guarantee  their  historical 
reality. 

Nearly  all  that  is  characteristic  and  serious  in  the  poetry  of 
the  Troubadours  might  be  cited  in  support  of  the  ideas  which 
I  have  just  expounded,  and  of  the  facts  connected  with  them. 
I  have  already  given  a  number  of  examples,  and  I  might  have 
given  many  more,  had  it  not  been  for  the  excessive  difficulty 
of  rendering  them  exactly  into  another  language.  I  shall, 
however,  quote  one  more,  from  an  extremely  spirited  piece, 
with  which  I  shall  acquaint  the  reader  more  especially  in 
another  place.  The  theory  of  chivalric  love,  such  as  I  have 
been  able  to  conceive  it,  and  as  I  have  just  expounded  it,  is 
found  concentrated  in  nine  short  verses,  which  I  shall  endeavor 
to  translate  with  the  aid  of  a  little  paraphrase. 

"  He  really  knows  nothing  whatever  of  domnei,  that  is  to 
say,  of  love,  who  desires  complete  possession  of  his  lady.  The 
love  which  turns  into  reality  (which  ceases  to  be  a  matter  of 
sentiment  and  thought,)  is  no  longer  love  ;  and  the  heart  never 
bestows  itself  or  any  of  its  favors  as  a  debt.  It  is  sufficient  for 
the  lover  to  have  rings  and  ribbons  from  his  lady,  to  think 
himself  the  equal  to  the  king  of  Castile.  If  he  receives  jewels 
from  her  and  a  kiss,  perhaps,  occasionally,  this  is  enough  (and 
almost  too  much)  for  genuine  love.  The  least  thing  further  is 
pure  mercy." 

In  support  of  this  system,  and  in  order  to  become  sure  of  its 
practice,  various  maxims  were  brought  into  vogue,  some  of 
which  were  purely  speculative  and  probably  of  little  use ; 
others,  however,  were  less  abstract,  to  which  we  may  reason- 
ably attribute  a  greater  and  more  decisive  influence  on  the 
relations  of  chivalric  gallantry.  Among  the  latter  we  may 
enumerate  the  opinion,  which  prohibited  the  ladies  from  ac- 
cepting seigniors  of  a  higher  rank  than  themselves  as  their 
chevaliers. 

Kegarded  under  their  most  favorable  aspect,  the  ideas  of 
chivalry  attributed  to  woman   a  veritable   moral   supremacy 
over  man.     All  that  the  knight  did  for  his  lady  was  a  matter 
of  duty,    obligation,  justice  on  his  part.     His  service  was  a 
cultus,  of  which  the  only  certain  recompense  was  the  glory 
and  the  consciousness  of  naving  done  something  to  please  the  ; 
object  of  his  veneration.     All  that  a  lady  did  for  her  knight  i 
was  a  grace,  a  favor,  a  condescension.     What  she  desired  was 
proper,  just,  and  good  from  the  very  fact  of  her  desiring  it. 
She  had  no  other  responsibility  toward  him,  whom  she  had 
permitted  to  regard  her  as  the  object  of  his  noblest  aspirations, 


330  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

than  to  incite  him  to  good  actions.  As  far  as  pleasure  or  hap- 
piness were  concerned,  she  owed  him  nothing,  and  she  was  well 
aware,  that  it  was  only  on  the  condition  of  having  always 
something  to  refuse  him,  that  she  could  preserve  that  kind  of  1 
discretionary  power  over  him,  without  which  her  love  could 
never  have  been  anything  but  a  disgraceful  and  culpable  sub- 
stitute for  marriage. 

The  generally  admitted  opinion  of  this  dignity,  this  moral 
superiority  on  the  part  of  woman  in  the  relations  of  love,  natu- 
rally gave  rise  to  the  other,  according  to  which  a  lady  could 
accept,  without  compromising  herself,  the  homage  of  a  knight  of 
an  inferior  rank,  and  even  of  one  far  inferior  to  her  own.  In  this 
case,  the  respect,  on  which  the  lady  could  naturally  calculate 
on  account  of  the  superiority  of  her  condition,  was  considered 
as  a  special  guaranty  on  the  part  of  the  individual,  whose 
lady  she  was  to  pretend  to  be.  The  contrary  was  presumed  to 
take  place  in  cases,  where  the  knight  was  superior  in  rank  to 
his  lady.  It  was  apprehended,  that  the  latter  might  not  sustain 
her  moral  dignity  sufficiently  well  with  a  chevalier,  for  whose 
rank  she  could  not  avoid  having  more  or  less  regard. 

We  have  already  been  able  to  infer  from  several  passages  of 
this  exposition,  and  it  is  proper  to  repeat  it  more  expressly, 
that  all  this  theory  of  chivalric  love  had  a  special,  fixed,  and 
precise  language  01  its  own,  as  original  in  every  respect  as  were 
the  ideas  which  it  served  to  convey.  I'liave  already  explained 
a  number  of  its  terms,  and  I  shall  naturally  have  occasion 
to  give  a  more  complete  idea  of  it,  when  I  shall  endeavor  to 
expound  the  system  of  poetry  in  which  it  still  exists  entire, 
though  already  full  of  obscurities  and  difficulties.  For  the 
present,  I  believe  it  to  be  sufficient  to  revert  for  a  moment  to 
certain  characteristic  expressions,  which  I  have  been  obliged  to 
use  without  being  able  to  dwell  upon  their  explanation. 

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  lan- 
guage of  the  Troubadours,  by  a  single  word,  by  the  word  dom- 
##*,  a  derivation  of  domna,  which  may  be  regarded  as  an  altera- 
tion of  the  Latin  domino,,  lady,  mistress.  This  word,  which  in 
the  French  of  the  present  day  can  only  be  rendered  by  the 
paraphrastic  expression  of  "  chivalric  gallantry,"  had  in  the  old 
French  of  the  thirteenth  century  its  exact  equivalent,  or  per- 
haps more  properly  its  transcript,  in  the  term  donnoy  or  aom- 
noy,  to  which  I  accordingly  shall  have  recourse  in  translat- 
ing it.  From  domnei  was  derived  the  verb  domneiar,  to  in- 
dicate the  act  or  habit  of  rendering  to  the  ladies  the  service, 


Its  Relations  to  Chivalry.  331 

attention,  or  homage,  which  was  regarded  as  their  due ;  and 
lastly  the  appellative  domneiaire,  to  qualify  the  man,  devoted 
to  this  service  and  this  homage. 

The  mere  existence  of  these  words  is  an  important  and  curi- 
ous fact  in  the  history  of  modern  civilization.  They  are  perhaps 
the  only  examples,  in  the  immense  repertory  of  human  lan- 
guages, of  terms  expressly  made  for  the  purpose  of  denoting 
and  consecrating  the  respectful  submission,  the  enthusiastic  de- 
votion of  force  to  grace  and  beauty. 

There  is  a  point  on  which  the  chivalry  of  the  south  of  France 
differed  considerably  from  that  of  the  North.  In  the  latter 
country,  as  well  as  in  Germany  and  in  England,  the  system  of 
feudalism  was  legally  inseparable  from  that  of  chivalry.  Those 
only  could  become  chevaliers,  who  were  already  in  possession 
of  feudal  privileges.  The  exceptions  to  this  rule,  which  are  now 
and  then  recorded  in  history,  only  serve  to  bring  out  its  rigor 
and  its  generality  into  bolder  relief.  The  king  alone  possessed 
the  right  of  conferring  the  rank  and  privileges  of  knighthood 
upon  a  serf.  The  barons,  who  sometimes  undertook  to  exercise 
the  same  right,  were  regarded  as  invaders  of  the  royal  authority, 
and  incurred  the  risk  of  punishment,  however  powerful  they 
might  be.  In  1280  and  12S1,  Gui,  the  count  of  Flanders,  was 
condemned  by  two  consecutive  decrees  of  the  parliament  of 
Paris,  for  having  made  a  chevalier  of  a  villein  without  permis- 
sion from  the  king.  At  a  later  date,  Robert,  count  of  Nevers, 
was  obliged  to  pay  a  fine  for  having  conferred  the  dignity  of 
knighthood  on  two  of  his  vassals,  who,  though  of  noble  origin, 
were  not  sufficiently  entitled  to  such  an  elevation. 

The  opinion  of  Germany  on  this  subject  was  still  more  rigid 
than  that  of  France.  The  law,  which  authorized  the  merchants 
to  arm  themselves  with  a  sword,  as  a  weapon  of  self-defence  on 
their  journeys,  obliged  them  to  carry  this  sword  suspended  from 
their  saddle-bow,  and  not  from  their  girdle,  for  fear  they  might 
be  mistaken  for  knights.  The  German  writers  who  followed 
their  emperor  to  Italy,  and  who  have  described  the  wars  in  that 
country,  found  it  one  of  the  most  surprising  curiosities,  to  wit- 
ness them  decorating  with  the  order  of  knighthood  men  from 
the  lowest  classes  of  the  people,  simple  artisans.  One  of  their 
number,  who  has  left  us  an  account  in  verse  of  the  quarrels  of 
Frederick  Barbarossa  with  the  Lombards,  thus  concludes  the 
portrait,  which  he  has  drawn  with  considerable  detail  and  ex- 
actness, of  the  inhabitants  of  upper  Italy : 

"  In  order  to  expel  the  enemy  from  their  frontiers,  and  to 
insure  the  defence  of  their  country  by  means  of  arms,  they  per- 
mit every  man,  however  low  his  rank,  to  gird  about  the  sword 
of  chivalry,  a  thing  which  France  accounts  disgraceful." 


332  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

With  laws  and  usages  like  these,  chivalry  could  never  trans? 
cend  the  limits  of  the  feudal  caste,  nor  could  the  number  of 
knights  ever  exceed  that  of  the  feudal  proprietors.  In  such  a 
state  of  things,  the  privileges  and  the  honors  attached  to  the 
profession  of  a  chevalier  remained  identified  with  that  of  feu- 
dalism itself:  they  could  not  extend  themselves  to  any  other 
class  of  society.  This  was  equally  true  of  the  moral  ideas,  the 
generous  sentiments,  the  polished  manners,  in  a  word,  of  every 
element  of  civilization,  which  had  found  its  way  into  the  chi- 
valric  institutions.  All  this,  like  chivalry  itself,  remained  the 
exclusive  property  of  the  privileged  caste. 

It  was  different  in  the  south  of  France.  There  chivalry  not 
only  propagated  itself  beyond  the  limits  of  the  feudal  caste,  but 
it  even  transcended,  as  it  were,  the  chivalric  order  itself. 
Divested  of  its  name,  its  formulas,  its  material  accessories, 
and  of  the  established  ceremonial  for  the  creation  of  its  mem- 
bers ;  reduced  solely  to  moral  and  social  impulses,  to  sentiments, 
and  to  that  sort  of  heroism  which  constituted  its  soul,  its  inter- 
est, and  its  character,  chivalry  had  in  fact  become  rather  the 
general  mode  of  existence  to  society  in  the  south  of  Europe 
during  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  than  the  particular 
mode  of  life  of  one  of  the  classes  or  castes  of  that  society.  At 
any  rate,  it  is  certain,  that  in  the  society  in  question,  the  virtues, 
the  qualities,  the  affections,  and  the  pursuits  of  chivalry  were 
not  always  joined  to  its  established  attributes  or  titles  ;  that  on 
the  contrary  they  were  often  found  independent  of  this  title  and 
these  attributes,  either  in  isolated  personages,  or  in  the  elite  of 
the  population  of  the  cities,  or  even  collectively  in  those  small 
bodies  politic,  which  constituted  the  free  states  of  this  epoch. 

The  Provencal  biographies  make  mention  of  certain  person- 
ages, who,  though  they  are  expressly  styled  lorgues,  are 
nevertheless  described  with  attributes  which  ordinarily  were 
deemed  exclusively  appropriate  to  the  character  and  the  pro- 
fession of  chevaliers.  It  is  under  this  aspect,  that  they  represent 
a  certain  Pierre  Pelissier,  in  other  respects  but  little  known, 
and  to  all  appearances  of  little  importance  as  a  Troubadour. 
"  Pierre  Pelissier,"  says  his  biographer,  "  was  from  Marcel,  a 
market-town  in  the  viscounty  of  Turenne.  He  was  a  brave  and 
valiant  commoner,  full  of  liberality  and  courtesy,  who  by  his 
prowess  and  his  prudence  rose  so  high  in  the  esteem  of  the  vis- 
count, that  the  latter  made  him  baile  of  all  his-  domain.*  The 
Provencal  biographer  would  have  employed  no  other  terms  in 
delineating  the  portrait  of  a  renowned  chevalier. 

*  "  Peire  Pelissiers  si  fo  de  Marcel,  d'un  bore  del  vescomte  de  Torrena ;  borges  fo 
valens  e  pros  e  lares  e  cortes;  e  montet  en  si  gran  valor  per  proesa  e  per  sen  qu'el 
vescoms  lo  fetz  baile  de  tuta  la  sua  terra." — Raynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  321. — Ed. 


Its  Relations  to  Chivalry.  333 

After  this  brief  biographical  notice,  I  will  quote  a  passage 
which  is  still  more  curious,  and  which  may  serve  as  a  commen- 
tary on  the  former.  It  belongs  to  an  entirely  descriptive  or 
didactic  piece  by  Arnaud  de  Marveil,  in  which  this  elegant 
Troubadour,  while  passing  in  review  the  different  social  condi-  \ 
tions  of  his  time  (which  was  about  the  close  of  the  twelfth 
century),  describes  and  estimates  them  with  a  good  deal  of  dis- 
crimination and  justice,  according  to  the  ideas  then  in  vogue. 
We  will  in  the  first  place  see  in  what  manner  he  speaks  of  the 
chevaliers,  and  how  he  discriminates  the  different  kinds  of 
merit  for  which  they  might  become  distinguished. 

"The  chevaliers  have  diverse  merits,  as  you  can  readily  ima- 
gine. Some  are  good  warriors,  others  are  good  conductors 
(hospitallers,  receiving  strangers  and  travellers,  and  entertaining 
them  with  magnificence) ;  some  serve  the  ladies  well,  and  others 
are  distinguished  for  the  brilliancy  of  their  arms  and  ornaments ; 
some  are  brave  in  chivalric  enterprises,  and  others  are  agreeable 
at  court.  It  is  difficult  to  find  all  these  qualities  united  in  the 
same  person  ^  but  he  who  possesses  the  most  of  them,  has  the 
largest  amount  of  merit.  But  as  for  him,  who  possesses  none 
of  them,  though  he  may  bear  the  name  of  chevalier,  I  neverthe- 
less do  not  regard  him  such  for  all  that."  * 

After  having  thus  passed  in  review  the  chevaliers,  he  comes 
to  the  commoners,  concerning  whom  he  discourses  in  the  fol- 
lowing terms :  "  The  commoners  have  likewise  several  kinds  of 
merit.  Some  are  persons  of  quality,  and  distinguish  themselves 
by  honorable  actions ;  others  are  noble  by  nature,  and  comport 
themselves  accordingly.  There  are  others,  really  gallant,  cour- 
teous, frank,  and  merry,  who,  if  they  are  in  want,  understand 
the  art  of  pleasing  with  their  clever  words,  and  who  frequent 
the  courts  to  make  themselves  agreeable ;  who,  perfectly  at 
home  in  the  ways  of  loving  and  serving  the  ladies,  appear  in 
noble  attire  and  figure  to  advantage  at  the  tournaments  and 

*  This  long  piece,  in  the  form  of  an  epistle  of  the  danaire  kind,  is  found  entire  in  Ray- 
nouard,  vol.  iv.  pp.  405-418.  The  passage  relating  to  the  knights  is  as  follows  : 

"  Li  cavalier  an  pretz 
Si  cum  auzir  podetz : 
Li  un  awn  bon  guerrier, 
L'autre  bon  conduchier ; 
L'un  an  pretz  de  servir, 
L'autre  de  gen  garnir ; 
L'un  son  pros  cavalier, 
L'autr'  en  cort  plazentier." 
etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

He  next  speaks  of  the  ladies :  "  Las  donas  eissamens  An  pretz  diversamens ;  Las  unas 
de  belleza,  Las  autras  de  proeza,"  etc.,  etc.  Then  comes  the  passage  relative  to  the 
commoners,  here  translated:  "Li  borzes  eissamens  An  pretz  diversamens f  Li  un  son 
de  paratge  E  fan  faitz  d'agradatge,"  etc.,  etc.,  and  lastly  the  clergy:  "Li  clerc,  per 
cui  ancse  Sab  horn  lo  mal  e'l  be,  An  pretz,  si  cum  s'eschai,  Aital  cum  ie  us  dirai," 
etc.,  etc.— -Ed. 


334:  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

martial  sports,  proving  themselves  courteous  and  excellent  com- 
pany to  every  good  judge.  Of  others,  I  have  not  a  word  to  say. 
I  give  them  up  entirely ;  for  him,  who  can  neither  do  nor  say 
anything  well,  I  do  not  include  among  those  whom  men  esteem 
or  distinguish  ;  I  do  not  put  him  into  my  verses." 

It  would  be  difficult  to  institute  a  more  formal  and  more 
intimate  comparison  between  that  select  class  of  the  inhabitants 
of  cities,  which  was  designated  by  the  name  of  lorguesia,  and 
the  feudal  caste  of  chevaliers,  as  far  as  the  tastes,  habits,  senti- 
ments, and  pretensions  of  chivalry  are  concerned.  And  this 
species  of  moral  identity,  this  de  facto  equality  of  the  two  classes 
was  so  striking  and  so  generally  recognized,  that  it  led,  in  some 
cities  at  least,  to  a  political  identity  and  an  equality  of  privi- 
leges. At  Avignon,  for  example,  the  honorable  commoners,  as 
they  were  termed,  or  those,  who,  without  being  knights,  still 
lived  after  the  manner  of  knights,  enjoyed  the  same  rights  and 
the  same  immunities,  as  the  latter.  This  fact  is  proved  by  an 
article  of  the  ancient  statutes  of  Avignon. 

This  point  being  established,  it  will  be  easier  for.me  to  make 
the  reader  comprehend  what  I  have  still  further  to  say  respect- 
ing the  chivalry  of  the  South.  I  have  thus  far  only  considered 
it  in  its  influence  on  the  chiefs  or  principal  members  of  the  'feu- 
dal caste,  rather  than  on  the  entire  order.  But,  regarded  within 
these  limits,  the  institution  will  not  become  sufficiently  known 
to  us.  It  has  other  interesting  or  curious  sides,  which  we  could 
scarcely  recognize,  if  we  saw  it  only  at  the  courts  of  kings,  of 
great  barons,  or  of  wealthy  seigniors. 

The  sentiments  and  principles  of  chivalry  had,  in  fact,  some- 
thing too  elevated  and  too  absolute  about  them,  to  find  their 
free  play  and  full  development  within  the  somewhat  narrow 
circle  of  feudal  etiquette  and  its  political  interests.  The  higher 
a  knight  stood  in  point  of  rank  and  power,  the  more  extensive 
were  his  relations,  and  the  less  was  he  able  to  do  all  that  the 
laws  of  chivalry  required  of  him,  and  to  do  nothing  but  what 
they  required.  It  could  happen  (in  fact  it  frequently  did), 
that  there  was  a  conflict  between  his  ambition  as  a  political 
chief  and  his  duty  as  a  knight,  and  in  that  event,  ambition  was 
almost  always  destined  to  carry  the  day.  Such  chevaliers  ha- 
bitually compounded,  as  it  were,  with  the  institution;  they 
adopted  of  it  all  that  could  embellish,  enliven,  and  give  variety 
to  their  moral  and  social  life,  but  they  were  not  very  particular 
about  it  in  matters  which  were  opposed  to  their  material  in- 
terests. In  short,  the  position  and  the  conveniences  of  a  great 
feudal  seignior  almost  necessarily  involved  something  that  by 
its  very  nature  was  calculated  to  impede  the  free  play  of  the 
chivalric  spirit,  to  curb  it  every  moment,  and  on  its  most  heroic 


Its  Relations  to  Chivalry.  335 

sides.  It  is  true,  we  have  seen  powerful  barons,  such  as  the 
marquis  of  Montferrat  and  the  dauphin  of  Auvergne,  adher- 
ing to  the  very  letter  of  chivalry,  and  subordinating  grave 
political  interests  to  it ;  but  these  are  curious  exceptions  to  the 
general  rule,  against  which  they  prove  nothing. 

In  order  that  the  principles  of  chivalry  might  be  carried  into 
practice  to  its  utmost  limit,  and  in  order  mat  the  institution 
might  approximate,  as  closely  as  possible,  to  its  ideal  end,  it 
was  absolutely  necessary  that  it  should  extend  itself  to  classes 
of  society  more  disinterested  than  the  higher  feudal  classes,  and 
more  at  liberty  to  perform  whatever  the  institution  commanded 
that  was  generous,  difficult,  or  even  extravagant.  Now  such 
classes  existed  at  an  early  date  in  the  south  of  France. 

Even  among  the  feudal  nobles  of  the  second  and  third  order, 
among  those  more  or  less  powerful  vassals,  who  ordinarily  com- 
posed the  court  of  the  great  barons,  and  rendered  them  military 
service  either  in  payment  for  their  lands  and  chateaux  or  for 
the  offices  and  titles  which  they  held  from  them — even  among 
these  seignior-vassals,  I  say,  the  system  of  chivalry  had  already 
undergone  remarkable  modifications  from  its  very  origin. 

The  title  of  chevalier  being,  in  the  estimation  of  the  feudal 
caste,  the  title  par  excellence,  and  one  which  it  was  customary 
to  add  to  every  other,  in  order  to  impart  to  it  a  certain  moral 
and  poetical  lustre,  it  necessarily  followed,  that  the  relations  of 
equality  and  fraternity,  which  subsisted  between  all  those  who 
had  sought  and  obtained  this  title,  whether  they  were  suzerains 
or  vassals,  must  have  proved  advantageous  to  the  latter.  The 
field  of  chivalric  virtues  opened  a  new  career,  where  the  infe- 
rior had  many  a  chance  of  equalling  or  surpassing  his  superior 
in  renown  and  glory.  The  consideration,  therefore,  which  the 
petty  feudatory  had  acquired  in  the  capacity  of  a  kight,  must 
nave  proved  an  additional  means  for  ameliorating  his  condition 
as  a  vassal. 

The  fact  is,  that  from  the  twelfth  century,  the  vassals  of  the 
great  feudal  proprietors  had  gained  considerably  in  point  of 
moral  and  political  dignity,  and  that  if  chivalry  was  not  the 
only  cause  of  this  amelioration  of  their  lot,  it  nevertheless  con- 
tributed to  it  considerably. 

The  vagueness,  the  uncertainty,  and  the  mobility  of  the  feu- 
dal law  during  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  communi- 
cated themselves  necessarily  to  all  the  political  transactions  of 
those  times,  to  the  division  of  territory,  to  the  truces,  the  alli- 
ances, and  the  treaties  of  peace.  These  transactions  being 
nearly  all  of  them  the  result  of  a  transient  necessity,  were  nearly 
all  of  them  violated,  as  soon  as  this  necessity  had  disappeared. 

When  it  was  required  to  give  them  a  little  security,  the 


336  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

barons,  who  were  the  contracting  parties,  agreed  to  put  them 
under  the  respective  guaranty  01  their  principal  vassals ;  and 
this  guaranty  was  certainly  at  that  time  the  best  that  could  be 
given,  it  being  derived  from  the  very  force  which  the  contract- 
ing parties  might  have  been  able  to  employ  to  violate  their 
contract.  There  are  a  number  of  such  treaties,  concluded  in 
the  course  of  the  twelfth  century,  between  seigniors  of  the 
south  of  France,  in  which  each  of  them  produces  as  guaranties 
for  his  engagements,  a  certain  number  of  his  principal  cheva- 
liers, who  declare  themselves  responsible  for  the  observance  of 
the  treaty.  Among  these  treaties,  there  are  some  in  which  it  is 
expressly  stipulated,  that  the  chevaliers  should  declare  them- 
selves against  their  own  suzerain,  in  case  the  latter  should  fail 
to  fulfill  his  engagements,  and  that  they  should  compel  him  by 
force  to  keep  them. 

According  to  the  ordinary  principles  of  feudal  law,  every 
suzerain  had  the  ri^ht  of  selecting  any  of  his  vassals  as  hostages 
for  the  insurance  of  his  promises,  without  the  latter  having  any 
recourse  against  him  in  case  of  treason  or  breaches  of  fidelity. 
The  above-named  clauses  of  the  treaties,  to  which  I  have  just 
alluded,  may  be  regarded  as  striking  exceptions  to  these  prin- 
ciples ;  they  are  not  so  much  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of 
feudalism  as  with  that  of  chivalry,  in  which  peace  was  the  ulti- 
mate object,  before  which  the  accidental  conventions  of  political 
feudalism  occasionally  vanished  into  insignificance. 

Among  the  different  transactions  of  the  kind  which  I  have 
just  described,  there  were  some  in  which  the  mediation  of  the 
knights  of  a  great  baron,  as  his  responsible  guaranties,  entered 
still  more  especially  into  the  spirit  and  object  of  chivalry. 
They  were  those  in  which  security  for  the  fulfillment  of  pro- 
mises, made  for  the  advantage  or  the  honor  of  a '  lady,  was  re- 
quired. 

I  have  already  noticed  elsewhere,  with  what  facility  the 
feudal  seigniors  repudiated  their  wives,  whenever  they  could 
add  to  their  power  or  their  territory  by  the  act.  It  hence  often 
happened,  that  women,  with  a  view  to  diminishing  the  chances 
of  this  dreaded  repudiation,  would  stipulate,  in  the  marriage 
contracts,  for  positive  guaranties  on  this  subject,  and  depend 
upon  the  chevaliers  and  vassals  of  their  husbands  for  the  execu- 
tion of  these  agreements.  Thus,  for  example,  to  cite  a  particu- 
lar instance  of  the  kind,  when  William  VII.,  seignior  of  Mont- 
pellier,  was  married  to  Matilda  of  Burgundy  (in  1156),  the 
latter  demanded  security  for  heavy  damages,  in  case  she 
should  happen  to  be  repudiated  ;  ana  eighteen  of  the  principal 
chevaliers  of  William  engaged  with  an  oath  to  interfere  with 
all  their  power,  to  guarantee  to  Matilda  the  stipulated  advan- 


Its  delations  to  Chivalry.  337 

tages,  if  she  should  ever  happen  to  suffer  any  injustice  in  this 
respect. 

In  this  and  in  similar  cases,  which  were  of  frequent  occur- 
rence, chivalry  adopted  a  legal  form  of  action ;  the  vassals 
became  its  organs  at  the  risk  of  coming  into  collision  with  their 
seigniors,  out  of  love  for  their  favorite  institution.  This  is  still 
another  point  on  which  chivalry  was  in  a  sort  of  opposition  to 
feudalism. 

But  besides  these  chevaliers  attached  in  the  capacity  of  feud- 
atories to  their  courts,  to  their  government,  or  to  their  person, 
the  great  feudal  proprietors  had  other  chevaliers  in  their  armies, 
who  served  them  for  a  stipulated  length  of  time,  in  considera- 
tion of  a  pecuniary  reward,  and  who,  not  holding  any  land  in 
fee  from  them,  were  simply  their  men-at-arms,  without  being 
properly  their  vassals. 

These  warriors,  though  most  generally  of  the  feudal  race,  did 
not  strictly  belong  to  the  feudal  order,  in  which,  or  rather  by 
the  side  of  which,  they  only  figured  as  a  sort  of  appendix  or 
accessory. 

This  species  of  military  service  was  by  its  very  nature  more 
temporary,  free,  and  changeable  than  that  which  was  made 
obligatory  by  territorial  vassalage,  and  the  knights  who  thus 
enlisted  in  the  service  of  the  kings  and  counts,  formed  a  numer- 
ous class  in  the  ensemble  of  the  chivalric  order,  and  one  dis- 
tinct from  every  other.  Instead  of  being  to  a  certain  extent 
attached  to  the  soil  of  a  feoff,  and  consequently  to  the  perpetual 
service  of  one  and  the  same  suzerain,  these  knights  were  volun- 
tary, itinerant,  and  at  liberty  to  carry  their  bravery  wherever 
they  might  be  able  to  employ  it  to  the  best  advantage. 

The  Provencal  poems  are  full  of  allusions  to  the  chevaliers, 
who  were  thus  exempt  from  feudal  trammels.  They  represent 
them  as  always  ready  to  quit  the  seignior,  with  whom  they 
were  displeased,  and  to  look  for  another  one  more  worthy  of 
them,  afraid  of  nothing  but  long  intervals  of  peace,  upon  the 
watch  for  every  war,  and  sure  to  be  well  received  wherever 
there  was  one. 

Large  numbers  of  these  chevaliers  were  frequently  to  be 
found  in  the  service  of  the  same  master,  and  then  they  consti- 
tuted a  particular  corps  of  the  regular  army,  of  which  all  the 
members  were,  by  virtue  of  their  equality  of  rank,  subjected  to 
the  same  discipline,  the  same  government,  bound  by  the  same 
obligations,  and  in  possession  of  the  same  privileges. 

It  is  to  this  class  of  chevaliers,  that  many  of  the  characteris- 
tics and  usuages,  vaguely  recorded  in  historical  documents  as 
the  characteristics  and  usages  of  chivalry,  are  more  especially 
to  be  attributed.  It  was  the  common  rule  of  their  conduct  and 

22 


338  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

of  their  service,  when  a  number  of  them  found  themselves  as- 
sociated in  the  pay  of  the  same  seignior,  that,  more  than  any- 
thing else,  made  chivalry  a  military  institution. 

The  positive  and  regulative  part  of  this  institution  is  very 
little  known  at  present,  and  we  are  unable  to  say  to  what  ex- 
tent it  was  uniform  or  not  so  in  the  different  countries  of 
Europe,  where  chivalry  was  in  force.  Of  all  these  countries, 
Spain  is  perhaps  the  one  which  might  offer  us  the  most  ves- 
tiges of  the  organization  of  these  voluntary  chevaliers  into 
particular  corps  of  the  army,  prior  to  the  middle  of  the  thir- 
teenth century.  The  collection  of  laws  and  usages,  compiled 
by  King  Alphonso  X.,  under  the  title  of  "  The  Seven  Parts" 
(JLas  Siete  Pa/rtidas),  furnishes  us  a  few,  on  whicli  I  shall 
dwell  for  a  moment,  and  so  much  the  more  readily,  as  they  are 
not  said  to  belong  exclusively  to  Spain.  They  have  every 
appearance  of  representing  what  was  taking  place  north  of  the 
Pyrenees. 

According  to  this  document,  the  common  discipline  of  the 
voluntary  chevaliers  was  different  in  times  of  peace  from  what 
it  was  in  times  of  war,  and  extended  to  the  minutest  details  of 
their  government.  Everything  was  prescribed  by  law,  even 
to  the  color  of  their  dress.  The  red,  the  yellow,  the  green,  in 
a  word,  the  lively,  striking,  and  agreeable  colors  were  selected. 
Everything  relating  to  their  mode  of  life  was  to  contribute  to 
their  alacrity  and  self-confidence.  The  brown,  the  grey,  and 
avery  sombre  color  would  have  appeared  on  them  as  a  sign  of 
sadness  or  dejection,  and  dejection  was  in  their  estimation  tan- 
tamount to  cowardice.* 

Their  mode  of  life  in  times  of  war  appears  to  have  been 
Strictly  regulated  and  very  rigid.  They  had  two  repasts  a  day, 
one  in  the  morning  at  a  very  early  hour,  the  other  after  sunset 
in  the  evening.  The  first  of  these  repasts  was  very  moderate, 
so  that,  if  they  should  happen  to  be  wounded  during  the  day, 
their  wounds  might  be  attended  with  less  serious  consequences. 
Their  evening  repast  was  the  principal  one.  But  in  the  even- 
ing, as  well  as  in  the  morning,  they  were  intentionally  supplied 
with  none  but  viands  of  the  coarsest  kind,  and  with  wine  of 
indifferent  quality.  Between  their  repasts  they  drank  only 
water,  except  in  excessively  hot  weather,  when  they  were 
allowed  to  add  a  little  vinegar  to  their  water. 

While  they  were  engaged  in  active  warfare,  it  was  not 
deemed  necessary  to  talk  to  them  about  it ;  but  in  times  of 
peace,  the  matter  seemed  less  superfluous,  and  in  order  to  keep 

*  Compare  Lot  Siete  Partida*  del  rey  Alfonso  el  Sabio.  Madrid,  1807.  The  laws 
regulating  the  actions  and  life  of  the  knights  are  contained  in  the  XXIst  Titulo  of  the 
•econd  Partida  and  are  25  in  number.  See  Vol.  II.,  p.  197-218.— Ed. 


Its  Relations  to  Chivalry.  330 

their  courage  in  a  state  of  exaltation,  which  might  be  called 
into  requisition  every  moment,  a  lecture  adapted  to  the  pur- 
pose was  delivered  before  them  during  their  repasts.  It  was 
customary  to  read  to  them  some  real  or  fictitious  narrative  of 
ancient  wars  or  of  the  gallant  exploits  of  the  chevaliers  of  olden 
times,  and  in  default  of  written  histories  of  this  kind,  they  had 
the  heroic  ballads  of  the  Jongleurs. 

But  independently  of  the  particular  duties,  which  resulted 
from  their  common  organization  and  service,  the  voluntary 
knights,  like  all  the  rest,  were  bound  by  the  generous  duties  of 
chivalry,  to  defend  the  weak  against  the  strong,  to  work  for 
the  reestablishment  of  order,  wherever  they  saw  it  disturbed, 
to  the  respectful  service  of  the  ladies,  and  to  the  defence  of  re- 
ligion. There  is  even  a  usage,  which  would  seem  to  indicate  a 
stronger  and  more  considerate  intention  on  their  part  to  fulfill 
these  duties.  It  was  a  common  custom  among  them  to  get  an 
indelible  mark  imprinted  on  their  right  arm  with  a  red-hot 
iron,  the  object  of  which  was  to  remind  them  of  their  devoirs. 

These  few  traits  of  the  ancient  common  discipline  of  the  vo- 
luntary knights  will  suffice  to  show,  that  their  condition  as 
chevaliers  had  something  more  fixed  and  earnest  about  it  than 
that  of  the  isolated  barons  and  seigniors  of  the  chateaux.  The 
institution  presents  itself  under  a  simpler  and  more  austere  form 
among  them  than  among  the  rest. 

It  was,  however,  after  all  not  in  these  little  corps  of  the 
regular  army,  that  chivalry  could  attain  to  its  highest  develop- 
ment, which  it  now  remains  for  me  to  consider. 

There  is  nothing  more  characteristic  and  more  striking  in  the 
history  of  civilization  in  the  south  of  France,  than  the  connec- 
tion or  rather  the  intimate  union  between  chivalry  and  poetry. 
This  union  took  place  in  every  sense  and  in  spite  of  all  the 
obstacles,  which  the  social  and  political  conveniences  seemed 
to  oppose  to  it.    From  the  moment  that  love  had  become  a  sort 
of  cultus  and  its  songs  a  species  of  hymns,  the  poetic  talent  » 
became  almost  the  necessary  complement  of  chivairic  gallantry  I 
and  consequently  of  chivalry  itself.     Every  seignior,  great  or  I 
small,  was  required  to  know  something  about  the  art  of  making 
verses  and  exerted  himself  to  make  gome ;   he  who  did  not 
write  was  at  least  supposed  to  like  and  to  appreciate  those  of 
others. 

Of  nearly  five  hundred  southern  Troubadours,  whose  names 
have  come  down  to  us,  one  half  at  least  are  from  the  feudal 
classes. 

This  general  demand  for  poetry,  in  the  higher  classes  of 
society,  proved  a  strong  incitement  to  the  inferior  ^  classes  to 
cultivate  this  art,  and  every  other  connected  with  it.  Every 


340  History  of  Provencal 

commoner,  the  son  of  every  laborer  or  serf,  who  might  become 
distinguished  in  it,  was  sure  of  finding  it  a  passport  to  some 
one  of  the  petty  feudal  courts  of  his  time,  and  of  being  wel- 
come wherever  he  might  choose  to  present  himself. 

This  social  importance  of  the  poets  by  profession  gave  rise  to 
something  more  than  mere  relations  of  patronage  and  amity 
between  these  poets  and  their  rivals  of  the  feudal  race.  It 
led  to  an  intimate  approximation,  a  sort  of  amalgamation  of 
the  two  classes. 

In  consequence  of  the  division  of  property,  as  prescribed  by 
the  laws  of  inheritance,  a  multitude  of  nefs  of  moderated  extent 
became  at  last  so  comminuted  as  no  longer  to  afford  the  means 
of  an  easy  subsistence  to  its  too  nemerous  proprietors,  with 
whom  the  merry  and  brilliant  life  of  chevaliers  was  conse- 
quently utterly  out  of  the  question.  It  not  unfrequently 
happened,  that  the  manor  of  a  miserable  chateau,  the  popula- 
tion of  which  did  not  exceed  fifty  men,  was  divided  between 
three  or  four  brothers  or  cousins,  who  lived  there  in  a  state  of 
the  most  unchivalric  anxiety  and  distress.  It  was  then  almost 
indispensably  necessary  that  some  of  them  should  go  elsewhere 
in  search  of  their  fortunes,  and  those  that  went  were  invariably 
such  as  had  the  greatest  amount  of  intelligence  and  energy  of 
character. 

Some,  without  any  other  possession  but  their  horse  and  arms, 
threw  themselves  into  the  adventurous  careers  of  chivalry. 
Others,  to  whom  the  poetical  professions  appeared  more  invit- 
ing, became  masters  of  gallantry  and  courtesy,  Troubadours 
and  Jongleurs  even ;  and  they  thus  easily  found  in  the  chateaux 
of  others  the  agreeable  life  and  the  consideration,  which  would 
always  have  been  wanting  to  them  in  their  own.  There  is 
nothing  to  warrant  the  suspicion,  that  the  profession  of  Trouba- 
dour in  a  poor  feudal  proprietor,  was  ever  looked  upon  as 
derogatory  to  his  rank  as  a  chevalier. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  Troubadour  by  profession,  whatever 
might  have  been  the  class  of  society  he  was  born  in,  provided  he 
had  a  certain  degree  of  reputation  in  his  art  and  a  liberal  seig- 
nior for  his  patroa  or  his  friend,  could  always  rise  without  any 
difficulty  to  the  rank  of  a  chevalier*.  All  that  he  was  required 
to  do  was  to  express  his  desire  to  that  effect,  and  to  exhibit  a 
little  inclination  for  war,  for  tournaments,  and  for  other  chival- 
ric  exercises.  There  was,  therefore,  in  society,  a  constant 
transition  from  the  poetical  professions  to  chivalry  and  from 
chivalry  to  the  poetical  professions. 

These  Troubadour  chevaliers  and  chevalier  Troubadours, 
these  nobles  in  whom  the  poetic  genius  and  that  of  chivalry 
were  indivisibly  united,  could  never  have  transcended  the 


Its  Delations  to  Chivalry.  341 

ordinary  limits  of  their  respective  classes  without  a  sort  of  in- 
dividual energy  and  originality.  There  were  necessarily 
among  them  men  of  a  restless  character,  of  delicate  sentiments 
and  of  a  lively  imagination  ;  men  who  were  particularly  inter- 
ested in  exalting  and  consolidating  the  alliance  between  poetry 
and  military  prowess.  It  would  have  been  difficult  for  sucn 
men  not  to  have  carried  something  of  their  character,  of  the 
exalted  turn  and  poetical  tone  of  their  ideas  into  the  usages 
of  chivalry.  They  naturally  constituted  the  most  refined  and 
the  most  ingenious  portion  of  the  chivalric  order,  consequently 
the  one  which  was  best  calculated  to  introduce  into  the  exer-. 
cises,  the  practices  and  opinions  of  chivalry,  the  modifications 
and  innovations  by  which  the  latter,  as  a  living  and  changing 
institution,  followed  the  progressive  refinements  of  society. 
Too  poor  to  signalize  themselves  by  any  acts  of  prodigality,  of 
liberality  or  of  courtly  magnificence,  like  the  chevaliers  of  the 
higher  classes  of  the  feudal  order,  they  were,  by  way  of  com- 
pensation, independent  of  all  the  social  and  political  con- 
veniences at  variance  with  those  of  chivalry.  Whatever  plans 
they  might  conceive  for  the  extension  and  improvement  of  the 
institution,  they  were  at  liberty  to  put  in  practice.  Having  no 
positive  interests  of  their  own  to  manage,  and  no  sacrifices  to 
make  to  the  decorum  of  an  eminent  rank,  they  could  with 
honor,  undertake  new  enterprises,  and  strange  ones  even,  pro- 
vided they  were  only  included  within  the  scope  of  chivalric 
ideas. 

After  what  I  have  said  concerning  the  existence  of  this 
almost  exclusively  poetical  class  of  knights,  I  think  it  will  be 
easier  to  comprehend  certain  developments  of  chivalry,  which 
may  be  denominated  its  poetical  developments.  Of  these 
knight-errantry  is  one  of  the  most  prominent.  This  depart- 
ment of  chivalry,  with  the  idea  of  which  the  romances  of  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  have  associated  so  much 
ridicule,  was  nevertheless  in  its  principle  nothing  more  than 
the  most  direct  and  rigorous  application  of  the  noblest  precept 
of  chivalry,  that  of  protecting  the  weak  against  the  strong. 

After  the  institution  had  extended  itself  from  the  class  of 
feudal  proprietors  to  men,  who,  though  for  the  most  part  des- 
cended from  the  ancient  Germanic  conquerors,  had  nevertheless 
nothing  more  than  a  pecuniary  salary  for  their  services  to 
depend  upon,  it  was  natural  that  there  should  be  something  of 
more  than  ordinary  enthusiasm  and  of  a  more  adventuresome 
disposition  among  these  men,  who,  instead  of  waiting  on  some 
fixed  post  for  the  occasions  of  defending  the  oppressed,  were 
prompted  to  go  forth  in  quest  of  these  occasions. 

It  is  an  undoubted  fact,  that  in  all  the  countries  of  Europe, 


342  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

where  there  were  chevaliers,  there  was  a  particular  class  of 
them  which  was  designated  by  the  title  of  knights-errant.  It 
is  also  certain  that  the  motive  of  this  appellation  was  every- 
where the  same ;  that  everywhere  it  was  applied  to  warriors, 
who,  for  the  purpose  of  giving  proof  of  their  bravery,  their 
strength  and  intrepidity,  went  into  distant  countries  in  search 
of  opportunities  for  protecting  the  oppressed,  of  braving 
dangers,  in  short,  of  exploits  and  adventures. 

This  usage  must  have  been  quite  common  in  1241  among  the 
English  knights,  since  we  find  that  Henry  III.  conceived  the 
idea  of  subjecting  it  to  the  same  tax  with  that  of  the  tournaments. 
It  may,  therefore,  be  regarded  as  certain,  that  the  knights- 
errant  originally  passed  from  reality  into  the  romances,  although 
the  latter  may  have  subsequently  contributed  to  impart  a 
greater  extent  and  importance  to  the  functions  and  protession 
of  the  former. 

It  is  in  the  poetical  monuments  of  southern  France,  that  I 
find  the  most  ancient  indications  of  knight-errantry,  and  it  is 
in  the  same  country  that  the  chivalric  manners  appear  to  me 
to  present  the  most  decided  tendency  to  this  particular  modifi- 
cation of  the  system.  The  allusions  to  facts  and  ideas  of 
knight-errantry  are  not  rare  in  the  writings  of  the  Troubadours, 
but  they  do  not  teach  us  anything  of  special  interest  or  import- 
ance on  this  branch  of  the  institution.  Upon  the  whole  we 
can  only  conclude  from  them,  that  the  condition  of  the  knight- 
errant  was  rather  accidental  and  transitory  than  fixed  and  per- 
manent, every  chevalier  being  at  liberty  to  put  himself  in 
quest  of  adventures  for  a  limited  time,  and  afterward  again  to 
resume  the  course  of  his  habitual  life.  The  chagrins,  the 
spites,  and  the  caprices  of  love,  to  which  every  knight  was 
more  or  less  subjected,  must  frequently  have  become  a  motive 
for  his  courting  the  hardships  and  solitude  of  that  savage  life, 
which  the  redresser  of  wrongs  or  the  seeker  of  marvellous 
adventures  was  so  fond  of  leading. 

One  of  the  pieces  of  Eambaud  de  Yaqueiras,  a  Troubadour 
from  whom  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  quote  some  verses, 
contains  a  very  remarkable  passage,  in  which  he  declares  his 
intention  of  entering  knight-errantry,  which  Re  then  takes  oc- 
casion to  describe  in  a  very  precise  and  lively  manner.  Says 
he :  "  Galloping,  trotting,  leaping,  running,  protracted  vigils, 
privations  and  fatigue  shall  henceforth  be  my  pastime.  Armed 
with  wood,  with  iron,  and  with  steel,  I  will  endure  the  ex- 
tremes of  heat  and  cold.  The  forests  and  sequestered  paths 
shall  be  my  dwelling.  Descorts  and  sirventes  shall  hereafter 
take  the  place  of  my  songs  of  love ;  and  I'll  defend  the  weak 
against  the  strong." 


Its  Relations  to  Chivalry.  343 

The  allusions  of  the  Provencal  poets  to  the  existence  and  condi- 
tion of  knights-errant  do  not  represent  them,  as  do  the  romances,, 
as  always  isolated  and  on  the  lookout  for  adventures,  where 
every  one  is  firmly  resolved  to  share  neither  the  glory  nor  the 
danger  with  any  one  else.  They  show,  on  the  contrary,  that 
quite  frequently  several  of  them  travelled  together,  who,  to  all 
appearances,  were  temporarily  associated  for  a  common  enter- 
prise or  search ;  and  it  was,  in  fact,  only  through  the  aid  of 
such  associations  that  they  had  the  chance  of  accomplishing 
anything  of  importance  for  the  object  of  their  institution. 

In.  the  poetic  descriptions  of  wars,  of  encampments,  and  of 
battles,  in  which  the  Troubadours  delighted — descriptions  gene- 
rally full  of  truth  and  energy — the  idea  of  knight-errantry  pre- 
sents itself  as  an  ordinary  and  acknowledged  accessory,  which 
seems  to  indicate  that  these  chevaliers  frequently  descended 
from  the  eminence  of  their  ideal  tasks,  as  champions  for  the 
defence  of  feebleness  and  innocence,  in  order  to  participate  in 
the  vulgar  quarrels  between  the  kings  and  powerful  seigniors, 
deciding  undoubtedly  in  favor  of  the  one  who  could  offer  them 
the  greatest  reward ;  and  this  is  one  of  the  sides  by  which  knight- 
errantry  was  brought  into  contact  with  the  regular  army  of  the 
voluntary  chevaliers,  and  where  it  tended  to  coalesce  with  it. 

But  the  poetical  and  historical  monuments  of  the  south  of 
France  and  of  Catalonia  make  mention  of  another  species  of 
chevaliers,  which  seems  to  have  the  most  direct  and  intimate 
resemblance  to  that  of  the  knights-errant,  but  which  is  never- 
theless distinct  from  it  in  something  more  than  the  mere  name. 
The  historians  and  poets  designate  these  knights  with  the  name 
of  cavalier  salvatge,  or  savage  chevaliers.  There  are  accounts 
of  military  expeditions,  7n  which  they  figure  simply  as  warriors*, 
But  there  are  laws  in  which  they  are  regarded  with  disfavor, 
and  in  which  we  perceive  a  manifest  intention  to  brand  and  to 
discourage  their  mode  of  life.  In  1234,  James  the  First,  king 
of  Aragon,  prohibited  in  an  express  article  of  certain  constitu- 
tions, which  he  was  then  publishing,  the  practice  of  making 
savage  knights.  Another  article  of  the  same  constitution  seems 
to  put  this  class  of  chevaliers  upon  a  level  with  the  Jongleurs  j 
it  prohibits  the-  extension  of  a  gratuity  to  any  Jongleur^ 
whether  man  or  woman,  or  to  any  cavalier  salvatge.  Finally, 
there  is  still  extant  a  piece  of  Provencal  poetry,  in  which  the 
title  of  Jongleur  and  that  of  savage  chevalier  are  likewise  asso- 
ciated, and  in  such  a  manner  as  to  lead  us  to  suspect  a  certain 
connection  between  the  two. 

The  piece  in  question,  which  is  probably  a  few  years  anterior 
to  the  constitutions  just  quoted,  is  a  satirical  tenson  between 
Bertrand  of  Lamanon,  a  chevalier  from  the  court  of  the  Count 


344  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

of  Provence,  and  a  Troubadour  by  the  name  of  Don  Guigo, 
concerning  whom  we  have  very  little  information.  Bertrand 
reproaches  or  banters  the  latter  on  account  of  his  frequent 
changes  of  profession  and  condition.  It  begins  in  the  follow- 
ing strain : 

"  Friend  Guigo,  were  I  desirous  of  knowing  the  secrets  of 
every  profession,  I  should  stand  in  need  of  thy  ability  and 
skill,  since  thou  hast  practised  all  of  them.  For  thou  wert,  in 
the  first  place,  and  for  a  long  time,  corratier  (i.e.  go-between), 
after  which  thou  wast  elevated  to  the  rank  of  servant-at-armsT 
to  rob  cattle,  goats  and  sheep,  wherever  thou  couldst  find  them. 
Thou  next  becamst  a  Jongleur  (singer)  of  verses  and  of  songs, 
and  now  we  see  thee  on  the  pinnacle  of  honor,  since  the  Count 
of  Provence  has  created  thee  knight  savage."  * 

The  most  probable  inference,  that  we  draw  from  data  as 
vague  as  these,  is,  that  these  savage  knights  were  of  an  inferior 
order,  who  combined  the  profession  of  arms  with  that  of  itiner- 
ant singers  or  reciters  of  poetry,  and  who  lived  by  the  one  or 
the  other,  or  by  both  of  them  at  once,  as  the  occasion  might 
require.  This  was,  therefore,  an  additional  point  of  contact 
between  the  poetic  professions  and  the  feudal  classes.  I  am, 
however,  inclined  to  believe  that  the  particular  grade  of  chi- 
yalry  designated  by  the  epithet  savage,  in  contradistinction  to 
the  courteous,  was  exclusively  reserved  for  the  inferior  rank  of 
the  poetic  class,  for  that  of  the  Jongleurs ;  from  which  we  might 
conclude  that  the  latter  were  not  admitted,  as  were  the  Trouba- 
dours, to  the  honors  and  privileges  of  chivalry  proper. 

The  festivals,  of  which  I  have  already  spoken,  and  of  which 
I  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  again,  where  the  ideas  of  chi- 
valry were  reduced  to  practice  and  exhibited  in  the  shape  of 
spectacles ;  those  military  exercises,  where  the  adventures  of 
knight-errantry  were  represented,  must  all  be  counted  among 
the  number  of  poetic  refinements  introduced  into  chivalry  from 
the  middle  of  tne  twelfth  to  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
turies. But  these  are  not  the  only  ones,  nor  even  the  most 
striking.  We  must  add  to  them  a  variety  of  gallant  usages, 
devised  for  the  benefit  of  enamored  knights,  as  so  many  methods 
of  proving  their  devotion,  their  loyalty  and  their  admiration 
for  the  ladies  of  their  choice. 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  73 : 

44  Amicx  Guigo,  be  m'assaut  de  tos  sens, 
Car  de  mestiers  vols  apenre  cals  son, 
Que  trotiers  fps  una  longa  sazon 
Pueys  auza  dir  que  pugiest  a  sirven, 
Qu'  emblavas  buous,  bocxs,  fedas  e  moutos, 
Pueis  fos  joglars  de  dir  vers  e  chansos ; 
Ar  est  poiatz  a  maior  onramen." 
Etc.,  etc.— Ed.     ' 


Its  Delations  to  Chivalry.  345 

Such  is,  among  others,  the  custom  of  challenging  the  first 
comer,  for  the  purpose  of  sustaining  a  word  pronounced  or  an 
opinion  advanced  in  honor  of  a  lady.  These  challenges,  how- 
ever extravagant  they  might  be,  were  none  the  less  in  harmony 
with  the  spirit  of  chivalry.  At  a  time  when  everything  was 
decided  and  proved  by  personal  force  and  bravery,  there  could 
be  nothing  strange  in  the  idea  that  a  chevalier  should  have  re- 
course to  them  for  the  purpose  of  attesting  the  liveliest  and 
profoundest  of  his  convictions.  In  the  earliest  times  of  chivalry, 
a  knight  considered  it  a  distinguished  service  to  the  ladies,  if 
he  fought  to  prove  the  innocence  of  one  who  incurred  the  risk 
of  perishing  as  the  victim  of  a  capital  accusation ;  but  when 
love  had  become  the  chief  motive  of  all  chivalric  actions,  he 
scarcely  thought  that  he  was  doing  enough  for  them,  if  he 
maintained  publicly,  at  any  risk  and  in  the  face  of  every  oppo- 
nent, that  they  were  handsome,  discreet,  and  worthy  of  adora- 
tion. 

"We  find  in  the  thirteenth  century  another  gallant  usage,  still 
more  singular,  more  passionately  followed,  and  perhaps  as  gene- 
ral as  that  of  those  enthusiastic  challenges  in  honor  of  the  ladies, 
although  the  Provencal  monuments  do  not  offer  so  many  mani- 
fest traces  of  its  existence. 

This  was  a  quite  peculiar  mode  of  consecrating  one's  self  to 
the  services,  or,  I  should  rather  say,  to  the  cultus  of  the  ladies. 
It  seems  to  have  consisted  in  a  sort  of  vow,  analogous  to  the 
religious  vows,  the  visible  sign  of  which  was  a  peculiar  cut  of 
the  hair,  or  perhaps  a  circular  tonsure  on  the  top  of  the  head, 
in  imitation  of  the  clerical  tonsure.  Granet,  a  chevalier  Trou- 
badour of  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  in  a  satirical 
piece  directed  against  Sordel  of  Mantua,  who  was  then  a  refu- 
gee in  Provence,  advises  him  to  adopt  this  sort  of  tonsure,  as  a 
means  of  future  success,  in  imitation  of  upward  of  a  hundred 
other  chevaliers,  who  had  their  heads  shaved  for  the  good 
Countess  of  Rhodez.* 

These  jmen,  who  regarded  love  from  such  an  exalted  point  of 
view,  were  neither  great  barons  nor  powerful  feudatories ;  they 
were  most  generally  poor  chevaliers,  with  either  no  fief  at  all 
or  with  one  of  but  trifling  value,  on  whom  the  changes  of  poli- 
tics had  scarcely  any  effect,  and  who  had  no  better  chances  for 
happiness,  for  fortune  and  renown  than  to  follow  freely  the 
most  exalted  inspirations  of  their  imagination  and  their  heart. 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  172.    The  passage  in  question  is  contained  in  an  envoi  to  a 
piece  entitled  COBLAS  D'BN  GRANET.    It  is  as  follows  : 
"  Per  la  comtessa  de  Bodes  yalen 
An  ras  lor  cap  cavalier  mais  de  cen ; 
E  S'EN  Sordel  se  vol  gardar  de  failla 
Son  cap  raira,  o  ja  deus  uon  li  vailla."— Ed. 


346  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

The  biographical  fragments  relative  to  the  Troubadours  furnish 
us  curious  particulars  in  support  of  this  general  fact.  Of  the 
knights  mentioned  in  this  fragment,  who  were  more  or  less  dis- 
tinguished as  poets,  the  majority  belonged  to  the  inferior  classes 
of  the  feudal  order,  and  several  are  expressly  designated  as  re- 
markable for  their  poverty  and  the  obscurity  of  their  situation 
in  life.  Now  it  is  precisely  to  this  portion  of  the  chivalric 
order,  which  was  the  most  poetical,  the  most  enthusiastic,  the 
most  free,  and  the  most  disinterested,  that  nearly  all  the  deli- 
cate, profound  and  touching  traits,  characteristic  of  chivalric 
love,  must  be  referred. 

In  this  middle  class  of  chevaliers  we  must  likewise  include, 
in  spite  of  his  princely  title,  the  celebrated  Geoffroy  Rudel, 
who  from  the  mere  report  of  the  beauty  and  virtues  of  the 
Countess  of  Tripoli  (who  was  of  the  house'  of  Toulouse),  was 
seized  with  such  a  violent  passion  for  her,  that  he  celebrated 
her  for  a  long  time  in  his  verses.  Carried  away  at  last  by  the 
desire  of  seeing  her,  he  embarked  for  Syria,  was  taken  mor- 
tally sick  at  sea  and  arrived  at  Tripoli  only  to  breathe  his  last ; 
still  satisfied,  however,  to  have  purchased  at  this  price  even  the 
happiness  of  beholding  for  a  moment  the  beautiful  princess,  the 
object  of  his  long  reveries,  and  to  see  her  touched  by  his  un- 
timely death.* 

It  is  only  among  personages  of  this  condition  that  we  could 
expect  to  find  examples  similar  to  that  of  Pons  de  Capdueilh, 
a  knight  from  the  vicinity  of  Puy,  who  after  having  lost  Ade- 
laide de  Mercoeur,  the  wife  of  a  seignior  of  Auvergne,  whom 
he  had  sung,  adored  and  served  until  her  death,  felt  that  there 
was  nothing  more  left  for  him  to  do  in  this  world,  except  to  go 
to  the  Holy  Land  to  die  with  his  arms  in  his  hands.f 

It  was  in  these  same  ranks  of  chivalry  that  the  ladies  had  the 
best  chance  for  finding  servants,  from  whom  they  could  expect 
prompt  obedience  to  their  prohibitions  and  commands,  whom 
they  by  a  mere  word  could  send  to  the  wars  against  the  in- 
fidels beyond  the  sea  or  beyond  the  Pyrenees  and  who  did  not 
consider  the  slightest  of  their  favors  over-paid  by  years  of 
hardship  and  of  perils — servants,  whose  offences  they  were  all 
sure  of  being  able  to  punish,  those  even  which  resulted  from 
the  excesses,  the  caprices  and  the  idle  curiosities  of  love.  Ex- 
amples analogous  to  that  of  William  de  Balaun  and  his  lady 

*  The  Provencal  account  of  thig  adventure  is  found  In  Raynouafd,  vol.  v.  page  165. 
It  adds:  "Et  ella  lo  fetz  honradamen  sepellir  en  la  maison  del  Temple  deTripol;  e 
pois  en  aquel  meteis  dia  ella  se  rendet  monga,  per  la  dolor  que  ella  ac  de  lui  e  de  la  soa 
mort." — Ed. 

f  The  Provencal  biographer  says  :  "  Et  ametper  amor  ma  dona  Alazais  de  Mercuer. 
....  Mout  1'amava  e  la  lauzava,  e  fes  de  lieis  mantas  bonas  cansos.  E  tant 
quan  ela  visquet  non  amet  autra ;  e  quant  ela  fon  morta,  el  se  croset  e  passet  outra  mar, 
e  lai  moric.  Raynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  353.— Ed. 


Its  Relations  to  Chivalry.  347 

could  not  have  been  very  rare,  and  this  is  an  additional  reason 
for  inserting  it  here. 

William  de  Balaun,  from  the  environs  of  Montpellier,  an 
excellent  chevalier  and  Troubadour  (to  use  the  language  of  the 
Provencal  documents),  loved  and  served  Guillelmina  de  Ta- 
viac,  the  lady  of  a  seignior  of  that  name.*  He  had  obtained 
from  her  every  favor,  that  he  had  ventured  to  solicit ;  but  he 
aspired  to  the  greatest  possible  felicity  in  love  and  was  not  sure 
of  having  as  yet  attained  to  it.  Under  the  impression,  that  the 
happiness  of  recovering  the  love  of  his  lady  might  be  greater 
than  that  of  obtaining  it  for  the  first  time,  he  took  it  into  his 
head  to  try  the  experiment.  He  accordingly  pretended  to  be 
angry  with  Guillelmina,  ceased  to  pay  her  his  customary  atten- 
tions, repelled  all  the  tender  efforts  by  which  she  endeavored 
to  bend  his  mind,  and  repelled  them  with  so  much  obstinacy 
and  hardness,  that  the  lady  finally  became  indignant  and  re- 
solved to  abandon  the  insensate  man  forever.  The  just  and 
real  indignation  of  the  lady  immediately  put  an  end  to  the 
feigned  anger  of  the  chevalier.  He  presented  himself  in  order 
to  crave  her  pardon  and  to  explain  the  error,  but  the  lady  re- 
fused to  listen  to  him.  The  quarrel  had  already  lasted  for 
several  days,  when  Bernard  of  Anduse  interposed  to  put  an  end 
to  it.  After  many  solicitations,  the  lady  of  Taviac  replied  that 
she  would  consent  to  pardon  William,  but  only  on  conditions, 
in  the  exaction  of  which  she  professed  herself  inexorable  ;  they 
were,  that  William  by  way  of  gratitude  and  as  a  punishment 
for  his  folly,  should  suffer  one  of  his  finger-nails  to  be  pulled 
out,  which  he  was  to  present  to  her  on  his  knees,  at  the  same 
time  confessing  his  guilt  and  asking  her  pardon  in  a  poem 
which  he  was  to  compose  expressly  for  the  occasion.  All  these 
conditions  were  accepted  and  fulfilled  by  the  repenting  Wil- 
liam, who  undoubtedly  now  knew,  at  this  expense,  whether 
the  happiness  of  recovering  his  lady  was  greater  than  that  of 
conquering  her,  but  who  prudently  kept  the  discovery  to 
himself.* 

Finally,  it  was  still  this  middle  class  of  knighthood,  which 
introduced  the  sanction  of  religion  into  love,  which,  regarding 
the  sentimental  union  of  a  lady  and  a  chevalier  as  serious  and 
sacred  as  marriage  itself,  employed  the  intervention  of  a  priest, 
as  in  the  event  01  the  latter,  for  its  consummation.  It  was  this 
class,  which  went  to  make  public  prayers  and  to  perform 
solemn  acts  of  Christian  piety  over  the  tomb  of  those,  whom  it 
regarded  as  martyrs  to  love.  . 

It  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  recount  here  in  detail  the  tra- 

*  A  detailed  account  of  their  singular  adventure  is  found  in  the  Proven§al  notice  of 
this  poet.    Rayn.  vol.  v.  p.  180  seq — Ed. 


34:3  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

gical  adventures  of  William  of  Cabestaing.  There  is  no  one 
who  has  not  heard,  time  and  again,  how  this  young  chevalier, 
who  was  at  the  same  time  an  elegant  Troubadour,  was  mortally 
enamored  of  Sermonde,  the  lady  of  Raymond  de  Roussillon, 
his  master ;  how  moreover  the  latter,  after  having  killed  him 
from  motives  of  jealousy,  tore  out  his  heart  and  gave  it  to  his 
wife  to  eat,  and  now  after  having  learnt  the  inhuman  proceed- 
ings, the  lady,  distracted  with  sorrow  and  despair,  precipitated 
herself  from  one  of  the  windows  of  her  chateau,  thus  putting 
an  end  to  her  existence.  It  is  possible  that  some  of  the  par- 
ticulars of  this  adventure  may  be  poetical  embellishments,  but 
we  have  no  reason  to  contest  its  substance  ;  and  the  only  inci- 
dent, which  I  desire  to  quote  here  and  which  is  the  most  curi- 
ous of  all,  with  reference  to  the  history  of  chivalric  manners,  is 
precisely  the  one,  which  contains  in  itself  the  greatest  degree 
of  historical  probability. 

The  biographer  in  the  first  place  relates  how  the  respective 
parents  of  William  of  Cabestaing  and  of  Sermonde,  seconded 
by  all  the  courtly  chevaliers  of  the  country  and  by  Alphonso 
the  First,  the  then,  reigning  king  of  Aragon,  commenced  a 
common  war  against  Raymond  de  Roussillon,  pillaging  his 
lands  and  destroying  the  chateau,  in  which  the  tragical  event 
had  taken  place.  He  then  informs  us  that  the  remains  of  the 
two  lovers  were,  by  the  order  and  under  the  auspices  of  the 
king,  deposited  in  the  same  tomb,  near  the  door  of  the  church 
of  St.  John  at  Perpignan.  "  And  for  a  long  time  after  this 
event,  all  the  courtly  chevaliers  and  all  the  noble  ladies  of 
Catalonia,  of  Roussillon,  of  Cerdagne,  of  Confolens  and  of  Nar- 
bonnais  were  in  the  habit  of  coming  every  year,  on  the  very- 
day  on  which  they  had  died,  to  perform  a  service  for  their 
souls,  beseeching  Our  Lord  to  have  mercy  upon  them."* 

But  notwithstanding  all  these  traits  of  chivalric  enthusiasm 
and  refinement  in  matters  of  love,  it  must  not  be  imagined 
that  all  the  engagements  between  a  chevalier  and  his  lady  were 
of  so  passionate  and  tender  a  character.  They  were  sometimes, 
and  perhaps  quite  frequently  engagements  of  mere  convenience, 
where  fashion,  usage  and  social  exigencies  had  as  much  or 
even  more  to  do  than  the  desires  and  sympathies  of  love.  But 
even  in  that  event  they  could  still  be  serious  and  respected,  and 
nothing  can  demonstrate  their  habitual  morality  more  conclu- 
sively than  the  fact,  that  they  were  often  independent  of  the 
allurements  of  grace,  of  beauty  or  of  youth.  We  are  ac- 

*  E  fon  ana  longa  sazo  que  tug  li  cortes  carayer  e  las  domnaa  gentilsde  Cataluenlia 
e  de  Rossilho,  e  de  Sardanha,  e  de  Confolen,  e  de  Narbones,  renian  far  cascun  an  anoal 
per  lur  armas  aital  jorn  quan  moriro,  pregan  nostre  senhor  que  lur  agues  merce," 
Raynouard:  vol.  v.,  page  189. — Ed. 


Its  Relations  to  Chivalry.  349 

quainted  with  more  than  one,  in  which  fidelity,  delicacy  and 
devotion  reigned  undisturbed,  and  which  could  nevertheless 
have  been  broken  without  any  grief  or  even  with  a  view  to  a 
new  alliance,  where  the  share  of  desire  or  of  pleasure  would 
have  been  more  complete.  We  perceive  finally — and  the  fact 
appeared  to  me  a  remarkable  one — we  perceive  chevaliers,  who 
are  not  enamored  of  their  ladies  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
term,  when  offended  by  them  and  obliged  to  separate  from 
them,  leaving  them  only  with  regret  and  with  sincere  demon- 
strations of  tenderness  and  respect. 

I  could  adduce  a  variety  of  facts  in  proof  of  what  I  have  just 
advanced ;  it  will  suffice  however  to  mention  one,  which,  as  it 
is  a  very  characteristic  one,  may  take  the  place  of  several 
others. 

Pierre  de  Barjac,  a  knight  of  very  little  distinction  as  a  poet, 
the  friend  and  probably  the  compatriot  of  the  same  William  of 
Balaun,  whose  indiscretion  and  chastisement  I  have  above  re- 
counted, was  chevalier  to  a  noble  lady  of  Javiac,  from  whom 
he  had  obtained  every  lawful  favor.  It  happened,  however, 
one  day  that  this  lady,  who  had  long  been  so  tender  toward 
her  chevalier,  either  out  of  caprice  or  from  some  other  un- 
known motive,  drove  him  off  in  the  most  scandalous  manner, 
declaring  that  she  no  longer  desired  him  as  her  servant.  Pierre 
de  Barjac  withdrew  surprised  and  disconsolate.  But  he  recovered 
his  courage  and  returned  a  few  days  after  with  a  poem,  which 
he  had  composed  as  a  reply  to  the  dismissal  he  had  just  re- 
ceived. The  following  are  the  three  most  remarkable  strophes 
of  this  piece  :  . 

"  My  lady,  I  frankly  approach  you,  to  take  leave  of  you  for- 
ever. Many  thanks  for  whatever  of  your  love  you  have  deigned 
to  permit  me  to  enjoy  as  long  as  it  has  pleased  you.  But  now, 
as  it  pleases  you  no  longer,  it  is  but  just  that  you  should  take 
another  friend,  who  may  suit  you  better  than  myself.  I  do 
not  wish  you  any  ill  for  it.  So  far  from  that,  we  will  remain 
on  excellent  terms,  as  if  nothing  had  occurred  between  us."  * 

"  But  I  shall  always  occupy  my  thoughts  about  your  welfare 
and  your  honor.  These  are  things  to  which  I  cannot  be  in- 
different, and  which  I  wish  to  keep  in  memory.  I  will  serve 
you  therefore  as  I  did  before,  except  that  I  shall  be  your  che- 
valier no  longer.  I  will  release  you  from  the  evening  you 
had  promised  me  when  you  should  have  occasion.  I  regret 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  242. 

"  Tot  francamen,  domna,  veuh  dcnan  vos 
Penre  comjat  per  tos  temps  a  lezer ; 
E  grans  merces,  quar  anc  denhetz  voler 
Qu'  ieu  mi  tengues  per  vostr1  amor  plus  guai."    .    . 


350  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

it ;  but  it  should  have  come  sooner.  The  time  is  passed  when 
I  might  have  been  happy." 

"  Perhaps,  because  you  see  me  sad,  you'll  think  me  no  more 
in  earnest  now  than  I  am  wont  to  be.  But  you  will  soon  be 
convinced  that  what  I  say  is  true." 

"  You  have  chosen,  I  know,  another  love,  a  love  which  will 
disappoint  you.  I,  too,  have  chosen  after  you ;  and  the  object 
of  my  choice  will  guard  my  worth  and  valor.  She  is  on  her 
way  to  youth,  and  you  are  getting  out  of  it.  What  if  her  rank 
is  not  as  high  as  youro  ?  She  is,  on  the  other  hand,  more  beau- 
tiful and  better." 

"  If  our  reciprocal  promise  and  engagement  are  an  obstacle 
to  the  rupture  of  our  love,  let  us  proceed  at  once  to  a  priest. 
Release  me ;  I  will  release  you  too,  and  we  shall  then  be  able, 
each  on  our  part,  to  preserve  our  loves  more  loyally.  If 
ever  I  have  done  aught  to  afflict  you,  forgive  me,  as  I  am  also 
willing  to  forgive  with  joy  ;  for  a  pardon,  which  is  not  granted 
cheerfully,  is  a  worthless  one." 

This  piece  contains,  in  my  opinion,  neither  passion,  nor  love, 
nor  even  much  of  imagination  or  of  sensibility ;  but  it  is  all 
the  more  remarkable  for  this  deficiency.  That  a  chevalier, 
outraged  without  any  cause  by  the  lady  by  whom  he  thought 
himself  beloved,  should  address  her  with  such  consideration, 
with  such  a  mixture  of  tenderness  and  of  regret,  which  he  can 
scarcely  conceal  beneath  the  few  traits  of  spiteful  impatience ; 
that  he  should  thank  her  so  expressly  for  the  favor  she  had  be- 
stowed on  him  by  accepting  him  for  a  time  as  her  servant,  and 
consider  himself  still  and  forever  bound  to  cherish  the  kindest 
regard  for  her  welfare  and  her  honor,  necessarily  implies  on  his 
part  an  exalted  idea  of  the  duties  of  the  knight  to  the  lady  of 
his  choice  ;  and  this  idea  has  here  the  appearance  of  being  not 
so  much  that  of  the  individual,  as  that  of  the  age  and  of  the 
institution  to  which  he  belonged. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Trouladours.  351 


CHAPTER  XYL 

THE  LYRICAL   POETRY   OF  THE  TROUBADOURS. 

I.    AMATORY    POETBY. 
BERNARD     DE     VENTADOUR. 

THOSE  chivalric  ideas  and  manners,  of  which  I  have  given  a 
general  outline  in  the  preceding  chapter,  were  reproduced  and 
developed  in  the  poetry  of  the  Provencals,  under  two  principal 
forms,  the  epic  and  the  lyrical.  I  have  alreadv  had  occasion 
to  remark,  that  this  poetry  was  unacquainted  with  the  dramatic 
form.  I  shall  reserve  for  the  end  of  this  course,  what  I  have 
to  say  concerning  the  Provencal  epopee  proper,  and  concern- 
ing its  connection  with  the  epopee  of  the  middle  age  in 
general.  I  have  already  indicated,  that  I  consider  this  subject 
as  one  of  the  freshest  and  most  important  that  can  at  present 
occupy  the  attention  of  the  historian  of  modern  literature. 

Meanwhile  I  propose  to  treat  of  the  history  of  the  lyrical 
poesy  of  the  Troubadours.  It  comprises  a  great  variety  of 
kinds.  I  will  reduce  them  to  three  principal  species,  to  wit, 
the  satirical,  the  martial,  and  the  amatory ;  and  as  the  last 
of  them  is  more  closely  interwoven  with  the  picture  I  have 
drawn  of  the  system  of  chivalric  galantry  in  the  South  than 
the  other  two,  I  shall  commence  with  it. 

It  is  not  until  the  beginning  of  the  second  half  of  the 
twelfth  century,  from  1150  or  thereabout,  that  the  productions 
of  the  Troubadours,  of  this  last  description,  as  of  every  other, 
begin  to  be  sufficiently  numerous  and  consecutive  to  admit  of 
methodical  discussion  in  a  systematic  course  of  history.  And 
yet,  all  that  precedes  this  epoch,  incomplete  and  obscure  as  it 
is,  is  nevertheless  far  from  being  destitute  of  interest,  when 
viewed  in  its  connection  with  the  rest.  It  is  on  these  antece- 
dents that  I  shall  first  endeavor  to  shed  some  light. 

Of  the  prodigious  number  of  Troubadours,  who  flourished 
during  the  two  centuries  of  Provencal  poesy  (from  1090  to 


352  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

1300),  there  are  scarcely  five  (we  except  the  Count  of  Poitiers) 
that  can  be  said  to  belong  to  the  first  half  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, as  far  at  least  as  the  time  of  their  greatest  celebrity  is 
concerned.  But  there  is  scarcely  a  doubt  but  that  these  five 
Troubadours  flourished  in  the  midst  of  many  others,  whose 
names  and  works  are  now  lost.  The  entire  history,  therefore, 
of  the  Provencal  poetrv  of  the  eleventh  century  until  1150,  is 
thus  reduced  to  the  little  we  can  know  of  their  lives  and  works ; 
a  circumstance  which  gives  them  a  particular  importance,  in- 
dependently of  their  intrinsic  merit. 

The  Troubadours  in  question  are  Cercamons,  Marcabrus,  Pierre 
de  Yaleira,  Pierre  d'Auvergne,  and  Giraud,  or  Guiraudos  le 
Roux,  of  Toulouse.  In  speaking  of  them  successively,  I  shall 
principally  dwell  on  the  particulars  by  which  their  life  is  linked 
to  the  general  history  of  their  art. 

CERCAMONS.  Of  these  five  Troubadours,  Cercamons  is  un- 
doubtedly the  most  ancient.  The  precise  data  for  fixing  the 
epoch  of  his  birth  are  wanting  ;  all  that  we  know  of  him,  how- 
ever, authorizes  us  to  put  it  very  near  the  commencement  of 
the  twelfth  century  (from  1100  to  1110).  Cercamons  must  thus 
have  been  for  some  time  yet  the  contemporary  of  William  IX., 
the  count  of  Poitiers. 

The  Provencal  traditions  concerning  him  are  very  succinct ; 
they  inform  us,  that  he  was  from  Gascony,  and  a  Jongleur  by 
profession  ;  that  his  name  Cercamons,  in  French  Chtrchemonde, 
was  merely  a  sort  of  nom  de  guerre,  a  poetical  sobriquet,  to 
designate  his  predilection  for  a  vagabond  life,  and  tne  pre- 
tension he  made  of  having  visited  a  great  part  of  the  world 
^  at  that  time  considered  accessible  to  adventurers.*  On  the 
vignettes  of  the  old  manuscripts  he  is  also  represented  in  the 
costume  of  a  traveller  and  as  journeying,  his  tucked-up  tunic 
fastened  around  his  belt,  a  long  staff  across  his  shoulder,  and  at 
one  of  the  extremities  of  the  staff  his  trifling  baggage  for  the 
route. 

In  the  Provencal  manuscripts  there  are  but  four  or  five  pieces 
by  him,  all  of  the  amatory  kind,  all  in  honor  of  some  unknown 
lady  of  high  rank,  whom  he  adored  or  pretended  to  adore. 
These  pieces  are  too  indifferent  to  bear  translation ;  they  contain 
nothing  original,  either  in  matter  or  in  form  ;  they  are  manifestly 
nothing  more  than  a  refusion,  a  sort  of  patchwork  combination 
of  the  commonplaces  of  chivalric  poetry  and  gallantry,  already 
in  vogue  in  his  time,  and  before  him. 

A  proof  of  the  small  celebrity  of  these  poems  is  found  in  the 

*  The  Provencal  account  found  in  Raynouard,  vol.  v.,  p.  112,  consists  only  of  a  few 
lines  :  "  Cercamons  si  fos  uns  Joglars  de  Gascoingna,  e  trobet  vers  e  pastoretas  a  la 
usanza  antiga.  E  cerquet  tot  lo  mon  lai  on  poc  anar,  e  per  BO  fez  fie  dire  Cercamons," 
— Ed, 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  353 

fact,  that  they  are  not  included  among  the  works  which  the 
Provencal  traditions  attribute  to  Cercamons.  These  traditions 
make  mention  of  the  Troubadour  in  question  only  as  the  author 
of  verses  composed,  as  they  say,  in  the  antique  style,  and  espe- 
cially of  pastorals,  designated  in  the  Provencal  by  the  name  of 
Pastoretas.  This  notice,  although  somewhat  vague,  does  not 
on  that  account  cease  to  be  extremely  interesting.  It  furnishes 
us  an  additional  proof  in  support  of  a  fact,  which  I  believe  I 
have  already  established,  but  on  which  it  is  important  to  shed 
as  much  light  as  possible.  These  versified  pieces  in  the  ancient 
style,  these  pastorals  attributed  to  Cercamons,  on  which  he  ap- 
pears to  have  principally  founded  his  poetic  renown,  belong 
undoubtedly  to  the  system  of  popular  poetry  anterior  to  that  of 
the  Troubadours ;  and  it  was,  to  all  appearances,  not  until  he 
was  well  advanced  in  life,  and  only  for  the  purpose  of  yielding 
to  the  ascendant  of  the  new  poetry  of  the  chivalric  type,  that 
Cercamons  composed  these  pieces  of  gallantry,  the  only  pro- 
ductions of  his  pen  that  have  come  down  to  us. 

MARCABKUS. — After  Cercamons,  Marcabrus  is  the  most  an- 
cient of  the  Troubadours,  known  to  have  flourished  during  the 
interval  from  the  death  of  the  count  of  Poitiers  (1127)  to  1150. 
This  Marcabrus  was  a  personage  of  original  mind  ana  charac- 
ter, concerning  whom  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  we  possess  not 
more  ample  and  more  reliable  sources  of  information.  The 
traditions,  existing  in  regard  to  him,  appear  to  emanate  from 
two  different  sources,  and  they  vary  on  some  points,  but  on 
points  of  comparatively  small  importance. 

According  to  some,  Marcabrus  was  an  orphan,  of  whom  no 
one  ever  knew  either  the  parents  or  the  place  of  birth.  A 
castellan  of  Gascony,  Aldric  du  Yilar,  before  whose  door  he 
had  been  exposed,  had  him  brought  up  and  carefully  educated. 
Arrived  at  an  age  when  he  could  follow  the  bent  of  his  own 
taste  and  choose  a  profession,  Marcabrus  chanced  to  fall  in 
with  Cercamons,  the  Jongleur,  of  whom  I  have  just  spoken.  On 
this  occasion,  his  instinct  for  the  life  of  a  poetic  adventurer 
burst  out  all  of  a  sudden ;  he  attached  himself  to  the  service 
of  Cercamons,  for  the  purpose  of  learning  of  him  music  and 
the  art  of  verses,  the  art  of  finding  (Part  de  trouver),  as  it  was 
then  called.* 

He  wandered  about  the  world  for  some  time  with  this  master,, 
under  the  burlesque  nickname  of  Pan-perdut,  which  at  a 
later  date  he  exchanged  for  the  name  of  Marcabrus,  by  which 
he  was  destined  to  be  known  permanently  thereafter.  It  was 
not  long  before  he  had  made  himself  a  reputation  and  ene- 
mies by  his  satiric  verses  and  by  his  caustic  invectives  against 

*  Compare  Raynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  251.— Ed. 
23 


354  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

the  nobles  of  his  age.  The  castellans  of  Guienne,  of  whom  it 
appears  he  had  said  many  hard  things,  conspired  to  revenge 
themselves  on  him,  and  deprived  him  of  his  life,  but  when  or 
where,  or  how  this  was  accomplished,  does  not  appear. 

Such  are  the  most  precise,  and  consequently  the  most  plau- 
sible traditions  concerning  Marcabrus.  Other  traditions,  easily 
reconciled  with  the  former  and  likewise  collected  in  the  thir- 
teenth century,  represent  Marcabrus  as  the  son  of  a  poor 
woman,  Bruna  by  name,  without  making  any  mention  of  his 
father,  and  speak  of  him  as  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  Trouba- 
dours, whose  memory  was  at  that  time  yet  alive.* 

Another  notice,  finally,  which,  it  seems  to  me,  should  be  re- 
garded as  the  title  or  rubric  of  the  pieces  of  Marcabrus  in 
some  ancient  manuscript,  is  couched  in  these  terms:  "Here 
beginneth  that  which  Marcabrus  hath  made,  who  was  the  first 
of  all  the  Troubadours."  f  This  testimony  must  not  be  taken 
literally.  But  in  combining  these  diverse  notices,  and  rectify- 
ing the  one  by  the  aid  of  the  other,  there  remains  no  doubt  as 
to  Marcabrus'  place  in  the  chronological  list  of  the  Troubadours. 
He  should  figure  there  as  the  third,  consequently  after  William 
of  Poitiers  and  Cercamons.  He  was  in  all  probability  born 
toward  the  year  1120 ;  that  he  lived  until  1147  is  evident  from 
certain  pieces  of  his,  wherein  he  makes  allusion  to  the  events  of 
this  year.  In  fine,  it  is  very  probable  that  he  outlived  the  year 
1150.  He  frequented  the  Christian  courts  beyond  the  Pyre- 
nees, particularly  that  of  Portugal,  and  he  is  the  only  one  of  the 
Troubadours  who  is  positively  known  to  have  visited  the  latter. 

There  are  from  his  pen  from  forty  to  fifty  pieces  in  verse, 
some  of  which  are  of  unusual  length.  But  the  traditions,  which 
I  have  just  cited,  make  but  a  fugitive  and  disdainful  mention 
of  all  these  pieces. 

To  explain  this  disdain  is  neither  difficult  nor  unprofitable. 
The  verses  of  Marcabrus  contain  many  allusions  to  the  ideas 
and  maxims  of  chivalric  gallantry,  but  these  allusions  are,  for 
the  most  part,  indirect,  fugitive  and  disinterested.  Not  only 
was  Marcabrus  never  in  love,  not  only  does  he  never  pretend 
to  be  so,  but  he  piques  himself  on  his  exemption  from  the  ten- 
der passion,  and  he  more  than  once  unmasks,  with  a  somewhat 
cynic  freedom,  the  corruption  of  his  age,  too  often  but  poorly 
concealed  beneath  the  external  show  of  knightly  gallantry.  In 
fine,  considering  the  tone,  the  form  and  the  sentiments  of  these 
pieces,  we  perceive  that  they  belong  at  least  as  much  to  the 

*  "Marcabrus  si  fo  de  Gascoingna,  fils  d'una  paubra  femna  que  ac  nom  Maria  Bruna, 
si  com  el  dis  en  son  cantar." — Ed. 

t "  Aisi  comensa  so  de  Marcabrus  que  fo  lo  premier  trobador  que  fos."  Of  the  poetry 
of  this  Marcabrus  there  are  yet  about  forty  pieces  extant. — Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  355 

ancient  popular  poetry  as  to  the  new  poetry  of  the  courts  and 
castles,-  and  this  is  more  than  enough  to  account  for  the  indiffer- 
ence with  which  they  were  regarded  in  the  thirteenth  century. 
But  when  we-  come  to  treat  of  the  Provencal  satires,  the  class 
of  poetic  compositions  to  which  most  of  the  pieces  in  question 
belong,  we  shall  see  that  they  are  far  from  deserving  the  con- 
tempt of  which  they  were  the  object.  We  shall  become  con- 
vinced that  they  are  possessed  of  beauties,  depending  upon  those 
very  characteristics  which  distinguish  them  from  the  productions 
of  contemporary  Troubadours. 

PIERRE  DE  VALEIRA. — This  poet  was  a  native  of  Gascony,  as 
well  as  Marcabrus,  and  flourished  nearly  at  the  same  time. 
None  of  his  writings  have  come  down  to  us,  except  two  indiffer- 
ent pieces  of  the  gallant  sort,  in  which  there  is  nothing  worth 
our  notice.  All  that  can  be  said  concerning  Pierre  de  Yaleira, 
of  any  interest,  is,  that  the  Provencal  traditions  put  him  in  the 
same  category  with  Cercamons  and  Marcabrus,*  that  is  to  say, 
in  the  category  of  those,  whom  they  represent  as  having  labored 
chiefly  in  the  field  of  poetry  at  that  time  already  superannuated 
and  abandoned,  in  consequence  of  which  they  were  rather 
semi-Troubadours  than  real  ones,  still  blending,  as  they  did,  un- 
consciously the  freedom,  the  simplicity  and  the  popular  tone 
of  the  ancient  poetry  with  the  ideas,  the  refinements  and  the 
exigencies  of  the  new. 

It  is  not  useless  to  observe,  that  the  three  personages,  of  whom 
I  have  just  spoken,  were  all  from  the  same  country,  from  Gas- 
cony,  that  is  to  say,  from  a  country,  the  vulgar  idiom  of  which 
differed  from  the  literary  idiom  of  the  Troubadours.  It  follows 
from  their  having  written  in  the  latter  idiom,  that  they  must 
have  learned  it  systematically,  as  a  foreign  dialect.  This  is  an 
incontestable  proof,  that  the  cradle  of  the  poetry  of  the  Trouba- 
dours was  not  in  Gascony,  any  more  than  in  Poitou,  where  we 
have  convinced  ourselves  that  it  was  not.  It  is  a  new  proof, 
that  long  before  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century  this  poe- 
try of  the  Troubadours,  wherever  may  have  been  the  place 
of  its  birth,  had  since  its  origin  spread  throughout  the  adjacent 
countries,  which  had  adopted  and  cultivated  it  as  their  own.  ^ 

Lastly,  the  three  personages  under  consideration  were  Jong- 
leurs by  profession.  There  is  no  doubt,  but  that,  since  they 
made  verses,  they  also  sang  them  in  their  poetical  tours,  but 
there  is  also  no  doubt,  but  that,  in  order  to  exercise  their  pro- 
fession with  success  and  eclat,  it  was  necessary  for  them  to  know 
by  heart  many  more  verses  than  they  themselves  had  composed 

*  Joglars  fo  el  temps  et  en  la  sazon  que  fo  Marcabrus ;  e  fez  vers  tals  com  horn  fazia 
adoncs,  de  paubra  valor,  de  foillas  e  de  flora,  e  de  cans  e  de  ausels.  Sei  cantar  non 
aguen  gran  valor  ni  el.— Raynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  333.— Ed. 


356  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

or  could  compose.  It  is,  moreover,  extremely  probable,  that 
the  greater  part  of  the  pieces,  which  these  Jongleurs  knew  and 
recited,  belonged  to  the  new  poetry,  and  that  they  consisted  of 
gongs  and  rhapsodies,  consecrated  to  the  expression  of  the  sen- 
timents and  ideas  of  knightly  gallantry.  These  ideas  and  sen- 
timents then  must  (or  at  any  rate  might  be  expected  to)  have 
spread,  from  the  first  half  of  the  twelfth  century,  in  those  coun- 
tries which  the  Jongleurs  in  question  had  visited,  that  is  to  say, 
in  Spain,  in  Portugal,  and  very  probably  in  Italy  and  in  the 
north  of  France. 

PIERRE  D' AUVERGNE. — Peter  of  Auvergne,  the  fourth  of  the 
Troubadours  in  the  order  of  time,  who  flourished  exclusively  or 
principally  during  the  first  half  of  the  twelfth  century,  is  the 
first  ot  them  known  as  having  won  an  extensive  celebrity  as  a 
poet.  lie  distinguished  himself  in  his  art  by  successful  innova- 
tions, and  he  may  be  regarded  as  the  founder  of  a  new  school, 
the  influence  of  which  maintained  itself  until  the  premature  ex- 
tinction of  Provencal  poetry.  Such  a  merit  entitles  him  to 
some  attention  in  the  history  of  this  poetry,  however  compen- 
dious and  philosophical  may  be  its  method. 

Peter  of  Auvergne  was  not  much  later  than  Marcabrus  and 
Peter  of  Yaleira.  He  must  have  been  born  between  1120 
and  1130,  in  all  probability  nearer  the  first  than  the  second  of 
these  terms.  He  was  the  son  of  a  citizen  of  Clermont,  who  had 
him  educated  under  distinguished  masters,  from  whom  he 
learnt  letters,  that  is  to  say,  the  Latin,  by  the  aid  of  which  he 
appears  to  have  acquired  a  superficial  knowledge  of  some  Ro- 
man authors  of  prose  or  verse.  He  soon  applied  himself  to  the 
study  of  Provencal  poetry,  and  attained  to  a  reputation  which 
procured  him  the  most  flattering  reception  in  the  different 
countries  where  this  poetry  was  already  in  vogue.  Among  the 
courts  which  he  is  known  to  have  visited  are  those  of  the  kings 
of  Castile,  of  the  dukes  of  Normandy,  and  of  the  counts  of 
Provence,  those  of  Narbonne  and  of  Melgueul,  and  many 
others  unknown. 

Peter  of  Auvergne  lived  to  a  very  advanced  age,  and  it  is  on 
this  account  that  the  epithet  vieux  (old)  is  sometimes  appended 
to  his  name.  A  piece  is  attributed  to  him,  in  which  allusion  is 
made  to  the  events  of  1214,  an  epoch  at  which  he  must  have 
been  upward  of  eighty  years  of  age.  It  is  possible,  however, 
that  his  name  was  attached  to  this  piece  by  a  sort  of  error  very 
common  in  the  Provencal  manuscripts. 

These  manuscripts  contain  twenty-five  or  thirty  pieces  from 
his  pen ;  and  these  constitute  the  only  standard  by  which  we 
can  judge  of  the  extent  to  which  he  merited  his  high  reputa- 
tion. "  Peter  of  Auvergne  was  the  first  Troubadour  of  any 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  357 

merit  beyond  the  mountain,"  says  his  ancient  biographer  ;  and 
he  adds  immediately  after,  "  he  was  the  most  excellent  Trouba- 
dour in  the  world,  until  Giraud  de  Borneil  appeared."*  Judg- 
ing from  the  data  which  are  left  us  to  determine  the  value  of 
this  decision,  it  seems  to  me  to  be  difficult  to  entertain,  and  im- 
possible to  confirm  it. 

The  innovations  by  which  Peter  of  Auvergne  signalized  him- 
self as  Troubadour  were  of  two  sorts.    They  affected  both  the 
musical  and  the  poetical  part  of  his  art,  the  diction  and  the 
versification.     The  music  which  he  adapted  to  one  of  his  pieces, 
commencing  with  a  verse,  which  signifies :  "  Short  days  are  \ 
followed  by  long  nights" f  is  said  to  have  produced  an  ex-  \ 
traordinary  sensation  by  its  novelty,  and  to  have  been  the  I 
signal  of  a  veritable  revolution  in  that  branch  of  the  art. 
The  necessary  information  is  totally  wanting  to  characterize 
this  revolution ;  all  that  can  be  said  of  it  is,  that  it  must  have 
had  some  analogy  with  that  accomplished  at  the  same  time 
and  by  the  same  Troubadour  in  the  poetic  diction  of  his  pre- 
decessors. 

From  1140  to  1150,  the  interval,  during  which  we  may  sup- 
pose, with  the  highest  degree  of  probability,  that  Peter  wrote 
his  best  pieces,  more  than  a  century  had  already  elapsed  since 
the  language  of  the  Troubadours  had  become  .grammatically 
fixed,  being  already  precise,  rich,  and  tolerably  pliant  to  the 
niceties  of  sentiment  and  thought. 

The  poets  had  already  been  accustomed  to  invest  their  expres- 
sions with  certain  ornaments ;  they  had  already  felt  the  neces- 
sity of  striking  the  ear  agreeably.  But  up  to  that  time  they 
had  hardly  followed  any  other  law  in  these  attempts  than  that 
of  the  natural  instinct  left  to  itself  alone,  and  their  diction  was 
yet  generally  barren  and  devoid  of  grace,  monotonous  and 
tedious. 

Peter  of  Auvergne  introduced  more  pretension  and  more 
science  into  his ;  he  aimed  more  earnestly  than,  his  predecessors 
at  precision,  variety  and  force ;  he  was  bolder  and  more  figura* 
tive  than  they.  Several  of  his  pieces  abound  in  metaphors, 
which  one  might  be  tempted  to  regard  as  emanations  from  the 
genius  of  the  Arabs.  He  endeavored  to  Latinize  the  Provencal, 
and  re-introduced  into  it  words  and  terms  of  expression  which 
to  all  appearances  had  long  before  him  disappeared  from  the 

*  "  Peire  d' Alvernhe  . . .  fo  lo  premiers  bon  trobaire  que  fo  el  mon  en  aquel  temp?.  . . 
Et  era  tengutz  per  lo  meillor  trobador  del  mon,  tro  que  vene  Guirautz  de  Borneill." 
Baynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  291 — Ed. 

t "  De  josta'ls  breus  jorns  e'ls  loncs  sers." 

The  biograpker  here  adds :  "  Canson  no  fetz  neguna,  car  en  aquel  temps  negus  can- 
tars  no  s'apellava  cansos,  mas  vers :  mas  pueis  EN  Guirautz  de  Borneill  fetz  la  primiera 
cans  on  que  anc  fos  faita." — Ed. 


358  History  of  Provencal  Pozfrry. 

idioms  of  Gaul.  In  fine,  if  any  one  wanted  to  search  for  the 
earliest  specimens,  or  at  any  rate  for  the  earliest  well  charac- 
terized examples  of  an  artistic  diction  in  the  modern  literature 
of  Europe,  of  a  diction  aiming  at  a  definite  effect,  at  an  effect 
distinct  from  the  sentiment  or  the  idea  it  expresses,  he  would 
have  to  look  for  these  attempts  or  these  examples  in  the  poems 
of  Peter  of  Auvergne. 

This  constitutes,  however,  the  greatest  merit  of  this  Trouba- 
dour ;  he  lacks  imagination  and  sensibility.  Like  all  his  pre- 
decessors, and  in  compliance  with  the  taste  and  manners  of  his 
age,  he  composed  songs  on  chivalric  love ;  but  one  might  look 
in  vain  for  a  shadow  of  individuality  in  these  songs  ;  allis  there 
general  and  abstract,  a  studied  effort  to  give  a  little  more  so- 
lemnity and  energy  to  the  conventional  formulas  of  chivalric 
love  is  conspicuous  throughout.* 

I  shall  not,  therefore,  attempt  to  give  an  idea  of  the  pieces  of 
Peter  of  Auvergne.  The  matter  is  not  sufficiently  interesting 
to  attract  attention,  or  even  to  deserve  it.  In  regard  to  the 
form,  which  constitutes  the  original  and  curious  part  of  these 
compositions,  its  reproduction  in  another  language  would  re- 
quire a  deal  of  labor  and  license  disproportionate  to  the  result. 
it  is  only  for  the  purpose  of  avoiding  to  offer  a  celebrated 
Troubadour  the  affront  of  producing  him  entirely  mute,  that  I 
shall  cite  from  him  some  isolated  fragments,  which,  in  default 
of  entire  pieces  or  longer  extracts,  may  yet  give  some  idea  of 
his  taste  and  style. 

Here  is,  for  example,  the  first  stanza  of  one  of  his  pieces,  in 
which  with  a  singularly  curious  mixture  of  naivete*  and  pe- 
dantry he  declares  his  pretension  to  originality,  and  in  which 
this  originality  of  his  makes  itself  apparent  in  several  traits  : 

"  I  will  sing,  since  sing  I  must,  a  new  song,  which  resounds 
within  my  breast.  'Tis  not  without  much  torment  and  fatigue, 
that  I  have  acquired  the  power  to  sing,  so  that  my  song  may 
resemble  that  of  no  one  else.  For  never  song  was  good  or 
beautiful,  which  was  the  likeness  of  another." 

*  Pierre  d'Auver^ne  frequently  expresses  a  consciousness  of  his  own  ability  and  po- 
sition in  his  art.  Says  his  biographer  :  "Mout  se  lauzava  en  sos  cantars  e  blasmava 
los  autres  trobadors,  si  qu'el  dis  en  una  copla  d'un  sirventes  qu'el  fes  : 

Peire  d'Alvernhe  a  tal  votz 
Que  cant  a  de  sobr*  e  de  sotz, 
E  siei  sons  son  dous  e  plazen : 
E  pois  es  maiestre  de  totz, 
Ab  q'un  pauc  esolarzis  sos  mots, 
Qu'  a  penas  nulls  horn  los  entcn." 

In  this  sirvente  (Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  197)  he  passes  in  review  a  dozen  other  Trou- 
badours, on  whose  merits  and  demerits  he  descants  without  the  least  reserve.  Of  the 
amatory  chansons  of  Pierre  we  only  find  one  in  the  collection  of  Raynouard  (vol.  iii.  p. 
327).  Of  his  sirventes.  pieces  on  the  crusades,  tensons,  etc.,  there  are  several  in  vol. 
iv.— Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  359 

I  have  alluded  to  the  oriental  boldness  of  his  metaphors,  of 
which  I  here  subjoin  two  or  three  examples : 

"  Since  the  air  is  now  renewed  (breathes  softer  now),"  says 
he  at  the  close  of  one  of  his  strains,  "  my  heart  must  also  be 
renewed,  and  that  which  germinates  within  must  put  its  buds 
and  blossoms  out." 

In  a  description  of  spring  he  speaks  of  the  nightingale,  which 
"  shines  resplendent  on  the  bough." 

In  another  picture  of  the  same  kind  he  says,  that  the  serene 
air,  the  warbling  birds,  the  newly  budding  foliage  and  flowers 
in  their  bloom  taught  him  to  gather  facile  verses.  Willing 
to  avow,  like  many  other  Troubadours  before  and  after  him, 
that  love  is  the  principle  of  every  good,  he  says  that  "  a  man 
without  love  is  worth  no  more  than  the  spike  without  grain." 

The  pieces  of  the  amatorv  kind  constitute,  however,  the 
minority  among  the  poems  of  Peter  of  Auvergne,  the  greater 
part  of  them  being  either  religious  or  satirical.  They  present 
traits  worthy  of  being  cited,  but  this  is  not  the  place  for  them. 
I  shall  have  occasion  to  resume  the  subject  elsewhere,  if  there 
is  room  for  it,  and  I  now  pass  to  the  fifth  of  the  Troubadours, 
known  to  have  written  before  the  year  1150. 

GlRAUD    (GUIRAUD    OB    GuiRAUDOS)    SUKNAMED    LE  RoUX. All 

that  is  known  concerning  him  is  what  the  Prorengal  tradi- 
tion tells  us,  and  this  amounts  to  very  little.  He  was  a  native 
of  Toulouse,  the  son  of  a  poor  chevalier,  and  entered  quite 
young  the  service  of  the  count  of  Toulouse,  his  liege,  Al- 
phonse  Jourdain,  the  youngest  son  of  Raimond  de  Saint-Gilles, 
of  whom  I  have  already  spoken  in  connection  with  the  count 
of  Poitiers. 

"  Giraud  le  Roux  was  courteous  and  an  excellent  singer," 
says  his  ancient  biographer;  he  became  enamored  of  the 
countess,  the  daughter  of  his  seignior,  and  the  love  he  bore 
her  taught  him  to  write  verses.* 

Alphonse  Jourdain  had,  as  far  as  we  know,  but  one  daughter, 
and  this  was  a  natural  daughter,  whose  mother  is  nowhere 
mentioned.  To  all  appearances  she  was  educated  at  the  palace 
of  her  father,  and  it  is  of  her  that  Giraud  became  enamored, 
it  is  on  her  account  that  he  became  a  poet. 

From  1120,  when  he  recovered  his  estates  from  "William  of 
Poitiers,  to  1147,  when  he  departed  for  the  second  crusade 
(from  which  he  never  returned),  Alphonse  Jourdain  had  resided 
at  Toulouse  without  any  interruption.  He  took  his  daughter 

*  Girandos  lo  Bos  si  fo  de  Tollosa,  fills  d'  un  paubre  cavalier ;  e  venc  en  la  cort  de 
son  seingnor  lo  comte  Anfos  per  servir ;  e  fon  cortes  e  ben  chantans  ;  ot  enamoret  se 
de  la  comtessa,  filla  de  son  seingnor;  e  1' amors  qu'el  ac  en  leis  1'enseignet  a  trobar,  e 
fetz  manias  cansos. — Of  this  poet  there  are  five  pieces  of  the  amatory  sort  published  in 
Rayno«ard,  vol.  iii.  p.  5-14.  The  MSS.  contain  only  seven  pieces  from  his  pen. — Ed.. 


360  History  of  Provencal  Poebry. 

with  him  to  Syria,  where  she  met  with  the  strangest  adven- 
tures. Having,  in  the  first  place,  become  prisoner  to  the  cele- 
brated Noureddin,  prince  of  Aleppo,  she  ended  by  becoming  his 
gpouse,  survived  him,  and  in  the  capacity  of  guardian  to  a  son, 
which  she  had  borne  to  Noureddin,  sne  governed  the  little 
kingdom  of  Aleppo  for  some  time. 

Giraud  le  Koux  was  in  the  service  of  the  count  of  Toulouse 
during  the  interval  between  1120  and  1147,  and  if  we  wish  to 
restrict  this  interval  to  the  time,  when  Giraud  could  have  made 
verses  for  the  young  princess,  it  may  be  reduced  to  the  seven 
years  that  elapsed  between  1140  and  1147. 

The  exact  date  at  which  Giraud  le  Koux  retired  from  the 
court  of  Toulouse  is  not  known  ;  perhaps  it  was  when  Count 
Alphonse  and  his  daughter  took  their  departure  for  the  cru- 
sade. Certain  it  is,  however,  that  he  did  not  follow  them  to 
Syria. 

It  appears  from  a  couplet  of  a  satire  on  him,  that  he  left 
Toulouse  and  his  princess,  for  the  purpose  of  rambling  freely 
about  the  world  in  the  capacity  of  Jongleur,  singing  his  own 
verses  and  those  of  others  to  all  who  wanted  to  hear  them. 

Of  all  the  Troubadours,  thus  far  enumerated,  Giraud  is  the 
only  one,  of  whom  none  but  amatory  pieces  are  known  to  us, 
who  sung  for  love  alone,  and  concerning  whom  we  are  sure, 
that  the  lady  he  adored  was  not  an  imaginary  personage.  There 
are  but  seven  of  his  pieces  now  extant.  Of  all  the  poetic  com- 
positions of  which  I  nave  thus  far  spoken,  his  are  incontestably 
those  which  enter  into  the  spirit  and  system  of  chivalric  gal- 
lantry with  more  delicacy  and  variety,  with  more  grace  and 
freedom  than  any  other.  But  still  I  do  not  yet  find  in  them 
enough  of  indiviauality  or  talent  to  include  them  among  the 
number  of  those,  to  which  I  consider  myself  bound  to  adhere, 
and  on  which  I  can  rely  in  giving  a  summary  idea  of  the  kind. 

I  shall  now  proceed  rapidly  to  recapitulate  with  some  general 
observations  me  period  of  the  history  of  Provencal  poetry, 
which  I  have  just  surveyed. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  eleventh  century,  when  it  com- 
mences for  us,  to  an  epoch  bordering  on  1150,  the  poetry  of  the 
Troubadours,  properly  so  called,  although  already  dominant 
throughout  the  South,  was  still  not  yet  completely  disengaged 
from  the  old  popular  poetry,  which  still  continued  to  exist  and 
independently  of  the  former. 

I  have  already  remarked,  and  I  think  I  may  repeat  it,  that 
the  monuments  which  are  left  us  of  both  these  kinds  of  poetry 
are  evidently  very  incomplete.  During  the  interval  above  in- 
dicated, there  were  other  Troubadours  or  semi-Troubadours 
besides  those,  which  I  have  mentioned ;  and  in  regard  to  the 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  361 

latter,  it  is  an  established  fact,  that  we  possess  but  the  smallest 
portion  of  their  works.  It  would  seem,  that  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  when  collections  of  the  pieces  of  the  Troubadours 
began  to  be  made,  the  most  ancient  of  these  poems  were  al- 
ready lost  or  slighted,  so  that  they  could  not  gain  admission 
into  those  collections. 

However,  the  amatory  pieces  yet  extant  of  the  first  half  of 
the  twelfth  century  may  in  all  probability  supply  the  place  of 
those  that  are  lost,  and  suffice  to  give  us  an  idea  of  the  general 
character  and  tone  of  this  branch  of  Provencal  poetry  at  the 
epoch  in  question. 

The  ideas  of  chivalry  and  of  knightly  gallantry  were  then  still 
in  their  prime  of  novelty ;  the  enthusiasm,  with  which  they  were 
received,  was  yet  in  its  first  fervor.  General,  monotonous  and 
abstract  as  was  its  poetical  expression,  it  still  pleased  and 
charmed,  as  the  expression  of  a  new  mode  of  being  and  of 
thinking ;  it  pleased  by  its  generality  even.  At  the  first  mo- 
ments of  their  ascendency,  these  noble  ideas,  which  tended  to 
make  love  the  motive  to  glory  and  to  virtue,  controlled  all  the 
individualities  of  sentiment  and  character,  and  left  them  but  a 
slender  chance  for  development.  In  order  to  discourse  well  of 
love,  it  was  enough  to  dream  on  it  nobly  and  purely,  according 
to  certain  established  conventions,  so  that  an  ideal  lady  inspired 
the  poet  quite  as  much,  and  better  perhaps,  than  a  real  one ; 
in  fact,  there  was  less  risk  in  falling  short  of  the  rigorous  re- 
quirements of  theory. 

With  the  beginning  of  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century, 
the  poesy  of  chivalric  love  began  to  assume  the  phases  of  deve- 
lopment and  character,  by  means  of  which  it  was  enabled  to 
fulfill  more  or  less  the  conditions  of  the  art.  At  that  time  a 
prodigious  number  of  poets  sprung  up,  all  at  once,  who, 
though  profiting  by  the  lessons  of  their  predecessors  and 
adopting  their  ideas,  were  yet  impressed  with  the  necessity  of 
putting  more  art,  more  variety,  and  more  novelty  into  their 
compositions. 

But  the  task  was  not  without  its  difficulties.  This  chivalric 
love  was  circumscribed  by  certain  factitious  limits ;  it  was 
subject  to  a  conventional  ceremonial ;  it  announced  itself  in 
formulas,  which  had  something  officially  established  and  con- 
sequently incomplete.  These  conditions  were  so  many  obsta- 
cles, which  excluded  from  the  poetry  destined  to  delineate  that 
love,  the  variety  which  naturally  results  from  the  free  play  of 
the  passions,  from  the  innumerable  incidents  of  life  and  human 
destiny.  There  is  therefore  still  necessarily  a  great  deal  of 
monotony  in  the  Troubadours  of  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth 
century. 


362  History  of  Provencal  Poefry. 

Nevertheless,  the  chivalric  love  considered  as  it  was  or 
aimed  to  be,  had  its  poetic  sides,  and  among  so  many  poets, 
all  of  whom  sought  their  glory  in  experiencing  and  singing  it, 
there  were  to  be  found  some  of  greater  originality  of  talent, 
whose  individuality  broke  through  the  barriers  of  common- 
place and  the  systematic  generalities  of  knightly  gallantry  ; 
and  it  is  on  the  authority  of  these  alone,  that  I  have  thought  I 
might  give  an  exposition  of  the  amatory  poetry  of  the  Trou- 
badours without  becoming  either  too  monotonous  or  too  des- 
titute of  novelty  and  interest.  But  before  entering  on  this  ex- 
position I  must  premise  a  few  observations,  without  which  it 
might  appear  too  incomplete  and  vague. 

When  we  shall  have  acquired  an  adequate  conception  of  the 
different  elements  and  the  different  kinds  of  Provencal  poetry, 
we  shall  perceive  many  characteristic  peculiarities,  which  de- 
pend on  its  material  organization,  and  which  can  only  be 
appreciated  in  connection  with  the  latter.  Such  is,  for  ex- 
ample, the  to  us  somewhat  monotonous  perseverance,  with 
which  the  Troubadours  interweave  their  pictures  of  love  with 
the  charms  and  beauties  of  nature  at  its  revival  in  spring.  Now 
this  taste  is,  in  a  great  measure,  accounted  for  by  the  mode  of 
life  led  by  this  class  of  men. 

I  A  Troubadour  was  accustomed  to  pass  the  whole  of  the  fair 
season  away  from  home,  and  very  frequently  at  a  great  dis- 
tance from  it.  Alone,  if  he  was  obscure  and  indigent,  in  com- 
pany with  one  or  two  other  Jongleurs,  if  he  was  rich  and 
renowned,  he  went  from  castle  to  castle,  from  country  to 
country,  seeking  and  finding  everywhere  both  old  and  new 
admirers.  His  was  a  life  of  perpetual  excitement,  a  life  of 
constant  expectation  and  of  triumph.  Every  stoppage  on  his 
journey  was  a  festival,  of  which  he  was  the  soul,  and  at  which 

*  ne  was  the  honored  guest  of  the  occasion. 

With  the  approach  of  winter,  all  this  was  changed.  .Returned 
to  his  own  fireside,  the  Troubadour  relapsed  into  the  difficulties 
and  the  obscurity  of  ordinary  life.  He  was  now  obliged  to  set 
v  to  work  most  laboriously,  he  had  to  compose  new  songs  for  the 
next  poetical  campaign.  The  winter  was  to  him  of  necessity 
a  time  of  toil  and  ennui ;  and  that  spring,  for  the  return  of 
which  he  watched  so  anxiously,  had  for  him  another  charm 
aside  from  that  of  nature.  It  was  the  moment,  when  he  was 
destined  to  recommence  his  favorite  enjoyments,  when  he  was 
going  to  experience  the  delightful  sensation  of  a  life  entirely 
new.  Hence  the  enthusiasm,  with  which  these  men,  already 
very  sensible  to  the  effects  of  their  beautiful  climate,  celebrated 
the  return  of  spring.  The  verdure,  the  flowers,  the  warbling 

»  of  the  birds,  the  azure  of  the  sky,  the  fragrance  of  the  air,  had 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  363 

become  to  them  the  symbols  of  love  and  of  life,  and  from  the 
little  effort  which  they  made  to  vary  their  picture  of  these 
objects,  we  can  see,  how  youthful  their  imagination  had  re- 
mained, and  how  easy  to  be  satisfied. 

After  having  premised  these  explanations,  I  now  return  to 
those  choicer  Troubadours,  which  I  think  can  be  produced  as 
the  representatives  of  all  the  rest,  at  least  in  the  amatory  de- 
partment of  their  art.  Bernard  de  Ventadour  is  one  of  the 
first  in  point  of  merit  as  well  as  in  point  of  date ;  and  I  will 
therefore  speak  of  him  with  somewhat  of  detail. 

BERNARD  DE  VENTADOUR  was  born  ift  the  chateau  of  the  same 
name,  the  seat  of  a  viscounty,  one  of  the  most  ancient  seig- 
niories of  Limousin.  His  father  was  a  man  of  servile  condition, 
attached  to  the  service  of  the  chateau. 

Nature  had  endowed  Bernard  with  her  choicest  favors.  In 
addition  to  personal  beauty  and  graceful  manners,  she  had 
furnished  him  with  all  the  talent,  at  that  time  requisite  to 
make  a  poet :  a  lively  and  delicate  imagination,  an  exquisite 
ear  and  an  agreeable  voice.* 

To  crown  the  good  fortune  of  the  young  poet,  this  court  of 
the  viscounts  of  Ventadour,  under  the  auspices  of  which  Ber- 
nard was  educated,  was  one  of  the  most  favorable  places  for 
the  development  of  his  natural  talents. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  Ebles  II. ;  I  have  mentioned,  that 
this  noble  lord  cultivated  with  ardor  and  until  he  was  very  far 
advanced  in  life,  the  incipient  poetry  of  chivalry,  or  as  the 
prior  of  Vigeois,  his  historian,  calls  it,  the  songs  of  merriment ; 
whence  he  was  surnamed  El>les  the  singer. 

His  son  Ebles  III.  the  master  of  Bernard,  born  about  1100, 
had  inherited  some  of  his  taste  for  poetry.  It  is  possible,  that 
he  too  may  have  cultivated  the  art  and  given  Bernard  the  first 
lessons  in  it.  At  any  rate,  the  latter  seems  to  intimate  in  a 
passage  of  one  of  his  pieces,  that  he  had  a  personage  whom  he 
designates  by  the  name  of  Ebles  for  his  master. 

However  that  may  be,  Ebles  III.,  charmed  by  the  poetic  dis- 
position of  young  Bernard,  fostered  it  with  tenderness  and  favors 
of  every  kind,  and  with  such  success,  that  the  latter,  when  yet 
in  the  flower  of  his  youth,  gave  already  promise  that  he  would 
leave  all  the  Troubadours,  his  predecessors,  far  behind  him. 

The  pieces  which  have  come  down  to  us  from  Bernard  are 
numerous  enough  :  they  fill  almost  a  volume.  If  they  are  not 
exactly  those  of  their  kind,  that  contain  the  largest  amount  of 
poetry,  or  the  greatest  vigor  of  thought  and  expression,  they 

*  Bels  horn  era  et  adregz  e  saup  ben  cantar  e  trobar  et  era  cortes  et  ensenhatz.  El 
vescoms.  lo  sieu  senher,  de  Ventadorn  s'abelic  molt  de  lui  e  de  son  trobar,  e  fes  li  gran 
honor,  etc.  etc.  Provensal  biographer.— Ed. 


364:  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

are  incontestably  those  which  excel  all  others  in  point  of  sen- 
timent and  grace,  and  also  in  allusions  to  circumstances  from 
the  life  of  the  author.  These  allusions  are  so  many  indications, 
by  the  aid  of  which  I  shall  endeavor  to  link  some  of  these 
pieces  to  the  events  in  Bernard's  life,  to  which  they  relate  and 
by  which  they  were  inspired. 

This  attempt  is  hazardous  enough,  and  in  making  it  I  run  the 
risk  of  deceiving  myself  more  than  once,  from  the  want  of  posi- 
tive information.  But  these  misprisions  can,  on  the  one  hand, 
be  attended  with  no  very  serious  inconvenience,  and  on  the 
other,  when  the  question  is  of  poets,  who,  like  the  Troubadours, 
only  sung  or  thought  they  only  sung  their  own  emotions,  it  is 
indispensable  to  endeavor,  as  far  as  possible,  to  trace  the  con- 
nection between  the  impressions  of  their  genius  and  the  inci- 
dents of  their  lives. 

Bernard  de  Yentadour  had  only  to  feign  himself  in  love  in 
order  to  have  motives  to  compose  his  songs  of  love.  Nature 
had  given  him  one  of  the  tenderest  of  hearts,  one  of  the 
promptest  to  become  impassioned  by  the  charms  of  grace  or 
beauty.  He  did  not  stand  in  need  of  traversing  the  world,  to 
find  a  lady,  whom  he  might  celebrate  in  his  verses.  His  seig- 
nior and  patron,  Ebles  III.,  had  two  ladies,  the  first  of  whom 
was  Margaret  of  Turenne  and  the  second  Alzais  or  Adelaide, 
the  daughter  of  William  VI. ,  seignior  of  Montpellier.  It  was 
to  the  latter  of  these,  that  Bernard  first  addressed  the  homage 
of  his  verses,  and  afterward  the  bolder  homage  of  his  love.  He 
was  in  the  flower  of  life,  he  was  amiable  and  handsome ;  all 
that  he  sung  appeared  to  be  the  sentiment  of  his  heart.  The 
lady  was  pleased  with  him,  and  he  contracted  with  her  one  of 
those  chivalric  liaisons,  which  were  at  bottom  nothing  more 
than  perilous  attempts  to  keep  up  the  passion  of  love  and  de- 
sire at  the  highest  attainable  point  of  exaltation. 

Mystery  and  secrecy  were  at  once  one  of  the  conditions  and 
one  of  the  difficulties  of  this  chivalric  passion.  As  the  Trouba- 
dour felt  vainly  proud,  when  he  could  persuade  himself  that  he 
was  loved  by  a  lady  of  high  rank,  so  he  took  the  greatest  pains 
to  conceal  the  name  of  the  lady  whom  he  worshipped.  In  his 
verses  he  never  designated  her  but  by  a  species  of  poetic  sobri- 
quet, of  which  she  only  knew  the  value  and  intention,  and 
which  every  one,  who  had  the  curiosity,  interpreted  in  his  own 
way.  Bernard  de  Ventadour  gave  his  viscountess  the  appella- 
tion of  Bel-vezer,  which  in  English  signifies  "  fair  to  look  upon."  i 

Among  the  poems,  which  he  composed  in  honor  of  her,  we 
can  yet  easily  distinguish  several,  which  from  the  simplicity  of 
their  form  and  matter  we  may  judge  to  have  been  his  first  at- 
tempts. They  are  in  all  respects  inferior  to  the  rest,  but  they 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours. 


365 


already  contain,  here  and  there,  fine  traits  of  nature  and  of  sen- 
timent. I  subjoin  here  as  a  specimen,  a  passage  from  one  of 
these  pieces  which  I  consider  the  first  and  the  feeblest  of  them  all. 
"  I  complain  to  you,  my  lord,  of  my  lady  and  my  love  ;  they 
are  two  traitors,  which  make  me  live  in  sadness.  I  have  loved 
my  lady  since  the  time  when  both  of  us  were  children,  and  each 
day  of  the  year  my  love  for  her  has  since  been  doubled.  But 
alas  !  what  boots  it  to  live,  when  I  cannot  daily  see  the  treasure 
of  my  life,  when  I  see  her  not  at  her  window,  fresh  and  white 
like  t 


. 

I  will  give  another  piece  almost  entire,  wherein  the  talent  of 
Bernard  appears  to  have  arrived  at  its  maturity.  It  has  every 
indication  of  being  one  of  those,  which  he  composed  for  the 
viscountess  of  Yentadour.  This  double  enthusiasm  of  love  and 
nature,  one  of  the  characteristics  of  the  poetry  of  the  Trouba- 
dours, is  felt  and  rendered  in  the  most  lively  manner,  in  the 
commencement  of  this  piece,  which  is,  besides,  remarkable  for 
its  graceful  flashes  of  sentiment  and  imagination. 

"  When  I  see  the  green  herb  and  the  leaf  appear,  and  the 
flowers  unfold  their  bloom  through  the  fields  ;  when  the  night- 
ingale lifts  up  its  voice  high  and  clear  and  prepares  to  sing  :  I 
am  pleased  with  the  nightingale  and  the  flowers,  I  am  pleased 
with  myself,  more  pleased  with  my  lady  fair  ;  I'm  enveloped  on 
all  sides  and  pressed  with  delight  ;  but  the  joy  of  love  passes 
all  other  joys,  f 

"  Had  I  the  power  to  enchant  the  world,  I  would  transform 
my  enemies  into  infants,  that  none  of  them  could  imagine  aught 


*  Kaynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  51.    Piece  No.  V.    Strophes  2,  4,  5. 
A  vos  mi  clam,  senhor, 
De  mi  dons  e  d'amor, 
Qu'aisil  dui  tiaidor.    . 


etc. 


Mon  fin  joy  natural, 
En  lieit,  al  fenestral, 
Blanc'  e  fresc'  atretal 


Las  !  e  viures  que  m  val, 
S'ieu  non  vey  a  jornal, 


Cum  par  neus  a  Nadal, 
Si  qu  amdui  nominal 
Mezuressem  engal ! — J2d. 


f  Raynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  53.    Piece  No.  VI.    Strophes  1,  4,  5  and  7. 


Quant  erba  vertz  e  fuelhapar, 

E  1'flor  brotonon  per  verjan, 

E  1'  rossinhols  autet  e  clar 

Leva  sa  votz  e  mov  son  chan, 
Joy  ai  de  luy,  e  joy  ai  de  la  flor ; 
Joy  ai  de  me,  e  de  mi  dons  maior. 
Vas  totas  partz  sui  de  joy  claus  e  seinhs, 
Mas  ilh  es  joys  que  totz  los  autres  vens. 

S'ieu  saubes  la  gent  encantar 

Miei  enemic  foran  cnfan, 

Que  ja  horn  no  pogra  pessar 

Ni  dir  ren  que  ns  tomes  a  dan. 
Adoncs  sai  ieu  remirar  la  gensor, 
E  sos  belhs  liuelhs  e  sa  fresca  color ; 
E  baizera  'In  la  boca  de  totz  seinhs, 
Si  que  dos  mes  hi  paregra  lo  seings. 


Alias !  cum  muer  de  cossirar  ! 

Que  manthas  vetz  ieu  cossir  tan 

Lair os  me  poirian  emblar, 

Ja  no  sabria  dir  que  s  fan. 
Per  dieu,  amors,  be  m  trobaa  vensedor 
Ab  paucs  d'amics  e  ses  autre  socor, 
Quar  una  vetz  tant  mi  dons  non  destremha 
Enans  qu'  ieu  fos  de  dezirier  esteinhs. 

Ben  la  volgra  sola  trobar 
Que  dormis  o'n  fezes  semblan, 
Per  qu'ieu  1'embles  un  dous  baizar, 
Pus  no  valh  tan  que  lo'lh  deman. 
Per  dieu,  dona,  pauc  esplecham  d'amor, 
Vai  s'en  lo  temps  e  perdem  lo  melhor ; 
Parlar  pogram  ab  cubertz  entreseinhs, 
E  pus  no  i  val  arditz,  valgues  nos  geinhs. 


Of  the  seven  strophes,  No.  1, 4,  5,  7.— Ed. 


366 


History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


against  my  lady  or  myself.  Then  I  would  contemplate  her 
beauteous  form,  her  ruby  tint,  and  her  fair  eyes  ;  I  would  im- 
press a  kiss  on  every  portion  of  her  mouth,  the  mark  of  which 
a  month  could  not  efface." 

"  Oh,  how  I  am  consumed  by  cheerless  reveries !  I  am 
at  times  so  much  absorbed  by  them,  that  robbers  might  kid- 
nap me  without  my  knowing  it.  Surely,  Cupid,  thou  hast 
made  an  easy  conquest  of  me,  deprived  of  friends  and  succor ; 
and  when  thou  hadst  made  me  captive,  I  languished  like  a  man, 
in  whom  all  vigor  was  extinguished  by  desire." 

"  Oh,  could  I  find  my  lady  all  alone,  sleeping  or  feigning 
sleep,  that  I  might  steal  a  kiss,  as  I  have  not  the  courage  to 
demand  one !  Oh,  my  lady,  we  make  but  little  progress  in  our 
love !  The  time  is  passing  on ;  we  lose  its  fairest  chance,  in- 
stead of  understanding  our  wish  by  secret  signs,  and  coming 
to  the  aid  of  boldness  by  deceit." 

Bernard  composed  several  other  songs  in  honor  of  the  lady  of 
Ventadour  in  the  same  style  with  the  one  just  quoted,  which 
constituted  the  delight  of  courts  and  castles,  wherever  the 
Jongleurs  introduced  them.  Never  before  had  any  one  heard 
anything  of  the  kind,  so  delicate,  so  melodious,  so  tender.  Ber- 
nard did  not  dissemble  the  naive  conviction,  which  he  enter- 
tained, of  his  superiority  over  his  predecessors  or  his  contempo- 
raries, nor  did  he  hesitate  to  explain  it.  The  following  are  the 
first  two  stanzas  of  a  poem,  of  which  they  constitute  the  most 
remarkable  part :  "  No  wonder  that  I  sing  better  than  any 
other  Troubadour,  since  I  am  possessed  of  a  heart,  more  prone 
to  love,  and  readier  to  obey  its  laws.  Soul  and  body,  spirit  and 
knowledge,  force  and  power  are  all  enlisted  in  its  cause ;  I  have 
made  no  reserve  for  any  other  thing."* 

"  He  were  alreadydead,  who  felt  not  in  his  heart  some  blan- 
dishment to  love.  What  boots  a  life  without  the  tenderness  of 
love  ?  'Twere  but  an  importunity  to  others !  May  God  be  never 
so  incensed  with  me,  to  suffer  me  to  live  a  month,  a  day,  when  I 
shall  cease  to  love,  when  I  should  be  but  burdensome  to  others  !" 

Whether  this  liaison  between  Bernard  and  the  lady  of  Yen- 
tadour  transgressed  the  established  limits  of  chivalric  decorum, 
we  do  not  know  for  certain,  and  we  shall  dispense  with  the  in- 
quiry. It  is  certain  that  the  viscount  of  Yentadour  saw  some- 

*  Raynouard :  vol.  iii.  p.  44.  Piece  No.  II.    Strophes  1  and  2. 


Non  es  meravelha  s'ieu  chan 
Mielhs  de  nulh  autre  chantador ; 
Quar  plus  trai  mos  cors  ves  amor, 
E  mielhs  sui  faitz  a  son  coman  ; 
Cors  e  cor  e  saber  e  sen 
E  fors'  e  poder  hi  ai  mes ; 
8i  m  lira  vas  amor  lo  frcs 
Qu'a  nulh'  autra  part  no  m'aten. 


Ben  es  mortz  qui  d'amor  non  sen 
Al  cor  qualque  doussa  sabor ; 
E  que  val  viure  ses  amor, 
Mas  per  far  enueg  la  gen  ? 
Ja  dame  dieus  no  m'azir  tan 
Que  ja  pueis  viva  jorn  ni  mes, 
Pus  que  d'enueg  serai  repres, 
E  d'amor  non  aurai  talan. — Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  367 

thing  in  this  connection,  that  displeased  him.  He  removed  Ber- 
nard from  his  court  and  interdicted  his  appearing  there  again. 
The  viscountess  was  shut  up,  closely  watched  and  menaced. 

"We  can  easily  imagine  the  chagrin  of  the  young  poet,  at 
being  thus  separated  from  his  fair  friend  without  even  knowing 
whether  he  should  ever  see  her  again.  There  is  yet  extant  a 
piece  by  him,  which  seems  to  have  been  written,  to  give  vent 
to  his  grief  and  to  console  his  lady  in  this  sad  conjuncture.  But 
the  piece  is  neither  as  beautiful  nor  as  tender,  as  might  have 
been  expected  of  Bernard  on  so  touching  an  occasion.  The 
poet  exhibits  in  it  more  of  enchantment  and  pride  at  the  thought 
of  being  loved  by  the  fair  viscountess,  than  of  chagrin  for  see- 
ing her  thus  persecuted  on  his  account.  I  shall  only  translate 
the  most  characteristic  passages. 

"  The  sweet  song  of  the  birds  throughout  the  grove  alleviates 
my  pain  and  makes  my  heart  revive  ;  and  since  the  birds  have 
cause  to  sing,  well  may  I  also  sing,  I,  who  have  more  delights 
than  they,  I,  whose  every  day  is  a  day  of  song  and  joy,  I,  who 
care  for  nothing  else."* 

"  There  are  men,  who,  when  they  chance  to  meet  with  great 
success  or  good  adventure,  are  rendered  haughtier  and  more 
barbarous  by  it.  But  I  am  of  a  better  and  more  generous  na- 
ture ;  when  God  crowns  me  with  blessings,  I  feel  still  more  of 
love  for  those  already  dear."  .... 

"  At  night  when  1  retire  to  rest,  I  know  too  well,  that  I  shall 
find  no  sleep  ;  my  rest  is  gone,  I  lose  it  at  thy  remembrance, 
my  lady  fair  !  There,  where  his  treasure  is,  man  fain  would 
have  his  heart ;  'tis,  thus  I  act  myself  ;  thus  have  I  put  in 
thee  my  care  and  all  my  thoughts." 

"  Yes,  lady,  know  that,  though  my  eyes  behold  thee  not, 
my  heart  yet  sees  thee ;  complain  no  more  than  I  myself  com- 
plain. I  know,  that  they  imprison  thee  on  my  account.  But 
when  the  jealous  spy  knocks  at  the  door,  have  good  care,  that 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  65.    Piece  No.  XI.    Strophes  1,  2,  3  and  4. 

Quan  par  la  flora  josta'l  vert  fuelh,  Ben  sai  la  nueg  quan  mi  despuelh 

E  vei  lo  temps  clar  e  sere,  El  lieg  que  no  i  dormirai  re  ; 

E'l  dous  chan  dels  auzels  per  bruelh  Lo  dormir  pert,  quar  ieu  lo  m  tuelh, 

M'adoussa  lo  cor  e  m  reve,  Domna,  quan  de  vos  mi  sove. 

Pois  1'auzel  chanton  a  lur  for,  Quar,  lai  on  horn  a  son  thezor, 

Ieu  qu'ai  plus  de  joy  en  mon  cor  Vol  horn  ades  tener  son  cor  : 

Deg  ben  chantar,  car  tug  li  mei  jornal  Aital  fatz  ieu,  domna,  de  cui  mi  qual ; 

Son  joy  e  chan,  qu'ieu  no  m  pens  de  ren  al.  Mas  mon  pessar  neguna  res  no  m  val. 

Tal  n'y  a  que  an  mais  d'orguelh,  Domna,  si  no  us  vezon  mei  huelh, 

Quain  grans  jois  ni  grans  bes  lor  ve  ;  Be  sapchatz  que  mon  cor  vos  ve  ; 

Mas  ieu  sui  de  melhor  escuelh,  E  no  us  dulhatz  plus  qu'ieu  mi  duelh, 

E  pus  francs,  quan  deus  mi  fai  be ;  Qu'ieu  sai  qu'om  vos  destrenh  per  me  ; 

Quoras  qu'ieu  fos  d'amar  en  lor,  E  si'l  gilos  vos  bat  defor, 

M  es  be  de  lor  vengutz  al  cor,  Ben  gardatz  que  no  us  bata'l  cor. 

Merce,  mi  dons,  non  ai  par  ni  engal ;  Si  us  fai  enueg,  vos  a  lui  atretal ; 

Bes  no  m  sofranh,  sol  que  vos  deus  mi  sal.  E  ja  ab  vos  no  gazanh  be  per  mal. — Ed. 


368 


History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


lie  knock  not  at  the  heart.  If  he  torments  thee,  torment  thou 
him  again,  nor  let  him  grain  good  in  return  for  evil  at  thy 
hands?  m 

There  is  reason  to  believe,  that  the  viscountess  was  not  very 
much  affected  by  the  manner  in  which  Bernard  bore  his  mis- 
fortune.    She  sent  him  a  request  to  leave  the  country,  for  fear 
of  new  persecutions.     Afflicted  beyond  all  measure  by  this 
order,  Bernard  regarded  it  as  tantamount  to  treason  or  infi- 
delity on  the  part  of  his  lady.     This  is  at  least  the  inference  to 
be  drawn  from  sundry  of  his  pieces,  in  all  probability  composed 
on  this  occasion,  to  which  alone  they  are  adapted,  or  at  any 
rate  better  adapted  than  to  any  other.     I  will  translate  a  few 
stanzas  from  one  of  them,  one  of  the  finest  of  Bernard's,  but,  in 
my  opinion,  at  the  same  time  one  of  those  which  abound  in 
intranslatable  delicacies  and  licenses  of  diction.     In  order  to 
appreciate  the  full  force  of  the  simile,  derived  from  the  flight 
of  the  lark  in  the  beginning  of  the  poem,  we  must  call  to  mind 
I  a  popular  prejudice  of  the  Middle  Age.     It  was  believed  that 
I  the  lark,  being  enamored  of  the  sun,  rose  aloft  into  the  splen- 
;  dor  of  his  rays,  as  high  as  it  could  possibly  ascend,  as  if  for  the 
purpose  of  approaching  him,  and  that,  becoming  more  and 
,  more  intoxicated  with   delight  in  proportion  to   its  higher 
;  ascent,  it  finally  dropt  from  the  sky,  forgetful  of  the  use  of  its 
I  wings.     I  now  proceed  to  give  the  piece  from  Bernard :. 

"  W^hen  I  behold  the  sky-lark  winging  its  merry  journey 
toward  the  sun,  and  then  forgetful  of  itself,  from  sudden  ine- 
briety of  pleasure,  drop  down  precipitant;  oh,  how  I  long 
then  for  a  fate  like  hers !  How  much  I  envy  then  the  joy  to 
which  I'm  witness !  I  am  astonished  that  my  heart  is  not  at 
once  dissolved  in  longing.* 

"  Alas !  how  little  do  I  know  of  love,  I,  who  was  once  de- 
luded by  the  conceit  of  knowing  all,  unable  as  I  am  to  resist 
the  charms  of  her  whom  I  must  love  in  vain,  of  her  who  robbed 

»  Baynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  68.    Piece  No.  XII.    Strophes  1,  2,  3,  5  : 


Quan  vey  la  laudeta  mover 
De  joi  sas  alas  contra  '1  rai, 
Que  s'oblida  e  s  laissa  cazer 
Per  la  doussor  qu'al  cor  li'n  vai ; 
Alias !  qual  enueia  m'en  ve, 
Cui  qu'ieu  ne  veia  jauzion ! 
Meraveillas  m'ai,  quar  desse 
Lo  cor  de  dezirier  no  m  fon. 

Alias !  quant  cuiava  saber 
D'amor,  e  quant  petit  en  sai ! 
Quar  ieu  d'amar  no  m  puesc  tener 
Celleis  on  ja  pro  non  aurai ; 
Quar  tolt  m'a  1  cor,  e  tolt  in'a  me, 
E  si  mezeis,  e  tot  lo  mon ; 
E  quan  si  m  tolc,  no  m  laisset  re 
Has  diziricr  e  cor  volon. 


Anc  pueissas  non  pogui  aver 
De  me  poder,  de  lor  en  sai, 
Qu'ela  m  fetz  a  mos  huels  vezer 
En  un  miralh  que  molt  mi  plai. 
Miralbs !  pois  me  mirei  en  te, 
M'an  mort  li  sospir  de  preon 
Qu'aissi  m  perdei,  cum  perdet  se 
Lo  bels  Narcezis  en  la  Ion. 

Pus  ab  mi  dons  no  m  pot  valer 
Precs,  ni  merces,  ni'l  dregz  qu'ieu  ai, 
Ni  a  leys  no  ven  a  plazer 
Qu'  ieu  1'  am,  jamais  non  lo  i  dirai : 
Aissi  m  part  d  amor  e  m  recre  ; 
Mort  m'a,  e  per  mort  li  respon, 
E  vau  m'en,  pus  ilh  no  m  rete, 
Caitius  en  yssilh,  non  sai  on — Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Tr&ubadoivrs.  369 

me  of  my  faith,  my  heart,  herself  and  all  the  world,  who  left 
me  nothing  but  desires  and  regrets. 

"  Never  have  I  been  able  to  recover  my  senses  again,  since 
the  hour  in  which  she  permitted  me  to  look  at  myself  in  a  mir- 
ror, too  pleasing  to  me.  Ravishing  mirror !  I  have  sighed 
ever  since  I  beheld  my  image  in  thee  ;  I  have  lost  myself,  like 
Narcissus  in  the  fountain. 

"  Since  all  is  over  now,  as  nothing  will  avail  before  my  lady, 
nor  prayers,  nor  rightful  claim,  nor  mercy ;  since  she  desires 
my  homage  now  no  longer,  I  shall  have  nothing  more  to  say  of 
love.  I  must  renounce — I  must  abjure  it.  She  has  deprived 
me  of  my  life.  I  reply  to  her,  as  one  no  longer  living,  and  I 
depart  for  exile,  I  know  not  whither." 

And  in  fact,  Bernard  did  quit  his  native  Limousin.  It 
would  not  be  a  matter  of  indifference  to  the  history  of  Pro- 
vencal poetry  and  its  propagation  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
country  to  which  the  ^Provencal  language  was  indigenous,  to 
know  the  probable  date  of  his  departure.  Now  Ebles  III.  had 
married  Azalais  of  Montpellier  about  the  year  1156,  and  sup- 
posing the  liaison  between  Bernard  and  his  lady  to  have  lasted 
three  or  four  years,  it  must  have  been  toward  1160  that  Ber- 
nard left  his  country  for  the  purpose  of  roving  about  in  quest  of 
adventures.  He  must  then  have  been  about  thirty  years  of  age. 

It  would  seem  that  at  that  time  the  Provencal  Troubadours 
and  Jongleurs  had  already  commenced  to  frequent  the  pro- 
vinces of  the  north  of  France,  and  more  especially  Normandy. 
It  was  in  the  latter  that  Bernard  sought  refuge  at  the  court  of 
Henry  II.,  who  was  then  nothing  more  than  a  duke.  Henry 
had  married,  in  1152,  the  celebrated  Eleanor  of  Guienne,  who 
was  the  grand-daughter  of  William  IX.,  count  of  Poitiers,  and 
the  divorced  wife  of  Louis  VII.,  king  of  France.  This  princess, 
having  been  brought  up  amid  the  elegance  and  poetical  refine- 
ments of  the  southern  courts,  had  kept  alive  a  relish  for  what- 
ever could  resuscitate  the  memory  and  the  pleasures  of  her 
earlier  years.  Accustomed  to  the  reception  of  Jongleurs  and 
of  Troubadours  at  her  mansion,  she  extended  to  Bernard  a 
more  honorable  and  a  kindlier  welcome  than  to  any  other,  he 
being  at  that  time  the  most  distinguished  of  them  all.  Eleanor 
was  handsome,  still  young,  and,  according  to  the  accounts  of 
the  Provencal  traditions,  an  admirable  judge  of  prizes,  of 
honors,  and  of  the  blandishments  of  speech — in  other  words,  of 
poetry.  So  much  as  all  this  was  hardly  necessary  to  inspire 
Bernard  with  confidence,  to  choose  her  as  the  subject  of  his  new 
songs.  Eleanor  was  delighted  with  the  compliment,  and  in  the 
language  of  his  Proven§al  biographer,  more  delighted  than  the 
Troubadour  could  ever  have  anticipated.  "Bernard,"  says 

24 


370  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

this  author,  "remained  for  a  long  time  at  the  court  of  the 
duchess  of  Normandy.  He  became  fond  of  her  and  she  of 
him,  and  he  made  many  a  song  of  it."* 

Some  of  these  songs  were  composed  between  the  years  11GO 
and  1164,  while  the  lady  was  yet  a  duchess  and  the  wife  of  the 
duke,  others  again  were  written  subsequently  to  the  latter  of 
these  dates,  when  Henry  II.  was  already  on  the  throne  of 
England.  But  1  can  scarcely  find  three  or  four  of  them,  that 
bear  distinct  indications  of  their  motive,  and  among  these  even 
there  are  none  of  a  sweeter  and  more  original  cast  than  those 
I  have  already  given.  I  shall  therefore  not  attempt  to  trans- 
late them,  for  fear  of  exhausting  the  degree  of  interest,  due  to 
this  branch  of  Provencal  poetry,  too  fast  and  prematurely.  I 
shall  quote  but  a  single  passage,  which  I  have  selected  not  on 
account  of  its  intrinsic  beauty,  but  as  a  curious  and  character- 
istic instance  of  chivalric  manners. 

"  My  lady  has  so  much  address  and  artifice,  that  she  always 
makes  me  think  she  loves  me.  But  she  deceives  me  thus  agree- 
ably and  she  repels  me  with  her  sweet  pretensions.  My  lady, 
leave  the  guile  and  artifice ;  for  as  thy  vassal  suffers  so  will  be 
thy  damage." 

"  My  lady  will  assuredly  do  wrong,  if  she  makes  me  come 
where  she  disrobes  herself,  unless,  permitting  me  to  kneel 
beside  her  couch,  she  deigns  to  extend  her  foot,  commanding 
me  to  untie  her  easy  fitting  shoes." 

/  To  be  present  with  a  lady  in  her  dishabille,  to  assist  her 
even  in  undressing  and  to  see  her  retire,  were  among  the 
legitimate  favors  of  chivalric  etiquette  and  among  those  which 
the  Troubadours  solicit  most  frequently  and  ardently.  One 
might  be  easily  tempted  to  attribute  this  usage  to  motives  of 
a  very  vulgar  sort,  but  this  would  be  an  error.  The  point  in 
question  was  nothing  further  than  a  consecrated  usage  of  the 
vassalage  of  love,  a  usage  adopted,  like  so  many  others,  from 
the  manners  of  feudal  vassalage.  It  was  quite  an  ordinary 
occurrence  for  vassals  to  assist  and  wait  upon  their  suzerains, 
when  the  latter  were  retiring  to  rest. 

Bernard  de  Ventadour  went  to  England  on  several  occasions, 
sometimes  in  the  retinue  of  Hemy  II.,  and  sometimes  to  accom- 
pany Queen  Eleanor.  He  is  the  first  of  the  Troubadours  known 
to  have  succeeded  in  propagating  some  notions  of  Provencal 
poetry  among  the  Anglo-Normans  (about  the  year  1165  or  1166). 

Finally,  however,  for  reasons  now  unknown  to  us,  or  per- 
haps merely  to  gratify  his  desire  of  seeing  the  countries  of  the 
South  again,  Bernard  ceased  to  be  contented  in  Normandy 

*  "  Lone  temps  estet  en  sa  cort,  et  enamoret  se  d'ella  et  ella  de  lui ;  e'n  fes  motas 
bonas  cansos."    Raynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  69.— Ed. 


The  lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  371 

and  repaired  to  Toulouse,  to  the  court  of  Raymond  Y.,  which 
was  at  that  time  the  most  brilliant  of  the  countries,  where  the 
Provencal  tongue  was  used.  It  would  appear,  that  our  Trou- 
badour soon  became  attached  to  Raymond,  in  whose  service 
he  remained  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  if  we  except  some  transient 
absentments  occasioned  by  various  excursions  into  Provence, 
Italy,  Spain  and  Limousin,  where  duty  called  him  to  revisit 
the  objects  of  his  earlier  affection. 

Great  changes  had  meanwhile  taken  place  at  the  chateau  of 
Yentadour,  we  do  not  know  exactly  at  what  date,  but  very 
probably  soon  after  the  year  1160.  His  former  master  and 
patron  Ebles  III.,  under  the  influence  of  motives  of  which  we 
nave  no  knowledge,  had  resolved  to  retire  from  the  world.  He 
had  crossed  the  Alps  and  retreated  to  the  monastery  of  Mont- 
Cassin,  where  he  died  in  1170.  In  regard  to  the  Yiscountess 
Adelaide,  the  wife  of  Ebles,  we  do  not  know  what  became  of 
her.  The  historian  says  not  a  word  about  her.  But  among 
the  compositions  of  our  poet,  there  is  one  which  has  every  ap- 
pearance of  having  been  written  with  reference  to  her,  and 
would  go  to  prove,  that  Bernard's  first  attachment  was  far  from 
being  extinct.  I  shall  endeavor  to  translate  a  portion  of  it, 
in  spite  of  the  impossibility  of  giving  in  another  language  the 
slightest  conception  of  the  graceful  sweetness  of  expression, 
that  pervades  the  original  from  one  end  to  the  other. 

"  Fair  lady,  he  is  not  susceptible  of  sorrow,  he  was  not  made 
for  love,  he  who  can  part  from  thee  without  a  tear."  * 

"  The  season  when  the  birds  begin  to  warble  is  at  hand.  I 
see  the  flax  grow  verdant  in  the  fields  and  the  blue  violet  peep 
forth  behind  the  bushes,  the  streamlets  rolling  clearly  o'er  the 
sand,  where  the  white  flower-de-lis  unfolds  its  blossoms." 

"  I  have  long  since  been  poor  and  bereft  of  the  blessings  of 
love,  by  the  fault  of  a  cruel  friend,  in  whose  service  I'm  await- 
ing my  end." 

"  My  own  hand  has  gathered  the  rod,  wherewith  the  fairest 
one  that  ever  lived  now  slays  me.  To  please  her,  to  obey  her, 
I  have  long  lived  an  exile  from  my  native  soil,  'mid  painful 
desires,  severe  regrets  and  sorry  recompenses." 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  60.    Piece  No.  IX. 

Bels  Monmels,  aisselh  que  8  part  de  vos 
E  non  plora,  ges  non  es  doloiros, 
Ni  no  sembla  sia  corals  amics.    .    .    . 
Ai !  chant  d'auzel  comensa  sa  sazos, 
Qu'ieu  aug  chantar  las  guantas  e'ls  aigros, 
E  pels  cortils  vei  verdeiar  los  lis, 
La  blava  flor  que  nais  per  los  boissos, 
E'ls  riu  son  clar  de  sobre  los  sablos, 
E  lay  s'espan  la  blanca  flors-de-dis. 
Etc.  etc.  etc.— Ed, 


372  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

"  He  loves  but  little,  who  is  never  jealous,  loves  little  who  is 
not  generous,  loves  little  who  never  lost  his  reason,  loves  little 
who  is  not  prone  to  sadness.  Fair  tears  of  love  are  worth  more 
than  its  smiles." 

"  On  my  knees,  before  my  lady,  while  she  accuses  me  and 
searches  me  for  wrongs,  I  supplicate  for  mercy,  my  eyes  suf- 
fused with  tears.  Then  she  heaves,  sighs  and  makes  me  hope 
again  ;  she  kisses  my  mouth  and  eyes,  and  the  pleasure  I  then 
experience  is  one  of  the  pleasures  of  paradise." 

"I  commend  my  hope  to  God ;  I  recall  again,  bv  memory, 
the  honor  she  once  bestowed  on  me  beneath  the  orchard 
pine,  at  the  time  she  conquered  me ;  this  souvenir  consoles  me 
and  makes  me  live  again ;  this  hope  renews  the  blossoms  of 
my  youth." 

The  exalted  tone  of  this  piece,  the  disorder,  the  incoherence 
of  the  sentiments,  the  ideas  which  pervade  it,  seem  to  be  the 
natural  effect  of  a  strong  and  deeply-rooted  passion.  It  con- 
tains verses  and  entire  couplets  of  most  exquisite  melody,  and 
such  as  one  can  find  but  few  examples  of,  in  the  most  cultivated 
poets  of  the  best  periods  of  literary  history. 

I  now  return  for  a  moment  to  the  excursions  of  Bernard.  We 
have  a  piece  by  him,  composed  in  the  year  1176,  and  addressed 
to  a  princess  of  the  house  of  Est,  to  whom  he  gives  the  name 
of  Joannah.  In  this  piece  our  Troubadour  makes  a  very  dis- 
tinct allusion  to  the  battle  of  Lignano,  which  was  won  by  the 
Lombard  league  over  the  Emperor  Frederic  Barbarossa,  ex- 
horting the  latter  in  the  strongest  terms  to  revenge  himself  on 
the  Milanese  as  speedily  as  possible,  unless  he  wished  to  for- 
feit completely .  his  power  and  his  honor.  From  these  indi- 
cations there  is  very  little  doubt  but  that  Bernard  visited  in 
Italy  the  camps  of  Frederic  I.,  the  court  of  Ferrara,  and  proba- 
bly several  others.  In  the  Italian  documents  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  there  are  yet  to  be  found  traditional  vestiges  of  the 
great  renown,  which  he  had  left  on  the  other  side  of  the  Alps. 

The  time  of  Bernard's  residence  at  the  court  of  Raymond  V . 
comprises  the  largest  portion  of  the  life  of  this  Troubadour,  who 
during  this  interval  no  doubt  had  other  adventures  and  other 
amours,  on  which  he  composed  new  songs,  some  of  which  at 
least  must  constitute  a  part  of  those  now  left  of  him.  But  his 
life  at  the  period  in  question  is  too  little  known  even  to  make 
it  possible  to  connect  it  with  any  degree  of  probability  to  any 
one  of  the  pieces,  of  which  it  was  the  subject.  Nevertheless 
these  pieces  possess  attractions  and  beauty  of  detail  enough  to 
merit  our  notice,  apart  even  from  the  circumstances,  to  which 
they  relate  and  by  which  they  were  inspired.  But  the  limits 
of  this  cursory  survey  will  not  admit  of  tneir  insertion. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  373 

I  will,  however,  translate  a  very  pleasant  piece  of  versifica- 
tion and  of  style,  wherein  our  Troubadour  appears  in  a  new 
situation,  being  disappointed  and  betrayed  by  a  lady,  who  had 
at  first  accepted  his  love  and  services. 

"  I  have  heard  the  sweet  voice  of  the  wild  nightingale ;  it  has 
entered  my  heart ;  it  softens,  it  allays  its  cares  and  the  tor- 
ments, which  love  has  inflicted,  and  thus  I  have  at  least  the 
joy  of  another  to  console  me." 

"  He  is  indeed  a  man  of  abject  life,  who  lives  not  in  joy, 
who  directs  not  his  heart  and  desires  to  love,  when  all  are 
abandoned  to  joy,  when  everywhere  the  songs  of  amatory  glee 
resound,  through  meadows,  groves,  through  heath  and  plains 
and  thicket." 

"  And  I,  alas  !  whom  love  has  now  forgotten,  unhappy  wan- 
derer !  instead  of  my  share  of  this  joy,  have  but  chagrin  and 
th  war  tings.  Do  not  then  deem  my  conduct  vile,  if  some  dis- 
courteous word  escape  me  now." 

"  A  false  and  cruel  dame,  unfaithful  and  of  wicked  lineage 
betrayed  me,  and  betrayed  herself.  She  chose  with  her  own 
hand  the  rod,  wherewith  she  punishes  herself;  and  if  any  one 
asks  her  the  reason  for  her  conduct,  she  charges  me  with  her 
own  self-inflicted  wrongs ;  she  finds  it  just,  that  the  last  comer 
obtains  from  her  more  favors  than  I  could  ever  gain  with  all 
my  long  attentions." 

"  I  served  her  truly  to  the  moment,  when  her  heart  became 
unsteady.  But,  since  she  now  rejects  me,  fool  were  I,  did  I 
serve  her  any  longer.  The  hope  of  Bretons  and  an  unrequited 
service  were  never  good  but  for  converting  seignior  into 
squire." 

"  That  God  might  punish  to  their  desert  the  bearers  of  false 
messages.  But  for  these  slanderers,  I  might  have  tasted  of  the 
fruits  of  love." 

"  But  (happy  or  not  so)  he  is  indeed  a  fool,  who  quarrels 
with  his  lady.  Let  mine  but  pardon  me  and  I  will  pardon  her. 
I  hold  all  those  to  be  impostors,  who  made  me  speak  of  her 
insultingly." 

"  Yet,  she  has  broken  faith  toward  me  so  grievously,  that 
henceforth  I  abjure  her  seigniory.  I  want  no  more  of  her; 
I'll  speak  no  more  of  it.  But  if  another  speak  of  it ;  I  '11  listen 
willingly,  and  from  my  very  heart  rejoice  in  it." 

It  was  probably  for  the  benefit  of  the  same  lady  and  on  the 
subject  of  the  same  treachery,  that  Bernard  composed  another 
piece  of  six  couplets,  in  which,  with  inimitable  grace  and 
naivete*,  he  expresses  his  perplexity  in  regard  to  the  conduct 
which  he  ought  to  maintain  toward  his  unfaithful  mistress.  I 


374  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

shall  only  translate  four  of  these  couplets.*  It  will  be  per- 
ceived from  the  first  of  them,  that  the  author  addresses  himself 
to  some  one  whom  he  consults  in  relation  to  his  position,  and 
to  whom  he  attributes  the  quality  of  seignior.  This  was  per- 
haps the  count  of  Toulouse,  Kaymond  Y.  himself. 

u  Give  me  an  advice,  my  lord,  thou  who  art  possessed  of 
sense  and  reason.  A  lady  has  bestowed  on  me  her  love,  and  I 
too  have  loved  her  long.  But  I  know  now,  I  am  certain,  that 
she  has  chosen  another  friend.  And  if  ever  I  suffered  from 
having  a  compeer  elsewhere,  I  surely  must  from  having  one 
of  this  sort." 

"  One  thing  I  hesitate  about  and  feel  uneasy ;  if  I  submit 
with  patience  to  this  wrong  my  lady  does  me,  I  shall  expose 
myself  to  many  sufferings  ;  if  I  reproach  the  unfaithful  one  for 
her  conduct,  I  shall  consider  myself  lost  to  love.  I  fear,  that 
God  will  not  permit  me  after  that  to  invent  either  songs  or  verses." 

"  Those  perfidious  fair  eyes,  which  looked  on  me  so  graciously, 
look  elsewhere  now,  and  in  this  consists  their  great  injustice. 
And  yet  I  never  can  forget  the  honor  they  bestowed  on  me ;  I 
never  can  forget  that  there  was  a  time,  when  among  a  thousand 
round  them,  they  would  have  seen  but  me." 

"  Of  the  tears  which  trickle  down  my  eyes  I  still  write  greet- 
ings, the  greetings  which  I  send  to  her,  who  will  ever  be  to  me 
the  fairest  and  most  prepossessing  of  her  kind ;  to  her,  whom  I 
saw  once,  the  time  I  took  my  final  leave,  conceal  her  counten- 
ance, unable  to  give  utterance  to  a  word." 

I  must  cut  short  now  my  examination  and  these  extracts  from 
the  poems  of  Bernard  of  V  entadour.  I  am  aware  (and  it  is  a 
matter  of  regret  to  me),  that  in  order  to  be  sure  of  producing  a 
just  appreciation  of  productions  so  peculiar  in  their  kind,  it  would 
be  necessary  to  exhibit  them  more  closely,  more  in  detail  and 
in  their  native  costume,  the  only  one  that  fits  them,  the  only 

*  Raynonard,  vol.  iii.  p.  88.    Piece  No.  XXI.    Strophes  1,  3,  5,  and  7. 

Acossellatz  mi,  senior,  Li  suei  belh  huelh  traidor, 

Vos  qu'avetz  saber  e  sen ;  Que  m'esguardavan  tan  gen, 

Una  domna  m  det  s'amor  Aras  esguardon  alhor, 

Ou'ai  amada  longamen,  Per  que  y  fan  gran  faillimen; 

Mas  aras  sai  per  vertat  Mas  d'aitan  m'an  gent  honrat, 

Que'lh  a  autr'amic  privat :  Que  s'eron  mil  ajustat. 

Et  anc  de  nulh  companho  Plus  guardon  lai  ou  ieu  so 

Companha  tan  greua  no  m  fo.  Qu'a  selhs  que  son  d'enviro. 

D'una  ren  sui  en  error,  De  1'aigua  que  dels  huelhs  plor 

Et  estau  en  pessamen,  Escriu  salutz  mais  de  cen 

Que  loncx  tempts  n'aurai  dolor,  Que  tramet  e  la  gensor 

R'ieu  aquest  tort  li  cossen ;  Et  a  la  plus  avinen. 

E  s'ieu  ii  die  son  peccat,  Mantas  vetz  m'es  pueis  membrat 

Tenc  mi  per  dezeretat  L'amor  que  m  fetz  al  comjat, 

D'amor ;  e  ja  dieus  no  m  do  Qu'ie'l  vi  cobrir  sa  faisso, 

Pueis  faire  vers  ni  chanso.  Qu'anc  no  m  poc  dire  razo. 

— Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  375 

one  in  which  their  proper  physiognomy  shows  to  advantage. 
But  perhaps  the  mere  consideration  will  be  enough  to  awaken 
in  these  poems  an  interest  of  a  far  more  elevated  nature  than 
that  of  literary  curiosity  only,  that  at  the  epoch  at  which  these 
Provencal  poets  expressed,  with  so  much  refinement  of  art,  sen- 
timents so  novel,  so  delicate  and  so  complex,  the  rest  of  Europe 
was  yet  immersed  in  a  state  of  more  than  semi-barbarity,  and 
that  the  first  sign  of  poetic  life  which  it  exhibited  was  this  en- 
thusiasm with  which  it  listened  to,  and  reiterated  these  first 
accents  of  the  chivalric  poetry  of  the  South.  We  shall  see  the 
force  of  this  remark  more  clearly,  when  we  shall  have  proceeded 
a  little  further.  At  present  I  have  only  a  few  words  to  add,  to 
finish  what  I  have  to  say  concerning  the  life  of  Bernard  de  Yen- 
tadour. 

There  is  to  be  found  in  the  manuscripts,  and  Mr.  Kaynouard 
has  published  under  the  name  of  this  Troubadour,  a  piece  writ- 
ten in  Syria  during  the  crusade  of  Bichard  Coeur  de  Lion.  But 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  believe  that  this  piece  is  not  by  Bernard, 
and  that  the  latter  never  took  the  cross. 

He  remained  at  the  court  of  Toulouse  until  the  year  1195, 
when  Raymond  Y.  died.  Bernard,  now  left  without  a  patron, 
and  too  far  advanced  in  life  to  find  a  new  one  without  difficulty, 
or  to  resume  the  life  of  an  itinerant,  retired  to  the  Carthusian 
monastery  of  Dalon  in  Limousin.  After  this  the  records  of  his 
life  are  silent.  "We  know  that  he  died  there,  but  that  is  all. 
The  year  of  his  decease  is  unknown ;  whether  it  was  near  the 
close  of  the  twelfth  or  at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury must  still  be  a  mere  conjecture. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  worth  our  notice  at  present,  and 
once  for  all,  that  the  most  celebrated  Troubadours  died  nearly 
all  in  the  cloister  and  in  the  habit  of  monks.  Soon  worn  out  by 
the  excitement  and  the  agitations  of  a  factitious,  and  we  might 
almost  call  it,  an  extravagant  life,  and  inevitably  seized  by  re- 
ligious scruples,  they  seldom  failed,  at  their  decline  of  life,  to 
take  refuge  in  some  monastery  of  austere  seclusion,  and  to  con- 
secrate to  God  the  remnant  of  an  existence  which  the  world  and 
love  were  no  longer  willing  to  accept. 


376  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


CHAPTER  XVH 

THE   LYRICAL   POETRY   OF  THE   TROUBADOURS* 

II.    AMATORY    POETRY. 
ARNAUD   DE   MARVEIL   AND   RAIMBAUD   DE   VAQUEIRAS. 

I  HAVE  just  signalized  Bernard  de  Ventadour  as  one  of  the 
first  of  the  Troubadours  possessed  of  genius  and  originality* 
He  is,  however,  not  the  only  representative  of  his  epoch.  He 
had  manv  rivals,  somewhat  younger  than  himself,  several  of 
which  enjoyed  quite  as  much,  some  even  more  celebrity  than 
he  himself,  and  among  these  there  are  some  whom  I  am  not  at 
liberty  to  pass  over  in  silence. 

Such  are,  in  the  first  place,  Giraud  de  Borneil  and  Arnaud 
Daniel,  who  make  their  appearance  simultaneously,  as  if  they 
had  been  summoned  by  each  other,  and  each  claims  for  himself 
the  palm  of  Provencal  poetry.  Borneil  has  in  his  favor  the 
judgment  of  his  contemporaries  and  of  those  who  spoke  his  lan- 
guage. In  support  of  Arnaud  Daniel  we  can  produce  the  great 
authority  of  Dante  and  of  all  the  Italian  poets  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  who  still  preserved  of  Provencal  poetry,  even  after  its 
extinction,  an  immediate  tradition  full  of  interest  and  admira- 
tion. 

M.y  plan  does  not  admit  of  a  formal  discussion  or  a  solution 
of  this  question.  It  will  be  necessary  for  me  to  speak,  and  I 
shall  speak  in  another  place,  of  Arnaud  Daniel  and  of  Giraud 
de  Borneil,  but  this  must  be  done  separately,  and  they  must  be 
considered  from  points  of  view  entirely  distinct.  My  remarks, 
however,  on  both  these  Troubadours  will  contain,  implicitly  at 
least,  a  very  positive  answer  to  the  question  propounded. 

It  is  more  especially  as  a  writer  and  as  an  innovator  in  the 
style  of  Provencal  poetry,  that  Arnaud  Daniel  claims  our  con- 
sideration, and  it  is  therefore  in  the  general  survey  of  that  part 
of  my  subject  that  an  occasion  to  speak  of  him  will  most  natu- 
rally present  itself.  I  hope  to  show  then,  that  judging  him 
merely  from  his  productions  still  in  our  possession,  Arnaud 
Daniel  was  but  an  indifferent  poet,  destitute  of  imagination  and 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  377 

of  sentiment,  and  one  of  those  who  contributed  most  to  the  de- 
terioration of  Provencal  poetry,  by  reducing  it  to  a  mere 
mechanism,  without  any  higher  aim  than  that  of  charming,  or 
at  any  rate  of  astonishing,  the  ear. 

In  regard  to  Giraud  de  Borneil,  he  is,  in  my  opinion,  in  spite 
of  his  defects,  the  most  distinguished  of  the  Troubadours,  the 
one  who  has  contributed  most  to  ennoble  the  tone  of  Provencal 
poetry  and  to  idealize  its  character.  When,  therefore,  after 
having  considered  historically  the  principal  branches  of  this 
poetry,  I  shall,  as  I  propose,  proceed  to  the  attempt  to  give  a 
general  idea  of  it,  by  taking  it  up  at  its  highest  degree  of  per- 
fection, and  by  contemplating  it  as  the  noblest  expression  of  the 
civilization  of  the  Middle  Age,  my  task  will  be  a  definite  and  an 
easy  one. 

It  will  be  restricted  to  the  examination  of  the  compositions 
of  Giraud  de  Borneil.  Till  then  I  have  nothing  to  say  of  this 
Troubadour,  and  I  shall  therefore  continue  the  review  of  the 
most  celebrated  contemporaries  of  Bernard  de  Yentadour. 

The  four  next  in  distinction  to  those  whom  I  have  just  named, 
are  Pierre  Eoger,  Gui  d'Uissel,  Peirols,  and  Gaucelm  Faydit, 
of  Limousin  or  of  Auvergne. 

In  the  amatory  pieces  of  Pierre  Roger  I  find  nothing  of  suffi- 
cient interest  to  deserve  citation.  In  regard  to  his  life  we  can 
hardly  have  any  more  motive  to  make  ourselves  acquainted 
with  it,  the  moment  we  set  aside  his  works.  There  is  one  trait, 
however,  exhibited  by  it,  which  I  must  notice,  because  it  illus- 
trates a  general  fact  of  a  certain  interest  in  the  history  of  Pro- 
ven§al  poetry  and  culture. 

Pierre  Roger  had  received  a  distinguished  education ;  he  was 
a  man  of  letters,  and  had  once  been  canon  of  Clermont.  At 
that  time  this  was  a  position  of  considerable  importance  in 
society.  Nevertheless  Roger  quitted  it  for  the  purpose  of  be- 
coming a  Jongleur ;  and,  nothing  is  of  more  frequent  occurrence 
than  to  see  clerks,  and  men  educated  for  the  priesthood,  or  even 
already  engaged  in  the  service  of  the  church,  renounce  their 
profession  to  become  Troubadours  or  singers  to  the  Troubadours. 
Some  chose  this  part  from  motives  of  vanity ;  others  simply  be- 
cause, too  miserable  and  poor  in  the  condition  of  clerks  and 
priests,  they  hoped  to  live  a  life  of  greater  ease  and  pleasure  in 
the  capacity  of  poets. 

Gui  d'Uissel  is  a  Troubadour,  under  whose  name  the  manu- 
scripts contain  a  score  of  tolerably  elegant  pieces.  His  life 
presents  to  us  a  particular,  which  is  perhaps  unique  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Provencal  poets.  He  had  two  brothers  and  a  cousin, 
who  owned  together  in  joint-tenancy  the  seigniory  of  the  chateau 
of  Uissel,  beside  several  others.  All  four  jof  them  possessed  a 


378  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

portion  of  the  talents,  the  union  of  which  was  at  that  time 
necessary  to  constitute  a  poet.  Gui  could  compose  chansons, 
but  no  other  species  of  poetry,  and  he  was  neither  a  musician 
nor  a  singer.  His  two  brothers  likewise  only  succeeded  in  one 
kind  of  poetic  composition,  and  this  was  the  tenson,  which  they 
were  unable  either  to  set  to  music  or  to  sing.  It  was  the  fourth 
of  their  number,  the  cousin,  ^ho,  himself  unable  to  make 
verses,  composed  the  music  for,  and  sung  those  of  the  three 
brothers.  It  was  thus  that  four  distinct  individuals  by  their 
united  talents  formed  one  single  Troubadour,  and  this  Trouba- 
dour even  was  scarcely  a  complete  one.* 

From  the  poems  of  Gui  d'uissel  I  shall  quote  but  one  coup- 
let, and  curious  enough  it  is,  in  which  the  author  explains  the 
reasons  why  he  had  not  composed  as  many  amatory  pieces  as 
he  had  wished.  He  says: 

"  I  should  make  songs  much  oftener,  but  I  am  sick  and  weary 
of  constantly  repeating  that  I  weep  and  sigh  from  love ;  for  all 
the  world  could  say  as  much  at  least.  I  fain  would  make  new 
verses  with  airs  agreeable,  but  I  find  nothing  which  has  not  al- 
ready been  said.  How  shall  I  manage  then  to  supplicate  my 
lady-love  ?  I'll  tell  the  same  things  in  another  fashion,  and  thus 
I'll  make  my  song  appear  original." 

Gui  d'Uissel  makes  here  a  very  naive  confession  of  that  which 
the  majority  of  Troubadours  did  without  any  such  avowal.  But 
if  this  is  true,  the  small  number  of  those,  who  had  talent  and 
individuality  of  character  enough  to  vary  to  some  extent  a 
theme  so  simple,  is  so  much  the  more  worthy  of  admiration. 

Peirols  is  the  fourth  of  the  distinguished  Troubadors  who 
were  contemporary  with  Bernard  de  Ventadour.  But  I  must 
exempt  myself  from  speaking  of  them  here,  until  I  shall  have 
reported  some  highly  finished  productions  of  theirs  under  an- 
other division  of  my  subject.  There  remains,  therefore,  but  a 
word  more  to  be  said  on  Gaucelm  Faydit. 

This  is  one  of  the  Troubadours,  of  whom  we  possess  the 
greatest  affluence  of  pieces.  These  pieces  are,  for  the  most  part, 
highly  wrought,  of  a  finish  habitually  elegant,  sometimes  per- 
fect. But  there  is  nothing  in  them  that  might  be  called  in- 
spired, nothing  proceeds  from  an  original  sentiment ;  all  is 
imitation  and  study  for  effect.  The  report  of  the  Provencal 
traditions,  or  the  impression  produced  by  these  pieces  on  con- 
temporary minds  is  quite  remarkable.  "Gaucelm  Faydit," 
they  say,  "went  about  the  world  for  twenty  years,  without 

*E  1'us  de  sos  fraires  avia  nom  N  Ebles  e  1'autre  EN  Peire,  e'l  cozin  avia  nom  N 
Ellas.  E  tug  quatre  si  eron  trobador.  EN  Gui  si  trobava  bonas  cansos,  EN  Elias  bonaa 
tensos,  EN  Ebles  las  malas  tensos,  EN  Peire  cantava  tot  quant  els  trobavan.  The  bio- 
grapher adds  in  conclusion :  "  Mas  lo  legatz  del  Papa  li  fetz  jurat  que  mais  no  feze* 
cansos;  E  per  lui  laisset  lo  trobar  e'l  cantar."  Raynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  175 — Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  379 

succeeding  in  making  either  his  songs  or  himself  acceptable  and 
welcome."*  This  is  an  evidence  that  the  public  of  the  Trou- 
badours made  much  nicer  distinctions  in  their  poetry  than  we 
could  make  in  our  day,  and  there  are  many  other  facts  which 
might  be  cited  in  support  of  this  remark.  There  are  yet  ex- 
tant, for  example,  several  amatory  pieces  from  the  pen  of  a 
Troubadour,  Deudes  de  Prades  by  name,  which  modern  critics 
would  be  tempted  to  rank  among  the  most  agreeable.  We 
will  see  now,  what  the  judges  of  the  time  say  in  regard  to 
them.  "  His  songs  did  not  proceed  from  love  ;  this  is  the  rea- 
son why  they  produced  no  favorable  impression  on  the 
world  ;  they  were  not  sung  at  all."f 

ARNAUD  DE  MAKVEIL. — The  group  of  Troubadours,  of  which 
I  have  just  spoken,  belongs  to  the  northern  portion  of  the 
countries  of  the  Provencal  tongue,  to  Auvergne  namely,  and 
to  Limousin,  countries,  which  the  inhabitants  of  the  Provence 
properly  so  called,  those  of  the  banks  of  the  Garonne  and  of  the 
plain  between  the  Cevennes  and  the  Mediterranean,  designated, 
it  would  seem,  by  the  name  of  ultramontane,  a  denomination 
perfectly  just  and  appropriate  relatively  to  themselves. 

But  although  the  most  ancient  Troubadours  now  known  to 
us  are  incontestably  included  in  this  group,  yet  these  were  not 
the  provinces  in  which  the  poetry  of  chivalry  had  originated. 
This  poetry  was  there  but  an  adopted  one  ;  it  was  an  acquired 
poetry,  born  further  toward  the  South,  closer  to  the  shores  of 
the  Mediterranean  and  to  the  Pyrenees.  This  is  a  question  to 
which  I  shall  return  perhaps  hereafter,  but  which  at  present  I 
can  waive  without  any  inconvenience. 

It  is  an  indubitable  fact,  that  in  the  countries,  which  have 
since  that  time  been  known  under  the  name  of  Lower  Langue- 
doc,  there  existed  at  quite  an  early  day  several  schools  of  Pro- 
vencal poetry,  of  which  the  one  at  Toulouse  is  the  earliest 
known  to  us.  Giraud  le  Roux,  that  knightly  Troubadour, 
whom  I  have  already  designated  as  one  of  those  who  composed 
verses  during  the  first  half  of  the  twelfth  century,  during  the 
interval  between  the  count  of  Poitiers  and  Bernard  de  Yenta- 
dour,  this  Giraud  le  Roux,  I  say,  belonged  to  that  school ;  he 
is  its  earliest  alumnus,  but  not  its  founder. 

Without  giving  an  account  of  these  different  schools,  and 
without  attempting  to  distinguish  them  respectively,  one  may 
very  aptly  form  a  separate  group  of  the  Troubadours,  who 

*  "  Mot  fon  lone  temps  desastrucs  de  dos  e  d'onor  a  penre,  que  plus  de  XX  ans  anet 
per  lo  mon  qu'el  ni  sas  cansos  no  foro  grazitz  ni  volgutz."  Kaynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  158. 
— Ed. 

t  u  E  fes  cansos  per  sen  dc  trobar  ;  mas  no  movianben  d'amor.  Per  que  non  avian 
eabor  entre  la  gen.  ni  no  foron  cantados,  ni  grazidas."  Raynouard :  vol.  v.  p.  126.— 
Ed. 


380  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

received  their  professional  training  there  during  the  second  half 
of  the  twelfth  century  ;  and  in  this  group  I  think  I  may  include 
Arnaud  de  Marveil,  notwithstanding  he  was  born  out  of  the 
Gironde,  and  this  because  he  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  life 
in  Lower  Languedoc,  because  he  died  there,  and  composed 
there  all  that  is  now  known  of  him.  Of  all  the  Troubadours 
of  this  epoch,  and  of  this  part  of  the  South,  he  is  the  one,  in 
whose  compositions  we  find  the  greatest  amount  of  sentiment, 
of  sweetness  and  of  elegance. 

Arnaud  was  from  Marveil,  a  chateau  of  the  diocese  of  Peri- 
gord.  Though  born  in  an  obscure  condition  and  in  poverty, 
he  had  received  all  the  education  which  the  age  afforded,  and 
had  learnt  the  Latin.  Having  entered  by  the  aid  of  it  the  cleri- 
cal profession,  he  spent  some  time  in  the  exercise  of  it ;  but 
weary  at  last  of  the  uneasiness,  and  perhaps  of  the  obscurity  in 
which  he  vegetated,  he  resolved  to  apply  himself  to  the  culture 
of  poetry,  and  set  out  on  his  errantry  in  quest  of  fortune  and 
adventures.* 

He  had  already  travelled  over  many  a  country  and  visited 
many  a  castle,  when  his  good  or  evil  star  brought  him  to  the 
court  of  Kogers,  surnamed  Taillefer  (the  iron-shaped),  the  vis- 
count of  Beziers,  and  father  to  the  one  whom  the  count  of 
Montfort  consigned  to  such  a  wretched  end  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  horrible  war  against  the  Albigenses.  Rogers  was 
a  valiant  knight,  at  whose  court  everybody  plumed  himself  on 
his  elegance  of  manners  and  his  gallantry.  He  had  married  in 
the  year  1171,  Adelaide,  daughter  of  Raymond  Y.,  the  count 
of  Toulouse,  to  whom  he  gave  the  title  of  Countess  de  Burlatz, 
because  she  had  been  born  in  the  castle  of  that  name. 

Arnaud  entered  the  service  of  the  countess,  but  we  do  not 
see  very  well  in  what  capacity.  His  biographer  says,  that  he 
was  an  excellent  singer  and  reader  of  romances,  f  words,  the 
precise  import  of  which  I  do  not  see,  but  which  seem  to  sig- 
nify something  foreign  to  the  condition  and  profession  of  the 
Troubadour  or  Jongleur.  It  was,  however,  only  by  his  poetry 
that  he  distinguished  himself  at  the  court  of  Beziers.  After 
having  become  enamored,  and  very  seriously  enamored,  of 
the  countess,  he  composed  on  her  several  pieces,  remarkable 
for  their  grace  and  tenderness.  But  unlike  the  other  Trouba- 
dours in  this  respect,  he  neither  dared  to  avow  himself  the 
author  of  these  pieces,  nor  to  tell  the  countess  that  he  had  made 
them  out  of  love  to  her ;  he  gave  them  as  the  work  of  an  un- 
known author,  and  enjoyed  in  silence  the  pleasure  with  which 
everybody  listened  to  them. 

*  Compare  the  Provencal  account,  Raynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  45. — Ed. 
f  "  Aquel  Arnautz  e  caiitava  be  e  legia  be  romans." — Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours. 


381 


Among  the  pieces  by  Arnaud,  which  have  come  down  to  us, 
we  easily  recognize  some  of  those,  which  he  composed  during 
this  first  period  of  his  amours.  I  give  here  two  stanzas  from 
one  of  them,  which  indicate  his  situation  tolerably  well,  but  in 
which  his  poetic  talent  is  not  yet  fully  developed. 

"  Fair  and  pleasant  lady,  thy  great  beauty,  thy  ruddy  com- 
plexion, thy  accomplishments  and  courteous  qualities  give  me 
the  knowledge  and  the  occasion  to  sing.  But  my  great  fear  and 
agitation  prevent  me  from  saying,  that  it  is  of  you  I  sing ;  and 
I  know  not  what  would  betide  me  from  my  songs,  whether  it 
would  be  for  my  benefit  or  my  misfortune." 

"  Yes  lady,  I  love  thee  secretly,  and  no  one  is  aware  of  this, 
but  Love  and  I  myself.  Thou  even  thyself  art  ignorant  of  it ; 
and  since  I  dare  not  speak  to  thee  in  private,  I  shall  at  least 
address  thee  in  my  songs." 

Encouraged  by  the  success  of  these  songs,  Arnaud  de  Mar- 
veil  could  not  resist  the  temptation  of  pursuing  the  rest  of  his 
adventure  in  his  proper  name  and  person.  He  composed  a  new 
song  for  the  countess,  quite  as  impassioned  as  the  others,  and 
of  which  he  avowed  himself  the  author.  This  was  tantamount 
to  declaring  himself  the  author  of  all  the  previous  ones.  In 
spite  of  a  certain  naive  delicacy  of  sentiment  and  expression, 
this  new  song  is  still  quite  mediocre ;  and  I  should  have  no- 
thing to  say  of  it  unless  it  constituted  an  era  in  the  life  of  our 
Troubadour.  Here  are  the  first  three  couplets;  and  this  ia 
more  than  is  necessary  to  give  its  leading  idea. 

"  Noble  lady,  thy  ingenuous  worth,  which  I  cannot  forget,  thy 
way  of  looking  and  of  smiling,  thy  fair  appearances,  cause  me 
(better  than  I  know  how  to  express)  to  heave  a  sigh  from  my 
inmost  heart ;  and  if  goodness  and  mercy  plead  not  in  my 
behalf  before  you,  I  know  that  it  will  make  me  die."* 

"  I  love  thee  without  dissimulation,  without  deception  and 
with  constancy.  I  love  thee  more  than  it  is  possible  to  imagine. 
This  is  the  only  thing  I  could  be  guilty  of  against  thy  wishes.  Oh 
lady  of  my  heart,  if  in  this  respect  I  should  appear  to  err, 
pardon  this  fault  of  mine." 


*  Le  Parnasse  occitanien,  page  16. 
"  La  franca  captenensa 
Qu'ieu  mm  pose  oblidar, 
El  dos  ris  e  1'esgar, 
El  semblan  queus  vi  far, 
Mi  fan,  domna  valens, 
Melhor  qu'ieu  no  sai  dir, 
Ins  el  cor  suspirar : 
E  si  per  me  nous  vena 
Merces  e  cauzimens, 
Tern  que  m  n'er  a  morir." 

"  Ses  gienh  e  sea  falhensa 
Vos  am,  e  ses  cor  var 


Al  meils  qu'om  pot  pessar. 
D'aitan  nous  aus  forsar 
Per  vostres  mandamens. 
Ai !  domna  cui  dezir. 
Si  conoissetz  nius  par 
Que  sia  fallimcns 
Quar  vos  soi  be  volens, 
Sufretz  m'  aquest  fallir." 
*  *       *  *  * 

"  Domna,  per  gran  temensa, 
Tan  vos  am  eus  ten  car, 
Nous  aus  estiers  pregar."  etc.,  etc. 


382  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

"  It  is  with  great  fear  that  I  love  thee,  and  I  not  even  ven- 
ture to  ask  a  favor.  Still  it  is  better  to  love  an  obscure  man, 
who  knows  how  to  please  and  to  conceal  the  favors  love  be- 
stows, and  to  feel  grateful  for  the  honor  done  him,  than  some 
great  personage,  displeasing  and  ungrateful,  who  thinks  that  all 
the  world  is  to  obey  him." 

The  countess  of  Burlatz  not  only  was  not  offended  by  this 
confession  of  the  Troubadour,  but,  according  to  the  biographer 
of  the  latter,  whose  naive  words  I  cannot  do  better  than 
reproduce,  "  She  listened  to  his  prayers  and  received  them 
graciously  ;  the  poet  himself  she  put  in  harness  (that  is  to  say, 
she  furnished  him  with  handsome  garments  and  with  horses) 
and  encouraged  him  to  find  (trobar)  and  to  sing  of  her."* 

The  majority  of  the  pieces,  which  we  possess  of  Arnaud  de 
Marveil,  were  composed  in  this  situation,  which  permitted  him 
to  aspire  from  wish  to  wish,  from  prayer  to  prayer,  up  to  the 
highest  favors,  which  his  lady  was  permitted  to  accord  unto  her 
friend  ;  and  this  progression  of  chivalric  love  is  indicated  with 
sufficient  clearness  in  the  pieces  in  question. 

The  first  of  them  are  still  the  expression  of  a  timid  love, 
scarcely  exhibiting  a  ray  of  hope  across  his  many  longings.  I 
will  select  a  few  passages  from  them,  deciding,  as  I  am  accus- 
tomed to  do,  less  in  favor  of  those  which  are  intrinsically  the 
most  beautiful,  than  of  those  which  offer  the  greatest  facilities 
for  translation. 

u  As  the  fish  have  their  life  in  the  waters,  so  I  have  and  al- 
ways shall  have  mine  in  love.  Love  made  me  choose  a  lady, 
through  whom  I  live  contented,  without  expecting  any  other 
good.  Her  value  is  so  high,  that  I  cannot  say,  whether  1  derive 
most  pride  or  shame  from  it ;  these  are  two  things  which  love 
has  both  united  in  me,  and  that  so  well,  that  measure  and  reason 
lose  nothing  by  their  blending." 

"Fair lady,  thou  whose  steps  are  guided  by  joy  and  youth, 
wert  thou  never  to  love  me,  I  still  would  love  thee  always ;  'tis 
love  would  have  it  BO,  and  I  cannot  resist.  'Tis  love,  that 
knowing  me  to  serve  thee  truly  with  all  my  heart,  has  taught 
me  methods  of  approaching  thee.  I  touch  thy  hand  in 
thought  and  I  impress  a  thousand  kisses ;  and  this  delight  is 
sweet ;  no  jealous  rival  can  deprive  me  of  it."f 

*  i;E  la  comtessa  non  1'esquivet,  ana  entendet  SOB  precs  c  los  recenp  e  los  grazic  ; 
e'l  mes  en  arnes,  e  set  li  bandeza  de  trobar  e  de  cantar  d'ella.    Rayn.  v.  p.  45." — Ed. 

t  Raynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  207.    Piece  No.  II.   Strophes  1,  3,  4. 

Si  cum  li  peis  an  en  1'aigua  lor  vida,  Tant  es  valens  que,  quan  ben  ra'o  «ossir, 

L'ai  ieu  en  joy  e  totz  temps  la  i  aurai,          M'en  nays  erguelhs  e'n  creys  humilitatz  ; 
Qa'amors  m'a  fait  en  tal  domna  chauzir       Si  s  tenon  joinz  amors  e  jois  amdos 
Don  viu  jauzens  BO!  del  respieit  qu'  ieu  Que  ren  no  i  pert  mezura  ni  razos. 
n'ai ; 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  383 

"  Good  lady,  endowed  with  every  accomplishment,  thou  dost 
surpass  the  best  I  am  acquainted  with  so  far,  that  with  thee  I 
should  rather  long  and  languish  than  enjoy  from  another  all  that 
a  lover  can  claim.  I  am  content  with  this,  so  much  I  am  afraid 
of  not  obtaining  more.  And  yet  I  do  not  despair  of  this 
entirely  ;  for  I  have  often  seen  at  powerful  courts  the  poor  man 
overwhelmed  with  gifts  magnificent." 

I  now  proceed  to  give  a  few  couplets  from  another  piece  of 
Arnaud's,  remarkable  for  its  extremely  graceful  versification 
and  as  being  one  of  those  pieces,  where  that  taste  for  antithesis 
begins  to  make  its  appearance,  which  at  a  somewhat  later  date 
became  a  preponderating  characteristic  in  Provencal  poetry, 
from  whence  it  passed  over  into  the  poetry  of  the  Italians  and 
Gatalonians. 

"  My  lady,  thou  art  pressing  me  so  sorely,  thou  and  my  pas- 
sion, that  I  dare  not  love  thee,  and  still  I  cannot  help  it.  The 
one  incites,  the  other  stops  me  ;  the  one  emboldens,  the  other 
intimidates.  I  dare  not  ask  thee  for  joy  or  favor.  I  am  like 
the  warrior  mortally  wounded,  who,  though  he  knows  he'll  die, 
combats  still  bravely.  I  call  on  thee  for  mercy  from  a  heart, 
that  is  surrendered  to  despair."* 

"  Let  thy  exalted  worth  not  prove  my  ruin,  the  worth  which 
I  have  done  my  best  to  extol  and  celebrate.  From  the  first 
moment  I  beheld  thee,  I've  consecrated  all  my  knowledge  and 
my  power  to  the  enhancement  of  thy  fame.  Of  these  I've  made 
men  speak  and  listen  in  many  a  noble  place ;  and  if  thou 
wouldst  condescend  to  be  a  little  grateful,  I  should  demand  no 
other  guerdon  but  thy  friendship." 

"  Dost  thou  desire  to  know  the  wrongs  and  all  the  injuries,  of 
which  thou  canst  accuse  me  and  complain  ?  It  is  that  I  have 

Belha  domna,  cui  joys  e  jovens  guida,  Bona  domna,  de  totz  bos  aips  complida, 

Ja  no  ra'ametz,  totz  temps  vos  amarai,  Tant  etz  valens  part  las  melhors  qu'ieu  sai, 

Qu' amors    o    vol  ves  cui  no  m    puesc  Mais  am  de  vos  lo  talant  e'l  dezir 

guandir;  Qae  d'autr'  aver  tot  so   qu'a   drat    s'es- 
E  quar  conois  qu'ieu  am  ab  cor  verai,  chai ; 

Mostra  m  de  vos  de  tal  guiza  jauzir  :  D'aisso  n'ai  pro,  quar  tern  el  plus  falhir, 

Pensan  vos  bais  e  us  maney  e  us  embraz  ;  Pero  non  sui  del  tot  dezesperatz, 

Aquest  domneis  m'es  dous  e  cars  e  bos,  Qu'en  ricas  cortz  ai  vist  mantas  sazos 

E  no'l  me  pot  vedar  negus  gelos.  Paubr'  enrequir  e  recebre  grans  dos. — Ed. 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  223.    Strophes  1,  3,  4,  5. 

1.  Si  m  destrenhetz,  dona,  vos  et  amors  5.  Vostre  gen  cors,  vostra  fresca  colors, 

Qu'  amar  no  us  aus,  ni  no  m'en  puesc  E'l  dous  esguartz  plazens  que  m  sabetz 

estraire  ;  faire 

L'us  m'encaussa,   1'autre  m  fai  re-  Vos  mi  fan  tan  dezirar  e  voler, 

maner,  Qu'ades  vos  am  on  plus  m'en  dezesper ; 

L'us  m'enardis,  e  1'autre  m  fai  temer;  E  si  folhei,  quar  no  m'en  sai  partir: 

Preyar  no  us  aus  per  enten  de  jauzir,  Mas  quant  me  pens  quals  etz  que  m  faitz 

Aissi  cum  selh  qu'es  nafratz  per  murir,  languir, 

Sap  que  mortz  es,  e  pero  si  s  combat,  Cossir  1'onor,  et  oblid  la  foudat, 

Vos  clam  merce  ab  cor  dezesperat.  E  fug  mon  sen,  e  see  ma  voluntat — Ed. 
*           *           *           *          V         * 


884:  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

been  more  charmed  and  ravished  by  thee  than  by  any  other 
object  in  the  world,  it  is  that  I  have  recognized  and  celebrated 
thee'as  the  best  and  fairest  of  thy  kind.  This  constitutes  the 
wrong,  and  this  is  all  of  which  thou  canst  accuse  me." 

"  Thy  graceful  person,  thy  ruddy  hue,  thy  sweet  way  of  re- 
garding, constrain  me  to  desire  and  to  love  thee,  in  spite  of  my 
despair.  I  know  full  well  that  it's  a  foolish  thing ;  but  when  "I 
consider,  what  thou  art,  I  at  once  forget  the  folly ;  I  look  but  at 
the  honor ;  then  I  dismiss  my  reason  and  follow  inclination." 

There  is  something  in  the  general  tone  and  in  several  traits 
of  this  piece  which  reminds  us  somewhat  of  Petrarch,  and 
which  would  lead  us  to  presume  that  the  latter  had  made  the 
works  of  this  Troubadour  the  subject  of  particular  study.  Pe- 
trarch, in  fact,  speaks  of  Arnaud  de  Marveil,  and  ranks  him 
among  the  most  celebrated  Troubadours,  but  still  he  puts  him 
below  Arnaud  Daniel,  from  whom  he  distinguishes  him  by  the 
expression  of  "  the  less  famous  Arnaud."  Petrarch  makes  here 
a  distinction,  which  is  not  to  be  taken  too  ri^orouslv.  A  Trou- 
badour, who  ever  and  anon  reminds  us  of  him,  is  surely  far 
superior  to  the  heavy  and  dry  Arnaud  Daniel. 

The  specimens  which  I  have  lust  extracted  from  the  better 
pieces  of  Arnaud  de  Marveil  will  suffice  to  give  us  an  idea  of 
nis  genius.  I  shall  not  quote  any  others,  except  a  few,  which 
may  serve  to  indicate  still  further  the.  eventual  progression  of 
his  sentiments,  and  of  the  principal  incidents  of  his  erotic  life. 

Here  is,  for  example,  a  passage  in  which  he  formally  requests 
his  lady  to  take  him  into  her  service,  by  receiving  his  homage 
in  accordance  with  the  customary  ceremonial,  which,  as  we 
have  already  seen  above,  was  precisely  and  in  every  point  that 
of  feudal  vassalage. 

"  Oh  thou,  the  fairest  mortal  that  ever  was  born  into  the 
world,  thevhope  I  entertain  of  thee  is  so  delightful  and  so  sweet, 
that  I  could  never  bestow  my  heart  on  any  other.  But  it  is 
high  time  that  I  should  call  thee  my  liege  and  mistress,  and 
that,  with  hands  joined  in  humility  before  thee,  thou  deignedst 
to  receive  me  as  thy  knight,  as  some  good  seignior  deigns  to 
accept  his  vassal." 

From  among  the  various  passages  of  several  pieces,  which 
prove  that  the  prayer  of  Arnaud  had  been  benignantly  received, 
and  that  his  fair  countess  had  adopted  him  as  her  servant  and 
treated  him  occasionally  with  tenderness,  I  will  only  quote  two. 
The  first  is  contained  in  a  couplet  of  nine  verses,  which  are  per- 
haps the  most  spirited  and  the  most  brilliant  of  this  author.  It 
is  to  be  remarked  beforehand,  that  they  are  intranslatable,  and 
the  following  can  only  be  said  to  be  a  faint  reflection  of  their 
beauty : 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  385 

"  "When  my  fair  lady  addresses  me  and  looks  at  me,  the  lustre 
of  her  eyes  and  the  sweetness  of  her  breath  penetrate  my  heart 
together.  Therefrom  my  lips  derive  such  great  delight,  as 
I  know  could  never  spring  from  my  own  nature ;  it  can  only 
be  born  of  the  love  which  has  fixed  its  abode  in  my  heart." 

The  second  passage  is  less  poetical,  but  more  positive  and 
clearer  than  the  first. 

"  Fair  lady,  full  well  didst  thou  deprive  me  of  my  life,  the 
day  thou  gavest  me  the  kiss,  which  left  eternal  trouble  in  my 
heart.  But  surely  I  was  a  fool,  I,  when  I  boasted  of  that  kiss ; 
and  I  deserve  an  ignominious  death  (to  be  dragged  by  horses). 
But  oh,  sweet  object  of  my  love,  pardon  the  criminal !  Restore 
me  to  my  joy  and  hope  again !  For  I  shall  be  a  cypher  in  the 
world,  until  the  day  when  I  shall  be  again  admitted  to  thy  ser- 
vice." 

Arnaud  obtained  his  pardon  and  continued  to  convert  the 
slightest  incidents  of  his  love  for  the  countess  of  Beziers  into 
poems,  which  were  always  well  received  and  always  replete 
with  pleasant  traits.  But  in  a  happiness  like  his  there  was 
something  too  fragile  and  too  adventurous  to  be  lasting. 

The  viscount  of  Beziers  was  in  intimate  relations  both  of  in- 
terest and  of  friendship  with  Alphonso  I.,  king  of  Aragon,  who 
paid  him  several  visits,  either  at  Beziers  or  at  Carcassonne.  In 
the  course  of  these  visits  Alphonso  became  enamored  of  the 
countess,  and  when  he  perceived  the  tenderness  with  which  she 
cherished  Arnaud,  he  became  jealous  of  it,  and  by  his  prayers 
and  intrigues  prevailed  on  her  so  far  as  to  induce  her  to  dismiss 
the  poor  Troubadour  and  to  put  an  interdict  upon  his  celebrat- 
ing her  thereafter  in  his  verses. 

When  Arnaud  de  Marveil  heard  of  his  dismissal  (says  his 
ancient  biographer)  lie  was  grieved  beyond  all  grief ;  and  quit- 
ting the  countess  and  her  court,  like  a  man  abandoned  to  des- 
pair, he  went  to  William  of  Montpellier,  who  was  his  friend 
and  seignior,  and  remained  with  him  for  a  long  time.  There 
he  gave  vent  to  his  complaint,  shed  many  a  tear,  and  wrote  the 
song  which  says : 

"My  thoughts  were  very  sweet  indeed,"  etc.  * 

This  song  is  one  of  those  of  Arnaud  which  are  still  extant, 
but  it  is  not  one  of  his  best.  The  Troubadour  there  assures  his 
fair  countess,  in  somewhat  common  terms,  of  his  inability  to 
cease  to  love  her  and  to  sing  of  her,  and  he  conjures  her  to  per- 

*  "  Arnautz  de  Marueil,  quant  auzi  lo  comjat,  fo  sobre  totas  dolors  doPens ;  e  si  s'en 
parti  com  horn  desesperatz  de  lieis  e  de  sa  cort.  Et  anet  s'en  a'N  Guillem  de  Monpes- 
lier  qu'era  sos  amics  e  sos  senher,  e  estet  gran  temps  ab  lui.  E  lai  plays  e  ploret,  e  lai 
fes  aquesta  canso  que  dis: 

Molt  eran  dous  miei  cossir." 

Raynouard,  vol.  T.  p.  46.— Ed. 
25 


386  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

mit  him  to  return  to  her  presence.  It  would  appear  that  she 
made  no  account  of  it,  however ;  and  our  Troubadour  died 
disconsolate  while  yet  in  the  bloom  of  life,  at  Montpellier  or  its 
environs,  in  one  of  the  chateaux  of  William. 

Arnaud  de  Marveil  is  one  of  that  very  limited  number  of 
Troubadours  who  are  known  to  have  admired  and  celebrated 
one  lady  only.  This  unity  of  object  would  give  an  additional 
interest  to  his  pieces,  if  all  of  them  were  yet  extant,  or  if  we 
could  only  succeed  in  arranging  those  which  are  left  us  accord- 
ing to  the  order  in  which  they  were  produced.  Sweetness  and 
an  elegant  correctness  constitute  the  principal  characteristics  of 
his  poetry. 

Among'  the  number  of  the  most  original  and  most  distin- 
guished Troubadors  who  nourished  with  Arnaud  de  Marveil 
in  the  countries  which  were  subject  to  the  authority  of  the 
counts  of  Toulouse,  I  include  Raymond  de  Miraval,  Peter 
Yidal  of  Toulouse,  William  de  Cabestaing,  so  famous  for  his 
tragic  history,  and  Hugh  Brunet  or  Brunec  of  Rhodez.  Among 
their  pieces  are  to  be  found  some  of  uncommon  piquancy  of 
subject,  and  others  again  contain  exquisite  touches  of  poetry, 
but  these  I  cannot  communicate  to  the  reader  for  want  of 
space.  I  regret  more  especially  my  inability  to  narrate  what 
is  known  to  us  of  the  lives  of  these  Troubadours,  which  are 
even  more  poetical  than  their  poetry,  and  invaluable  for  the 
history  of  the  society,  in  the  midst  of  which  they  lived. 

The  only  one  of  these  four  Troubadours,  concerning  whom  I 
think  I  can  afford  to  say  something,  is  Brunet ;  not  because  he 
is  more  interesting  or  more  remarkable  than  the  other  three, 
but  simply  because  he  is  the  one  of  whom  we  possess  the 
smallest  number  of  works,  and  of  whose  life  we  know  the  least. 
Hugh  Brunet  was  a  man  of  education,  and  a  scholar,  a 
clerk  of  Rhodez,  who,  like  so  many  others  of  his  profession, 
turned  Troubadour  and  Jongleur.  He  frequented  several  courts, 
but  lived  principally  at  that  of  Rhodez.  He  was  for  some 
time  the  admirer  of  a  lady  of  Aurillac,  who  at  first  appeared  to 
be  pleased  with  his  verses,  but  who  discarded  him  in  the  end. 
Brunet  was  not  one  of  those  who  only  made  pretensions  to  love ; 
he  really  loved,  and  under  the  influence  of  the  chagrin,  which 
the  sternness  of  his  lady  caused  him,  he  entered  a  Carthusian 
monastery  and  died  there. 

We  have  but  seven  or  eight  pieces  from  him,  wherein  we  meet 
with  many  pleasant  things  expressed  with  a  good  deal  of  spirit, 
but  which  are  particularly  remarkable  in  the  history  of  Pro- 
vencal poetry,  as  being  the  first  wherein  the  amorous  language 
of  the  Troubadours  is  found  to  be  modified  in  a  sense,  of  which 
I  should  like  to  give  some  conception.  The  emotions  and  im- 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  387 

pressions  of  ]ove  are  there  described,  as  it  were,  physically,  and 
in  a  measure  personified.  A  few  short  quotations  will  enable 
us  to  comprehend  more  clearly  what  I  wish  to  convey.  And 
in  the  first  place,  the  following  are  three  couplets  of  a  piece, 
wherein  he  complains,  as  he  was  wont  to  do,  of  the  cruelty  of 
his  lady. 

"  When  love  came  to  assail  my  heart,  in  the  beginning,  my 
lady  told  me,  she  made  me  hope,  that  she  would  share  with  me 
the  sentiment  of  love ;  but  great  is  now  the  measure  of  my  an- 
guish, and  that  of  happiness  is  small." 

"  Ah,  what  was  then  the  purport  of  the  language  of  those 
eyes  ?  What  did  they  ask  of  me,  that  she  now  compre- 
hends not  my  distress,  that  she  makes  no  reply  to  all  my 
prayers?  Surely  her  looks  were  faithless  messengers  ;  and  if  I 
had  suspected  this,  by  heavens,  I  never  would  have  opened 
them  my  heart." 

"  Now  they  persist  in  staying  there,  in  spite  of  all  the  world, 
and  whenever  I  regain  the  mastery  of  my  mind,  to  divert  it 
elsewhere,  love  with  all  its  force  advances  and  seizes  it  anew ; 
it  annihilates  my  resolutions  and  makes  me  tread  its  path  again." 

The  characteristic  which  I  have  endeavored  to  signalize  in 
the  pieces  of  Hugh  de  Rhodez,  appears  still  more  prominent  in 
the  following  couplet,  which  is  the  first  of  another  piece. 

"  A  sweet  commotion  agitates  my  heart,  which  promises  me 
joy,  but  which  will  give  me  pain.  But  too  well  knew  he  how 
to  strike  me  with  his  amorous  lance,  who  is  a  courteous  sprite, 
who  only  shows  himself  by  fair  appearances,  who  gently  darts 
from  eye  to  eye,  from  eye  to  heart,  from  heart  to  thought."* 

The  same  piece  contains  a  passage  which  expresses  a  very 
common  idea  with  studied  elegance  and  singular  boldness. 
"Let  but  my  lady,"  says  he,  "  treasure  up  my  memory  in  her 
heart ;  the  rest  I  will  abide,  provided  only  her  looks  and  smiles 
exchange  caresses,  that  no  repulse  may  chill  the  ardor  of  our 
love."f 

To  all  appearances  (and  it  is  well  not  to  forget  the  fact),  the 
passion,  expressed  in  these  glowing  terms,  was  a  serious  and 
deeply-felt  reality.  Genius  and  talent  never  could  invent  such 
things  ;  but  where  they  find  them  already  invented,  they  adopt 
and  accommodate  themselves  to  them. 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  315.  f  E  sol  qu'el  cor  aya  de  mi  membransa, 

Cortezamen  mov  en  mon  cor  mesclansa  Del  Plus  8erai  atendens  e  sufrire, 

Que  rn  fai  tornar  e  1'amoros  dezire  ;  Ab  <lue  1 esguar  se  baizon  e  ill  sospire 

Joya  m  promet  et  aporta  ra  cossire.  Per  <lu'el  dezirs  amoros  no  3  estansa. 

Quar  en  aissi  sap  ferir  de  sa  lansa  etc-  etc-  etc.— -Ed, 

Amors,  que  es  us  esperitz  cortes, 
Que  no  s  laissa  vezer  mas  per  semblans, 
Quar  d'  huelh  en  hnelh  sain  e  fai  BOB  dous  lans, 
E  d'  huelh  en  cor  e  de  coratge  en  pee.— Ed. 


388  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

RAHBAUD  DE  YAQUEIRAS. — Of  the  Troubadours,  which  I  have 
thus  far  designated  as  having  rendered  themselves  illustrious 
in  that  species  of  Provencal  poetry,  which  is  consecrated  to  the 
expression  of  knightly  gallantry,  not  one  belongs  to  Provence 
properly  so  called,  which  at  tnat  time  comprised  the  whole 
area  extending  from  the  Isere  to  the  sea,  and  from  the  Ehone 
to  the  Alps.  Of  the  Troubadours  of  this  country  I  now  pro- 
pose to  form  a  third  group,  at  the  head  of  which  I  think  I  must 
put  Rambaud  de  Yaqueiras,  he  being  the  most  distinguished 
for  originality  and  talent. 

Rambaud  de  Yaqueiras  is  one  of  those  Troubadours,  who  by 
dint  of  their  poetic  fame  rose  to  the  honors  of  knighthood,  and 
whose  life  was  divided  between  the  lyre  and  the  sword.  He 
was  born  at  Yaqueiras,  a  village  agreeably  situated  in  the  vici- 
nity of  Orange.  He  was  the  son  of  a  knight,  but  of  a  knight 
who  was  an  idiot  and  poor,  and  with  whom  his  lot  was  little 
better  than  that  of  an  orphan. 

Being  conscious  of  some  taste  for  poetry,  he  embraced  the 
profession  of  Jongleur,  which  was  then  the  poetic  apprentice- 
ship almost  invariably  imposed  by  custom,  and  then  repaired 
to  Orange,  to  the  court  of  William  the  Fair,  who  was  the 
prince  of  that  city.  William  became  his  patron,  and  brought 
him  into  vogue  and  honor  in  all  the  courts  of  Provence. 

Already  celebrated  on  this  side  of  the  Alps,  Rambaud  re- 
solved to  seek  his  fortune  in  Piement,  and  accordingly  pre- 
sented himself  at  the  court  of  the  marquis  of  Montferrat,  one 
of  those  nobles  of  the  south  of  Europe,  who  are  so  often  spoken 
of.  Boniface  received  him  very  favorably,  dubbed  him  che- 
valier, and  attached  him  to  his  service  in  that  capacity.  He 
had  a  sister,  Beatrice  by  name,  who  was  considered  amiable 
and  handsome,  and  at  that  time  not  yet  married.  Rambaud 
having  become  enamored  of  her,  celebrated  her  charms  in  his 
verses,  under  the  poetic  name  of  the  Belhs  Cavaliers,  and  it  is 
generally  believed,  adds  one  of  the  old  biographers  of  the  Trou- 
badour, that  his  lady  was  not  indifferent  to  his  addresses. 

Another  biographer  gives  us  some  particulars  in  regard  to 
the  manner  in  which  this  liaison  between  Beatrice  and  Ram- 
baud originated.  His  narrative  is  graceful,  and  he  paints  the 
manners  of  the  high  feudal  classes  of  the  South  at  that  epoch, 
so  admirably,  that  I  think  I  may  be  permitted  to  yield  to  the 
temptation  of  translating  a  portion  of  it  literally : 

"  Having  become  enamored  of  Madame  Beatrice,"  says  the 
ancient  Provencal  author,  "  Rambaud  loved  and  coveted  her 
exceedingly,  taking,  however,  good  care  to  keep  the  matter 
secret ;  and  such  was  his  success,  that  he  procured  her  great 
esteem  and  gained  her  many  a  friend  among  both  sexes.  But 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troiibadours.  389 

he  was  dying  with  desire  and  fear,  not  venturing  to  ask  her  to 
return  his  love,  or  to  make  it  appear  that  he  had  set  his  heart 
on  her.  Nevertheless,  as  a  man  under  the  impulse  of  love,  he 
told  her  one  da^  that  he  was  enamored  of  a  lady  of  high 
worth,  that  he  enjoyed  her  society  familiarly,  but  still  did  not 
venture  to  disclose  his  passion,  nor  to  supplicate  her  favor,  so 
much  he  stood  in  awe  of  her  great  merit.  And  he  besought 
her,  for  God's  sake,  to  give  him  her  advice,  and  to  tell  him, 
whether  he  ought  to  make  manifest  his  heart  and  his  desire  to 
the  lady  or  die  in  love  and  reticence." 

"  And  this  gentle  lady,  my  lady  Beatrice,  who  had  already  per- 
ceived that  Kambaud  was  dying  with  languishment  and  longing 
on  her  account,  when  she  had  heard  his  words  and  understood 
their  meaning,  was  touched  with  pity  and  affection  and  said  to 
him :  l  It  well  behooves,  Rambaud,  that  every  faithful  friend  who 
loves  a  noble  lady,  should  dread  to  disclose  to  her  his  passion. 
But  sooner  than  die,  I  should  advise  him  to  speak  and  to  be- 
seech the  lady  to  accept  him  as  her  servant  and  her  friend. 
And  I  assure  you,  that  if  she  is  wise  and  courteous,  she  will  not 
take  offence  at  the  request  nor  deem  it  a  dishonor ;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  she  will  regard  him  who  has  made  it,  as  all  the  bet- 
ter a  man  for  it.  I  advise  you  therefore  to  tell  the  lady,  whom 
you  love,  your  mind  and  the  request  you  have  to  make  of  her, 
and  to  beseech  her  to  accept  you  as  her  knight.  Such  as  you 
are,  there  is  no  lady  in  the  world,  but  what  would  gladly  re- 
tain you  as  her  chevalier  and  servant.'  "* 

"  When  Rambaud  heard  the  advice  and  the  assurance  given 
him  by  lady  Beatrice,  he  told  her  that  it  was  she  who  was  the 
lady  he  loved  so  much,  and  in  regard  to  whom  he  had  en- 
treated her  advice.  And  my  lady  Beatrice  told,  him  to  consi- 
der himself  welcome ;  that  he  had  only  to  exert  himself  to  do 
well,  to  speak  well,  and  to  be  worthy  of  the  honor,  and  that  she 
was  disposed  to  accept  him  as  her  chevalier  and  servant.  Ham- 
baud  did  his  utmost  to  advance  in  merit,  and  he  composed  the 
song  which  says : 

"  Love  now  demands  its  customary  tribute  of  me."f 

This  piece,  of  which  the  ancieTnt  biographer  only  quotes  the 
first  verse,  is  one  of  those  which  are  still  extant  of  Rambaud 
de  Yaqueiras ;  and  we  may  therefore  assure  ourselves  that  its 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  417. 

f  E  ma  dona  Biatritz  li  dis  que  be  fos  el  vengut;  e  que  s'esforses  de  ben  far  e  de  ben 
dire  e  de  valer,  e  qu'ela  lo  volia  retener  per  cavayer  e  per  servidor.  Don  Rairnbaut 
s'esforset  d'enansar  son  pretz  tan  quan  poc,  e  fes  adoncs  aquesta  canso  que  dis  : 

Era  m  requier  sa  custum'e  son  us 

Amors,  per  cui  planh  e  sospir  e  velh etc.,  etc. 

— Raynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  258,  Piece  II.,  where  it  is  given  entire. — Ed.   ^ 


390  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

beauty  does  not  correspond  with  the  interest  of  its  motive ;  and 
indeed  we  can  say  as  much  of  the  majority  of  the  pieces  com- 
posed in  honor  of  Beatrice.  All  of  them  contain  fine  verses  of 
an  energetic  and  lively  turn,  but,  in  order  to  overcome  the 
inherent  monotony  of  this  species  of  poetry  and  to  surpass  ante- 
rior examples,  the  author  resorted  to  pedantic  accessories, 
foreign  to  the  character  and  object  of  all  sentimental 
poetry. 

There  is  an  interesting  circumstance  to  be  noticed  in  the  life 
of  Kambaud  de  Yaqueiras.  This  Troubadour  had  read  a  large 
number  of  romances  or  chivalric  epopees,  and  he  somewhere 
seems  to  intimate  that  he  possessed  a  collection  of  them. 
Excessively  fond  of  this  kind  of  reading,  he  thought  he  was 
doing  wonders  by  interweaving  in  his  chansons  cFamour  allu- 
sions (sometimes  of  considerable  length])  to  the  heroes  of  those 
romances  and  to  their  adventures.  It  is  true  he  did  nothing 
more  in  this  respect  than  follow  the  example  of  the  earlier 
Troubadours ;  but  that  which  among  the  latter  was  but  an  or- 
nament and  an  accessory  in  their  amatory  songs,  appears  to  be 
the  principal  object  of  his,  to  such  an  extent  do  they  abound 
in  comparisons,  similes  and  allusions  derived  from  the  action 
of  the  poetic  romances  at  that  time  in  vogue.  This  is  a  serious 
blemish,  but  a  blemish  which  renders  the  compositions,  in 
which  it  occurs,  extremely  valuable  to  the  history  of  the  Pro- 
ven§al  epopee. 

The  gallant  pieces,  in  which  Eambaud  exhibits  most  talent, 
are  those  in  which  "he  gives  vent  to  his  spite  on  account  of  his 
frequent  misadventures  in  love;  for  he  successively  became 
obnoxious  and  reconciled  again,  not  only  to  his  fair  Beatrice, 
but  also  to  other  ladies ;  and  we  are  sometimes  at  a  loss  in 
regard  to  the  connection  subsisting  between  these  disagree- 
ments and  the  different  pieces,  of  which  they  formed  the  theme. 
I  shall  limit  myself  to  translating  two  of  these  pieces,  the  mo- 
tive of  which  is  sufficiently  clear.  In  the  first  of  them,  he  dis- 
closes his  intention  of  turning  knight-errant  out  of  spite  against 
a  faithless  mistress,  who  probably  was  a  certain  lady  de  Tor- 
tone,  with  whom  he  is  known  to  have  had  intrigues  and 
quarrels. 

"  Love  and  my  lady  have  broken  faith  with  me  in  vain,  and 
put  me  under  ban ;  believe  not  that  I  on  that  account  forget  to 
sing,  that  I  suffer  my  honor  to  be  forfeited,  that  I  renounce  any 
glorious  enterprise,  or  that  I  do  not  cross  the  mountains,  as  I 
did  formerly. 

"Galloping,  trotting,  leaping,  running,  vigils,  fatigue  and 
hardships  will  henceforth  be  my  pastime.  Armed  witn  wood, 
with  iron,  steel,  I'll  brave  both  heat  and  cold ;  the  woods  and 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  391 

by-paths  shall  be  my  habitation;  sirventes  and  descorts  my 
songs  of  love ;  I  will  protect  the  feeble  against  the  strong."* 

"  Yet  still  it  would  be  an  honor  for  me  to  find  a  noble  lady, 
beautiful,  engaging,  of  matchless  worth,  who  would  not  take 
delight  in  my  misfortune,  who  were  not  volatile  nor  credulous 
of  scandal ;  who  would  not  make  one  supplicate  too  long ;  I 
should  consent  to  love  her  willingly,  if  so  it  pleased  her ;  and 
to  love  thus  would  yet  redeem  my  nappiness. 

"  My  reason  has  got  at  last  the  mastery  o'er  my  folly,  which 
for  a  whole  year  possessed  me,  on  account  of  an  unfaithful  one 
of  an  ignoble  heart.  The  glory  of  arms  has  such  attractions 
now,  that  it  suffices  to  give  me  joy  and  to  dispel  any  disap- 
pointment despite  of  love,  despite  my  lady  and  my  feeble 
heart ;  I  have  now  shaken  off  the  yoke  of  all  the  three,  and  I 
shall  henceforth  learn  to  act  without  their  aid." 

"  I  shall  learn  the  art  of  serving  well  in  war,  among  emperors 
and  kings,  to  spread  abroad  the  rumor  of  my  bravery,  to  bring 
good  with  the  lance  and  with  the  sword.  Toward  Montferrat, 
or  here,  toward  Forcalquier,  I'll  live  by  warfare,  like  the  chief 
of  a  band.  Since  I  derive  no  benefit  from  love,  I'll  bid  fare- 
well to  it,  and  let  itself  sustain  the  prejudice." 

The  second  piece,  composed  in  nearly  the  same  strain  of  sen- 
timent as  the  preceding,  is  inferior  to  it  neither  in  point  of 
vivacity  nor  in  point  of  harmony  of  expression,  and  is  perhaps 
still  more  curious  from  the  fact  of  its  showing  us  in  a  stronger 
light,  how  much  a  chevalier  even  in  the  greatest  paroxysms  of 
amorous  disappointment  and  chagrin  would  still  respect  the 
general  ideas  of  his  times  on  the  moral  importance  and  neces- 
sity of  love.  I  give  here  three  or  four  of  the  better  couplets : 

"  A  man  may  still,  if  he'll  but  take  the  pains,  be  happy  and 
rise  in  worth,  and  yet  dispense  with  love  :  he  has  only  to  guard 
himself  against  baseness,  and  concentrate  his  powers  on  doing 
right.  Thus,  therefore,  though  love  may  fail  me,  I  still  persist 
in  acting  to  the  best  of  my  ability ;  and  for  my  having  lost  my 
love  and  lady,  I  would  not  also  lose  my  price  or  worth  :  without 
a  lady  and  without  love,  I  wish  to  live  a  brave  and  honored 
life,  I  do  not  wish  to  make  two  evils  out  of  one." 

"  Yet  still,  if  1  renounce  love  entirely,  I  am  aware  that  I 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  419,  where  only  the  following  strophe  of  this  chanson  is 
given : 

Galop  e  trot  e  saut  e  cors, 

Velhars  e  maltrait  e  afan 

Seron  mei  sojorn  derenan 

E  sufrirai  fregz  e  calors, 
Armatz  de  fust  e  de  fer  e  d'acier ; 
E  mos  ostal  seran  bosc  e  semdier 
E  mas  cansos  sirventes  e  descortz, 
E  mantenrai  los  frevols  contra  'Is  fortz. — Ed. 


392  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

renounce  the  highest  good.  Love  betters  even  the  best  and 
can  impart  a  value  to  the  worst.  It  can  make  cowards  brave, 
the  uncouth  boor  a  graceful,  courteous  man ;  it  has  made  many 
a  poor  man  rise  to  power.  Since  love  then  is  possessed  of  so 
great  virtue,  I  willingly  would  love,  I,  who  am  so  envious  of 
merit  and  of  honor,  would  love,  if  I  were  loved." 

"  Nevertheless,  let  us  leave  love  alone !  Love  delights  more 
in  taking  than  in  giving ;  for  one  good  he  inflicts  a  hundred 
ills,  and  for  one  pleasure  a  thousand  pangs ;  he  never  confers 
glory  without  reverses.  But  let  him  manage,  as  may  seem 
good  to  him,  I  want  no  more  either  of  his  smiles  or  of  his  tears, 
either  of  his  pleasures  or  of  his  sorrows.  Let  us  be  nothing, 
neither  bad  nor  good ;  and  let  us  leave  love  alone." 

Surely  the  man  who  said  things  like  these,  who  said  them 
nearly  seven  centuries  ago,  and  above  all,  who  said  them  in  the 
capacity  of  master  of  a  most  delicate  art,  in  full  and  sonorous 
verses,  interspersed  here  and  there  with  the  happiest  audacities 
of  language  and  of  style,  was  by  no  means  an  ordinary  poet. 

From  the  moment  he  had  entered  the  service  of  the  marquis 
of  Montferrat,  the  life  of  Rambaud  de  Yaqueiras  was  a  very 
active  and  a  very  stirring  one,  almost  equally  divided  between 
poetry  and  warfare,  between  the  adventures  of  love  and  those 
of  chivalry.  Of  the  two  the  latter  are  best  known,  as  being 
connected  with  the  actions  of  the  marquis  of  Montferrat.  Gal- 
lant, ambitious  of  renown,  enterprising  and  clever,  this  seignior 
acted  a  part  in  the  transactions  of  his  time,  which  was  far  above 
the  material  resources  of  his  power. 

In  1202,  Thibaut,  count  of  Champagne,  having  died  the 
moment  he  was  going  to  depart  for  Syria  as  the  chief  com- 
mander of  a  numerous  army  of  crusaders,  the  barons  who  had 
arrayed  themselves  under  his  banner  were  obliged  to  elect 
another  head.  Their  choice  fell  on  the  marquis  of  Montferrat, 
who  accepted  this  honor  and  deserved  it.  In  1204,  the  cru- 
saders marched  on  to  Yenice  under  his  conduct,  whence  they 
expected  to  embark  in  vessels  of  the  Eepublic,  and  with  Vene- 
tian supplies. 

By  what  singular  accidents  this  army,  instead  of  landing  in 
Syria,  directed  its  course  toward  Constantinople,  how  it  took 
that  city,  how  it  gained  possession  of  the  whole  of  the  Greek 
empire,  and  effected  a  partition  of  the  provinces  among  its 
leaders,  is  already  too  well  known  to  need  repetition  here. 
The  marquis  of  Montferrat  received  the  kingdom  of  Thessalo- 
nica  as  his  share,  where  he  established  himself  immediately, 
and  whence  he  made  a  descent  on  Greece,  and  conquered  tne 
whole  of  it. 

Rambaud  de  Yaqueiras,  who  had  followed  the  marquis, 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours. 


393 


served  him  faithfully  in  every  encounter  and  in  all  his  wars, 
and  obtained  as  a  reward  for  his  services  a  vast  and  rich  fief  in 
the  new  kingdom,  thus  rising  rapidly  from  the  condition  of  a 
poor  chevalier  to  that  of  a  puissant  lord. 

There  was  something  in  this  new  position  wherewith  to 
satisfy  the  love  of  glory  and  the  chivalric  vanity  of  Rambaud. 
Nevertheless,  situated  as  he  was  so  far  from  his  native  land,  in 
a  perilous  state  of  things,  so  different  from  that  to  which  he 
had  been  accustomed,  in  the  midst  of  a  people  to  whose  lan- 
guage and  manners  he  was  an  entire  stranger,  he  could  not 
help  deploring  his  absence  from  Provence  and  from  Italy,  and 
to  recall  to  memory  with  melancholy  musings  the  days  that 
had  but  too  rapidly  glided  away  in  the  gallant  courts  of  those 
two  countries,  in  which  he  had  been  a  welcome,  an  honored 
and  admired  guest,  wherever  the  fame  of  his  songs  had  pre- 
ceded him.  He  remembered  more  especially  his  former  loves ; 
they  flitted  through  his  mind  in  a  somewhat  promiscuous  order 
and  as  vividly  as  ever,  and  paramount  among  all  these  tender 
souvenirs  was  that  of  his  Beau  Chevalier,  of  that  amiable  Bea- 
trice, whose  tenderness  and  indulgence  had  constituted  his  first 
incentive  to  glory. 

This  was  a  thoroughly  poetic  disposition  of  mind,  and  it  ap- 
pears that  it  actually  inspired  several  pieces,  all  of  which  are 
now  unfortunately  lost,  with  the  exception  of  one*  only,  which 
on  that  account  is  so  much  the  more  curious.  I  propose  to 
translate  the  whole  of  it,  although  it  is  somewhat  long.  Its 
historical  interest  enhances  its  poetical  still  more. 

"  Winter  nor  spring-time,  calm  weather,  nor  the  foliage  of 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  275.    Piece  XIV.    Strophes  1,  2, 3,  4,  6,  7. 


1  No  m'agrad'iverns  ni  pascors, 

Ni  clar  temps  ni  fuelhs  de  guarricx, 
Quar  mos  enans  me  par  destricx 
E  totz  mos  magers  gaugz  dolors ; 
E  son  maltrag  tug  mei  lezer 
E  dezesperat  mei  esper  ; 
E  si  m  sol  amors  e  dompneys 
Tener  guay  plus  que  1'aigua'l  peys ; 
E  pus  d'amdui  me  sui  partitz, 
Cum  horn  eyssellatz  e  marritz, 
Tot'autra  vida  m  sembla  mortz 
E  tot  autre  joy  desconortz. 

2  Pus  d'amor  m'es  falhida'l  flors 
E'l  dous  frug  e'l  gras  e  1'espicx, 
Don  jauzi'ab  plazens  predicx, 

E  pretz  m'en  en  sobrav'  et  honors, 
E  m  fazia  entr'els  pros  caber, 
Era  m  fai  d'aut  en  bas  chazer; 
E  si  no  m  sembles  fols  esfreys, 
Qu'ieu  for'esteyns  e  relenquitz 
E  perdutz  en  fagz  et  en  digz, 
Lo  jorn  que  m  venc  lo  desconortz 
Que  no  m  merma,  cum  que  m'esfortz. 


6  Anc  Alixandres  no  fetz  cors, 
Ni  Karles  ni'l  reysLodoycx 

Tant  honrat;  ni'l  corns  N  Aimericx, 

Ni  Rotlan  ab  sos  ponhedors, 

No  saubron  tan  gen  conqueror 

Tan  ric  emperi  per  poder 

Cum  nos,  don  pueia  nostra  leys  ; 

Qu'emperadors  e  ducx  e  reys 

Avem  fagz,  e  castels  garnitz 

Pres  dels  Turcx  e  dels  Arabitz ; 

Et  ubertz  los  camis  e'ls  portz 

De  Brandis  tro  al  bratz  Sanh  Jortz. 

7  Doncs  que  m  val  conquitz  ni  ricors  ? 
Qu'ieu  ja  m  tenia  per  plus  ricx, 
Quant  era  amatz  e  fis  amicx, 

E  m  payssia  cortes'amors  ; 

N'amayamais  un  sol  plazer 

Que  sai  gran  terr'e  gran  aver  ; 

Qu'ades  on  plus  mos  poders  creys, 

N'ai  maior  ir'ab  me  mezeis  ; 

Pus  mos  Belhs  Cavaliers  grazitz 

E  joys  m'es  lunhatz  e  faiditz, 

Don  no  m  venra  jamais  conortz  ; 

Fer  qu'es  mayer  1'ira  e  plus  fortz. — Ed. 


394:  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

the  desert  have  aught  now  to  delight  me.     My  good  adven- 
tures appear  to  me  misfortunes,  my  greatest  pleasures  sources  of 
frief.      All  my  leisure  is  fatigue,  my  expectations  are  but 
espair.     Love  and  its  service  Kept  me  as  merry  as  a  fish  in 
the  water ;  but  since  the  time,  when,  like  a  man  in  exile  and 
proscribed,  I  have  divorced  myself  from  love,  every  other  mode 
of  life  appears  to  me  a  death,  every  other  joy  a  pain." 

"  I  have  lost  my  all  with  love,  the  flower  and  sweet  fruit, 
the  spike  and  grain ;  my  graceful  verses  gave  it  formerly  to 
me ;  they  added  glory  also  to  the  gift ;  they  made  me  count 
among  the  valiant  and  the  brave.  From  such  a  height  must 
now  be  needs  my  fall.  Ah !  but  for  the  fear  of  seeming  cowardly, 
I  should  have  extinguished  my  lamp  of  life  faster  than  any 
flame  ;  should  have  desisted  from  all  glorious  deeds  and  words, 
and  bid  farewell  to  every  noble  enterprise,  the  day  on  which  I 
lost  the  precious  boon  of  love." 

"  But  sad  and  dejected  as  I  am,  I  would  not  give  my  enemies 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  me  forgetful  of  glory  and  of  valor.  I 
still  can  prejudice,  I  still  can  render  service.  Vexed  as  I  am 
here,  among  the  Latins  and  the  Greeks,  I  yet  can  seem  con- 
tent. The  marquis,  who  has  begirt  me  with  the  sword,  is 
fighting  with  the  Turks  and  the  Bulgarians,  and  never  since 
the  creation  of  the  world  has  any  people  accomplished  exploits 
like  our  own." 

"  I  daily  hear  of  and  witness  resplendent  arms,  redoubted 
warriors,  engines  of  war ;  I  see  and  hear  of  great  battles  won, 
cities  beleaguered,  high  towers  overthrown,  and  ancient  walls 
and  new  walls  levelled  with  the  dust.  But  I  see  nothing 
which  can  serve  me  in  the  place  of  love.  On  my  proud  charger, 
arrayed  in  splendid  armor,  I  go,  I  speed  in  every  direction,  in 
quest  of  combat,  of  fierce  assaults  and  warfare ;  I  always 
triumph  and  increase  in  power :  but  ever  since  Pve  lost  trie 
joy  of  love,  the  entire  world  seems  but  a  desert  to  me,  and  I 
cannot  console  myself  to  sing." 

"  Never  did  Alexander,  or  Charlemagne,  nor  our  king  Louis 
keep  such  a  brilliant  court  as  ours.  Never  did  Roland  and  his 
companions  conquer  so  valiantly  an  empire  so  extensive.  "We 
have  established  our  law  :  we've  made  an  emperor  and  kings. 
We  have  constructed  fortresses  against  the  Turks  and  Arabs, 
and  we  have  opened  all  the  passages  and  all  the  ports  from 
Brindes  to  the  canal  of  St.  George." 

"  But  what  avail  me  all  these  conquests  and  this  power  ? 
Alas  !  I  felt  myself  much  more  puissant,  when  I  loved  and  was 
loved  in  return  ;  when  my  whole  heart  was  exalted  with  love. 
I  now  possess  vast  tracts  of  lands  and  riches  in  abundance,  but 
not  one  solitary  joy,  and  my  vexation  increases  with  my  seign- 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  395 

iory.  I  am  undone  for  ever ;  I  have  lost  my  fair  chevalier, 
and  without  him  I  can  enjoy  nor  boon  nor  pleasure  any 
longer." 

These  verses  contain  a  sort  of  presentiment  of  the  fate  which 
awaited  Ramband  de  Vaqueiras  in  Romania.  He  not  to  be 
permitted  to  see  again  his  native  Provence,  or  Italy,  or  his  fair 
chevalier.  He  was  killed  in  one  of  the  battles  (which  the 
Latin  crusaders  lost)  against  the  Turks  and  the  Bulgarians,  or 
against  the  insurgent  Greeks,  perhaps  in  the  same  in  which 
Boniface,  the  marquis  of  Montferrat,  lost  his  life,  in  1  ^07. 

Of  all  the  countries  in  which  the  Troubadours  flourished, 
Provence  proper  was  the  one  which  had  the  smallest  number 
of  them.  There  is  indeed  no  doubt,  but  that  there,  as  else- 
where, the  fashion  of  the  times  required  every  man  of  a  cer- 
tain rank  to  have  a  taste  for  verses,  and  to  compose  them  if  he 
could,  and  the  number  of  those,  who  had  this  taste  and  who 
thus  composed,  was  very  great.  It  is  the  Troubadours  by  pro- 
fession, the  men  who  felt  or  believed  that  they  had  a  special 
vocation  for  this  much  cherished  art  of  troumng,  who  were 
scarcer  there  than  elsewhere.  I  can  hardly  find  four  or  five  of 
them  to  group  around  Kambaud  de  Yaqueiras,  in  so  far  at 
least  as  he  was  an  author  of  amatory  songs,  and  among  these 
four  or  five  there  is  but  one,  who  deserves  particular  mention. 
This  is  Folquet  of  Marseilles,  whose  harmless  renown  as  a  poet 
is  lost  in  a  measure  in  the  odious  celebrity,  which  he  acquired, 
as  bishop  of  Toulouse,  during  the  infamous  war  against  the 
Albigenses. 

Among  the  best  of  the  Troubadours  there  is  perhaps  scarcely 
one,  who  surpasses  Folquet  de  Marseilles  in  delicacy  of  sen- 
timent, in  elegance  and  in  artistic  versatility  of  diction.  But 
in  the  midst  of  this  elegance  and  artificiality  one  can  already 
perceive  the  signs  of  decadence.  We  perceive,  that  the  mono- 
tonous but  enthusiastic  and  earnest  simplicity  of  the  earlier 
Troubadours  is  already  supplanted  by  the  refinements  of  a 
vitiated  taste,  by  pretensions  to  subtlety  by  the  mannerism  and 
studied  contrivances  of  an  art,  which  exhausts  itself  and  which, 
diverted  from  its  proper  end,  loses  itself  in  the  pursuit  of  the 
means.  A  few  examples  will  convey  more  clearly  the  force  of 
this  remark  ;  but  I  must  first  of  all  say  a  few  words  about  the 
life  of  Folquet.  In  the  Troubadour  who  breathes  forth  the  most 
ingenious  and  tenderest  verses,  it  is  curious  to  consider  for  a 
moment  the  bishop,  who  was  the  auxiliary  and  accomplice  of 
Monfort,  that  ruthless  butcher  of  the  population  of  the  South, 
both  Albigense  and  Catholic. 

Folquet  was  born  at  Marseilles  between  the  years  1160  and 
1170.  His  father  was  a  Genoese  merchant,  who  lived  in  re- 


396  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

tirement  in  that  city,  and  who,  when  he  died,  left  him  a  con- 
siderable fortune.  The  old  biographer  of  our  Troubadour 
recounts  his  entrance  into  the  world  in  somewhat  remarkable 
terms,  and  which,  though  a  little  vague,  already  announce  in 
the  poet  a  man,  resolved  on  doing  his  utmost  to  act  a  pro- 
minent part  in  life.  "  Folquet,"  says  he,  "  showed  himself 
covetous  of  honor  and  renown,  and  turned  to  serving  the 
powerful  barons,  courting  their  company  and  intriguing  for 
their  favor." 

When  Richard  Coeur-de-Lion  was  on  his  way  to  Genoa,  where 
he  expected  to  embark  for  Syria,  he  made  a  stay  of  some 
length  at  Marseilles.  Folquet  took  advantage  of  it  to  insinuate 
himself  into  the  good  graces  of  the  prince.  At  that  time  he 
was  already  in  great  favor  with  Alphonso  II.,  king  of  Aragon, 
with  Alphonso  VI.,  king  of  Castile,  and  with  Raymond  V.,  the 
count  of  Toulouse.  But  it  was  more  especially  with  Barral  de 
Beaux,  seignior  of  Marseilles,  that  he  kept  up  frequent  and 
intimate  relations,  living  almost  constantly  at  his  court  and 
quitting  it  only  a  short  time  before  his  retirement  from  the 
world. 

Azalais  de  Roche-Martine  was  the  wife  of  Barral,  and  Folquet 
himself  was  also  married.  But  we  know  that,  according  to  the 
Provencal  code  of  manners,  it  was  always  honorable  to  love, 
and  that  there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  love  in  their  sense  of 
the  term  within  the  limits  of  matrimony.  Folquet  chose 
Azalais  as  his  lady,  and  composed  in  honor  of  her  nearly  all  the 
verses  we  possess  by  him. 

Here  there  is  a  discrepancy  in  the  accounts  of  Provincial 
traditions.  According  to  some,  Folquet  sung  and  celebrated 
the  lady  of  his  master  to  no  purpose :  "  He  never,"  say  they, 
"  could  find  any  favor,  nor  obtain  any  of  the  advantages  ac- 
corded by  the  usages  of  love."  According  to  others,  Azalais 
was  not  so  indifferent  to  the  addresses  of  Folquet.  It  is  true, 
she  might  have  given  him  his  conge  and  withdrawn  her  per- 
mission to  sing  of  her,  but  it  would  appear  to  have  been  done 
out  of  spite  for  seeing  him  too  agreeable  and  eager  in  his 
attentions  to  Laura  de  Saint  Jorlan,  the  sister  of  Dom  Barral, 
a  person  distinguished  for  beauty  and  gracefulness  of  manners. 

Folquet,  disconsolate  in  consequence  of  this  dismissal,  ceased 
to  sing,  to  write  verses,  and  to  frequent  society ;  and  the  mo- 
tives of  his  grief,  instead  of  diminishing,  soon  assumed  a  still 
more  aggravated  form.  Azalais  died,  and  shortly  after  her 
died  also  her  husband  Barral  de  Beaux.  The  kings  Richard 
Coeur  de  Lion,  Alphonso  of  Aragon,  and  the  count  of  Toulouse 
were  already  dead.  Deeply  affected  by  the  heavy  losses,  which 
he  had  successively  sustained,  and,  although  yet  young,  already 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  397 

disgusted  with  the  world,  he  resolved  to  retire  from  it.  He 
turned  monk,  entered  the  monastry  of  Toronet  in  Provence,  which 
was  one  of  the  order  of  Citeaux,  and  in  1200  he  was  its  abbot. 

It  was  from  this  place,  that  five  years  afterward  he  was 
elevated  to  the  episcopal  see  of  Toulouse,  which  he  occupied 
till  1231,  the  year  of  his  death.  I  pass  over  this  period  of  his 
life ;  it  is  foreign  to  my  subject,  and  I  may  congratulate  my- 
self on  it.  It  only  remains  now  to  give  a  few  specimens  of  his 
poetry  ;  this  is  much  easier  to  quote  and  to  judge  of.  I  select 
in  the  first  place  purposely  one  of  those  pieces,*  which  were 
most  admired  at  the  time  of  their  novelty.  It  requires  no 
historical  preliminary  to  appreciate  it ;  it  is  enough  to  suppose 
that  it  is  one  of  the  first  which  Folquet  composed  in  honor  of 
Azalais  de  Beaux. 

"  I  am  so  much  pleased  with  the  thought  of  love,  which  is 
come  to  take  up  its  abode  in  my  heart,  that  no  other  thought 
can  find  a  place  there ;  none  other  is  agreeable  or  sweet  to  me. 
"Tis  vain  to  think  that  this  thought  will  kill  me  ;  it  seems  to  me 
to  be  the  very  one  which  makes  me  live.  Love,  which  leads 
me  captive  by  means  of  fair  appearances,  alleviates  my  tor- 
ments by  the  boon  it  promises,  but  which  it  is  too  slow  to 
grant  me." 

"  Whatever  I  may  do,  it  is  all  in  vain ;  I  know  it  well.  How 
can  I  help  it,  if  love  will  ruin  me  by  giving  me  a  longing, 
which  neither  can  subdue  nor  be  subdued  ?  I  am  the  only  one, 
that's  vanquished.  My  sighs  are  wearing  out  my  life  little  by 
little,  since  I  receive  no  aid  from  her  I  love,  and  hope  none 
from  another ;  unable  as  I  am  to  have  another  love.7' 

"  Good  lady,  be  pleased  to  accept  the  good  I  wish  thee,  and 
then  the  ills  which  I  endure  will  not  be  able  to  crush  me  by 
their  weight.  They  then  will  seem  to  me  to  be  divided  be- 
tween us.  Or  else,  if  thou  desirest  me  to  love  another,  put  off 
thy  beauty,  thy  bewitching  smile,  those  charms  which  rob  me 
of  my  reason,  and  I  shall  then  be  able  to  disengage  myself 
from  thee." 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  149.    Piece  No.  1.    Strophes  1,  2,  3. 

Tan  m'abellis  1'amoros  pessamens  Tot  suavet,  quar  de  liey  cui  dezire 

Que  s'es  vengutz  en  mon  fin  cor  assire ;  Non  ai  secors,  ni  d'aillors  no  1'aten, 

Per  que  no  i  pot  mils  autres  pens  caber,  Ni  d'autr'amor  non  puesc  aver  talen. 

Ni  mais  negus  no  m'es  dous  ni  plazens ; 

Qu'adoncs  sui  sas  quanm'ancizo'l  cossire  :  Bona  domna,  si  us  platz^  siatz  sufrens 

E  fin'amors  m'aleuza  mon  martire  Dels  bes  qui'ie  ua  vuel,  qu'ieu  sui  dels 

Que  m  promet  joy,  mar  trop  lo  m  dona  len,  mals  sufrire  ; 

Qu'  ab  bel  semblan  m'a  tengut  longamen.  E  pueis  li  mal  nom  poiran  dan  tener, 

Ans  m'er  semblan  qu'els  partam  egalmens : 

Ben  sai  que  tot  quan  fas  es  dretz  niens  ;  Pero  si  us  platz  qu'en  autra  part  me  vire, 

E  qu'en  puesc  mais,  s' amors  mi  vol  aucire  !  Partetz  de  vos  la  beutat  e'l  dous  rire, 

Qu  a  escien  m'a  donat  tal  voler,  E'l  gai  solas  que  m'afolleis  mos  sen, 

Que  ja  non  er  vencutz,  ni  el  no  vens :  Pueis  partir  m'ai  de  vos,  mon  escien. 
Vencutz  si  sui,  qu'aucir  m'an  li  sospire  — Ed. 


398  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

This  is  but  half  of  the  piece  in  question  ;  but  it  is  already  more 
than  enough,  to  give  us  an  idea  of  the  tendency  to  lel-esprit 
and  to  the  finical  and  affected  subtlety,  which  at  the  epoch  of 
Folquet  already  begins  to  make  its  appearance  in  the  poetry  of 
the  Provencals.  • 

The  writings  of  this  Troubadour  contain  entire  pieces,  which 
are  nothing  more  than  long  and  subtle  apostrophes  to  love. 
Here  is  the  first  stanza  of  one  of  them ;  it  may  give  us  an  idea 
of  them  all  : 

"  Pardon !  my  Love,  pardon  !  Pray,  do  not  make  me  die  so 
often,  since  thou  canst  kill  me  with  a  single  blow.  Thou 
makst  me  live  and  die  at  the  same  time,  and  doublest  thus 
my  martyrdom.  But,  though  I  am  half  dead,  I  still  rest  faith- 
ful to  thy  service  and  deem  it  preferable  a  thousand  times  to 
any  recompense,  I  might  obtain  from  another." 

All  this  is  far-fetched  and  affected  beyond  all  measure ;  it  is, 
however,  just  to  observe,  that  Folquet  is  not  always  so  to  the 
same  extent,  not  even  in  his  most  labored  pieces,  and  there 
are  others  of  a  livelier  and  a  lighter  tone,  wherein  the  graceful 
ideal  already  borders  on  the  artificial,  but  still  is  not  yet  lost  in 
it.  The  following  are  three  couplets  of  a  little  piece,  composed 
in  this  style,  to  which  the  reader,  however,  should  restore  in 
thought  the  harmony,  which  I  could  not  preserve  in  the  trans- 
lation :* 

"  I  could  wish  that  none  might  hear  the  singing  of  the 
birds,  but  the  man  who  is  in  love.  Nothing  can  charm  me  as 
much  as  the  birds  in  the  fields ;  but  the  lady,  to  which  I  am 
devoted,  delights  me  more  than  songs,  more  than  all  graceful 
trills,  or  lays  of  Brittany." 

"  She  pleases  me,  she  charms  me ;  but  I  am  none  the  luckier 
for  that.  Every  man  enjoys  with  avidity  what  he  has  acquired 
by  pains.  But  what  does  it  avail  me,  to  have  a  lady  and  to  love 
her,  if  I  am  not  accepted  ?  Must  1  still  love  her  without  re- 
turn? Oh  yesl  sooner  than  not  occupy  my  thoughts  with 
her." 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  155.    Piece  No.  IV.    Strophes  1,  2,  3. 

Ja  no  volgra  qu'hom  auzis  Doncx,  que  m  val  ni  que  m  gezainha 

Los  dputz  chans  dels  auzellos  S'ieu  1'am,  et  ilh  no'm  grazis ! 

Mas  cill  qui  son  amoros ;  Amarai  doncx  en  perdos  ? 

Que  res  tan  no  m'esbaudis  Oc  ieu,  anceis  que  remanha. 
Co  il  auzelet  per  la  planha, 

E  ilh  belha  cui  soi  aclis ;  Be  m'estera  s'ades  vis 

Cella  m  platz  inais  que  chansons,  Lo  sieu  bel  core  gai  joios ; 

Volta,  m  lais  de  Bretanha.  E  quan  no  yei  sas  faissps, 

Si  be  m  soi  en  mon  pais, 

Be  m'agrada  e  m'abellis,  Cug  esser  loing  en  Espanha 

Mais  no  soi  aventuros ;  Preon  entre  Sarazis  : 

Qu'ades  es  horn  cobeitos  Sol  lo  vezer  m'en  es  bos, 

D'aisso  qu'es  plus  grieu  conquis :  Q'als  non  aus  dir  que  re  m  taigna.— Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetoy  of  the  Troubadours.  399 

"  Much  consolation  would  I  now  derive  from  seeing  her,  so 
beautiful,  so  graceful !  Whene'er  I  see  her  not,  though  I  am  in 
my  country,  1  still  seem  to  be  far,  far  off  in  Spain,  and  lost 
among  the  Saracens.  But  her  sight  is  all  the  boon  I  can  re- 
ceive from  her ;  I  cannot  boast  of  any  other  favor." 

Such  are  among  the  Troubadours,  the  singers  of  chivalric 
love,  those  who  in  my  opinion  deserved  particular  notice. 
These  poets,  however,  had  competitors,  which  it  is  impossible 
for  me  to  pass  over  without  a  few  remarks. 

These  rivals  were  women.  Not  only  did  poetesses  or  Trou- 
veresses,  as  they  were  styled,  exist  among  the  Provencals,  but 
we  shall  see  hereafter,  that  there  were  particular  kinds  of  Pro- 
vencal poetry,  the  cultivation  of  which  was  exclusively  or  prin- 
cipally reserved  for  these  fair  Trouveresses.  Of  all  the  kinds  of 
this  poetry,  the  songs  of  love,  it  would  seem,  ought  to  have  been 
the  last,  in  which  they  would  have  been  tempted  to  exercise 
their  ingenuity.  For  them  to  express  the  love  which  they 
experienced,  to  celebrate  the  chevaliers  who  had  succeeded  in 
winning  their  favor,  this  was  descending  from  the  rank  of  idols 
to  that  of  idolatresses,  this  was  subordinating  beauty  to  force,  a 
sort  of  contradiction  of  the  very  ideas  of  chivalric  propriety. 
But  all  the  ladies  were  not  equally  disposed  nor  equally  adapted 
to  play  the  part  of  goddesses ;  there  were  a  number,  who 
suffered  themselves  to  be  entangled  in  love,  before  they  had 
inspired  it,  and  who,  in  order  to  inspire  it,  resorted  to  the 
charm  of  poetic  talent,  if  they  possessed  or  believed  to  pos- 
sess it. 

Among  the  poetical  works  of  the  Provencal  Troubadours  are 
found  pieces  by  a  half  a  score  of  women,  nearly  all  of  whom 
flourished  witnin  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century. 
Several  are  from  the  pens  of  ladies  of  high  rank  and  distinction, 
such  as  the  countess  of  Provence,  the  countess  of  Die,  Clara 
of  Anduse,  Adelaide  of  Porcairargues,  Lady  Capelloza,  etc. 

In  point  of  subject  and  in  point  of  form,  the  poems  of  these 
ladies  differ  in  no  respect  from  those  of  the  Troubadours  of  the 
other  sex,  and  still  there  is  a  distinction  between  them,  which 
can  be  perceived  at  the  first  glance.  We  are  made  sensible, 
that  beneath  their  style,  which  is  generally  feebler  and  more 
negligent,  there  is  concealed  more  truth,  more  natural  simplicity, 
more  earnest  passion.  The  limits  of  this  chapter  will  scarcely 
permit  to  quote  one  or  two  passages  from  them.  They  will 
serve  as  a  contrast  to  the  preceding  extracts  both  in  regard  to 
poetry  and  social  usage. 

Here  are  the  two  couplets  of  a  piece,  in  which  Clara  of 
Anduse  addresses  herself  to  an  unknown  knight,  with 


400  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

whom  enemies  or  jealous  rivals  had  endeavored  to  embroil 
her.* 

"  Those,  who  blame  me  and  forbid  my  loving  you,  could  not 
render  my  heart  better  disposed  toward  you,  nor  augment  the 
sweet  desire  I  entertain  for  you.  There  is  no  man,  how  much 
soever  he  may  be  my  enemy,  but  whom  I  love,  if  I  but  hear  him 
speak  well  of  you,  and  he  who  speaks  ill  of  this  can  never  say  or 
do  aught  that  can  please  me." 

"  Ah  !  my  fair  friend,  fear  not,  that  my  heart  ever  shall  de- 
ceive you,  or  that  I  ever  will  accept  another  friend,  and  were  a 
hundred  ladies  to  induce  me  with  their  prayers,  Love,  who 
holds  me  bound  your  captive,  desires  me  to  keep  my  heart  for 
you  in  secret ;  and  if  I  could  thus  hide  my  body  too,  such  a  one, 
as  has  it  now,  would  never  obtain  it." 

I  shall  now  close  these  short  notices  of  the  Provencal  poets, 
who  were  the  most  prominent  in  that  kind  of  poetic  exposition, 
which  they  denominated  canso,  and  which  was  to  them  the 
highest  form  of  amatory  poetry,  the  poetic  form  par  excellence. 

I3ut  this  same  poetry  has  otner  sides  and  other  forms,  more 
varied  and  more  popular  than  those  which  I  have  thus  far  indi- 
cated. In  the  next  chapter  I  shall  endeavor  to  divest  them  of 
the  vagueness  and  obscurity  in  which  they  are  enveloped. 

*  Eaynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  335.    Strophes  2,  3. 

Selh  que  m  blasma   vostr'amor,   nim  Ja  no  donetz,  belhs  amics,  espaven 

defen  Que  ja  ves  vos  aia  cor  trichador, 

Nonpodon  far  en  re  mon  cor  mellor,  Ni  qu'ie  us  camge  per  nul  autr'amador, 

Ni'l  dous  dezir  qu'ieu  ai  de  vos  maior,  Si  m  pregavon  d'autras  donas  un  cen  ; 

Ni  1'enveya  ni'l  dezir  ni'l  talen  ;  Qu'amors,  que  m  te  per  vos  en  sa  bailia, 

E  non  es  horn,  tan  mos  eneraicx  sia,  Vol  que  mon  cor  vos  estuy  e  vos  gar, 

S'l  n'aug  dir  ben,  que  no'l  tenha  en  car  ;  E  farai  o  ;  e,  s'ieu  pogues  emblar 

E,  si'n  ditz  mal,  mais  no  m  pot  dir  ni  far  Mon  cors,  tals  1'a  que  jamais  non  1'auria. 
Neguna  re  que  a  plazer  me  sia.  — Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  401 


CHAPTEK  XVIII. 

THE    LYRICAL    POETRY   OF    THE   TROUBADOURS. 
III.    POPULAR   FORM. 

IN  what  I  have  thus  far  said  concerning  the  amatory  poetry  of 
the  Troubadours,  it  has  been  my  principal  aim  to  indicate  the 
most  original  and  the  most  poetic  elements,  which  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  these  Troubadours  had  derived  from  the  system  of 
chivalric  gallantry,  by  closely  adhering  on  the  one  hand  to  the 
rigor  of  the  system,  and  on  the  other  to  the  purely  lyrical  form — 
that  is  to  say,  to  the  expression  of  their  own  sentiments,  of  their 
own  individuality. 

But  it  was  impossible,  that  the  poetic  imagination,  however 
little  developed  we  may  suppose  it  to  have  been,  should 
not  have  found  itself  embarrassed  by  the  restraints  imposed  by 
such  narrow  limits,  and  that  it  should  not  have  made  continual 
and  varied  efforts  to  extend  or  overleap  them. 

The  description  of  these  efforts  will  constitute  half  of  the 
history  of  the  form  under  consideration,  and  perhaps,  according 
to  our  present  mode  of  feeling  and  of  judging,  the  most  agree- 
able and  the  most  interesting  half. 

I  have  already  shown,  how  the  consciousness  of  the  limits  of 
this  poetry  had  prompted  certain  poets,  who  were  possessed  of 
ingenuity  and  of  a  delicate  imagination,  to  avoid  its  monotony 
by  introducing  the  mannered  subtilties  of  aVitiated  taste  and  of 
bel-esprit.  We  must,  however,  in  justice  admit,  that  this  same 
consciousness  also  acted,  at  times  at  least,  in  a  happier  and  more 
natural  manner.  Of  the  different  results  of  this  action  I  now 
propose  to  give  some  idea ;  I  shall  endeavor  to  show  by  what 
succession  of  modifications  the  Provencal  imagination  attempted 
to  vary  the  expression  of  chivalric  love. 

Of  these  modifications,  some  had  reference  to  the  poetic  form 
of  this  expression,  others  to  the  subject-matter  itself,  to  the 
character  of  the  sentiments  and  ideas.  The  first,  which  are  the 
most  numerous,  are  also  those  which  are  most  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  history  of  the  amatory  poetry  of  the  Trouba- 
dours, in  which  in  fact  they  constitute  as  many  particular 
species. 

26 


402  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

Weary  of  the  rigor  and  the  exigencies  of  the  lyric  form,  some 
Troubadours  hit  upon  the  very  simple  idea  of  having  recourse 
to  the  dialogue  in  order  to  express  tneir  sentiments.  They  gave 
themselves  one  or  two  interlocutors,  who  were  sometimes  Love 
personified,  sometimes  the  lady-love,  and  sometimes  both  at 
the  same  time.  Owing  to  the  metrical  system  of  the  Proven- 
§als,  it  was  a  matter  of  no  little  difficulty,  to  give  a  free  and 
animated  movement  to  the  dialogue,  and  this  is  perhaps  the 
reason  why  the  manuscripts  contain  so  few  pieces  of  the  inter- 
locutory form.  This  is  a  pity,  judging  at  least  from  the  speci- 
mens which  we  possess,  most  of  which  are  of  a  pleasing  and  a 
graceful  turn.  Here  is  for  example  one  by  Aimeri  Peguilhan 
of  Toulouse,  which  I  shall  abridge  only  of  a  few  verses.  The 
Troubadour  in  the  first  place  converses  with  his  lady  and  then 
proceeds  to  complain  of  her  to  Love,  so  that  there  is  a  shade  of 
dramatic  movement  in  the  piece. 

—  My  lady,  I  am  in  cruel  torments  on  your  account. 

—  My  lord,  'tis  folly,  for  I  do  not  thank  you  for  it. 

—  My  lady,  in  the  name  of  God,  have  pity  on  me. 

—  My  lord,  your  prayers  are  of  no  avail  with  me. 

—  Fair  lady,  how  I  love  you  so  tenderly ! 

—  My  lord,  and  I  detest  you  above  all  men. 

—  My  lady,  it  is  on  this  account,  my  heart's  so  sad. 

—  My  lord,  and  I  am  all  the  merrier  and  content  for  it. 

—  My  lady,  my  life  is  worse  than  death  to  me. 

—  My  lord,  I'm  glad  of  it,  provided  it's  not  my  fault. 

—  My  lady,  you  have  been  but  a  source  of  grief  to  me. 

—  My  lord,  do  you  perforce  desire  me  to  love  you  ? 

—  My  lady,  a  single  look  from  you  would  save  me. 

—  My  lord,  expect  no  hope  or  consolation  of  me. 

—  My  lady,  shall  I  go  elsewhere  then  to  cry  for  mercy  ? 

—  My  lord,  go,  go :  who  would  detain  you  ? 

—  My  lady,  I  cannot ;  my  love  for  you  detains  me. 

—  My  lord,  this  really  is  without  my  wish  or  counsel.* 
(Here  the  rejected  Troubadour  addresses  himself  to  Love.) 

—  Love,  you,  you  have  exposed  me  to  abandonment. 

—  My  friend,  I  could  do  nothing  more  for  you. 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  425,  strophes  1-5. 

—  Domna,  per  vos  estauc  en  greu  turmen.     —  Amors,  gitat  m'avetz  a  no  m'  en  cal. 

—  Senher,  que  fols  faitz  qu'ieu  grat  no  us    —  Amies,  per  dieu  vos  en  puesc  far  ren  aL 

en  sen.  —  Amors,  e  vos  ja  meretz  de  tot  mal. 

—  Domna,  per  dien  aiatz  en  chauzimen.  —  Amies,  per  so  us  en  trairei  san  e  sal. 

—  Senher,  vostres  precs  y  anatz  perden.  —  Amors,  per  que  m  faitz  chauzier  don' 

—  Bona  dona,  ja  us  am  ieu  finamen.  aital  ? 

—  Senher,  et  ie  us  vuelh  pietz  qu'a  1'autra  —  Amies,  ieu  vos  mostrei  so  que  mais  val. 

gen.  —  Amors,  no  puesc  sofrir  1'afan  coral. 

—  Domna,  per  so  n'ai  ieu  lo  cor  dolen.          —  Amies,  per  so  queira  m'autre  logual. 

—  Senher,  et  ieu  alegre  e  jauzen.  Etc.,  etc. — ED. 

******* 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  40!> 

—  Love,  'tis  you  who  are  the  author  of  my  ills. 

—  My  friend',  I'll  get  you  safely  out  of  all  of  them. 

—  Love,  why  did  you  then  make  me  choose  a  lady  of  this 
sort? 

—  My  friend,  I've  shown  you  that  which  was  most  excellent. 

—  Love,  I  can  no  longer  endure  my  anguish. 

—  My  friend,  I'll  put  your  heart  into  another  place. 

—  Love,  you  deceive  in  all  you  undertake  to  do. 

—  Friend,  you  insult  me  and  you  do  me  wrong. 

—  Love,  why  separate  me  then  from  my  fair  lady  ? 

—  My  friend,  because  I'm  grieved  to  see  you  die. 

—  Love,  fancy  not  that  e'er  I'll  choose  another. 

—  Friend,  then  make  up  your  mind  to  suffer  patiently. 

—  Love,  do  you  think  I'll  ever  reap  advantage  from  this  love  ? 

—  Friend,  yes,  by  suffering  bravely,  and  by  serving  well. 
This  indirect  and  almost  dramatic  manner  of  embodying  the 

sentiment  of  love  is  certainly  not  destitute  of  animation  and  of 
ingenuity,  and  it  exhibits  a  grace  which  would  not  be  unwor- 
thy of  any  age. 

There  is  another  species  of  amatory  composition,  more  origi- 
nal or  more  capricious  than  the  preceding,  in  which  the  narra- 
tive and  the  dialogue  are  combined,  and  in  which  they  mutu- 
ally interpenetrate  each  other.  These  are  the  pieces  in  which 
the  Troubadour,  having  chosen  a  bird  as  his  messenger,  dis- 
patches it  to  bear  his  homage,  his  vows,  his  prayers  to  his  lady- 
love. This  bird  is  sometimes  a  nightingale,  sometimes  a  starling, 
at  other  times  again  a  swallow  or  a  parrot,  all  of  which  are 
favorites  of  the  Troubadours,  all  expert  in  conveying  messages 
of  love,  and  always  successful,  however  delicate  or  difficult  the 
task  to  be  performed.  It  is  perhaps  singular  enough  to  see  the 
parrot  play  a  part  in  the  poetic  mythology  of  the  Provencals, 
analogous  to  that  which  it  plays  in  the  mythology  of  the  Hin- 
dus, where  it  serves  Cama,  the  god  of  love,  as  an  animal  for 
riding. 

Of  the  two  most  remarkable  pieces  of  this  kind,  the  one  is  by 
Peter  of  Auvergne,  the  other  by  Marcabrus,  Troubadours,  of 
which  I  have  already  spoken.  One  of  them  is  evidently  an 
imitation  of  the  other,  and  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  with 
certainty  which  of  them  has  been  the  model.  It  is  probably 
that  of  Marcabrus.  Nevertheless  both  pieces  are  agreeable 
compositions,  and  I  should  like  to  give  an  idea  of  them ;  but  it 
seems  to  me  to  be  impossible.  The  principal  merit  of  these 
poems  consists  in  their  extraordinary  nimbleness  of  versifica- 
tion, and  in  the  kind  of  harmony  which  results  from  the  facile 
and  daring  combination  of  verses  of  very  unequal  measure. 

The  only  piece  of  the  kind  which  I  could  translate — it  being 


404  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

the  shortest,  and  of  a  simpler  form  than  the  preceding — is  per- 
haps the  least  poetical.  But,  by  way  of  compensation,  this  is  a 
little  historical  curiosity  which  merits  particular  notice.  It 
represents  a  swallow  performing  the  part  of  messenger  between 
a  lady  on  this  side  of  the  Pyrenees,  and  a  chevalier  of  Aragon 
or  Catalonia.  It  is  the  latter  who  holds  a  colloquy  with  the 
bird. 

"  Swallow,  thy  song  annoys  me :  what  wouldst  thou  ?  What 
dost  thou  demand  of  me  ?  Why  dost  thou  not  suffer  me  to 
sleep,  me  who  has  never  slumbered,  since  I  left  Monda? 
Would  that  thou  brought'st  me  a  message  or  greetings  from 
her  on  whom  I  set  my  hope  of  happiness.  Then  I  should  listen 
to  thy  speech." 

"  My  lord  and  friend,  it's  to  obey  the  wishes  of  my  lady  that 
I  am  come  to  see  you ;  and  if  she  were  too,  as  I  am,  a  swallow, 
she  would  have  been  present  here  these  full  two  months,  before 
you  near  your  pillow.  But  knowing  neither  the  countries  nor 
the  road,  she  sends  to  you  good  news  by  me." 

"  O  gentle  swallow  !  I  should  have  given  thee  a  kindlier  re- 
ception, have  feasted  thee  and  done  thee  greater  honor.  May 
God  protect  thee,  He  who  has  rounded  on  the  world,  who  made 
the  heavens,  the  earth,  and  the  deep  sea.  And  if  I  have  pre- 
ferred an  unkind  word  against  thee,  for  pity's  sake  do  not 
revenge  it  on  me !" 

(It  is  very  probable  that  a  couplet  is  wanting  here,  in  which 
the  swallow  invites  the  knight  to  cross  the  mountain-passes  for 
the  purpose  of  paying  his  lady  a  visit,  an  invitation  to  which 
the  latter  replies :) 

u  My  swallow,  I  could  not  at  this  moment  leave  the  king,  but 
I  must  follow  him  to  Toulouse,  where  I  expect  and  hope  (I  say 
it  not  to  vaunt,  and  let  lament  it  whoever  wishes !)  to  unsaddle 
many  a  knight,  on  the  fair  centre  of  the  bridge  of  the  Ga- 
ronne." 

"  My  lord  and  friend,  may  God  crown  all  your  wishes  with 
fulfillment !  But  as  for  me,  I  return  now  to  my  lady ;  and  I  am 
in  great  fear  that  she  will  burn  or  beat  me,  for  when  she  comes 
to  learn  what  you  resolve  on,  her  heart  will  be  a  troubled  storm 
of  grief." 

The  knight  who  was  the  author  of  this  piece  is  a  personage 
unknown  to  us,  but  there  is  every  indication  that  he  was  a 
chevalier  of  Pedro  I.,  king  of  Aragon  ;  and  there  is  little  doubt 
but  that  the  expedition  on  which  he  was  about  to  enter,  and  in 
which  he  was  so  eager  to  signalize  himself,  was  the  expedition 
of  King  Pedro  against  Simon  of  Montfort,  the  date  of  which 
was  1213.  Simon  at  that  time  occupied  the  small  town  of  Muret, 
about  four  leagues  above  Toulouse,  on  the  banks  of  the  Ga- 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  405 

ronne;  and  the  campaign  ended  in  the  battle  fought  under 
the  walls  of  this  town,  a  stupendous  engagement,  where  every- 
thing went  on  contrary  to  all  previous  expectations.  Simon  de 
Montfort,  who  had  hardly  over  twelve  hundred  men,  defeated, 
killed  or  routed  with  this  small  number,  and  in  the  twinkling 
of  an  eye,  at  least  forty  thousand  of  the  enemy ;  and  the  chev- 
alier, who  through  the  agency  of  the  messenger-swallow  had 
just  made  such  haughty  promises  to  his  lady,  was  perhaps  like- 
wise among  the  number  of  the  dead. 

These  little  colloquial  pieces  were,  or  could  be,  by  the  very 
nature  of  the  case,  of  a  much  simpler  and  more  familiar  tone 
than  the  purely  lyrical  pieces,  the  chansons,  properly  so  called. 
Nevertheless,  taking  matters  as  they  were  in  general,  all  these 
poetic  compositions  turning  on  chivalric  love,  of  which  I  have 
thus  far  given  a  variety  of  specimens,  were,  as  I  have  had 
repeated  occasion  to  remark,  the  songs  of  the  courts  and  castles. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  they  contained  obscurities,  which 
were  such  even  to  the  highest  classes  of  society,  to  which  they 
addressed  themselves,  and  for  whose  exclusive  benefit  they 
were  composed ;  and  as  for  the  people,  the  masses  in  general, 
they  certainly  were  beyond  its  comprehension,  nor  could  they  in 
any  way  derive  any  sort  of  pleasure  or  amusement  from  them. 
For,  supposing  their  diction  even  to  have  been  clear  and  sim- 
ple, which  was  rarely  the  case,  the  sentiments  and  the  ideas 
were  far  too  elevated  and  too  refined  for  the  general  under- 
standing. 

As  it  had  its  own  method  of  understanding  and  of  making 
love,  so  it  had  also  its  peculiar  way  of  singing  it,  grosser  un- 
doubtedly, but  simpler  and  freer  from  restraint  than  that  of 
the  chivalric  poets.  There  were  therefore  two  sorts  of  amatory 
poetry,  that  of  the  Troubadours  and  that  of  the  people.  These 
two  classes  of  poetry  undoubtedly  maintained  a  separate  and 
distinct  existence  for  some  time,  but  it  was  impossible  that  in 
the  long  run  they  should  not  exercise  a  certain  influence,  one 
over  the  other,  that  they  should  not  in  a  measure  tend  to  ap- 
proximate each  other  and  become  blended  into  one.  In  all 
that  relates  to  the  arts  and  the  enjoyments  of  civilization,  the 
people  always  imitates  eagerly  and  to  the  utmost  of  its  ability 
the  example  of  the  higher  classes ;  and  in  order  to  relish  and 
to  adopt  the  poesy  of  the  Troubadours,  the  populations,  in  the 
midst  of  which  this  poetry  flourished,  had  only  to  find  in  it  some- 
thing which  was  within  the  reach  of  their  intellectual  capacity. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  was  impossible  that  the  Troubadours 
should  forever  divest  themselves  of  all  sympathy  for  the  poetic 
wants  and  tastes  of  the  people,  that  they  should  never  be 
tempted  to  apply  their  art  to  its  amusements  and  its  pleasures. 
Certain  it  is,  that  we  are  far  from  being  acquainted  with  all  the 


406  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

Troubadours ;  scarcely  anything  is  left  us  but  the  productions 
and  the  souvenirs  of  the  most  distinguished  of  them,  of  those 
who  shone  at  the  courts  of  kings  and  of  great  nobles ;  but  all 
did  not  belong  to  this  privileged  portion  of  their  order,  all  did 
not  sustain  such  intimate  relations  with  the  feudal  classes. 
There  were  some  of  them,  who  either  from  inclination  or  from 
necessity  lived  among  the  people  and  sung  for  them  ;  and  these 
must  necessarily  have  sung  in  tones  less  sublime  and  in  lan- 
guage less  elevated  than  their  professional  brethren  of  the 
castles. 

Nay,  more  than  this ;  among  the  latter  even  there  were  some, 
and  these  were  precisely  those  who  were  by  nature  endowed 
with  the  greatest  affluence  of  sentiment  and  genius,  who,  worn 
out  by  the  perpetual  efforts  which  they  were  obliged  to  make 
in  order  to  distinguish  themselves  in  the  amatory  poetry  of  the 
castles,  returned,  at  intervals  at  least,  to  the  ease  and  the  sim- 
plicity of  nature.  They  composed  songs  of  chivalric  love, 
simpler  than  the  rest,  songs  of  which  the  people  may  have  been 
unable  either  to  relish  or  to  comprehend  the  sentiments,  but  of 
which  it  understood  the  words  at  least. 

This  return  or  this  tendency  to  popularity  on  the  part  of  some 
of  the  Troubadours  occasioned  or  strengthened  a  revolution  in 
chivalric  poetry,  of  which  the  collections  of  the  writings  of  the 
Troubadours  exhibit  various  and  frequent  vestiges.  From  that 
time  there  were  as  it  were  two  species,  two  styles  of  amatory 
poetry,  the  one  learned  and  elevated,  in  which  labored  elegance, 
obscurity  and  difficulties  passed  for  excellences  rather  than  for 
faults ;  the  other  natural  and  clear,  one  of  the  greatest  merits 
of  which  was  that  of  being  easily  understood. 

Each  of  these  two  styles  received  different  names,  which  na- 
turally occupied  a  conspicuous  place  in  the  poetics  of  the  Trou- 
badours. The  one  of  the  two,  which  approximated  the  popular 
tone  most  closely,  was  designated  by  the  epithets  leu,  leugier, 
plan,  that  is  to  say,  the  light,  the  simple.  The  studied  style,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  from  its  difficulty  and  labored  refinement 
fitly  termed  clus,  car,  that  is  to  say,  close,  elaborate,  a  denomina- 
tion manifestly  opposed  to  that  of  popular.  Many  of  the  Trou- 
badours wrote  alternately  in  the  one  and  in  the  other  of  these 
styles  ;  some  of  them  adopted  exclusively  the  one  or  the  other 
of  the  two,  and  thus  formed  two  opposite  schools. 

It  is  a  remarkably  singular  fact,  that  the  most  positive  indi- 
cations of  the  existence  and  the  opposition  of  the  two  schools  in 
question  are  to  be  found  in  Giraud  de  Borneil,  that  is  to  say,  in 
the  Troubadour,  who  of  all  others  is  habitually  the  most  ele- 
vated and  the  most  difficult  to  comprehend. 

In  the  beginning  of  one  of  his  pieces  he  expresses  himself  on 
this  subject  in  the  following  manner: 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  407 

"  I  scarcely  know  how  to  commence  a  piece  of  lighter  verse, 
which  I  would  fain  compose,  and  on  which  I  have  reflected 
since  yesterday.  I  would  like  to  make  it  of  such  a  sort  that  all 
the  world  might  comprehend  it,  and  that  it  might  be  easy  to 
sing ;  for  it  is  for  sheer  amusement  that  I  compose  it." 

"  I  could  indeed  have  made  it  more  elaborate,  but  a  song 
which  is  not  clear  to  all  the  world  seems  to  me  to  be  imperfect. 
Let  him,  who  will,  then  take  offence  at  it ;  but  as  for  me,  I  am 
delighted  when  I  hear  one  of  my  songs  repeated  by  emulous 
voices,  clear  or  hoarse,  and  when  I  hear  it  sung  beside  the 
fountain." 

It  is  impossible  to  announce  in  more  explicit  terms  preten- 
sions to  popular  aims  in  poetry  more  obvious  than  these.  And 
this  passage  of  Giraud  de  Borneil  is  not  the  only  one  which  at- 
tests the  existence  of  two  styles  and  of  two  schools  of  amatory 
poetry. 

The  same  fact  likewise  appears  on  a  grander  scale  from  the 
comparison  of  the  different  countries  of  the  Provencal  tongue, 
wherein  the  Troubadours  flourished.  "We  are  convinced  by 
various  positive  proofs  and  testimonies,  that  of  these  countries 
some  cultivated  by  way  of  preference  the  learned  and  obscure 
poetic  style,  while  others  again  chose  the  natural  and  simple. 
The  taste  for  the  latter  of  these  styles  preponderated  in  the 
countries,  which  have  since  been  known  under  the  name  of 
lower  Languedoc — countries,  which  from  a  multitude  of  con- 
siderations we  must  regard  as  the  cradle  of  chivalric  poetry, 
and  in  which  the  poetic  instinct  was  most  generally  diffused. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  taste  for  the  factitious  and  elaborate 
style  prevailed  in  the  countries  north  of  the  Cevennes,  where  it 
is  certain  that  Provencal  poetry  was  originally  but  an  adopted 
and  acquired  one. 

But,  admitting  even  the  existence  of  these  variously  shaded 
gradations  from  clearness  to  obscurity,  from  artless  simplicity 
to  studied  elegance  in  the  pieces  of  amatory  poetry  of  which  I 
have  thus  far  spoken,  there  is  after  all  scarcely  one  among  all 
these  pieces  which  might  properly  be  supposed  to  have  been 
written  for  the  people,  or  made  for  being  relished  by  them  with 
something  like  a  real  pleasure.  The  only  amatory  poems  of  the 
Troubadours,  to  which,  by  reason  of  their  tone  and  destination, 
the  epithet  popular  can  more  or  less  fitly  be  applied,  constitute 
three  small  classes,  each  of  which  is  distinguished  by  a  charac- 
teristic title.  These  are  the  pastorals  (pastarollas,  pastoretas), 
the  ballads  (balladas\  and  the  aubades  (albas\  or  morning-ser- 
enades.* 

*  On  these  different  forms  of  popular  poetry  compare  Raynouard,  vol.  ii.  p.  229-248, 
where  specimens  of  each  of  them  are  given. — Ed. 


4:08  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

These  three  species  of  composition  constitute  an  entirely  dis- 
tinct and  separate  group  in  the  system  of  Provencal  poetry — a 
group  which  it  is  worth  our  curiosity  to  study  for  a  moment, 
not  so  much  under  the  artistic  as  under  the  historical  point  of 
view. 

Not  one  of  these  three  forms  in  question  was  invented  by  the 
Troubadours,  unless  I  am  mistaken.  All  of  them  were  already 
in  vogue  in  that  primitive  Proven§al  poetry  which  was  anterior  I 
to  the  age  of  chivalry,  and  were  to  all  appearances  nothing  ' 
more  than  a  feeble  reminiscence,  a  vague  tradition  of  the 
ancient  Greco-Eoman  poetry.  When  the  Troubadours  came 
into  the  field  they  adopted  these  forms;  they  preserved  the 
motive  and  idea,  and  only  modified  their  costume  and  details 
according  to  the  spirit  of  chivalry.  In  that  event,  these  forms 
thus  modified  are  one  of  the  points  by  which  the  poetry  of  the 
Troubadours,  the  chivalric  poetry  of  the  twelfth  century,  links 
itself  to  the  poetic  traditions  of  classical  antiquity.  It  is  chiefly 
with  the  intention,  and  in  the  hope  of  developing,  and  if  pos- 
sible, of  justifying  this  assertion,  that  I  propose  to  enter  into 
some  details  in  regard  to  the  three  forms  of  poetry  which  I  have 
indicated,  and  which,  aside  from  this  connection  and  on  their 
own  account,  are  well  worth  a  more  particular  notice.  I  shall 
commence  by  speaking  of  the  ballads. 

In  the  Provencal  sense  of  the  term,  which  is  the  primitive 
and  true  one,  the  ballad  was  a  little  poem  intended  to  be  sung 
by  an  indefinite  number  of  persons,  wlio  accompanied  the  song 
by  dancing.  The  name  balada,  ballada,  which  comes  from  the 
Greek  j3aA/U£w,  I  leap,  I  dance,  is  itself  already  indicative  of  the 
ancient  origin  of  this  species  of  poetry  in  the  south  of  Gaul. 
There  is,  in  fact,  no  doubt  but  that  some  of  the  dances  at  least, 
to  which  the  ballads  of  the  Troubadours  were  adapted  during 
the  twelfth  century,  were  of  Greek,  or  more  properly  of  Massilian, 
origin.  The  principal  and  most  popular  of  these  dances  were 
circular  dances,  akin  to  those  which  the  Greeks  denominated 
£opo£,  and  which  the  south  of  Europe  likewise  designated  by  a 
name  which  is  a  derivative  of  the  Greek,  by  corole,  namely,  or 
less  correctly  in  Italian,  by  cardie.  r  All  these  dances  were 
mimic,  and  to  some  extent  dramatic.  The  words  of  the  song 
were  descriptive  of  some  action  or  of  a  succession  of  different 
situations,  which  the  dancers  reproduced  by  their  gestures. 
The  song  was  divided  into  several  stanzas,  each  of  whicn  termi- 
nated in  a  refrain,  which  was  the  same  for  all.  The  dancers 
acted  or  gesticulated  separately,  in  imitation  of  the  action  or 
situation  described  in  each  stanza,  and  at  the  refrain  they  all 
took  each  other  by  the  hand  and  danced  around  orbicularly 
with  a  more  or  less  agitated  movement.  * 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  409 

Popular  dances,  derived  from  this,  and  bearing  more  or  less 
resemblance  to  it,  are  still  to  be  found  in  many  parts.  Never- 
theless they  have  gradually  fallen  in  desuetude,  and  many  of 
them  have  already  been  entirely  forgotten.  It  is  in  the  south 
of  France  that  they  preserve  most  of  their  primitive  character, 
and  it  is  undoubtedly  there  that  the  Massaliots  first  taught 
them  to  the  Gallic  tribes  of  their  vicinity.  I  remember  having 
witnessed  some  of  these  dances  in  Provence,  the  subject  of 
which  appears  to  be  quite  ancient ;  among  others  one  which 
imitated  successively  all  the  habitual  operations  of  the  poor  hus- 
bandman, tilling  his  ground,  sowing  his  wheat  or  oats,  reaping, 
and  so  on  to  the  end.  Each  of  the  numerous  couplets  of  the 
song  was  sung  with  a  slow  and  drawling  movement,  as  if  to 
imitate  the  fatigue  and  doleful  tone  of  the  poor  laborer ;  and 
the  refrain  was  of  an  extremely  lively  movement,  at  which  the 
dancers  gave  themselves  up  to  all  their  gaiety. 

In  the  Middle  Age  the  word  ballad  was  undoubtedly  applied 
to  dances  of  a  different  description  from  the  one  which  I  have 
just  described,  but  always,  I  presume,  to  dances  of  character, 
to  imitative  dances  of  an  antique  origin,  either  national  or 
foreign. 

After  this  explanation,  I  think  it  will  appear  evident  that  the 
Troubadours  did  not  invent  the  ballad,  any  more  than  they  had 
invented  the  dances  to  which  the  ballad  was  applied.  This  was 
a  species  of  popular  poetry,  not  only  anterior  to  them,  but  one 
of  the  very  earliest  of  those  in  vogue  before  them  in  the  south 
of  France.  All  that  the  Provencal  poets  of  the  twelfth  century 
did  or  could  do  in  appropriating  this  form,  was  to  bestow  on 
it  more  care  and  elegance  than  it  had  received  before  them, 
without,  however,  giving  it  a  shape  contrary  to  its  essentially 
popular  destination.  They  restricted  the  subjects  and  motives 
to  motives  and  subjects  of  gallantry,  thus  making  it  enter  into 
the  moral  unity  of  Provencal  poetry. 

The  ballads  are  pieces  which  rarely  occur  in  the  manuscript 
collections  of  the  Troubadours.  This  species  was  neglected  as 
being  too  exclusively  popular.  There  are  even  some  indica- 
tions that  its  culture  was  abandoned  to  the  women.  At  any 
rate,  we  find  that  the  Provencal  traditions  represent  the  wives 
of  Troubadours,  themselves  poetesses  or  trouveresses,  as  occu- 
pying themselves  particularly  with  songs  and  dances,  and  as 
composing  them  in  honor  of  their  lovers.  Among  all  the 
pieces  of  this  kind  which  have  come  to  my  notice,  I  have  not 
found  one,  the  substance  of  which  was  sufficiently  interesting 
or  agreeable  to  have  any  meaning,  after  being  deprived  of  the 
effect  of  the  measure  and  the  music.  My  only  aim  was  to  in- 
dicate, by  way  of  explanation,  the  existence  of  this  species  of 


410  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

poetic  composition  amonoj  the  Troubadours ;  and  I  now  pass  on 
to  the  pastoral,  the  next  in  order. 

I  have  already  remarked,  and  it  is  well  to  repeat  here,  that 
the  only  way  in  which  the  Provencal  traditions  make  mention 
of  Cercamons,  the  first  of  the  Troubadours  known  to  us,  after 
"William  IX.  of  Poitiers,  is  that  they  designate  him  as  the 
author  of  pieces  in  verse  and  of  pastoretas  in  the  ancient  style. 
Now,  these  pieces  of  verse,  thus  qualified  by  the  epithet  ancient 
at  an  epoch  when  chivalric  poetry  was  yet  in  its  infancy,  have 
certainly  the  appearance  of  being  much  anterior  to  the  latter, 
and  consequently  of  having  constituted  a  part  of  the  species  of 
popular  literature,  of  which  that  of  the  Troubadours  was  but  a 
sort  of  development  or  reform. 

This  species  is  therefore  another  of  those  links,  by  which  it 
is  probable  that  chivalric  poetry  is  connected  with  the  traditions 
of  classical  antiquity.  However,  there  is  but  little  to  be  said 
on  the  pastoral  poetry  of  the  Troubadours,  whatever  may  have 
been  its  origin,  except  that  it  is  perhaps  one  of  the  strangest 
poetic  abstractions  recorded  in  the  history  of  literature. 

Among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  the  classes  which  inhabited 
the  country  and  cultivated  the  soil  were  generally  slaves,  or  in 
a  condition  differing  but  little  from  that  of  servitude ;  and 
there  is  very  little  room  for  supposing  that  their  lot  was  worthy 
of  being  envied.  This,  however,  did  not  prevent  the  Greek 
and  Latin  poets  from  delineating  their  enchanting  pictures  of 
rural  life,  and  from  representing  it  as  an  ideal  state  of  inno- 
cence, of  repose  and  happiness.  These  pictures  were  probably 
nothing  more  than  an  indirect  expression  of  the  painful  senti- 
ments which  were  naturally  inspired  by  the  spectacle  of  a 
greatly  agitated  society,  as  was  that  of  the  Ancients ;  a  sort  of 
poetic  reaction  of  the  imagination  against  the  vexations  and 
the  melancholy  of  those  scenes.  And  these  observations  are 
also  applicable  with  more  or  less  propriety  to  the  rural  poetry 
of  modern  nations. 

"We  cannot  say  as  much  of  that  of  the  Troubadours,  in  which 
we  might  search  in  vain  for  the  least  idea,  the  feeblest  picture, 
true  or  false,  of  the  condition  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  country 
and  of  a  certain  ensemble  of  rural  life.  To  these  Theocriti  of 
the  chateaux  there  are  neither  husbandmen,  nor  swains,  nor 
flocks,  nor  fields,  nor  harvests  nor  vintages  ;  they  never  speak 
of  the  country  or  of  rural  scenery ;  they  appear  to  have  never 
seen  either  brook  or  river,  forest  or  mountain,  village  or 
cottage.  With  all  this  they  never  have  anything  to  do.  The 
pastoral  world  of  every  one  of  them  reduces  itself  to  an  isolated 
shepherdess,  watching  over  a  few  lambs,  or  not  watching  over 
anything  at  all,  and  the  adventures  of  the  pastoral  world  are 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  411 

limited  to  colloquies  between  these  shepherdesses  and  the 
Troubadours,  who  in  riding  by  them  never  fail  to  notice  them, 
and  speedily  dismount  to  tell  them  some  gallant  things  or  to 
entreat  them  for  their  love. 

Sometimes  these  compliments  and  prayers  were  successful, 
and  the  flatterers  then  obtained  what  they  solicited.  But  this 
case  is  an  exception.  Generally  these  shepherdesses  are  dis- 
creet and  well-informed  lasses,  who  politely  reply  to  the  com- 
pliments addressed  to  them,  but  who  know  enough  to  distrust 
them,  and  who  are  careful  not  to  attach  to  them  the  value 
which  those  who  made  them  hoped  they  would.  This  is  the 
framework  and  the  substance  of  nearly  all  the  pastorals  of  the 
Troubadours;  and  the  details,  the  accessories  are  not  much 
more  interesting  or  more  varied. 

The  most  remarkable  specimens  of  this  kind  of  poetic  com- 
positions which  I  have  found,  are  six  pieces  by  Giraud  Riquier 
of  Narbonne,  a  Troubadour  of  indifferent  talent  from  the  second 
half  of  the  thirteenth  century.  These  pieces  constitute  a  con- 
nected series,  so  that  one  appears  as  the  continuation  of  the 
other,  and  their  subject  consists  of  six  successive  interviews 
held  at  six  different  intervals  between  the  poet  and  his  shep- 
herdess, which  intervals  amount  to  a  period  of  twenty-one 
years.  In  consequence  of  this  connection  subsisting  between 
them,  these  pieces  form  in  reality  but  one  and  the  same  lit- 
tle poem  of  rather  a  fantastic  description,  in  which,  however, 
the  exposition-scenes  and  the  dialogues  succeed  and  blend  with 
each  other  with  great  ease  and  consistency.  The  incidents 
which  constitute  its  subject  are  so  minutely  detailed  and  of 
such  a  vulgar  character,  that  it  is  impossible  to  take  them  for 
poetic  fictions.  There  is  no  doubt  but  that  Giraud  Riquier 
actually  had  the  interviews,  which  he  describes,  and  with  the 
shepherdess,  of  which  he  speaks ;  and  the  sense  of  this  reality 
is  sufficient  to  give  his  piece  a  certain  interest,  the  like  of  which 
I  do  not  find  in  any  other  production  of  the  same  kind.  It  was 
my  purpose  to  give  some  idea  of  it ;  but  I  changed  my  mind 
when  I  came  to  reflect  that  in  order  to  do  so,  it  would  be  neces- 
sary to  make  an  abstract  of  considerable  detail  and  out  of  pro- 
portion with  the  importance  of  the  subject. 

Of  all  the  popular  forms  of  the  amatory  poetry  of  the  Pro- 
vengals,  the  one,  which  it  now  remains  for  me  to  speak  of,  is 
by  far  the  most  agreeable,  the  most  poetic  in  its  design,  and 
that  which  the  Troubadours  have  turned  to  most  account. 
This  is  the  alba  or  aubade,  to  which  may  be  added  another  one 
closely  allied  to  it,  the  serena,  namely,  from  which  the  name  of 
our  serenade  is  derived.  That  this  is  one  of  the  most  ancient 
forms  cultivated  by  the  Troubadours  is  a  fact  attested  by  still 


412  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

existing  proofs ;  and  it  appears  to  me  extremely  probable  that 
it  is  also  one  of  those  which,  like  the  ballad,  and  certainly 
much  more  than  the  pastoral,  may  be  considered  as  having 
originated  in  the  traditions  of  the  ancient  pagan  poetry. 

Among  the  prodigious  variety  of  popular  songs,  which  the 
Greeks  possessed  for  all  the  occasions  01  private  and  domestic 
life,  there  were  some  which  were  designated  by  the  generic 
name  of  songs  of  the  night,  and  which  were  intended  to  be 
sung  at  night  by  lovers,  under  the  window  or  at  the  door  of 
their  lady-loves.  Of  these  songs  there  were  various  kinds, 
according  to  the  hour  at  which  they  were  expected  to  be  sung. 
There  were  those  which  were  sung  at  midnight ;  these  were 
the  songs  inviting  to  sleep,  and  on  that  account  denominated 
KaraKoifi7]Ti.Kd,  songs  of  slumber  or  lullabies,  as  we  should  call 
them.  Others  again  were  sung  at  the  dawn  of  day,  and  these 
were  termed  dieyepnicd,  waking-songs. 

The  literature  of  all  the  nations  of  southern  Europe  contains 
songs  which  seem  to  be  but  an  echo  of  these  ancient  lays ;  and 
this  can  be  said  more  particularly  of  the  serenas  and  the  albas 
of  the  Troubadours,  which  correspond  exactly  to  the  night- 
songs  of  the  Greeks,  except  that  in  the  former  we  recognize  at 
the  first  glance  the  characteristic  modifications  of  the  poetry  of 
chivalry.  Thus  the  aubades  of  the  Troubadours  were  intended 
to  wake  up  at  the  dawn  of  day  the  chevalier  who  had  spent  the 
night  with  his  lady,  and  to  admonish  him  to  withdraw  speedily, 
in  order  to  escape  detection.  The  Troubadours  sometimes  put 
this  song  into  the  mouth  of  one  of  the  companions  of  the  lucky 
knight,  who  acts  as  his  sentinel  during  the  whole  of  the  night, 
in  order  to  watch  and  to  announce  the  break  of  day.  At  other 
times  again  they  put  it  into  the  mouth  of  one  of  the  two  lovers 
at  the  moment  of  parting.  More  often  still  the  aubade  is  in- 
tended to  be  sung  by  the  sentinel,  who  watches  on  the  top  of 
the  bell-tower  and  who  is  supposed  to  be  a  party  to  the  sleep- 
ing lovers.  These  are  but  so  many  expedients  resorted  to,  for 
the  purpose  of  giving  a  little  variety  to  the  form  and  to  the 
accessories  of  this  species  of  composition,  which  is  naturally 
very  limited. 

Among  the  small  number  of  songs  of  this  description,  which 
have  come  down  to  us,  there  are  some  which  are  really  charm- 
ing. In  none  of  their  other  works,  perhaps,  did  the  Trouba- 
dours bestow  so  much  care  and  delicacy  on  the  melody  of  the 
versification,  and  on  the  adaptation  of  this  melody  to  the  sub- 
ject. It  is  this  same  elaborate  elegance  of  measure,  that  makes 
it  impossible  for  us  to  give  the  slightest  idea,  in  a  prose  version, 
and  I  am  inclined  to  acid  in  any  version,  of  some  of  these  pieces, 
the  charm  of  which  depends  in  a  great  measure  on  the  musical 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  413 

march  of  the  couplet,  and  of  the  refrain  in  which  it  always  ter- 
minates. I  am  acquainted  with  but  two  of  them,  the  metre  of 
which,  by  a  sort  of  exception,  is  simple  enough  to  admit  of 
translation.  These  pieces  are  fortunately  among  the  most 
agreeable,  and  I  shall  endeavor  to  translate  them. 

The  first  of  these  is  undoubtedly  the  oldest  of  the  pieces  of 
this  kind  which  are  still  extant.  Tne  extreme  simplicity  of  sen- 
timent and  the  impassioned  tone,  which  characterize  it,  induce 
me  to  believe  that  it  was  written  by  a  woman.  "We  have  but 
one  copy  of  it,  and  this  copy  is  not  even  a  correct  one.  Some 
of  the  stanzas  are,  in  my  opinion,  out  of  place,  and  one  of  them 
is  entirely  wanting.  I  have  been  able  to  remedy  these  defects 
but  very  incompletely.  I  give  here  the  piece,*  as  I  under- 
stand it. 

"  There  is  a  lady  graceful  and  agreeable,  whom  all  the  world 
eyes  for  her  beauty ;  she  has  set  her  heart  on  loyal  love.  May 
heaven  speed  the  approach  of  early  dawn !" 

."  In  the  orchard  under  the  hawthorn  branch,  the  lady  sits, 
her  lover  by  her  side,  waiting  for  the  watch  to  call  the  break 
of  day.  May  heaven  speed  the  approach  of  early  dawn  !" 

"  Ah  would  to  God  the  night  would  never  end,  and  that 
the  watch  would  never  see  nor  dawn  nor  day,  so  that  rny  friend 
might  never  leave  my  side  !  May  heaven  speed  the  approach 
of  early  dawn !" 

"  Fair  lover  sweet,  let  us  embrace  adown  the  meadow,  where 
the  herb's  in  bloom.  Let  us  rejoice  in  spite  of  jealous  eyes. 
May  heaven  speed  the  approach  of  early  dawn !" 

"  Fair  lover  sweet,  yet  one  more  amorous  sport  in  yonder 
garden  where  the  birds  are  singing !  Lo  there  the  sentinel, 
who  sings  his  aubade  now.  May  heaven  speed  the  approach 
of  early  dawn !" 

"  He  has  left  me  now,  my  friend,  my  fair,  my  merry,  cour- 
teous friend.  But  with  the  balmy  air  which  meets  me  from 
below,  I  still  inhale  a  sweet  draught  of  his  breath.  May  hea- 
ven speed  the  approach  of  early  dawn  !" 

The  following  aubade  is  by  the  celebrated  Giraud  de  Borneil. 
It  is,  I  believe,  the  most  graceful  of  them  all,  both  in  respect  to 
the  details  and  in  the  ensemble.  We  must  suppose  it  to  have 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  ii.  page  236.  "Elle  est  1'ouvrage  d'une  femme,  dont  le  nom  est 
inconnu." 

La  dompna  es  agradans  e  plazens ;  Plagues  a  dieu  ja  la  nueitz  non  falhis, 

Per  sa  beutat  la  garden  mantas  gens,  Ni'l  mieus  amicx  lone  de  mi  no  s  partis, 

Et  a  son  cor  en  amar  leyalmens,  Ni  la  gayta  jorn  ni  alba  no  vis. 

Oy  dieus !  oy  dieus !  de  1'alba  tan  tost  ve  !  Oy  dieus  !  oy  dieus  !  de  1'alba  tan  tost  ve ! 

En  un  vergier,  sotz  fuelha  d'albespi,  Per  la  doss'  aura  qu'es  venguda  de  lay 

Tenc  la  dompna  son  amic  costa  si,  Del  mieu  amic  beln  e  cortes  e  gay, 

Tro  la  gayta  crida  que  1'alba  vi.  Del  sieu  alen  ai  begut  un  dous  ray. 

Oy  dieus  f  Oy  dieus !  de  1'alba  tan  tost  ve !  Oy  dieus !  Oy  dieus !  de  1'alba  tan  tost  ve ! 

Ed. 


414  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

been  sung  under  the  window  of  the  apartment,  where  the  for- 
tunate chevalier  is  reposing,  and  by  a  friend  of  the  latter  who 
has  passed  the  night  standing  sentinel  for  him.  The  first 
couplet  of  the  piece  is  a  prayer,  which  will  ] 


prayer,  wnicn  will  perhaps  appear  a 

little  too  solemn  for  the  occasion.  But  we  know  already,  how 
serious  the  chevaliers  of  the  Middle  Age  were  in  all  that  con- 
cerned their  loves. 

"  Thou  King  of  glory,  veritable  Light,  all-powerful  Deity,  be 
pleased  to  succor  faithfully  my  companion ;  I  have  not  seen 
him  since  the  fall  of  night,  and  now  the  morn  is  near  at  hand." 

"My  fair  companion,  are  you  yet  asleep?  you've  slept 
enough,  awake,  tne  day's  approaching !  I  have  seen  bright 
and  clear  the  orient  star  which  brings  the  day ;  I  recognize  it 
well,  and  now  the  morn  is  near  at  hand." 

"  My  fair  companion,  I  call  you  with  my  song,  awake  !  I 
hear  the  chirping  bird  which  flutters  through  the  grove  in  search 
of  day,  and  I  m  afraid  your  rival  will  surprise  you,  for  now  the 
morn  is  near  at  hand." 

"  My  fair  companion,  put  your  head  to  the  little  window ; 
look  at  the  sky  and  at  the  stars  now  turning  dim,  and  you  will 
see  that  I  am  a  good  sentinel.  But  if  you  do  not  listen,  you'll 
fare  the  worse  for  it,  for  now  the  morn  is  near  at  hand." 

"  My  fair  companion,  since  you  have  left  me,  I  have  not 
closed  my  eyes  in  sleep,  nor  budged  from  off  my  knees,  be- 
seeching God  and  the  Son  of  Mary,  to  return  me  my  faithful 
companion  safely,  and  now  the  morn  is  near  at  hand. 

"  My  fair  companion,  from  yon  high  balcony  you  did  con- 
jure me  not  to  yield  to  slumber,  and  to  watch  well  all  the  night 
until  the  break  of  day,  and  now  you  heed  not  either  my  song 
or  me,  and  yet  the  morn  is  near  at  hand." 

Some  of  these  morning-songs  are  of  a  very  peculiar  form,  on 
which  I  think  I  ought  to  say  a  word  or  two.  These  are  the 
aubades,  which  appear  to  be  incorporated  with  other  songs. 
There  is  a  piecef  by  a  Troubadour,  Cadenet  by  name,  which 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  313.    Piece  No.  IV.  Strophes  1--7. 
Bei  glorios,  verais  lums  e  elardatz,  Bel  companhos,  en  chantan  vos  apel, 

Dieu  poderos,  senher,  si  a  vos  platz,  Non  dormatz  plus,  qu'ieu  aug  chantar  1'au- 

zel 

Al  mieu  compainh  sias  fizels  ajuda,  Que  vai  queren  lo  iorn  per  lo  boscatge, 

Qu'ieu  non  lo  vi  pus  la  nueitz  to  venguda,    Et  ai  paor  qu'el  gilos  vos  assatge, 
Et  ades  sera  1'alba.  Et  ades  sera  1'alba. 

Bel  companhos,  si  dormetz  o  velhatz  Bel  companhos,  issetz  al  fenestrel, 

Non  dormatz  plus,  qu'el  jorn  es  apropchatz,Et  esgardatz  las  ensenhas  del  eel, 
Qu'en  Orien  vey  1'estela  creguda  Conoiseretz  si  us  sui  fizels  messatge  ; 

Qu'adutz  lo  jorn,  qu'ieu  1'ai  ben  conoguda,  Si  non  o  faitz,  vostreser  lo  dampnatge, 
Et  ades  sera  1'alba.  Et  ades  sera  1'alba.    etc.,  etc.— Ed. 

f  Raynouard,  vol.  iii.  page  251.    Piece  No.  IV.  Strophes  1,  2,  3. 
S'  anc  fui  belha  ni  prezada,  Tot  per  sa  gran  manentia ; 

Ar  sui  d'aut  en  bas  tornada ;  E  murria, 

Qu'a  un  vilan  sui  douada,  S'ieu  fin  amic  non  avia 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  415 

offers  us  an  example  of  this  kind  of  amalgam,  and  as  the  piece 
is  a  beautiful  one,  I  will  translate  a  passage  or  two  from  it.  It 
treats  of  a  lady  who  was  unhappily  married,  and  who  gives 
vent  to  her  complaint  in  the  following  terms  : 

"  I  am  possessed  of  beauty,  and  once  was  honored,  but  now 
I'm  fallen,  alas !  too  low  from  this  great  eminence.  They  gave 
me  to  a  villain,  whose  only  claim  to  me  were  his  great  riches, 
and  I  should  die,  had  I  not  a  fair  friend,  to  whom  I  might  re- 
count my  ills,  and  a  complaisant  watch,  to  chant  for  me  the 
approach  of  day." 

And  thereupon  commences  a  veritable  aubade  from  the 
mouth  of  the  guette  (or  watch)  herself : 

"  I  am  a  courteous  sentinel,  and  I  desire  not  that  true  and 
faithful  love  should  be  destroyed.  This  is  the  reason,  why  I 
watch  for  the  early  peep  of  day,  that  he  who  sleeps  beside  his 
lady-love,  may  take  a  tender  leave,  when  I  see  the  dawn  ap- 
pear." 

"Along  and  dark  night  pleases  me  the  most,  the  winter- 
night,  which  lasts  so  long,  and  where,  in  spite  of  cold,  I  still 
continue  on  my  loyal  watch,"  etc.,  etc. 

These  couplets  are  followed  by  two  more,  one  of  which  is 
from  the  mouth  of  the  sentinel,  and  the  last  from  that  of  the 
lady,  who  assures  us  that  the  menaces  of  her  husband  will  never 
prevent  her  from  keeping  her  vigils  with  her  lover  until  the 
dawn  of  morning. 

This  search  after  variety  in  the  form  and  the  accessories 
of  this  species  of  poetry,  seems  to  be  an  evidence  of  the  care 
with  which  the  Troubadours  applied  themselves  to  it.  Never- 
theless the  aubades  are  by  no  means  plentiful  in  the  collections 
of  their  pieces ;  and  the  same  can  be  said  of  all  that  there  is 
of  a  popular  description  in  their  amatory  poetry ;  that  is  to  say, 
of  the  ballads,  the  pastorals,  and  the  messages  of  love  ;  for  the 
pieces  of  the  last  of  these  classes  can  very  well  be  added  (as  in 
fact  I  have  already  attempted  to  do),  to  those  which  I  have 
specially  styled  popular.  The  poems,  which  preponderate,  both 
in  point  of  number  and  importance,  in  all  the  manuscript  col- 
lections of  Provencal  poetry,  these  are  the  chansons  or  songs 
of  love  properly  so  called.  This  was  the  poetic  form  par  ex- 
cellence, which  above  all  others  constituted  the  glory  of  the 

Guy  disses  mo  marrimen,  Baizan,  e  tenen, 

E  guaita  plazen  Qu'ieu  crit  quan  vey  1'alba. 

Que  mi  fes  son  d'alba. 

Be  m  plai  longna  nuegz  escura, 

leu  sui  tan  corteza  guaita,  E'l  temps  d'ivern  on  plus  dura, 

Que  no  vuelh  sia  desfaita  E  no  m'en  lays  per  freidura 

Leials  amors  a  dreit  faita ;  Qu'ieu  leials  guayta  no  sia 

Per  qu'ieu  sui  guarda  del  dia  Tota  yia  ;  etc.,  etc. — Ed. 

Si  venria, 

E  sel  qui  jay  ab  s'amia 
Prenda  comjat  francamen, 


416  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

Troubadours  and  the  delight  of  castles.  And  this  is  the  reason, 
why  so  many  pieces,  so  many  chansons  of  this  kind,  which  we 
now  regard  as  productions  of  a  most  tedious  mediocrity,  have 
in  the  majority  of  collections  invaded  the  place  of  a  multitude 
of  aubades  and  ballads,  in  which  in  all  probability  we  should 
have  found  a  grace  and  beauty  much  more  analogous  to  our 
tastes  and  our  ideas. 

Dante's  treatise  on  vulgar  eloquence  contains  a  chapter,  full 
of  curious  traits,  which  show  very  clearly  the  kind  of  poetic 
supremacy  at  that  time  attributed  to  the  purely  lyrical  chanson 
over  all  other  kinds  of  amatory  poetry.  Dante  endeavors,  in 
the  first  place,  to  demonstrate,  that  of  all  the  forms  of  popular 
poetry,  the  one  which  the  Provencals  had  designated  by  the 
name  of  chanson,  was  the  most  elevated  and  important.  "  This," 
says  he,  "  can  be  proved  by  various  considerations.  In  the  first 
place,  although  any  and  every  composition  in  verse  may  be 
sung,  and  might  on  that  account  be  called  a  chanson,  yet  the 
chanson  is  the  only  one  which  has  really  assumed  that  name ; 
which  never  could  have  taken  place  except  in  virtue  of  an  an- 
cient forsight.  Besides,  whatever  of  itself  alone  attains  the 
end  for  which  it  was  made,  is  superior  to  an^  other  thing  which 
stands  in  need  of  something  exterior  to  itself.  Now,  the  chan- 
son accomplishes  of  itself  whatever  it  is  destined  to  accomplish ; 
and  this  is  not  the  case  with  the  ballad,  which  stands  in  need 
of  players  of  instruments  in  order  to  fulfill  its  purpose ;  the 
chanson  is  consequently  nobler  than  the  ballad.  Moreover,  we 
esteem  those  things  most  noble,  which  bring  most  glory  to  their 
authors ;  therefore  the  chansons,  bringing  more  honor  to  those 
who  compose  them,  than  the  ballads,  are  more  noble  than  the 
latter.  Finally,  the  noblest  things  are  those  which  are  pre- 
served with  the  greatest  care,  but  of  all  the  poems  sung,  the 
chansons  are  those  which  are  preserved  most  preciously,  as  any 
one  can  see  by  merely  glancing  at  the  books." 

I  do  not  know  whether  Dante  gives  a  good  explanation  of  the 
fact  which  he  announces,  but  he  at  any  rate  establishes  it,  and 
we  see  that  in  the  collections  of  poetry  with  which  he  was 
acquainted,  as  in  those  which  have  come  down  to  us,  the  songs, 
which  were  composed  for  the  chateaux  and  which  could  please 
only  there,  left  but  very  little  room  for  the  popular  songs  or  for 
those,  which,  without  being  composed  expressly  for  the  people, 
could  nevertheless  be  relished  and  enjoyed  by  it,  in  some  re- 
spects at  least. 

There  is  still  another  branch  of  Provencal  poetry,  of  which  I 
have  not  yet  spoken.  This  comprises  the  tensons,  partimens^ 
or,  as  we  should  term  them,  the  poetic  contests  ( jeux-partis).* 

*  On  the  tenson  or  contencio  of  the  Provencals  compare  Raynouard,  vol.  ii.  p.  186-196. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  417 

Of  all  the  forms  of  the  amatory  poetry  of  the  Troubadours  this 
is  the  least  poetical,  the  one  which  has  the  strongest  tendency 
to  lose  itself  in  the  didactic  forms.  Nevertheless  it  is  too  cha- 
racteristic and  occupies  too  conspicuous  a  place  in  the  ensemble 
of  the  poetic  system  of  the  Troubadours,  to  be  passed  over 
without  some  few  remarks,  and  especially  as  it  is  not  necessary 
to  speak  of  it  at  length  to  give  an  adequate  idea  of  it. 

The  term  tenson  was  applied  to  colloquial  pieces,  in  which 
two  or  more  interlocutors  maintained  contrary  opinions  on 
some  given  thesis.  This  was  commonly  a  thesis  of  chivalric 
gallantry,  and  it  was  only  by  a  sort  of  exception  that  it  some- 
times extended  to  questions  and  subjects  of  another  kind. 
These  tensons  always  present  themselves  in  the  form  of  a 
challenge  ;  a  Troubadour  first  propounds  two  opposite  sentiments 
on  one  and  the  same  subject,  and  then  calls  on  his  adversary  to 
sustain  whichever  of  these  two  sentiments  he  may  choose,- he 
himself  offering  to  maintain  and  to  carry  the  opposite  side  of  the 
question.  The  challenged  Troubadour  having  made  his  choice, 
the  proposed  question  is  debated  in  six  or  eignt  couplets,  all  of 
which  are  symmetrical  with  the  first,  that  is  to  say,  with  thp  one 
in  which  the  challenge  was  proposed.  t 

It  is  evident  from  the  very  conditions  of  this  kind  of  poetic 
debate,  that  it  never  could  arise  except  on  questions  of  extreme 
subtilty,  on  questions  of  which  the  affirmative  and  negative 
were  nearly  equally  true,  equally  doubtful,  equally  easy  to 
maintain.  It  is,  in  fact,  clear,  that  if  the  challenging  Trouba- 
dour had  given  his  antagonist  the  option  between  two  opinions, 
of  which  the  one  were  plausible  and  the  other  absurd  or  ridicu- 
lous, he  would,  in  doing  so,  have  infallibly  prepared  his  own 
defeat.  His  interest  and  his  cleverness  consisted  in  proposing 
two  questions  of  such  a  character,  that  it  would  be  a  matter  of 
indifference  to  him  whether  he  would  have  to  sustain  the  one  or 
the  other. 

And  indeed  all  the  questions  of  the  tenson  are  of  this  de- 
scription, questions  of  such  extravagant  refinement  and  subtilty^ 
that  a  capricious  curiosity  alone  can  attach  the  slightest  interest 
to  them.  I  will  state  a  few  of  them,  which  will  suffice  to. 
enable  us  to  judge  of  the  majority. 

"  Is  it  better  to  love  a  lady,  quite  young  and  beautiful  and 
courteous,  as  yet  still  ignorant  of  love,  but  in  the  way  of  learn- 
ing it,  or  some  fair  madame  already  perfect  and  experienced  in. 
love  ?" 

The  question  was  a  practicable  one ;  it  was  not  anti-chivalric  ; 

On  the  partimen,  jocx  partitz,  and  tarneyamen,  p.  197-206.  Specimens  of  the  tenson, 
vol.  iv.  p.  1-45.  On  the  cours  d'amoura,  to  which  the  questions  discussed  in  the  tenson 
frequently  had  reference,  see  vol.  ii.  p.  ciii.-cxxiv.— Ed>. 

27 


418  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

but  usage  had  already  solved  it.  A  young  lady,  who  accepted 
a  lover,  was  obliged  to  wait  until  she  was  married  before  she 
could  grant  him  even  the  smallest  favor.  With  a  married  lady 
no  time  was  lost  by  any  such  delay,  and  the  success  of  the 
knight  depended  on  the  will  of  the  former  alone  ;  the  chance 
was  a  better  one.  But  here  is  a  second  question,  a  little  more 
embarrassing  than  the  first. 

"  Which  is  preferable,  to  be  beloved  by  a  lady,  to  receive 
from  her  the  most  desired  proof  of  it  and  then  to  die  immediately 
after,  or  to  love  her  for  many  years  without  being  loved  by  her 
in  return  ?" 

The  thesis,  which  constitutes  the  second  part  of  this  question, 
was  the  easiest  to  maintain  according  to  the  ideas  of  chivalry, 
and  it  was  in  fact  the  one  maintained  by  the  Troubadour,  to 
whom  the  challenge  had  been  given,  and  who  by  the  way  was 
a  monk.  "  I  would  rather  serve  my  lady  without  any  recom- 
pense whatever,  than  die  after  the  reception  of  the  first.  In 
loving  my  lady,  I  shall  perform  whatever  my  good  love  com- 
mands; I  shall  be  valiant  and  brave  and  I  shall  signalize 
myself  by  many  a  noble  deed." 

Here  is  a  third  question  of  a  much  gayer  description  than  the 
two  preceding.  "Two  men  are  married ;  the  one  has  an  amia- 
ble and  handsome  wife,  the  other  an  ugly  and  disagreeable  one. 
Both  of  them  are  jealous  ;  which  of  them  is  the  greatest  fool  ?" 

Among  the  many  futile  questions  of  this  kind,  there  are 
nevertheless  some,  which  are  not  without  a  certain  interest. 
These  are  the  questions,  which  are  in  some  way  or  another 
connected  with  the  history  of  the  opinions,  the  manners  and 
the  poetry  even,  into  which  they  enter  as  a  constituent  element 
of  some  importance.  I  have  for  example  already  elsewhere 
spoken  of  the  existence  and  the  expeditions  of  knights- 
errant  in  the  south  of  France,  and  among  the  evidences  of  this 
fact  we  may  adduce  a  tenson  from  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  the  combatants  of  which  are  Lanfranc  Cigala,  a 
Genoese  Troubadour,  and  lady  Guillaumette  de  Kosers  (which 
I  believe  to  be  St.  Gilles  on  the  Khone).  The  Troubadour 
challenges  the  lady  in  the  following  terms  : 

"  Lady  Guillaumette,  twenty  knights-errant  were  riding  at  a 
distance,  in  the  midst  of  a  terrible  storm,  and  they  complained 
among  themselves  for  not  finding  any  shelter.  They  were 
overheard  by  two  barons,  who  were  passing  by  in  great  haste 
on  their  way  to  see  their  ladies.  The  one  of  the  two  barons 
retraced  his  steps,  to  offer  succor  to  the  wandering  knights ; 
the  other  pursued  his  journey  toward  his  lady.  Which  of  the 
two  conducted  himself  best?" 

The  following  tenson,  composed  about  1240  at  the  latest, 
proves  that  at  that  epoch  the  chivalric  romances,  in  which 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  419 

enchanted  arms  are  introduced,  were  already  in  vogue  in  the 
countries  of  the  Provencal  tongue,  since  these  enchanted  arms 
were  a  familiar  subject  of  allusions.  "  Which  would  you  pre- 
fer," asks  Guigo,  a  Provencal  Troubadour,  of  I  do  not  know  what 
other  Troubadour  by  the  name  of  Bernard,  "  which  would  you 
prefer,  an  enchanted  cloak,  by  the  aid  of  which  vou  might 
subdue  the  hearts  of  all  the  ladies,  or  a  trenchant  iron  lance, 
which  would  possess  the  virtue  of  levelling  with  the  dust  every 
knight  that  comes  within  its  reach,  however  valiant  and  strong 
he  might  be  ?" 

The  questions  of  these  poetical  combats  sometimes  allude  to 
facts  of  history  of  a  still  more  general  and  interesting  cha- 
racter than  those  which  I  have  just  now  mentioned.  It  hap- 
pens that  some  of  the  Provencal  poets  discuss  in  these  tensons 
the  claims  of  certain  nations  of  their  acquaintance  to  distinction 
and  glory.  Thus,  for  example,  there  is  a  tenson  in  which  a  Trouba- 
dour by  the  name  of  Raimon  challenges  another  to  debate  the 
question,  whether  the  Provencals  or  the  Lombards,  that  is  to  say, 
the  nations  of  southern  France  or  the  Italians  excel  the  most  in 
war  and  in  other  respects.  In  another  tenson  the  same  question 
is  proposed  with  reference  to  the  Provencals  and  the  French. 

The  arguments  by  which  each  disputant  sustains  his  side  of 
the  question  are  not  always,  as  we  can  easily  imagine,  of  the 
gravest  or  of  the  exactest  description.  But  there  would  have 
been  a  fatality  or  a  miracle  in  their  being  all  absolutely  false 
or  equally  frivolous,  and  the  truth  is,  that  they  contain  here  and 
there  interesting  traits  in  illustration  of  the  general  history  of 
mediaeval  life  and  civilization.  Thus,  to  speak  only  of  the 
tenson,  in  which  a  parallel  is  drawn  between  the  French  and  the 
Proven§als,  and  to  say  but  a  few  words  on  the  subject,  we  there 
perceive  that  the  latter  proclaim  themselves  the  inventors  and  the 
models  of  poetry,  and  thence  derive  one  of  their  principal  titles 
to  national  glory.  We  there  perceive,  what  is  elsewhere  estab- 
lished by  the  unanimous  testimony  of  all  the  historical  docu- 
ments, that  the  development  of  the  chivalric  spirit  had  ceased 
to  progress  much  sooner  in  France  than  in  the  countries  of  the 
Proven§al  tongue,  and  that,  if  in  the  latter,  society  was  freer, 
more  animated  and  accomplished,  it  was  in  the  former  better 
disciplined,  more  serious  and  energetic. 

We  perceive,  therefore,  that  the  Provencal  tensons,  indefault 
of  a  poetic  interest,  are  possessed  of  a  certain  historical  interest, 
by  reason  of  which  they  have  a  stronger  and  a  different  claim 
to  our  consideration,  than  has  heretofore  been  conceded  to 
them.  In  regard  to  the  composition  and  the  form  of  this  kind 
of  poetry,  there  are  questions  which  I  will  simply  announce, 
without  attaching  any  great  importance  to  their  solution. 


420  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

Among  the  Troubadours,  there  are  some  who  are  expressly 
and  particularly  designated  as  writers  of  tensons  good  and  bad. 
If  we  were  to  take  this  testimony  in  its  rigorous  and  most 
natural  sense,  it  would  be  necessary  to  suppose,  that  the  tensons 
in  question  were  each  composed  entirely  by  one  and  the  same 
individual,  sustaining  both  the  affirmative  and  the  negative  of 
one  and  the  same  question.  In  that  event,  these  pieces  would 
be  but  a  child's  play  without  any  aim  or  motive. 

This  does  not  prove  that  there  were  not  really  tensons  of  this 
kind,  but  this  could  only  have  been  by  way  of  exception. 
Everything  authorizes  us  to  suppose,  that  the  tenson  was  a  real 
debate  between  two  Troubadours,  that  this  debate  took  place  in 
the  chateaux  with  more  or  less  solemnity  and  before  a  sort  of 
public,  that  it  was  not  prolonged  indefinitely,  but  that  it  was 
required  to  terminate  within  an  interval  of  limited  extent.  In 
fact,  a  tenson  could  hardly  have  any  point  or  interest,  except 
so  far  as  it  was  to  some  extent  extemporaneous,  or  at  any  rate 
rapidly  composed  by  the  two  adversaries  contending  face  to 
face.  There  was  a  judge  appointed  by  mutual  consent,  who 
decided,  which  of  the  two  combatants  had  sustained  his  thesis 
with  success. 

I  shall  conclude  now  this  review  of  the  forms  of  Provencal 
poetry,  which  may  be  regarded  as  expedients  or  tentatives  to 
give  a  little  variety  to  the  expression  of  chivalric  love.  All  of 
these  forms  were  more  or  less  directly  the  result,  the  reflex  of 
the  feeling,  that  there  was  something  monotonous  or  factitious 
in  the  Provengal  chanson ;  they  all  originated  in  a  sort  of 
reaction  of  the  poetic  imagination  against  this  monotony. 

But  this  reaction  neither  could  nor  did  stop  there ;  it  ex- 
tended itself  to  the  very  foundation  of  the  sentiments  and  the 
ideas  of  chivalric  gallantry.  Precisely  as  there  were  Trouba- 
dours, who  were  weary  of  harping  on  love  in  the  same  key  and 
in  the  same  poetic  form,  there  were  also  those  who  refrained 
entirely  from  celebrating  a  love,  wherein  they  thought  they 
perceived  something  too  conventional  and  too  equivocal;  a 
love  which  pretended  to  be  a  sort  of  impossible  middle  term  be- 
tween the  natural  desires  and  an  absolute  purity. 

Some  of  them  were  in  favor  of  banishing  all  sensuality  from 
the  domain  of  love,  and  to  reduce  it  to  a  pure  interchange  of 
sentiments  and  thoughts.  Others,  and  these  were  by  far  the 
greater  number,  divested  the  sentiment  of  love  of  all  its  enthu- 
siasm and  morality,  in  order  to  reduce  it  to  that  grosser  and 
more  vulgar  form,  which  it  so  frequently  assumes  in  all  ages 
and  in  every  place. 

We  have  from  this  latter  class  of  poets  a  number  of  pieces,  al- 
most equally  intranslatable,  some  on  account  of  their  unbounded 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  421 

licentiousness,  others  because  they  exhibit  a  vulgarity,  which  is 
altogether  too  undisguised  and  free. 

I  can  find  but  one  of  them,  of  which  I  can  translate  a  part  at 
least.  It  is  by  a  Troubadour  by  the  name  of  Perdigon,  and 
reads  as  follows : 

"  I  am  a  loyal  lover  now,  but  there  is  but  little  time  left ;  for 
thus  far  the  rewards  of  love  have  given  me  too  little  satisfac- 
tion. But  I  have  just  made  a  conquest  of  a  lady,  who  will 
make  me  sing  of  her  most  merrily.  Still  I  wish  to  love  with 
prudent  moderation,  and  let  my  lady  not  imagine,  that  I  shall 
love  her  long,  if  I  perceive  that  she  intends  to  make  my  pas- 
sion kill  me.  I  am  resolved,  if  she  maltreats  me,  to  pay  my 
addresses  to  another." 

"  I  have  been  so  well  schooled  in  love,  my  lady  fair,  that  be- 
fore I  will  estrange  my  heart  entirely,  I'll  first  see  whether  I 
shall  not  find  mercy  before  you.  My  heart  is  mine  as  yet  suf- 
ficiently, and  I  can  yet  withdraw  it,  etc." 

"  I  have  besought  you  not  to  make  me  suffer,  and  I  have 
made  a  declaration  of  my  wishes.  Do  not  imagine,  then,  that 
I  am  going  to  love  you  two  years  or  three  for  nothing.  I  wish 
at  once  to  obtain  the  profit  of  my  suit  with  you,  my  lady,  whom 
I  love  so  tenderly ;  and  I  beseech  you  not  to  persist  day  after 
day  in  telling  me  your  No.  This  is  a  word  I  hate,  and  whoever 
tells  it  me  too  frequently  is  sure  to  be  deserted." 

"  I  do  not  say  that  you  are  the  handsomest  woman  in  the 
world ;  and  I  beseech  you,  good  lady,  not  to  be  offended  at  my 
frankness.  I  am  neither  count,  nor  duke,  nor  marquis,  and  it 
seems  to  me  that  it  would  ill  befit  me  to  love  the  flower  of  wo- 
men. But  you  have  surely  enough  of  beauty,  of  youth  and 
merit,  for  me  to  be  content  with,  and  I  will  cling  to  you,  if  you 
will  but  reward  me." 

I  will  excuse  the  reader  from  the  perusal  of  the  last  couplet, 
in  which  the  disenchanted  Troubadour  explains  himself  in  the 
same  tone,  and  with  the  same  platitude  of  freedom,  on  a  point 
more  delicate  than  the  rest. 

I  have,  in  conclusion  of  this  last  chapter  on  the  amatory  poetry 
of  the  Troubadours,  produced  such  specimen-quotations  as  will 
suffice  to  give  us  an  idea  of  the  decadence  of  this  poetry,  as  far 
as  art  and  literary  excellence  are  concerned.  Its  moral  deca- 
dence is  still  more  strongly  marked  in  the  piece  which  I  have 
just  translated.  It  is  thus,  that  the  poetic  enthusiasm  and  the 
enthusiasm  of  chivalric  love  both  declined,  deteriorated,  and 
finally  disappeared  together.  They  had  been  born  one  of  the 
other,  they  had  developed  themselves  one  through  the  other, 
and  they  constituted,  as  long  as  they  coexisted,  the  most  bril- 
liant phenomenon  of  the  Middle  Age  in  the  south  of  France. 


4:22  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 


• 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE   LYBICAL   POETRY   OF   THE   TROUBADOURS. 

IV.  — PIECES    RELATING    TO    THE    CRUSADES. 

WARS   OF   THE   HOLY   LAND. 

NEXT  to  that  of  chivalric  love,  the  lyric  poetry  of  the  Pro- 
vencals has  no  more  frequent  or  more  favorite  theme  than  the 
celebration  of  martial  prowess,  as  exhibited  either  in  the  ordi- 
nary wars  or  in  those  of  a  religious  nature.  Among  the  latter 
it  sung  particularly  those,  which  under  the  name  of  Crusades 
made  so  great  and  so  diversified  a  noise  in  history.  It  would 
indeed  appear,  that  there  could  scarcely  be  an  argument  more 
suitable  than  this  to  the  genius  of  these  Troubadours,  who  thought 
as  much  of  their  religion  as  they  did  of  their  chivalric  spirit ; 
and  judging  in  advance,  and  on  the  evidence  of  general  appear- 
ances merely,  one  might  be  tempted  to  imagine  that  their  cru- 
sade-songs were  the  most  beautiful  of  aU,  or  at  any  rate  superior 
to  those  in  which  they  celebrated  chivalric  valor  only,  and  apart 
from  every  religious  motive.  But  at  the  risk  of  compromising 
to  some  extent  the  religious  reputation  accorded  to  the  Trouba- 
dours, I  shall  be  obliged  to  say,  and  to  prove,  that  they  have 
celebrated  in  their  songs  warfare  in  general,  war  for  the  sake  of 
war,  much  more  poetically  than  the  sacred  war  of  the  crusades. 
I  shall  begin  by  speaking  of  the  latter. 

We  certainly  now  no  longer  possess  all  the  lyrical  pieces  of 
the  Troubadours  relative  to  the  crusades,  but  those  which  are 
left  us  are  probably  the  best  of  them — probably  those,  which 
at  the  time  of  their  first  appearance  were  the  most  celebrated 
and  productive  of  the  greatest  effect — so  that  they  may  be  sup- 
posed to  represent  advantageously  those  others  which  may  have 
been  lost ;  and  no  serious  inconvenience  can  result  from  the 
absence  of  the  latter  in  a  general  survey  of  this  branch  of  Pro- 
vengal  poetry. 

The  first  crusade  must  have  been  the  subject  of  a  variety  of 
popular  songs,  wherever  it  was  preached.  But  it  is  only  in 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  423 

Italy,  and  more  particularly  in  Lombardy,  that  history  makes 
any  mention  of  these  songs.  It  points  out  at  least  one  of  them, 
which  it  designates  with  the  epithet  of  passage-song  (de  ultreia), 
and  to  which  it  seems  to  attribute  a  powerful  influence  on  the 
zeal  with  which  the  Lombards  flocked  to  the  standard  of  this 
first  crusade.  But  this  is  all  that  we  now  can  say  on  the  subject 
of  this  song :  not  a  single  word  of  it  has  come  down  to  us  ;  we 
do  not  even  know  whether  it  was  in  Latin  or  in  some  one  of  the 
dialects  of  the  Italian.  The  first  of  these  suppositions  is  the 
most  probable. 

There  can  scarcely  be  any  doubt  but  that  the  first  crusade, 
which,  as  we  shall  see  in  its  place,  had  furnished  the  theme  for 
a  number  of  grand  epic  compositions  in  the  Provengal,  was 
likewise  made  the  subject  of  a  variety  of  songs  of  shorter  dimen- 
sions, some  of  which  must  have  belonged  to  the  historical,  and 
others  to  the  lyric  species.  But  all  these  songs  were  already 
lost  in  the  thirteenth  century.  The  only  one  extant  at  that 
time  was  that  of  the  count  of  Poitiers,  William  IX.,  which  I 
have  translated  above  (p.  294),  and  in  which  we  can  see.  with 
what  repugnance  and  with  how.  many  regrets  this  chief,  who 
had  but  little  of  the  enthusiasm  of  the  crusaders,  left  his  fair 
duchy  of  Aquitaine  to  enter  on  this  expedition  for  the  Holy  ; 
Land. 

The  second  crusade  commenced  in  1146.  Everybody  knows 
that  St.  Bernard  was  the  principal  instigator,  the  all-powerful 
preacher,  the  supreme  director  of  this  movement,  and  that  it 
would  have  depended  on  himself  alone  to  have  become  the 
military  chief  of  it.  The  assembly"  at  Yazelai,  where  Louis 
VII.  and  the  principal  seigniors  of  France  were  induced,  by 
the  voice  of  the  saint,  to  assume  the  cross,  was  nearly  as  nu- 
merous as  that,  for  which,  fifty  years  before,  Pope  Urban  II.  had 
preached  the  holy  war  for  the  first  time.  It  was  the  same  cry 
of  Deus  vult !  Deus  vult !  (God  wishes  it !),  with  which  the 
united  nations  had  responded  to  the  exhortations  of  the  pontiff 
at  Clermont — with  which  now  for  a  second  time  the  innumer- 
able multitude  at  Vezelai  received,  as  if  it  had  been  a  man- 
date from  Heaven,  the  appeal  of  the  Abb£  of  Citeaux  in  behalf 
of  a  second  crusade. 

Raymond  V.,  the  count  of  Toulouse,  was  present  at  this 
assembly  of  Vezelai ;  he  there  took  the  cross,  and  thus  induced 
a  large  part  of  the  South  to  join  in  the  movement  of  this  second 
crusade.  But  the  Troubadours  did  not  interfere  with  this  move- 
ment ;  they  did  not  second  it,  and  their  patron  even,  Raymond 
V.,  took  his  departure  for  the  Holy  Land  to  die  there,  without 
obtaining  from  them  the  slightest  eulogy  for  this  heroic  devo- 
tion, which  had  become  hereditary  in  the  family  of  Raymond 


424:  History  of  Pravengal  Poetry. 

of  St.  Gilles.  They  reserved  their  songs,  as  we  shall  see  else- 
where, for  other  crusades  which  about  the  same  time  were 
already  preparing  against  the  Arabs  of  Spain. 

In  all  the  collections  of  the  lyrical  poetry  of  the  Provencals, 
there  is,  as  far  at  least  as  I  have  seen,  but  a  single  piece  re- 
lating to  the  crusade  of  St.  Bernard ;  and  this  even  is  a  piece, 
which,  so  far  from  being  a  eulogy  or  sermon  on  the  theme,  con- 
tains only  a  vague  and  indirect  allusion  to  it.  The  poem  is  by 
the  same  Marcabrus,  of  whom  I  have  already  spoken  with  some 
detail ;  and  its  style,  like  that  of  most  of  his  productions,  is  not 
without  considerable  originality.  In  composing  it,  Marcabrus 
probably  never  thought  either  of  St.  Bernard  or  of  the  disas- 
trous results  of  his  crusade ;  but  the  piece  is  nevertheless  de 
facto  a  sort  of  poetic  commentary,  naive  and  bold  enough,  on 
certain  famous  words  of  the  saint.  The  latter,  in  his  report  to 
Pope  Eugene  III.  on  the  success  of  his  preaching,  had  thus 
briefly  recapitulated  it : 

I  j     "  The  cities  and  castles  are  deserted  to  such  an  extent  that 
there -is  scarcely  a  man  left  for  seven  women:  everywhere  we 
I  see  nothing  but  widows  whose  husbands  are  yet  alive."* 

I  subjoin  now  the  piece  by  Marcabrus.  Its  relation  to  the 
somewhat  venturesome  words  of  the  saint  will  readily  suggest 
itself  to  the  mind  of  every  one. 

"  Close  to  the  fountain  of  the  grove,  along  the  sand,  beneath 
a  fruit-tree's  shade,  whereon  the  birds  were  singing,  I  found 
alone  (the  other  day)  her  who  desires  not  my  happiness. "f 

"  This  was  a  noble  damsel,  the  daughter  of  the  seignior  of  a 
castle.  I  imagined  that  she  was  there  to  enjoy  the  newborn 
season,  its  verdure,  and  the  song  of  birds,  and  I  thought  she 
would  gladly  lend  her  ear  to  what  I  had  to  say.  But  the  mat- 
ter was  far  otherwise." 

"  She  began  to  weep  at  the  margin  of  the  fountain ;  and, 
sighing  from  the  bottom  of  her  heart,  she  exclaimed :  '  Jesus, 
King  of  the  universe,  it  is  for  thy  sake  that  I  endure  such  suf- 
ferings. The  insults  to  which  thou  wast  subjected  fall  back  on 
me ;  for  the  most  valiant  of  this  world  are  gone  to  serve  thee, 
beyond  the  sea,  and  thou  commandedst  it !" 

"  'And  he  too's  gone  with  them,  my  friend,  my  fair,  my  noble, 

*  See  the  collection  of  St.  Bernard's  epistles  in  Migne's  Patrol.  Cursus  Completus. 
vol.  182.— ED. 
f  Raynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  375.    Piece  No.  II.,  entire : 

A  la  fontana  del  vergier,  So  fon  donzelh'  ab  son  cors  belh, 

On  1'erb'er  vertz  josta'l  grayier,  Filha  d'un  senhor  de  castelh ; 

A  I'ombra  d'un  fust  domesgier,  E  quant  ieu  cugey  que  1'auzelh 

En  aiziment  de  blancas  flora  Si  fesson  joi  e  la  verdors, 

E  de  novelh  chan  costumier,  E  pel  dous  termini  novelh, 

Trobey  sola,  ses  companhier,  E  que  entendes  mon  favelh, 

Selha  que  no  vol  mon  solatz.  Tost  li  fon  sos  afars  camjatz. 

Etc.,  etc.— ED. 


• 


=  •„ 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  425 

valiant  friend ;  and  I  remain  alone  here,  to  long  for  him,  to 
weep  and  mourn  disconsolate.  Ah !  what  fell  thought  he  enter- 
tained, Louis  our  king,  to  ordain  this  crusade,  which  has  brought 
such  sorrow  to  my  heart !' ' 

"  When  I  heard  her  lamenting  thus  inconsolably,  I  drew  on 
toward  her  along  the  limpid  brook,  and  said  to  her :  c  Fair, 
rosy  cheeks  and  sunny  visage  are  marred  by  too  much  weeping. 
Thou  shouldst  not  yet  despair :  He  who  has  decked  the  woods 
with  foliage,  can  make  thee  yet  rejoice  again.'" 

"  '  Ah,  seignior,'  said  she, '  I  believe  indeed  that  God  will  yet 
have  mercy  on  me  one  day,  and  in  another  life,  as  he  has  mercy 
on  many  another  sinner.  But  meanwhile  he  bereaves  me  in  this 
world  of  him  who  was  my  sole  delight,  of  him  whom  I  have 
kept  so  short  a  time,  and  who  is  now,  alas!  so  far  away 
from  me!'" 

Such  a  piece  added  to  the  silence  of  the  other  Troubadours, 
does  not  indicate  a  very  lively  enthusiasm  for  the  second  cru- 
crade  in  the  countries  of  the  Provencal  tongue. 

A  different  state  of  things  existed  during  the  interval  be- 
tween 1189  and  1193,  while  the  somewhat  slow  preparations 
for  the  third  crusade  were  going  on.  It  was  for  this  expedition, 
that  they  composed  nearly  all  the  pieces  on  the  subject  of  the 
holy  wars,  which  we  possess  of  them ;  at  least  all  those  which  fr 
merit  something  more  than  ordinary  attention  in  the  poetic 
history  of  the  Middle  Age.  Their  zeal  on  this  occasion  is  not 
difficult  of  explanation. 

In  the  first  place,  the  third  crusade  was  preached  at  the  most 
flourishing  epoch  of  Provencal  poetry.  Never  before  had  there 
existed  so  many  and  such  distinguished  Troubadours  as  at  that 
time ;  and  never  had  there  been  such  eager  emulation  among 
them  all. 

Moreover,  the  high  renown  of  the  leader  of  this  enterprise 
was  another  and  very  particular  inducement  to  the  Trouba- 
dours to  take  an  interest  in  the  cause,  to  enlist  in  it  and  to 
celebrate  it  in  advance.  The  emperor  Frederic  Barb arossa  and  , 
Kichard  the  Lion-hearted  were  the  favorite  heroes  of  these 
poets.  Philip  Augustus  was  not  so  much  to  their  taste,  but 
Philip  Augustus  had  commenced  to  gain  an  ascendant  over  the 
South,  which  could  allow  no  one  to  be  indifferent  toward  his 
projects  or  his  actions. 

these  reasons  combined  are  sufficient  to  account  for  the  en- 
thusiasm with  which  the  Troubadours  sung  the  third  crusade. 
Giraud  de  Borneil,  Eambaud  de  Yaqueiras,  Pierre  Cardinal, 
Bertrand  de  Born,  Pierre  Yidal,  Gaucelm  Faydit,  and  many 
others  of  less  distinction  have  left  us  poems  commemorative  of 
this  event,  which  must  be  numbered  among  the  most  remark- 


420  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

able  of  each  of  them.  Several  of  them  were  not  content  with 
preaching  the  holy  war;  they  wanted  to  assist  in  making  it ; 
they  followed  those  whom  they  had  incited  to  the  undertaking ; 
their  poetic  enthusiasm  was  subjected  to  the  ordeal  of  the 
O  events  ;  we  shall  see  how  it  came  out  of  it. 

The  pieces  of  the  Troubadours  relative  to  the  third  and  to  all 
the  subsequent  crusades  are  of  two  kinds,  and  they  form  two 
classes,  distinct  from  each  other  by  reason  of  their  difference  of 
aim  and  motive.  The  one  consists  of  formal  exhortations  ad- 
dressed to  the  public,  to  assume  the  cross  and  to  pass  outra- 
mar,  that  is  to  say  to  sail  for  the  Holy  Land.  The  others  are 
songs  inspired  by  personal  motives,  in  which  the  Troubadours, 
without  concerning  themselves  about  any  one's  enlisting  or  not 
enlisting  in  the  crusades,  simply  express  their  own  sentiments 
and  resolutions  on  the  subject.  The  latter  class  partakes  more 
or  less  of  the  character  of  the  ordinary  compositions  of  the  Trou- 
badours, and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  I  shall  dwell  on  it  a  little 
more  minutely.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  show  by  a  few  examples, 
how  these  ideas  of  the  crusades  and  of  the  sacred  war  some- 
times interfered  with  the  amatory  destinies  of  the  Trouba- 
dours. 

Among  those  of  them,  who  passed  outre-mer,  there  were  few 
into  whose  resolution  love  did  not  enter  in  one  way  or  another 
as  the  leading  motive.  Some  went  there  to  get  killed  out  of 
regret  for  having  lost  their  lady-loves,  others  to  divert  and  to 
console  themselves  for  the  grief  occasioned  by  the  rigor  or  the 
infidelity  of  theirs  ;  another  still  embarked  in  obedience  to  the 
order  of  his  fair  one,  or  in  the  hope  of  determining  her  by  this 
proof  of  devotion  to  accord  to  him  at  last  the  love  he  had  thus 
far  sought  in  vain.  But  whatever  may  have  been  the  motive, 
this  adventuresome  resolution  is  ordinarily  sufficient  to  diffuse 
a  certain  peculiar  charm  over  the  songs,  in  which  it  is  ex- 
pressed. 

One  of  the  most  graceful  of  these  poems,  with  which  I  am 
acquainted  and  which  it  is  in  my  power  to  quote,  is  attributed 
to  a  Troubadour,  named  Peirols,  of  whom  I  have  already 
spoken.  This  was  a  poor  chevalier,  who  loved  for  a  long  time 
a  sister  of  the  dauphin  of  Auvergne,  the  wife  of  Beraud  de 
Mercoeur,  one  of  the  great  barons  of  the  country.  We  do  not 
know  precisely  at  what  epoch  or  in  whose  company  he  em- 
barked for  Syria,  but  it  is  certain  that  he  went  there  once  at 
least,  and  in  connection  with  one  of  those  expeditions,  which 
followed  closely  upon  the  grand  crusade  of  Richard  Coeur-de 
Lion  and  Philip  Augustus,  and  which  constituted,  so  to  speak, 
its  trail.  At  the  moment  of  departure  he  composed  the  fol- 
lowing piece,  which  is  a  dialogue  between  himself  and  Love. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  427 

It  is  in  my  opinion  one  of  the  most  graceful  and  most  delicate 
pieces  of  its  kind.* 

"  When  Love  beheld  my  heart  enfranchised  of  all  thought 
of  him,  he  assailed  me  with  a  quarrel,  and  I  will  tell  you  how  : 
— Friend  Peirols,  it  is  a  great  mistake  in  thee,  to  quit  me  ; 
when  thy  thoughts  shall  be  no  more  of  me,  when  thou  shalt 
sing  no  more,  what  wilt  thou  be  then,  tell  me,  what  will  be 
thy  worth  ?" 

"  Love,  I  have  served  thee  long,  and  thou  hadst  no  com- 
passion on  me ;  thou  knowst  thyself  the  trifling  guerdon  I've 
received  from  thee !  I'll  not  accuse  thee,  but  grant  me  at  least 
substantial  peace  in  future ;  I  ask  no  more,  and  I  aspire  to 
nothing  sweeter." 

"  What !  Peirols,  dost  thou  forget  the  fair  and  noble  lady, 
who,  at  my  behest,  received  thee  so  graciously  and  with  so 
much  affection?  Thou  hast  indeed  a  thoughtless,  frivolous 
heart ;  though  no  one  would  have  ever  said  so  from  your  songs, 
so  full  of  joy  and  love  dost  thou  appear  in  them." 

"Love,  I  have  cherished  my  lady  constantly  since  I  first  saw 
her,  and  I  love  her  yet,  I  love  her  with  an  earnest,  steady 
thought ;  thus  she  has  pleased,  thus  she  has  charmed  m,e,  from 
the  first  moment  of  our  meeting.  But  the  time  has  come  for 
many  lovers  to  quit  with  tears  their  ladies  fair,  who,  were  it 
not  for  Saladin,  might  stay  with  them  in  blest  jocundity." 

"Peirols,   the    assaults    thou   art   about   to    make   on  the 
tower  of  David,  will  not  expel  from  it  the  Turks  or  Arabs. 
Attend  and  listen  to  a  bit  of  good  advice  :  Love  and  sing ! 
What !  thou  wilt  join  the  crusade,  when  the  kings  don't  join  ?  * 
Witness  the  wars  they  raise  among  themselves  ;  witness  the  « 
barons  how  they  invent  their  subjects  of  dispute  !  " 

"  Love,  I  have  never  failed  in  deference  to  thee,  thou  knowst 
it.  But  to-day  I  am  constrained  to  disobey  thee.  I  beseech 
God  to  make  peace  among  the  kings,  and  to  be  my  guide.  The 
crusade  is  deferred  too  long,  and  there  were  great  need  indeed, 
that  the  devout  marquis  of  Montferrat  had  more  companions !" 

Peirols  actually  took  his  departure,  as  he  had  resolved  to  do, 

*  Eaynouard,  vol.  iii.  p.  279.    Piece  No.  VI.    Strophes  1-6. 

Quant  amors  trobet  partit  N'ai  aiut  de  jauzimen  ; 

Mon  cor  de  son  pessamen,  No  us  ochaizon  de  nien, 

D'una  tenson  m'asalhit,  Sol  que  m  fassatz  derenan 

E  podetz  auzir  comen :  Bona  patz,  qu'als  no  us  deman, 

"  Amicx  Peyrols,  malameu  Que  nulhs  autres  gauzardos 

Vos  anatz  de  mi  lunhan,  No  m'en  pot  esser  tan  bos." 
E  pus  en  mi  ni  en  chan 

Npn  er  vostr'entencios,  "Peyrols,  metetz  en  oblit 

Diguatz  pueis  que  valretz  vos  ?"  La  bona  domna  valen 

Qui  tan  gen  vos  aculhit 

"  Amors,  tant  vos  ai  servit,  Et  tant  amqrosamen." 
E  pietatz  no  us  en  pren, 
Cum  vos  sabetz  quan  petit 


4:28  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

in  spite  of  the  dissuasions  of  Love,  and  we  shall  presently  see 
what  sort  of  a  farewell  he  addressed  to  Syria,  after  having 
stayed  there  for  some  time.  Meanwhile  I  return  to  the  second 
class  of  pieces,  which  the  Troubadours  composed  with  reference 
to  the  crusades. 

These  pieces  were  denominated  prezies,  prezicansas,  that  is 
to  say,  exnortations  or  sermons ;  and  this  title,  which  suits  them 
in  every  respect,  leaves  no  uncertainty  in  regard  to  their  ob- 
ject. This  was  to  exhort  the  masses  of  the  Christian  nations, 
and  more  especially  the  chivalric  class,  to  take  up  arms  against 
the  infidels  of  the  Holy  Land.  There  can  therefore  be  no 
doubt,  but  that  they  were  sung  with  a  certain  expenditure  of 
solemnity  in  public  places,  in  the  streets  of  the  cities,  at  the 
gate  ana  in  the  interior  of  the  castles,  in  short,  in  all  places 
where  there  were  gatherings  of  people. 

The  subject-matter  itself,  the  substance  of  these  poetic  ser- 
mons, corresponded  in  every  point  with  their  object  and  their 
name.     The  arguments  which  the  Troubadours  used,  to  incite 
the  people  to  take  the  cross  or  to  contribute  money  to  defray 
the  expenses  of  the  crusades,  were  copied  from  those  which  the 
church  made  for  the  same  purpose.     They  were  arguments  of 
a  pious,  theological  and  mystic  caste,  which  they  generally 
•  borrowed  from  the   discourses  of  the   monks  and  priests,  al- 
\  ready  made  and  in  the  very  formulas  in  which  they  found 
them. 

"  God  having  died  upon  the  cross  for  the  salvation  of  men, 
therefore  to  take  the  cross  and  to  go  to  the  Holy  Land  to  fight 
in  his  cause  was  the  best  opportunity  for  every  Christian  of  re- 
turning to  God  love  for  love,  sacrifice  for  sacrifice.  To  die  in 
combating  the  infidels  was  the  most  desirable  of  deaths,  it  was 
the  certain  exchange  of  the  anxieties  and  miseries  of  earth  for 
the  eternal  joys  of  paradise.  It  was  the  height  of  folly  in  the 
great  seigniors  and  kings  to  engage  in  pitiless  feuds  amongst 
themselves  from  petty  motives  of  vain-glory  or  at  the  utmost  to 
gain  a  strip  of  land,  instead  of  marching  on  with  united  forces 
V  to  exterminate  the  infidels." 

Such  are,  reduced  to  their  simplest  expression,  the  religious 
ingredients  of  nearly  all  the  pieces  of  Provencal  poetry  on  the 
crusades.  The  Troubadours  do  not  seem  to  have  aimed  at  being 
anything  more  than  the  auxiliaries  of  the  ecclesiastical  preach- 
ers. What  the  latter  said  gravely  and  in  prose  in  their  churches, 
the  former  repeated  in  the  open  air  and  with  the  additional 
charms  of  music  and  of  versification. 

These  pious  exhortations,  however,  did  not  proceed  with 
equal  propriety  from  the  mouths  of  the  ecclesiastics  and  from 
those  of  the  Provencal  poets.  The  church  was  at  its  ease  in 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  429 

regard  to  the  secular  powers  ;  tliere  was  no  danger  to  be  appre- 
hended from  the  grand  seigniors  and  kings  ;  it  had  no  occasion 
to  flatter  their  venality,  their  ambition,  their  turbulence,  their 
love  of  glory  and  of  pleasure.  More  than  ever  at  variance 
with  the  nobles,  to  whose  errors  it  imputed  the  disasters  of  the 
preceding  crusade,  the  church  by  no  means  thought  of  flattering 
them  ;  and  when  it  sent  them  to  the  Holy  Land,  it  piqued  it- 
Belf  particularly  on  thus  offering  them  an  opportunity  to  ex 
piate  the  habitual  disorders  of  their  chivalric  life  at  home. 

The  case  could  not  have  been  the  same  with  the  Troubadours 
preaching  the  crusade.  They  were  indeed  persuaded  of  the 
truth  of  whatever  they  uttered  on  the  subject.  But  by  the  side 
of  this  idea  there  were  others,  which  it  was  difficult  for  them 
to  reconcile  with  it.  For  they  also  believed  in  chivalry,  in 
glory  and  in  love  ;  and  it  was  hard,  that  this  creed  of  theirs, 
on  which  their  very  existence  and  their  genius  might  be  said 
to  depend,  should  not  also  manifest  itself  to  some  extent  on 
those  occasions  even,  on  which  they  were  expected  to  speak 
none  other  than  the  austere  language  of  religion  and  of  faith. 
Among  the  many  poetic  discourses  on  this  crusade  composed  by 
them,  there  may  perhaps  be  some,  in  which  this  language 
really  predominates,  sufficiently  at  least  to  cover  whatever  in- 
congruities they  may  contain.  But  in  the  majority  and  in  the 
most  remarkable  of  them,  the  poetic  ideas  of  the  Troubadours 
break  through  distinctly,  and  in  contrast  with  the  religious 
idea,  which  has  the  appearance  of  being  their  principal  motive. 
Hence,  the  different  degrees,  shades  and  varieties  of  this  con- 
trast constitute  the  most  piquant  and  the  most  characteristic 
points  of  the  species  of  composition  in  question.  It  is  by  taking 
them  under  this  point  of  view  that  I  shall  endeavor  to  give 
some  conception  of  them. 

Peter  Yidal,  of  Toulouse,  composed  several  pieces  of  many 
beauties  of  detail  on  the  third  crusade,  in  which  he  himself  en- 
listed in  person.  I  subjoin  here  a  short  passage  from  one  of 
them: 

"  Men  ought  not  to  be  slow  to  excel  in  speech,  and  still  more 
in  their  actions,  as  long  as  life  lasts ;  for  the  world  is  but  an 
evanescent  breath,  and  he  commits  the  greatest  folly  who  relies 
the  most  on  it."  *    This  and  what  follows  was  serious  enough  " 
and  very  appropriate  in  an  exhortation  to  the  crusade.     But 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  108.    Piece  XII.    Strophe  3. 

Horn  no  s  deuria  tarzar 
De  ben  dir  e  de  mielhs  far, 
Tan  quan  vida  li  es  prezens, 
Qu'elh  segles  non  es  mas  vens, 
E  qui  mais  s'i  fia 
Fai  maior  follia,  etc — Ed. 


430  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

Pierre  Yidal,  who  plumed  himself  on  his  gallantry  and  chival- 
ric  spirit,  who  had  himself  been  knighted  by  one  of  his  illus- 
trious patrons,  was  not  the  man  to  speak  long  in  this  strain  and 
to  lose  sight  of  his  favorite  sentiments  in  five  or  six  long  stanzas 
of  his  poem.  I  subjoin  here  the  passage  which  precedes  the 
one  I  quoted  above  : 

"  If  from  fatigue  or  care  I  were  to  cease  to  sing,  the  world 
would  say,  forsooth,  my  spirit  and  my  valor  were  no  longer 
what  they  were  wont  to  be.  But  I  can  swear  without  commit- 
ting perjury,  that  never  youth  and  chivalry  and  love  and  prow- 
ess delighted  me  so  much."* 

"We  perceive  that  the  ordinary  ideas  of  gallantry  control  here 
the  idea  of  the  crusade,  while  they  contrast  still  more  strikingly 
in  the  subsequent  stanzas,  where  the  poet  again  returns  to  speak 
at  great  length  of  his  lady-love,^  and  appears  to  be  much  more 
occupied  with  her  than  with  the  deliverance  of  the  sacred 
sepulchre. 

I  add  now  the  two  last  stanzas  of  a  piece  which  Rambaud  de 
Yaqueiras  composed  on  the  crusade,  at  the  head  of  which  the 
marquis  of  Montferrat  started  for  Palestine  in  the  year  1204. 

"  Our  Master  commands  us  to  march  on  to  the  conquest  of 
the  Holy  Sepulchre  and  of  the  Cross.  Let  him,  therefore,  who 
wishes  to  be  in  His  company  and  to  live  forever  in  the  heavens, 
die  here  below  for  him.  Let  him  make  every  effort  to  cross 
the  sea  and  to  exterminate  the  dog-race  of  the  infidels." 

"  Fair  chevalier,  for  whom  I  sing,  I  know  not  whether  on 
thy  account  I  ought  to  keep  the  cross  or  to  abandon  it ;  I  know 
not,  either,  how  to  go  or  how  to  stay.  For  thy  beauty  causes 
me  so  much  suffering,  that  I  die  when  I  behold  thee,  and  in 
any  other  company,  where  I  see  thee  not,  methinks  I'm  dying 
in  a  desert."  f 

There  is  no  need  of  my  expatiating  on  the  sort  of  contradic- 
tion in  which  the  lover- .Troubadour  involves  the  Troubadour- 
crusader  in  this  passage.  I  will  quote  another  example,  which 
contains  a  similar  instance  of  inconsistency. 

*  The  same  poem.    Strophe  1. 

Si  m  laissava  de  chantar  Cam  esser  solia ; 

Per  trebalh  ni  per  afar,  Mas  en  ver  vo8  puesc  jurar 

Ben  leu  diria  la  gens  Qu'ancmais  no  m  plac  tan  jovens 

Que  no  fos  aitals  moa  sens  Ni  pretz  ni  cavallairia 

Ni  ma  gallardia  Ni  domneis  ni  drudaria. — Ed. 

t  Raynouard,  vol  iv.  p.  115.    Piece  No.  XIV.    The  two  last  stanzas  : 
Nostre  senher  nos  mand  e  ns  ditz  a  totz        Dels  Cavayers,  per  cui  fas  sons  e  motz, 
Qu'anem  cobrar  lo  sepolcr'e  la  crotz  :  No  sai  si  m  lais  per  vos  o  m  lev  la  crotz  ; 

E  qui  volra  esser  de  sa  companha  Ni  sai  cum  m'an,  ni  non  sai  com  remanha, 

Mueira  per  lui,  si  vol  vius  remaner  Qnar  tan  me  fai  vostre  bel  cors  doler, 

En  paradis,  e  fassa  son  poder  Qu'  en  muer  si  us  vey,  e  quan  no  us  puesc 

De  passar  mar  e  d'aucir  la  gen  canha.  vezer 

Cug  murir  sols  ab  tot'  autra  companha. — 

Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  431 

The  famous  Bertrand  de  Born  was  one  of  the  Provencal 
poets  who  preached  the  crusades.  Among  other  pieces  on  this 
subject  he  composed  one  in  honor  of  Conrad  of  Montferrat, 
brother  to  the  marquis  Boniface,  who,  while  awaiting  the  arri- 
val of  the  kings  Richard  and  Philip  Augustus,  defended  him- 
self in  Syria  with  distinguished  bravery  against  Saladin.  The 
second  stanza  of  this  piece  is  as  follows  : 

"  Sir  Conrad,  I  commend  thee  to  God,  and  I  should  also  now 
be  over  there  with  you,  I  vow,  unless  the  delays  of  the  counts, 
the  dukes,  the  princes,  and  the  kings  had  obliged  me  to  re- 
nounce my  project.  Since  then  I've  seen  my  lady,  my  fair, 
blonde  lady !  and  I  have  lost  all  courage  to  depart ;  had  this 
not  been,  I  should  have  made  my  voyage  more  than  a  year 
ago."* 

These  examples  suffice  to  show  with  what  facility  the  ordi- 
nary ideas  of  love  and  gallantry  recur  even  in  these  exhora- 
tions  on  the  crusades,  and  in  the  midst  of  sentiments  and 
arguments  of  a  religious  character,  which  seemed  by  their 
nature  destined  to  exclude  them. 

These  poetic  discourses  present  also  frequently  an  incongruity 
of  another  description.  The  Troubadours  strive  to  the  utmost 
of  their  ability  to  exalt  the  excellence  of  Christian  ideas  as  com- 
pared with  the  insignificance  of  worldly  grandeur  and  glory, 
and  still  in  reality  they  cannot  refrain  from  attaching  the  great- 
est value  to  this  glory,  and  from  regarding  the  pursuit  of  it  a 
merit.  Hence  the  pretension,  on  their  part,  to  reconcile  the 
general  ideas  of  chivalry,  the  natural  tendencies  of  the  chival- 
ric  spirit  with  the  religious  character  and  motives  of  the  cru- 
sades. 

"  What  folly,"  says  Pons  de  Capduelh,  "  what  folly  in  every 
doughty  baron,  not  to  succor  the  Cross  and  the  Holy  Sepul- 
chre !  Since  with  fine  armors,  with  glory,  with  courtesy,  with 
all  that  is  prepossessing  and  honorable,  we  can  obtain  the  joys 
of  Paradise."  f 

"  We  are  going  to  see  now,"  says  another  with  the  same  assur- 
ance of  enthusiasm,  "  we  are  going  to  see  now,  who  are  those 
who  desire  at  the  same  time  the  glory  of  the  world  and  the 
glory  of  God ;  for  they  can  gain  both  the  one  and  the  other 

* Baynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  95.    Piece  No.  VI.    Second  strophe. 

Seigner  Conrat,  a  Jesu  vos  coman,  Pois  vi  mi  dons  bell'e  bloia, 

Qu'eu  fora  lai  ab  voa,  so  vos  affi,  Per  que  s'anet  raos  cors  afreollan, 

Mas  lassei  m'en,  quar  se  tarzaven  tan  Qu'eu  fora  lai,  ben  a  passat  un  an. — Ed. 
Li  comt  e  ill  due  e  ill  rei  e  li  princi, 

t  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  92.    Piece  No.  IV.    Strophe  5. 

Jamais  no  y  s  guap  negus  bars  que  pros  sia,     Et  ab  tot  so  qu'es  belh  et  avinen 
S'ar  no  socort  la  crotz  e'l  monumen,  Podem  aver  honor  e  jauzimen 

Qu'ab  gen  garnir,  ab  pretz,  ab  cortezia,  En  paradis ;  etc.,  etc. — Ed. 


432 


History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


who  will  resolutely  set  out  on  the  pilgrimage  to  recover  the 
Holy  Sepulchre." ' 

Finally,  among  the  pieces  of  the  Troubadours  on  the  cru- 
sades, there  are  those  in  which  the  chivalric  sentiment  prepon- 
derates over  the  religious,  and  these  are  naturally  most  in  con- 
formity with  the  general  spirit  of  Provencal  poetry.  Such  are, 
for  example,  those  of  Giraud  de  Borneil,  on  this  account  the 
most  remarkable  of  all,  those  which  contain  the  greatest  degree 
of  elevation  and  unity  of  sentiment.  I  will  give,  from  the  two 
finest  of  them,  those  passages  which  I  did  not  find  too  difficult 
to  translate,  and  I  will  give  them  as  if  they  constituted  but  one 
and  the  same  piece. 

"  In  honor  of  God  I  now  resume  again  my  songs,  which  I  had 
quite  renounced.  It's  not  the  twitter  of  the  birds,  it's  not  the 
newly  budding  foliage  of  spring,  it's  not  my  blithesomeness  of 
spirits  that  invite  my  song.  I  am  disheartened  and  incensed, 
because  I  see  evil  predominate,  merit  degraded,  and  iniquity 
rise."  * 

"  I  am  amazed,  when  I  consider  to  what  extent  the  world  is 
steeped  in  sleep,  how  the  root  of  all  excellence  is  withered,  and 
with  what  exuberance  the  plant  of  evil  germinates  and  thrives. 
The  insults  offered  to  our  God  are  scarcely  heeded  ;  and  whilst 
with  us  the  powers  are  quarrelling  amongst  themselves,  those 
perfidious,  lawless  Arabs  are  the  undisturbed  masters  of  Syria." 

"  But  the  moment  now  is  come,  when  no  courageous  man, 
and  valiant  in  arms,  can  any  longer,  without  disgrace,  refuse 
to  serve  the  cause  of  God.  And  since  wherever  there  is  a 
proper  disposition,  the  Holy  Spirit  adds  the  power,  let  every 
one  be  on  his  guard,  lest  he  should  compromise  the  sacred  en- 
terprise. Let  those  who  are  responding  to  the  call  of  God  but 
constitute  one  single  individual  force.  Success  was  never  seen 
to  spring  from  wills  at  variance." 

"  The  more  powerful  one  is,  the  more  he  ought  to  strive  to 
prove  himself  acceptable  to  God.  Fine  arms  and  courtesy  and 


*  Lexique  Roman,  vol.  i.  p.  388. 
Al  honor  Dieu  torn  en  mon  chan 
Don  m'era  lonhatz  et  partitz, 
E  no  mi  torna  braitz  ni  critz 
D'auzels  ni  fuelha  de  verjan, 
Ni  ges  no  m'esjau  en  chantan, 
Aus  sui  corrossos  e  marritz 

Qu'en  mainz  escritz 

Conosc  et  vey 
Que  podera  pechatz, 
Per  que  fain  fes,  e  sors  enequitatz. 

E  cossir  mout  meravelhan 
Com  s'es  lo  segles  endurmitz, 
E  com  ben  seca  la  razitz 
E'l  mala  s'abriv'e  vai  poian, 
Qu'cr  a  pcnas  prez'om  ni  blan 


Si  Dieus  es  anctatz  ni  laiditz 

Qu'als  Arabitz 

Traitors,  sens  ley, 
Reman  Suria  en  patz, 
E  sai  tenson  entre  las  poestatz. 

Mais  pero  ges  non  es  semblan 
Qu'om  valens  d'armas  ni  arditz, 
Pos  c'a  tal  coch'er  Dieus  falhitz, 
Ja  sens  vergonha  torn  denan ; 
Mas  selh  qu*aura  pres  d'autrui  bran 
De  grans  colps,  e  del  sieu  feritz, 

Er  aculhitz 

E  de  son  rey 
Si  tenra  per  pagatz, 
Qu'el  non  es  ges  de  donar  yssarratz. 

Etc.,  etc.— Ed- 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  433 

elegant  diversions  are  no  longer  an  evil,  the  moment  the  Holy 
Spirit  takes  root  in  them.  The  gallant  man,  he  who  is  eager 
to  gain  distinction,  will  not  be  hated  by  God  on  account  of  his 
prowess  or  for  the  courteous  polish  of  his  manners." 

"  All  noble  pleasures,  provided  only  the  heart  and  faith  be 
not  at  fault,  will  on  some  future  day  be  pardoned.  A  man  of 
lofty  nature  cannot  live  in  sadness  and  anxiety.  And  if  youth 
and  joy  are  now  dishonored  and  proscribed,  it  is  the  fault  of 
those  ignoble  men  in  power,  who  know  no  longer  the  worth  of 
gifts  and  hospitality,  and  who  are  frightened  at  every  generous 
act." 

"  But  let  us  leave  these  despicable  men ;  it  is  too  painful  to 
speak  of  them;  and  let  us  rather  think  of  destroying  the 
haughty  Turks  and  their  nefarious  law." 

This  wholly  poetical  and  courteous  indulgence,  as  we  might 
term  it,  with  which  Giraud  de  Borneil,  however  religious  in 
other  respects  he  may  appear  in  these  fragments,  treats  here  the 
tastes  and  usages  of  chivalry,  is  remarkable  enough ;  and  one 
might  be  tempted  to  regard  it  as  the  evidence  of  a  manifest 
tendency  to  transfer  the  initiative  of  the  crusades  from  the 
clergy  to  the  feudal  order ;  and  this  tendency  was,  in  fact,  one 
of  those  which  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  developed 
the  struggle  between  the  priesthood  and  the  empire. 

Among  the  Troubadours,  who  in  their  predications  on  the 
crusades  preferred,  by  way  of  exception  to  the  general  rule,  to 
enforce  the  arguments  of  a  purely  religious  and  ecclesiastical 
description,  there  were  some  who  endeavored  at  least  to  appro- 
priate these  arguments,  to  impart  to  them  the  impress  of  their 
imagination,  to  give  them  a  freer  turn,  a  more  poetic  form.  Of 
this  number  was  Pierre  Cardinal,  a  Troubadour  of  great  distinc- 
tion, concerning  whom  I  shall  have  much  to  say,  when  we  shall 
have  arrived  at  the  consideration  of  the  satiric  forms  of  Pro- 
vencal poetry.  We  have  from  him  a  piece  on  the  third  crusade, 
in  which  he  almost  exclusively  employs  arguments  of  a  pious 
and  mystical  character ;  but  tnese  arguments  he  endeavors  to 
embellish,  sometimes  with  a  more  ingenious  expression,  some- 
times with  images,  which  have  not  the  appearance  of  being 
borrowed  from  the  ordinary  language  of  the  church.  I  think  I 
can  quote  a  few  examples  of  them.* 

"  Of  the  four  extremities  of  the  cross,  the  one  aspires  toward 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  444.    Piece  No.  XVI. 

Dels  quatre  caps  que  a  la  cros  Que  Crist  o  a  tot  en  poder. 
Ten  1'us  sus  ves  lo  firmamen, 

L'autre  ves  abis  qu'es  dejos  La  crotz  es  lo  dreg  gofainos 

E  1'autre  ten  ves  Orien  Del  rey  cui  tot  quant  es  apeu.  .  .  . 

E  1'autre  ten  ves  Occiden,  Etc.,  etc — Ed. 
E  per  aital  entresenha 

28 


434:  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

the  firmament,  the  other  is  directed  downward  toward  the 
abyss  ;  a  third  points  to  the  east,  the  last  to  the  west.  The 
cross  thus  indicates,  that  the  power  of  Christ  extends  to  all 
parts  of  the  universe." 

"  The  cross  is  the  true  banner  of  the  king  on  which  all  things 
deend  ....... 


"  Surely,  this  was  a  marvellous  event,  that  the  tree,  which 
had  borne  death,  brought  us  new  life  and  pardon.  Everyman, 
who  will  seek  it,  will  find  upon  the  cross  the  true  fruit  of  the 
tree  of  knowledge." 

"  This  fruit  so  fair,  this  fruit  so  sweet,  we  are  all  invited  to 
gather  in  love.  Let  us  then  gather  while  the  season  lasts: 
to  assume  the  cross  is  gathering  it." 

In  summing  up  what  I  have  just  said  on  the  conduct  and 
the  sentiments  of  the  Troubadours  in  reference  to  the  third  cru- 
sade, or  to  those  which  followed  it  in  immediate  succession, 
we  see  that  they  exerted  themselves  at  all  events  in  behalf  of 
the  success  of  these  expeditions  ;  and  there  is  everything  to 
warrant  the  presumption,  that  these  songs  were  not  without 
their  influence  on  the  resolutions  of  so  many  gallant  chevaliers, 
who  marched  on  to  the  relief  of  the  Holy  Land,  under  the  ban- 
ner of  Richard  Coeur-de-Lion,  of  Philip  Augustus,  of  Boniface 
of  Montferrat,  and  of  the  legates  of  Pope  Honorus  III. 

The  result  of  the  crusades,  not  even  excepting  the  one  which 
Philip  Augustus  and  Richard  Coeur-de-Lion  commanded  in  per- 
son, was  by  no  means  commensurate  with  the  enthusiasm  and 
the  immense  resources  with  which  they  had  been  undertaken. 
Philip  Augustus  withdrew  as  soon  as  he  could  do  so  with  some 
show  of  honor,  and  suffered  his  illustrious  rival  to  exhaust  his 
strength  in  efforts  more  brilliant  than  useful,  and  which  pro- 
duced no  change  in  the  precarious  condition  of  the  Christian 
O  powers  in  Syria. 

Matters  were  still  worse  in  the  subsequent  crusades,  where 
.several  instances  of  over-hasty  success  served  only  to  bring  on 
irreparable  disasters.  But  I  could  not  do  better  than  quote  on 
this  subject  a  short  passage  from  an  elegant  writer,  to  whom 
we  'are  indebted  for  the  last  and  best  history  of  the  crusades. 

"  The  third  crusade,  however  unfortunate  in  its  results,"  says 
M.  Michaud,  "  did  not  give  rise  to  so  many  complaints  as  that 
of  Bernard,  for  the  reason  that  it  was  not  without  glory. 
Nevertheless  it  found  its  censors,  and  the  arguments  which 
were  adduced  in  its  defence  bear  a  strong  resemblance  to  those 
which  were  employed  by  the  apologists  of  the  second  sacred 
war.  4  There  are  people,7  says  one  of  them,  '  who  reasoning 
without  discernment,  have  had  the  audacity  to  maintain,  that 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  435 

the  pilgrims  had  gained  nothing  in  the  land  of  Jerusalem,  since 
the  Holy  City  had  been  left  in  the  power  of  the  Saracens.  But 
do  these  men  regard  the  spiritual  triumph  of  a  hundred  thousand 
martyrs  as  nothing ?  Who  can  doubt  of  the  salvation  of  so 
many  noble  warriors,  who  of  their  own  accord  condemned 
themselves  to  all  sorts  of  privations,  in  order  to  merit  heaven, 
and  whom  we,  we  ourselves  have  seen,  in  the  midst  of  all  those 
perils,  attending  daily  the  mass  which  their  own  chaplains  cele- 
brated ?'  Thus,  adds  M.  Michaud,  "  thus  spoke  Gauthier  Yini- 
sauf,  a  contemporary  writer.  To  enumerate  among  the  advan- 
tages of  a  crusade  the  immense  number  of  martyrs  which  it 
made,  must  appear  to  us  a  singular  idea." 

As  to  the  Troubadours,  who  were  by  no  means  deficient  in 
this  religious  enthusiasm,  as  we  have  had  abundant  opportuni- 
ties to  see,  they  still  could  not  reconcile  themselves  so  piously 
to  the  results  of  the  expeditions  which  they  had  preached  with 
so  much  ardor.     In  the  midst  of  such  a  multitude  of  martyrs, 
they  could  have  wished  to  see  a  certain  number  of  Christians 
still  alive  and  victorious.     They  depicted  the  evils  and  the  re- 
verses of  the  crusades,  without  any  fear  or  consideration,  and 
attributed  them  to  Jhose  to  whom  they  were  legitimately  to  be; 
charged,  to  the  ecclesiastical  or  military  leaders  of  these  enter- 

E  rises.     The  more  zeal  they  had  exhibited  in  their  martial  ex- 
ortations,  the  greater  was  the  boldness  and  the  bitterness  of 
their  palinodes ;   and  when  we  compare  the  latter  with  the 
former,  it  is  sometimes  necessary  to  assure  ourselves  that  they 
are  really  both  the  works  of  one  and  the  same  poet. 

The  abrupt  return  of  Philip  Augustus,  which  compromised 
the  presumable  results  of  the  third  crusade,  appears  to  have 
been  one  of  the  incidents,  at  which  the  Troubadours  took  most 
offence.  One  of  their  number,  whom  I  have  already  quoted,, 
Pierre  Vidal  of  Toulouse,  composed  a  piece,  which  contains  the 
following  passage : 

"The  Pope  and  his  false  doctors  have  put  the  holy  church  in 
such  distress,  that  God  himself  has  become  incensed  at  it. 
Thanks  to  their  sins  and  to  their  follies,  the  heretics  have  risen  j, 
for  when  they  give  the  example  of  iniquity,  it  is  difficult  to  find, 
one,  who'll  abstain  from  it."* 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  105.    Piece  VI.    Strophes  2,  3,. 4. 

Quar  com  an  vout  en  tal  pantays  E  mov  de  Fransa  tot  1'esglays 

L'apostolis  e  'lh  fals  doctor  D'els  qui  solon  esser  melnor, 

Sancta  gleiza,  don  dieus  s'irays,  Qu'el  reys  non  es  fis  ni  verays 

Que  tan  son  fol  e  peccador  Vas  ptetz  ni  vas  nostre  senhoiy 

Per  que  1'eretge  son  levat ;  Qu'el  sepwlcre  a  dezamparat, 

E  quar  ilh  comenso  '1  peccat,  E  compr''  e.  vent  e  fai  mercat 

Greu  es  qui  als  far  en  pogues,  Atressi  cum  serys  o  borges, 

Mas  ieu  non  vuelh  esser  plagues.  Per  que- son  aunit  siei  Franses.. 

Etc.,  e_tc.7-£d.. 


436  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

"It  is  from  France  the  whole  disaster  comes,  from  France, 
which  was  in  times  of  yore  the  land  of  the  brave ;  but  this 
land  has  at  present  a  king,  who  falls  short  of  the  requirements  of 
glory  and  01  God ;  a  king  who  has  abandoned  the  Holy  Sepul- 
chre; a  king  who  buys,  sells,  and  holds  market  like  a 
peasant  or  a  bourgeois,  thus  making  the  French  the  object  of 
contempt." 

"  The  world  goes  on  in  such  a  fashion,  that  what  was  bad 
yesterday  is  worse  to-day,  and  since  the  guide  of  the  warriors 
of  God,  the  valiant  Frederic  has  perished,  we  have  no  longer 
heard  men  speak  of  an  emperor  glorious  or  brave." 

The  emperor,  Henry  YL,  had  not  yet  ordained  the  preach- 
ing of  the  crusade  of  1196,  when  Peter  Vidal  expressed  him- 
self in  these  terms.  In  speaking  of  him,  subsequently  to  that 
crusade,  the  Troubadour  would  not  have  limited  himself  to  a 
vague  and  disdainful  allusion  in  regard  to  him. 

But  the  most  piquant  of  all  the  pieces  of  the  Troubadours, 
relative  to  the  issue  of  the  crusades  of  this  period,  is  by  the 
same  Peirols,  from  whom  I  have  above  translated  the  graceful 
colloquy  with  love  which  he  composed  at  the  epoch  of  his  de- 
parture for  the  Holy  Land.  The  piece  now  in  question  is  of  a 
later  date  ;  it  was  written  in  Syria,  immediately  after  the  re- 
taking of  Damietta  by  the  Sultan  of  Egypt,  from  whom  the 
^Christian  crusaders  had  wrested  it  the  year  before,  by  dint  of 
incredible  exertions  and  hardships.  The  expedition  had  been 
.conducted  in  the  name  of  Frederic  II.,  and  under  the  com- 
mand of  two  of  his  lieutenants.  We  will  now  see  what  Peirols 
says  at  the  moment  of  leaving  the  Holy  Land  for  Provence : 

"  I  have  seen  the  river  Jordan ;  I  have  seen  the  sepulchre, 
;and  I  return  thee  thanks,  thou  veritable  God  and  Lord  of 
lords,  for  having  shown  me  the  sacred  land  where  thou  wast 
born :  this  sight  has  filled  my  soul  with  satisfaction."* 

"  I  now  ask  nothing  more  than  a  good  sea  and  good  winds,  a 
good  shir>  and  good  pilots,  that  I  may  speedily  return  to  Mar- 
seilles ;  hence  I  will  bid  adieu  to  Sur,  to  St.  Jean  d'Acre  and 
to  Tripoli ;  to  the  hospital,  the  temple  and  the  sea  of  Roland." 

"  The  valiant  king  Kichard  was  sorrily  replaced  here ;  on  a 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  101.    Piece  No.  IX.    Strophes  1-5. 

«(1)  Pus  flam  Jordan  ai  vist  e  '1  monimen  Ni  qui  faitz  reys,  ni  datz  castels  ni  tors ; 

A  vos,vers  dieus,  qui  es  senher  dels  sen-  Quar  pus  son  rics,  vos  tenon  a  nien; 

hors  Qu'ieu  vi  antan  faire  man  sagramen 

Ne  ren  merces,  quar  vos  plac  tan  d'onors  L'  emperador,  don  ar  s'en  vai  carajan, 

Qu'el  sancte  loc  on  nasques  veramen  Quo  fes  lo  guasc  que  traisses  de  1'afan. 
M'avetz  mostrat,  don  ai  mon  cor  jauzen ; 

Quar  s'ieu  era  en  Proensa,  d'un  an  (5)  Emperador,  Damiata  us  aten  ; 

No  m  clamarian  Sarrazis  Johan.  E  nueg  e  lorn  plora  la  blanca  tors 

*  *  *  Per  vostr  aigla  qu'engitet  us  voutors. 

(4)  Belh  senher  dieus,  si  feyssetz  a  mon  sen,  Etc.,  etc.— Ed. 

Ben  guardaratz  qui  faitz  emperadors, 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  487 

sudden  France  lost  its  gracious  king,  and  the  fleurs-de-lis  the 
good  seignior  they  recently  adorned.  Spain  too  had  a  brave 
king,  which  now  it  has  no  more ;  Montferrat  mourns  the  loss 
of  its  good  marquis,  and  the  empire  that  of  its  valiant  emperor. 
And  I  know  not  how  their  successors  will  conduct  themselves." 

"  Good  Lord  of  heaven  !  "Wert  thou  to  follow  my  advice, 
thou  wouldst  consider  well  whom  thou  madest  emperor,  whom 
thou  madest  king,  and  to  whom  thou  gavest  towers  and  castles. 
No  sooner  are  they  in  power,  than  men  no  longer  make  any 
account  of  thee,  and  I  have  seen  the  emperor  at  another  time 
swear  many  a  solemn  oath,  which  to-day  he  falsifies." 

"  Emperor  (to  Damietta) !  Damietta  waits  for  you ;  the 
white  tower  weeps  by  day  and  night  demanding  back  your 
eagle,  which  a  vulture  has  chased  away.  The  eagle,  which 
suifers  itself  to  be  beaten  by  a  vulture,  is  verily  a  coward.  The 
glory  acquired  by  the  Soudan  is  a  disgrace  to  you  ;  and  apart 
from  your  disgrace,  it  is  an  evil  for  us  all ;  it  is  a  prejudice  to 
our  authority." 

This  short  piece  contains  perhaps  more  energy,  vivacity  and 
poetic  warmth  than  any  other  of  those,  in  which  the  Trouba- 
dours preached  the  crusades,  and  the  causes  of  this  phenomenon 
are  not  difficult  to  be  accounted  for.  To  poets,  who,  like  the 
Troubadours,  were  deficient  in  intellectual  resources  and  in 
acquirements,  the  somewhat  varied  development  of  a  vague  and 
general  idea, 'like  that  of  the  crusades,  must  have  been  the 
most  difficult  thing  in  the  world.  There  was  nothing,  not  even 
their  religious  belief,  but  what  was  in  certain  respects  an 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  this  development.  Scarcely  able  to  con- 
ceive a  language  more  powerful  and  consequently  more  poeti- 
cal than  the  simple  and  precise  formulas  of  their  creed,  they 
could  not  be  tempted  to  deviate  from  them  to  any  very  great 
extent. 

When,  on  the  other  hand,  they  came  to  speak  of  the  reverses, 
the  miscalculations,  the  errors  and  the  vices  of  the  crusaders, 
they  then  did  nothing  more  than  labor  in  the  field  of  historical 
satire,  and  then  their  delineations  and  their  allusions  participate 
more  or  less  of  the  positive  interest  and  of  the  natural  variety 
of  their  subjects. 

Apart  from  its  intrinsic  merit,  the  piece  by  Peirols,  which  I 
have  just  quoted,  is  remarkable  for  an  accidental  peculiarity. 
It  was  written,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  about  the  year 
1222.  It  is,  I  believe,  the  only  piece  of  its  kind,  that  can  be 
mentioned  as  having  been  composed  during  the  interval  be- 
tween 1204,  the  epoch  of  the  crusade  of  the  marquis  of  Mont- 
ferrat, and  1228,  the  epoch  of  that  of  the  emperor  Frederic 
II.  During  this  interval  of  twenty  years,  the  south  of  France 


4:38  History  of  Provencal  Poetoy. 

had  been  the  theatre  of  events,  which  had  violently  diverted 
the  attention  of  the  Troubadours  from  the  affairs  of  the  East. 

These  enthusiastic  advocates  of  the  holy  wars  had  learnt,  to 
their  surprise  and  at  their  own  expense,  the  real  nature  and  the 
causes  of  these  wars,  for  which  they  had  before  scarcely  found 
enthusiasm  enough  in  their  age  and  country.  They  had  seen 
the  crusades  against  the  Albigenses  substituted  for  the  crusades 
against  the  Mussulmans,  whicli  they  had  seconded  to  the  utmost 
of  their  power.  They  had  seen  the  population,  whether  heretic 
or  not,  of  several  of  their  most  nourishing  towns  butchered  by 
hordes  of  European  crusaders ;  they  had  witnessed  the  devasta- 
tion of  their  fields,  the  burning  or  the  demolishment  of  those 
castles,  which  had  so  long  been  the  places  of  their  chief  delight ; 
they  had  witnessed  the  massacre,  the  exile  and  the  spoliation 
of  the  flower  of  the  chivalry  of  the  South,  of  those  courteous, 
polished  seigniors,  who  had  been  at  once  their  rivals  and  their 
patrons.  In  the  midst  of  the  tumult  and  the  desolation  of  these 
disorders,  they  did  not  cease  to  sing ;  but  what  a  change  in  the 
tone,  in  the  character  and  in  the  subject  of  their  songs ! 

In  the  horrible  crisis  of  this  long  struggle  between  their 
ecclesiastical  and  political  chiefs,  they  had  energetically  es- 
poused the  cause  of  the  latter,  and  the  poetry  of  the  Provencals 
had  for  a  long  time  been  nothing  more  than  a  dolorous  concert 
of  complaints  and  imperfections  against  the  clergy. 

After  the  energy  of  the  Provencals,  roused  by  these  misfor- 
tunes, had  succeeded  in  removing  for  a  moment  the  scourge  of 
these  crusades  from  their  country,  and  when  the  tide  of  crusaders 
could  again  resume  its  natural  course  toward  the  countries 
of  the  Mussulmans,  the  Troubadours  were  no  longer  so  eager  to 
increase  this  tide,  or  to  contribute  to  its  rapidity.  Their 

(religious  enthusiasm  had  become,  as  it  were,  isolated  from  the 
church  and  turned  against  it.  Their  poetic  enthusiasm  itself 
had  received  some  severe  shocks  from  the  disasters,  which  had 
changed  the  appearance  of  the  South. 

We  have  but  few  Proven£al  songs  on  the  crusades  of  the 
emperor  Frederic  II. ;  and  those  we  have  are  exclusively 
by  Troubadours,  who  were  particularly  devoted  to  Frederic, 
who  preached  his  crusade  in  his  personal  interest  and  by  no 
means  in  the  general  interest  of  Christianity  and  of  the  church. 
These  songs  are  yet  elegant  and  correct,  as  far  as  the  diction  and 
versification  is  concerned,  but  still  they  are,  at  bottom,  nothing 
more  than  slightly  varied  repetitions  of  those  which  preceded 
them.  They  are  distinguished  from  them  only  by  their  traits 
of  satire,  directly  aimed  against  the  clergy. 

"  The  world,  to  speak  the  truth,  has  grievously  degenerated 
in  point  of  merit,"  says  Folquet  de  Komans  ;  "  and  the  clerks, 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  439 

who  ought  to  uphold  the  good,  are  the  worst  of  all.  They  love 
war  more  than  peace;  such  pleasure  do  they  find  in  malice 
and  in  sin.  I  should  have  been  glad  to  have  been  a  follower  of 

the  first  crusades  ;  but  nearly  everything  I  see  in  this  one,  dis- 

i  ??* 

pleases  me.  * 

I  will  not  dwell  upon  the  crusade  of  Thibaut,  the  count  of 
Champagne  and  king  of  Navarre,  which  took  place  between 
1232  and  1236.  Thibaut  himself  composed  several  pieces  on 
this  expedition,  which  are  in  French,  among  the  oldest  or  the 
oldest  of  the  kind.  But  the  Troubadours  of  the  South  were  not 
inspired  by  it.  They  do  not  seem  to  have  waked  up  from 
their  indifference  for  a  single  moment,  until  the  announcement 
of  the  crusades  of  St.  Louis,  to  which  the  personal  character  of 
the  monarch  gave  an  interest  of  a  particular  description.  On 
the  various  incidents  of  these  expeditions,  including  the  death 
of  St.  Louis,  which  formed  their  catastrophe,  there  are  yet 
extant  a  dozen  pieces  by  different  Troubadours,  most  of  whom 
are  quite  obscure. 

These  pieces  exhibit  hardly  a  vestige  of  the  tone  and  senti- 
ments of  those,  which  the  crusades  of  Richard  and  of  Philip 
Augustus  had  inspired  scarcely  more  than  half  a  century  before. 
They  are  nothing  more  than  lamentations  over  the  repugnance, 
which  the  men  of  the  feudal  and  chivalric  order  at  that  time 
manifested  for  this  sort  of  expeditions ;  and  these  lamentations, 
which  were  in  general  as  insipid  as  they  were  true,  attested 
the  rapid  decadence  of  Provencal  poetry  and  at  the  same  time^ 
that  of  the  former  zeal  in  favor  of  the  crusades. 

"  The  knights,  who  died  in  Syria,  have  brought  us  into  great 
affliction,"  says  Lanfranc  Cigala,  f  "  and  the  harm  would  be  still 
greater,  if  God  had  not  received  them  into  his  company.  But 
as  for  the  chevaliers  on  this  side  of  the  sea,  I  do  not  see  them  ' 
very  ardent  to  recover  the  sacred  heritage.  Oh  chevaliers  !  ye 
are  afraid  of  death.  If  the  Turks  abandoned  their  banner,  they 
would  find  multitudes  of  champions  to  pursue  them ;  but,  firmly 
planted  at  their  posts,  they  find  but  few  assailants." 

"  There  are  many  men,"  says  Raymond  Graucelm  of  Beziers. 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  126.    Piece  No.  XX.    1st  strophe. 

Tornatz  es  en  pauc  de  valor  Que  mais  anon  guerra  que  patz, 

Lo  segles,  qui  ver  en  vol  dir,  Tan  lur  play  maleza  e  peccatz  ; 
E'l  clergue  son  ja  li  peior  Per  qn'al  premier  passatge 

Que  degran  los  bes  mantenir,  M'en  volria  esser  passatz, 

E  an  un  tal  usatge  Qu'el  mais  de  quan  vey  mi  desplatz.—  Ed. 

t  Raynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  245. 

Grans  es  lo  dols  e  maior  for'  assatz  Ai !  cavallier,  aves  de  mort  paors  ! 

Dels  cavalliers  qui  son  mort  en  Suria,  Eu  crei  qu'ill  Turc  fugisson  de  la'nseingna, 

Si  no'ls  agues  dieus  pres  en  compaingnia  ;  O  fosson  tan  com  li  cerf  en  Sardeingna 

Mas  eels  de  sai  no  vey  gair'encoratz  Qu'il  troberan  a  pro  de  cassadors ; 

De  recobrar  las  saintas  heretatz.  Mas  qui  no  s  mov  a  pauc  d'envazidor.— Ed. 


440  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

one  of  the  most  indifferent  Troubadours,  from  whom  anything 
has  come  down  to  us,  "  there  are  many  men,  who  pretended  to 
be  about  to  enter  on  the  expedition,  but  who  had  really  not  the 
least  desire.  Excuses  are  not  wanting  to  them.  I  cannot  go 
without  a  royal  pay,  says  one ;  and  I  am  sick,  another ;  had  I 
no  children,  nothing  could  keep  me  here,  assures  a  third."* 

The  death  of  St.  Louis  even,  although  it  filled  all  France  with 
grief,  did  not  inspire  anything  more  poetical  than  this.  The 
least  insipid  of  the  three  pieces  which  we  have  on  this  event, 
consists  of  a  long  and  stupid  imprecation  against  the  clergy. 
"  Accursed  be  Alexandria  !  cursed  be  the  clergy,  cursed  be  the 
Turks  !"  exclaims  the  author,  not  knowing  what  he  should  say 
further,  and  all  this  ends  at  last  in  groans  and  lamentations  over 
the  loss  of  all  courtesy  and  chivalry.  The  poetry  of  the  Pro- 
vencals was  surely  in  a  worse  state  even  than  their  chivalry, 
when  it  produced  things  like  these. 

The  only  Provengal  piece  relative  to  the  crusades  of  St.  Louis, 
which  deserves  particular  notice  in  this  survey,  is  somewhat 
anterior  to  those,  to  which  I  have  just  alluded.  It  must  have 
been  composed  toward  the  year  1266,  four  years  before  the 
death  of  St.  Louis,  and  the  events  to  which  it  principally  re- 
lates, are  of  the  year  1265. 

This  year  was  one  of  singular  disaster  to  the  Christians  of 
Syria.  The  famous  Bibars,  who  at  that  time  ruled  over  Egypt 
under  the  name  of  Malek  Daher,  had  gained  great  advantages 
over  them ;  he  had  defeated  their  Tartar,  Armenian  and  Persian 
auxiliaries.  He  had  taken  in  the  first  place  the  city  of 
Csesarea  and  then  the  castle  of  Arsouf,  two  places  which  St. 
Louis  had  fortified  with  the  utmost  care  during  his  sojourn  in 
Palestine.  And  Bibars,  elated  by  these  victories,  was  wholly 
intent  on  gaining  fresh  laurels  ;  he  menaced  the  Christian  towns 
of  Syria,  all  of  which  trembled,  considering  themselves  already 
lost. 

At  this  same  time,  the  popes,  instead  of  considering  the 
perilous  condition  of  the  Holy  Land,  ordered  the  preaching  of 
a  crusade  against  Manfroi,  the  natural  son  of  Frederic  II.,  who 
at  the  death  of  his  father  had  made  himself  master  of  the  king- 
dom of  Naples,  which  they  had  given  to  Charles  of  Anjou,  the 
brother  of  St.  Louis.  It  was  with  his  head  filled  and  troubled 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  135.    Piece  No.  XXIV.    Strophe  3. 

Mas  trop  d'omes  son  qu'eras  fan  semblansa 
Que  passaran,  e  ges  non  an  dezire  ; 
Don  se  sabran  del  pas^ar  escondire 
Ganren  d'aquelhs,  e  diran  ses  duptansa : 
leu  passera,  si'l  soutz  del  rey  agues ; 
L'autre  diran  :  leu  no  suy  benanans ; 
L'autre  diran :  S'ieu  non  agues  efans, 
Tost  passera,  que  say  no  m  tengra  res.—  Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  441 

by  all  these  events,  that  a  Provencal  templar,  whose  name  is 
unknown,  composed  the  following  piece  :  > 

"  Sorrow  and  anger  have  taken  possession  of  my  soul,  and 
they  very  nearly  kill  me.  "We  fall  beneath  the  burden  of  that 
very  cross,  which  we  had  assumed  in  honor  of  him,  who  was 
attached  to  it.  No  cross  nor  law  avails  us  any  longer  against 
these  accursed  traitors  of  Turks.  It  appears  on  the  contrary, 
and  every  man  can  clearly  see  it,  that  God  sustains  them  to  our 
misfortune."* 

"They've  conquered  Caesarea  at  the  outset  and  taken  the 
strong  castle  of  Arsouf  by  assault.  Lord  God  !  what  will  be- 
come of  so  many  knights,  so  many  squires,  so  many  commoners, 
who  were  within  the  walls  of  Arsouf  ?  Alas  !  the  kingdom  of 
Syria  has  already  lost  so  many  of  its  sons,  that  its  power  is 
fallen  forever." 

"And  believe  not  that  they  imagine  to  have  accomplish 
enough,  these  cursed  Turks !  They  have  sworn  most  solemnly, 
that  they'll  not  leave  a  single  man  in  all  those  places  who  be- 
lieves in  Christ ;  of  the  church  of  St.  Mary,  they  say  they'll 
make  a  mahowitfry.  Yery  well!  If  God,  to  whom  all  this 
should  be  displeasing,  gives  his  consent  to  it  and  finds  it  good, 
we  too  must  be  content." 

"  He  therefore  is  a  fool  who  seeks  to  quarrel  with  the  Turks, 
when  Jesus  Christ  allows  them  everything.  What  wonder, 
then,  that  they  have  vanquished  Franks,  Tartars,  Armenians 
and  Persians,  and  that  they  daily  fight  us  here,  us  Templars  ? 
God,  who  was  formerly  awake,  is  now  asleep ;  Mahomet  exerts 
himself  to  the  utmost  of  his  power,  and  makes  his  servant  Malek 
Daher  work." 

"  The  Pope  is  lavish  of  his  indulgences  to  those  of  Aries  and 
France  against  the  Germans ;  but  he  is  stingy  of  them  here  with 
us.  What  say  I  ?  Our  crosses  are  exchanged  for  the  crosses  of 
tournaments,  and  the  war  of  oufra-mar  for  that  of  Lombardy ; 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  131.    Piece  XXII.  entire. 

(1.)  Ira  e  dolor  s'es  dins  mon  cor  asseza,  Que  dins  los  murs  d'Assur  avia  ? 

Si  qu'a  per  pauc  no  m'auci  demanes,  Ailas !  lo  regne  deSuria 

Quar  nos  met  jos  la  crotz  qu'aviam  N'a  tant  perdut  que,  qui  n  vol  dir  lo 

preza  ver, 

En  la  honor  d'aisselh  qu'en  crotz  fos  Per  tos  temps  mais  n'es  mermatz  de 

mes ;  poder. 

Que  crotz  ni  ley  no  ns  val  ni  ns  guia 

Contra'ls   fels  Turcx   que    dieus  (5.)  Lo  papa  fa  de  perdon  gran  largueza 

maldia,  Contr'Alamans  ab  Aries  e  Frances : 

Ans  es  semblans,  segon  qu'hom  pot  E  sai  meat  nos  mostran  gran  cobeeza, 

vezer,  Quar  nostras  crotz  van  per  crotz  de 
Qu'a  dan  de  nos  los  vol  dieus  mantener.  tomes, 

E  qui  vol  camjar  romania 
2.)  Al  comensar  an  Cezaria  conqueza,  Per  la  guerra  de  Lombardia, 

E'l  fort  castelh  d'Assur  per  forsa  pres.  Nostres  legatz,  don  ieu  vos  die  per  ver 

Ai !  senher  dieus,  e  qual  via  an  preza  Qu'els  vendon  dieu  e'l  perdon  per  aver. 
Tan  cavalier,  tan  sirven,  tan  borzes  — Ed. 


442  History  of  Provencal  Poefoy. 

nay,  I  tell  you  for  a  truth,  we  have  legates  who  vend  God  and 
indulgences  for  money." 

"  Seigniors  of  France,  let  Lombardy  alone ;  Alexandria  has 
done  you  greater  harm  than  Lombardy ; — it  was  at  Alexandria 
that  you  were  vanquished  by  the  Turks,  made  prisoners,  and 
N  compelled  to  pay  your  ransom." 

Language  of  this  description,  in  which  the  chagrin  of  a  great 
disappointment  appears  already  to  assume  a  tincture  of  irony 
and  of  religious  skepticism,  indicates  clearly  enough  that  the 
time  of  the  crusades  was  over,  and  that  if  St.  Louis  went  to 
Massoura  to  be  made  prisoner,  and  afterward  to  Africa  to  die, 
it  was  not  from  a  want  of  indications  which  ought  to  have  made 
him  anticipate  some  issue  of  this  kind. 


I 

The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  443 


CHAPTEK  XX. 

THE   LYRICAL   POETEY   OF  THE   TROUBADOUKS. 

V.— PIECES    RELATING    TO    THE    CRUSADES. 

WARS   AGAINST  THE  ARABS   OF   SPAIN. 

THE  crusades  were  a  general  movement  of  Christianity  against 
Islamism.  It  was  therefore  impassible  that  the  Arabs  of  Spain, 
who  were  so  near  the  centre  of  this  movement,  should  not  have 
been  affected  by  it  more  or  less,  should  not  have  had  their 
share  of  the  hurricane  which  swept  against  their  brethren  of 
the  East. 

All  the  relations  subsisting  between  the  Andalusian  Arabs 
and  the  Christian  nations  on  this  side  of  the  Pyrenees,  were 
founded  on  such  powerful  antecedents,  they  were  to  such  an 
extent  the  result  of  time  and  necessity,  that  the  crusades  them- 
selves could  not  produce  any  essential  change  in  them ;  and  these 
pious  expeditions  rather  followed,  than  determined,  the  impul- 
sions which  had  already  been  given  long  before  them. 

For  three  entire  centuries  (from  715  till  1019)  the  popula- 
tions of  the  south  of  France  had  been  obliged  to  keep  up  a 
terrible  struggle  against  the  Arabs  of  Andalusia ;  they  had 
divided  with  the  Spaniards  of  the  northwest  of  the  Peninsula 
the  glorious  task  of  repelling  the  aggressions  of  Islamism,  and 
of  driving  it  back  to  that  coast  of  Africa  from  whence  it  had 
first  planted  its  foot  on  the  soil  of  Europe.  But  from  the  year 
1020  these  same  populations  had  ceased  to  be  directly  interested 
in  the  enterprises  of  the  Arabs ;  and  in  the  wars  against  them 
they  only  interfered  accidentally,  and  as  the  auxiliaries  of  the 
Spanish  populations. 

From  this  moment  the  commercial  and  business  connections, 
which  had  commenced  long  before  this  time,  between  Mussul- 
man Spain  and  the  south  of  France,  were  gradually  multiplied 
and  consolidated ;  and  there  is  every  indication,  that  at  the 
beginning  of  the  twelfth  century  they  had  alreadv  become 
pretty  generally  established  and  diversified.  Nearly  all  the 


I 

444  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

traces  of  that  religions  horror  which  the  two  countries  had  felt 
for  each  other,  amid  the  intensity  of  their  earlier  struggles,  had 
now  disappeared.  The  superiority  of  the  Arabs  in  all  the  arts 
of  civilization  was  generally  perceived  by  the  higher  classes  of 
society  in  the  South.  They  were  admired ;  they  were  adopted 
as  models ;  and  this  propensity  in  their  favor  was  generally 
yielded  to  without  any  repugnance. 

Moreover,  in  the  eyes  of  the  Christians,  the  Arabs  of  Spain 
were  in  general  not  guilty  of  the  same  injustice  toward  the 
former  as  those  in  Syria.  They  did  not  occupy  the  land  where 
Jesus  Christ  was  born ;  they  exercised  no  dominion  over  the 
banks  of  Jordan ;  they  were  not  in  possession  of  the  Holy  Se- 
pulchre, nor  had  they  ever  profaned  it.  This  was  a  sort  of  merit 
for  which  the  Troubadours  eagerly  gave  them  credit,  even  in 
the  heat  of  their  excitement  for  the  crusades ;  and  there  is  one 
of  these  Troubadours  who  goes  even  so  far  as  not  to  be  willing  to 
exempt  the  Spaniards  from  the  duty  of  joining  in  the  crusades 
of  Syria,  in  consideration  of  their  wars  against  the  Mussulmans, 
their  neighbors :  "  For,"  says  he,  "  although  they  are  wicked 
Saracens,  they  are  still  not  those  who  have  demolished  the 
sacred  tomb  of  Jesus  Christ." 

From  all  these  circumstances,  we  perceive  that  the  crusades 
against  the  Arabs  of  Spain  could  neither  be  so  animated  nor 
so  frequent  as  those  against  their  brethren  in  Syria.  More 
than  this  :  there  was,  properly  speaking,  not  one  crusade 
against  the  Mahometan  conquerors  of  the  Peninsula,  in  which 
some  oppressed  Mussulman  party,  which  at  the  moment  found 
its  interests  identified  with  those  of  the  Christians,  did  not  figure 
as  the  ally  of  the  latter  against  those  very  conquerors ;  and  the 
grand  policy  of  the  crusaders  consisted  in  seizing  the  occasions 
for  such  alliances. 

The  first  expedition  undertaken  under  the  name  of  a  crusade, 
against  the  Mussulmans  of  Spain,  corresponds  exactly  with  the 
crusade  of  St.  Bernard,  and  has  every  appearance  of  having 
entered  into  the  general  plan  of  the  latter,  as  its  accessory. 
This  was  the  epoch  of  a  great  political  crisis  in  the  Peninsula. 

The  African  chiefs,  who,  under  the  name  of  Almoravides, 
had  ruled  for  nearly  a  century  both  in  Spain  and  Africa,  were  at 
that  time  in  great  danger  of  losing  their  authority  over  these 
countries.  On  the  other  side  of  the  strait,  they  were  assailed 
by  a  new  party,  by  that  of  the  Almohades ;  and  in  the  Penin- 
sula by  the  Arabs  of  Andalusia,  who,  having  been  oppressed 
and  discontented  for  a  long  time,  were  now  revolting  on  every 
side  for  the  purpose  of  recovering  their  independence. 

The  Christian  chiefs  of  Spain,  seeing  their  adversaries  at  vari- 
ance with  each  other,  regarded  the  moment  as  a  propitious  one 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  445 

to  aggrandize  themselves  at  their  expense.  With  a  view  to 
this,  they  organized  a  league,  of  which  the  king  of  Castile, 
Alphonse  VII. ,  was  elected  chief,  with  the  title  of  Emperor;  and 
this  league  colluded,  or  pretended  to  collude,  with  the  Almora- 
vides,  who,  in  the  desperate  condition  of  their  affairs,  had  no 
longer  any  other  choice  of  expedients. 

All  the  smaller  powers  of  the  coasts  of  the  Mediterranean, 
Italian  as  well  as  rrovengal,  entered  into  this  league,  in  which 
they  were  expected  to  act  in  concert  with  the  count  of  Barce- 
lona. The  seignior  of  Marseilles,  William  de  Baux,  William 
VI.  of  Montpellier,  and  the  celebrated  viscountess  Ermen- 

farde  of  Narbonne,  are  those  of  the  nobles  of  the  South  whom 
istory  designates  as  having  figured  most  actively  in  this  affair. 
There  is  no  doubt,  but  that  among  the  motives  from  which  this 
episode  of  a  crusade  was  undertaken,  the  interests  of  commerce 
and  of  industry  were  not  without  their  influence.  It  also  ap- 
pears that  the  nobles  of  the  interior  of  the  country  did  not  par- 
ticipate in  it ;  many  of  them  having,  indeed,  already  enlisted  in 
the  contemporary  crusade  of  Raymond  V. 

It  is  not  my  part  to  occupy  myself  with  the  military  and  politi- 
cal results,  either  of  this  first  crusade  against  the  Mussulmans  of 
Spain,  or  of  those  that  succeeded  it.  My  task  is  limited  to  the  in- 
quiry, what  part  the  Provencal  Troubadours  took  in  these  expedi- 
tions ;  and  they  took  part  in  all  of  them.  They  sung  and  preached 
them  all  with  the  same  zeal  as  they  did  those  of  Syria,  and 
generally  even  with  a  greater  degree  of  talent  and  success. 

It  is  not,  however,  solely  on  account  of  their  higher  or  lower 
literary  merit,  that  the  compositions  of  the  Troubadours  on  thd 
crusades  of  Spain  are  entitled  to  some  attention :  it  is  also, 
and  quite  as  much,  on  account  of  the  hints  which  they  contain 
in  regard  to  the  relations  subsisting  between  the  south  of  France 
and  Spain,  both  Mussulman  and  Christian,  at  the  epoch  of  their 
origin.  This  being  understood,  I  now  return  to  the  crusade 
of  Alphonse  VII. 

Marcabrus  is  the  only  Troubadour  who  is  known  to  have 
sung  of  it.  There  are  yet  extant  two  pieces  by  him  relative  to 
it,  which,  in  spite  of  the  vagueness  and  the  obscurity  of  many 
of  the  details,  are  nevertheless  still  curious  enough. 

The  first  is  an  exhortation,  a  sort  of  poetic  predication,  des- 
tined to  be  sung  in  public,  and  for  the  purpose  of  rousing  the 
imagination  of  individuals  and  masses  to  the  importance  of  the 
grand  enterprise  projected  against  the  Arabs  of  Andalusia. 
The  predication  in  question  exhibits  only  this  peculiarity,  that  it 
seems  to  have  been  primitively  destined,  to  be  addressed  to  the 
inhabitants  of  Spain ;  for  the  author  always  designates  Spain 
as  the  country  in  which  he  found  himself  at  the  moment  ne  is 


446  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

supposed  to  be  speaking.  The  most  probable  supposition  is, 
that  the  piece  was  sung  on  both  sides  of  the  Pyrenees. 

The  poem  is  essentially  religious,  but  yet  the  spirit  of  the 
Troubadours  makes  itself  felt  here  and  there  by  some  outbursts 
of  admiration  or  of  sympathetic  indulgence  for  the  ideas  and 
the  manners  of  chivalry.  The  war  against  the  infidels  is  mys- 
tically represented  as  a  sort  of  piscina  or  spiritual  lavatory,  to 
which  each  Christian  is  invited  to  hasten,  in  order  to  purify 
himself  from  his  sins ;  and  as  the  term  lavador  (lavatory)  re- 
curs at  a  certain  fixed  place  in  every  couplet,  the  piece  has  from 
that  circumstance  also  assumed  the  title  of  Lavador.  Accord- 
ing to  the  Provengal  traditions  it  was  quite  celebrated  among 
the  compositions  of  the  Troubadours.  I  do  not  intend  either 
to  justify  or  to  explain  this  celebrity.  Nevertheless,  as  the 
piece  is  the  most  ancient  one  of  its  kind,  and  as  there  is  every 
appearance  of  its  having  served  as  the  model  for  several  of  those 
which  were  afterward  composed  for  the  crusades  of  Syria ;  as, 
moreover,  it  contains  express  indications  of  the  influence, 
which  the  revolutions  of  Mahometan  Spain  were  at  that  time 
still  exercising  over  the  south  of  France,  I  deem  it  my  duty  to 
endeavor  to  give  an  analysis  of  it.  I  shall  translate  it  as  closely 
as  possible,  at  the  inevitable  risk  of  frequently  becoming 
strange  and  stiff;  and  I  must  notice  in  the  first  place,  that  with 
an  oddity,  quite  unique  in  its  kind,  the  piece  commences  with 
a  Latin  verse  which  has  the  appearance  of  having  been  a  for- 
mula from  the  liturgy. 

"  Pax  in  nomine  Domini.  Marcabrus  composed  this  song, 
the  verse  and  music  both.  Hear  what  he  says  :  The  Lord,  the 
king  of  heaven,  has  in  his  mercy  opened  unto  us,  quite  near  at 
hand,  a  lavatory,  the  like  of  which  does  not  exist  on  this  side 
of  the  sea,  nor  even  beyond  it,  along  the  valley  of  Jehosaphat. 

"  We  ought  all  in  obedience  to  reason,  to  purify  ourselves 
both  evening  and  morning.  Let  him  therefore,  who  desires  to 
cleanse  himself,  while  he  has  life  and  strength,  hasten  to  the 
sacred  lavatory,  which  is  the  source  of  our  health.  Woe  be  to 
us,  if  we  die  before  availing  ourselves  of  this  advantage  !  Far 
below,  in  the  abyss,  shall  be  assigned  to  us  our  abode  eternal, 
by  the  powers  on  high  !" 

"  Avarice  and  perfidy  have  banished  pleasure  and  youth 
from  the  world.  Ah  !  what  a  sad  spectacle,  to  see  each  coveting 
the  things,  the  gain  of  which  will  be  a  hell  to  him,  unless,  before 
closing  forever  eye  and  mouth,  he  hasten  to  the  sacred  lava- 
tory !  Haughty  and  stern  as  he  may  be,  still  every  one  will 
find  one  stronger  than  himself  in  death." 

"  The  Lord,  who  knows  whatever  is,  whatever  was  and  shall 
be,  doth  promise  us  his  recompense  by  the  voice  of  the  em- 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  447 

peror  (of  Spain).  Know  ye  what  splendor  will  be  awaiting 
those,  who  shall  cleanse  themselves  in  the  lavatory,  who  shall 
avenge  God  for  the  insults  which  the  pagans  of  Arabia  have 
offered  him?  Their  splendor  shall  excel  that  of  the  star, 
which  guides  the  mariner." 

"  The  dog-race  of  the  Prophet,  the  traitorous  followers  of  the 
grand  impostor  are  so  abundant  here  (on  this  side  of  the  moun- 
tains), that  there  is  no  one  left  to  honor  the  true  God.  Let  us 
expel  them  by  virtue  of  the  sacred  lavatory  ;  guided  by  Jesus 
Christ,  let  us  drive  back  these  catiffs,  who  believe  in  witchcraft 
and  in  auguries." 

"  Let  cowards  and  debauchees,  revelling  in  drunkenness  and 
merry  bouts,  remain  in  their  pollution !  God  only  wants  the 
brave  and  courteous  at  his  lavatory."  .  .  . 

"  The  marquis  and  those  of  the  Temple  are  already  sustaining 
bravely,  here  in  Spain,  the  weight  and  strain  of  pagan  in- 
solence ;  and  Jesus  Christ  pours  on  them  from  his  lavatory  the 
blessings,  which  will  be  denied  to  those  base  novices  in  prowess, 
who  have  no  heart  for  joy  or  deport"* 

If  Marcabrus  was  not  already  in  Spain  at  the  time  when  he 
composed  this  piece,  he  went  there  immediately  after.  He  then 
wrote  a  second  piece  on  the  same  subject,  in  which  he  addresses 
himself  directly  to  Alphonse  YII.  himself,  whom  he  honors  with 
the  epithet  of  emperor.  Though  less  finished  and  less  elaborate 
in  point  of  metrical  construction,  this  second  piece  is  neverthe- 
less more  interesting  than  the  first.  It  contains  several  very 
direct  allusions  to  the  event  which  constitutes  its  subject,  and 
to  the  general  relations  between  the  south  of  France  and  Spain. 
Unfortunately  these  allusions  are  so  concise  and  couched  in 
terms  so  general  and  metaphorical,  that  there  is  scarcely  any 
advantage  to  be  derived  from  them.  I  will  nevertheless  sub- 
join some  of  the  more  intelligible  passages  of  the  piece  : 

"  Emperor,  I  know  now  from  experience  how  great  your 
prowess  is  increasing.  I  did  make  haste  to  come  and  I  m  rejoiced 
to  see  you  nourished  with  joy,  rising  in  glory,  blooming  in 
youth  and  courtesy."  f 

"  Since  the  Son  of  God  calls  on  you  to  avenge  him  on  the 
race  of  Pharaoh,  rejoice  in  it." 

"  And  if  those  from  beyond  the  defiles  do  not  bestir  them- 

*  Amusement,  diversion. 

f  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  129.    Piece  XXI.  entire. 

Emperaire,  per  mi  mezeis,  Pois  lo  fils  de  dieu  vos  somo 

Sai,  quant  vostra  proeza  creis,  Qu'el  vengetz  del  ling  Farao, 

No  m  sui  jes  tardatz  del  venir,  Ben  vos  en  devetz  esbaudir ; 

Que  jois  vos  pais  e  prez  vos  creis,  Contra'ls  portz  faillon  li  baro,* 

E  jovens  vos  ten  baud  a  freis  Li  plus  de  conduich  e  de  do, 

Que  fai  vostra  valor  doucir.  E  ja  dieus  no'ls  en  lais  jauzir. 

Etc.  etc.— Ed 


44:8  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

selves,  either  for  Spain  or  for  the  Sepulchre,  it  becomes  your 
part  to  assume  the  task,  to  expel  the  Saracens,  and  to  humiliate 
their  pride ;  and  God  will  be  with  you  at  the  decisive  mo- 
ment. 

"  The  Almoravides  are  wholly  destitute  of  succor,  by  reason 
of  the  treachery  of  the  seigniors  from  beyond  the  mountains, 
who  have  set  to  work  to  hatch  a  certain  plot  of  envy  and 
iniquity.  Yet  each  of  them  is  flattering  himself  that  he  will 
get  absolved,  at  the  hour  of  death,  from  nis  part  of  the  work." 

"  Let  us  then  leave  those  from  the  other  side  the  mountains 
to  their  own  dishonor;  those  barons  who  love  the  ease  and 
blandishments  of  life,  soft  beds  and  comfortable  sleep  ;  and  let 
us  on  this  side,  responding  to  the  call  of  God,  reconquer  glo- 
riously his  honor  and  his  land." 

"  They  rejoice  greatly  among  themselves,  these  men,  in  their 
dishonor,  who  exempt  themselves  from  the  holy  pilgrimage ; 
and  as  for  me,  I  tell  them  that  the  day  will  come,  when  they 
must  leave  their  castles ;  but  they  will  leave  them  with  their 
feet  in  front,  their  head  behind  them." 

"  Let  but  the  count  of  Barcelona  persist  in  his  resolve,  to- 
gether with  the  kings  of  Portugal  and  of  Navarre,  and  soon  we'll 
march  ahead  to  pitch  our  tents  beneath  the  walls  of  imperial 
Toledo,  and  destroy  the  pagans,  who  defend  it." 

In  spite  of  this  haughty  assurance  of  the  Troubadour,  the 
success  of  the  crusade  of  Alphonse  VII.  was  but  a  partial  one 
and  far  from  being  decisive.  The  Almohades,  who  had  van- 
quished the  Almoravides  in  Africa,  established  their  power 
everywhere  in  place  of  the  latter,  in  the  Peninsula  as  else- 
where, and  it  was  this  new  dynasty  of  conquerors,  with  which 
from  that  time  the  Christians  of  Spain  were  to  continue  the 
contest.  The  struggle  lasted  from  1150  to  1212,  when  it  ter- 
minated to  the  advantage  of  the  latter  in  the  plains  of  Toloza. 
But  during  this  interval  of  sixty-two  years  the  Almohades 
gained  several  victories  over  the  chiefs  of  Christian  Spain,  at 
which  all  Europe  had  occasion  to  be  alarmed.  The  first  was 
that  which  they  won  at  Andujar  in  1157.  The  king  of  Castile, 
Alphonse  VII.,  died  in  the  same  year,  and  his  death  was  a 
greater  calamity  to  Spain  than  a  defeat. 

Among  the  pieces  of  Peter  of  Auvergne,  there  is  one  which 
makes  allusion  to  these  different  events  and  also  to  I  know  not 
what  project  of  an  expedition  against  Africa ;  a  project  in  re- 

fard  to  which  history  is  silent.     The  piece  must  undoubtedly 
e  ranked  among  those  which  have  reference  to  the  crusades, 
but  everything  in  it  is  too  vague  and  too  concise  to  be  poetical, 
and  I  consider  it  useless  to  dwell  on  it.    The  course  of  the 
events  introduces  us  to  others  of  greater  interest. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  449 

Yacoub  Almanzor  having  ascended  the  throne  of  the  Almo- 
hades  in  1184,  it  was  not  long  before  he  rendered  himself  more 
and  more  formidable  to  the  Spaniards.  Having  arrived  in 
Spain  with  an  immense  force  in  1195,  he  marched  against 
Alphonso  IX.,  king  of  Castile,  and  gained  over  him  two  suc- 
cessive victories,  the  first  of  which,  that  of  Alarcos,  was  one  of  the 
most  decisive  and  most  glorious  the  Mussulmans  had  ever 
won  over  the  Christians.  This  latter  event  is  one  of  those,  by 
which  the  history  of  the  Troubadours  links  itself  in  quite  a 
peculiar  manner  to  that  of  the  crusades  of  Spain.  The  ancient 
Provencal  biographer  of  Folquet  de  Marseilles  contains  a  pas- 
sage of  great  interest  with  reference  to  the  consequences  of  the 
battle  of  Alarcos  ;  and  I  propose  to  translate  the  whole  of  it. 

"  When  good  king  Alphonse  of  Castile  had  been  discomfited 
by  the  king  of  Morocco,  whose  name  was  Miramolin,  and  when 
the  latter  had  taken  Calatrava,  Salvaterra  and  the  castle  of 
Tonina,  there  was  great  sadness  and  distress  throughout  the 
whole  of  Spain  and  among  all  the  noble  people,  who  were  in- 
formed of  it,  by  reason  of  the  dishonor,  which  it  brought  on 
Christendom,  and  of  the  damage  which  the  king  sustained,  who 
had  lost  much  territory  by  it ;  and  the  men  of  Miramolin 
entered  often  into  his  kingdom  and  made  great  havoc  in  it." 

"  Then  good  King  Alphonse  sent  his  messengers  to  the  pope, 
in  order  that  the  latter  might  induce  the  barons  of  France  and 
England,  the  king  of  Aragon  and  the  count  of  Toulouse  to 
succor  him." 

"  Don  Folquet  of  Marseilles,  who  was  a  great  friend  of  the 
king  of  Castile,  had  at  that  time  not  yet  entered  the  order  of 
Citeaux.  He  made  a  prezicansa,  in  order  to  exhort  the 
barons  and  nobles  to  help  the  good  king  of  Castile,  showing 
them  the  honor,  that  would  accrue  to  them  if  they  brought 
such  succor  to  the  king,  and  the  pardon  which  they  would  re- 
ceive from  God  for  it."  * 

The  piece  here  designated  by  the  biographer  is  yet  extant ; 
it  is  curious  in  a  historical  point  of  view,  being  the  only  monu- 
ment now  remaining  of  an  attempt  at  a  crusade  of  which  his- 
tory makes  hardly  any  mention,  and  which  was  not  attended 
with  any  known  result. 

In  respect  to  poetical  merit,  the  piece  is  not  destitute  of  it. 
It  is  one  of  those  in  which  the  common-places  of  Christian  be- 
lief and  piety,  which  constitute  the  groundwork  of  nearly  all 
of  them,  are  rendered  with  most  elegance  and  sprightliness ; 
but  still  it  is  not  free  from  traces  of  the  mannered  bel-esprit^ 
which  is  one  of  the  characteristics  of  the  poetry  of  Folquet.  1 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  v.,  p.  150.— Ed. 
29 


4:50  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

give  here  the  greater  part  of  it,  faithfully  rendered,  and  only 
curtailed  of  a  few  languid  or  idle  passages. 

"  I  know  no  longer  any  pretext  by  which  hereafter  we  may 
excuse  ourselves  from  serving  in  the  cause  of  God.  We  have 
already  lost  the  Holy  Sepulchre ;  and  shall  we  now  permit 
Spain  also  to  be  lost  ?  In  our  way  to  Syria  we  have  found 
obstacles ;  but  in  passing  into  Spain  we  have  neither  wind  nor 
sea  to  fear.  Alas  !  What  stronger  invitation  could  God  offer 
us,  unless  it  were  to  redescend  from  heaven  to  die  for  us  ?"* 

"  God  has  once  given  himself  for  us,  when  he  came,  in  order 
to  obliterate  our  sins ;  and  in  redeeming  us  he  has  imposed  on 
us  here  below  a  debt  of  gratitude.  Let  him,  then,  who  desires 
to  live  beyond  the  grave,  offer  to-day  for  God  that  life,  which 
God  by  dying  returned  to  him.  Every  one  must  die,  he  knows 
not  when.  How  foolishly  he  lives,  who  lives  in  unappalled 
security !  This  life,  of  which  we  are  so  covetously  fond,  is  but 
an  evil,  and  to  die  for  God  a  good." 

"  What  is  the  error  then  by  which  men  are  deluded  ?  This 
body  which  none  can  save,  for  any  price,  from  death,  is  cared 
for  tenderly  and  pampered  by  each  one  of  us,  while  no  one 
stands  in  dread  as  to  his  soul,  which  he  could  preserve  from 
torments  and  perdition.  Let  each  one  think  then  in  his  inmost 
heart,  whether  I  speak  the  truth  or  not ;  and  then  he  will  have 
a  better  will  to  march  on  to  the  service  of  his  God.  Let  no 
brave  warrior  be  afflicted  at  his  poverty.  Let  him  but  take 
the  first  step  only ;  he'll  find  God  ready  to  assist  him." 

"  One  thing  at  least  is  possible  for  every  one :  'tis  to  have 
courage ;  let  mm  then  show  it ;  as  for  the  rest,  God  will  take 
care  of  it,  and  our  good  king  of  Aragon.  This  king,  who  has 
never  been  wanting  to  any  one,  will  not  be  wanting  to  any 
valiant  palmer.  He  certainly  will  not  be  perjured  before  God, 
at  the  moment  of  being  crowned,  whether  here  below  or  on 
high  in  the  heavens  ;  for  both  these  crowns  are  assured  to  him." 

u  And  let  not  the  king  of  Castile  listen  to  foolish  arguments ; 
let  him  not  be  discouraged  by  his  losses.  Sooner  let  him  ren- 
der thanks  to  God,  who  to-day  desires  to  triumph  through  his 
arm" 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  110.    Piece  XIII.    Strophes  1,  2,  3,  4. 

(1.)  Hueimais  no  y  conosc  razo  (2.)  De  si  raezeis  nos  fas  do, 

Ab  que  nos  poscam  cobrir,  Quan  venc  nostres  tortz  deslir ; 

Si  ja  dieu  volem  servir,  E  fes  so  sai  a  grazir, 

Pos  tant  enquer  nostre  pro  Quan  si  ns  det  per  rezemso : 

Que  son  dan  en  vole  sufrir ;  Doncx  qui  vol  viure  ab  morir 

Qu'el  sepulcre  perdem  premeiramen,  Er  don  per  dieu  sa  vid'e  la  y  prezen, 

E  ar  suefre  qu'  Espanha  s  vai  perden  Qu'el  la  donet  e  la  rendet  moren, 

Per  so  quar  lai  trobavon  ochaizo  ;  C'atressi  deu  horn  morir  no  sap  quo. 

Mas  sai  sivals  no  temem  mar  ni  ven :  Ai !  quant  mal  viu  qui  non  a  espayen ! 

Las !    Cum  nos  pot  plus  fort  aver  somos,  Qu'el  nostre  viures,  don  em  cobeitos, 

8i  doncx  no  fos  tornatz  morir  per  nos !  Sabem  qu'es  mals,  et  aquel  morir  bos. 

Etc..  etc.,  6tc.-£d. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  tlie  Troubadours.  451 

Let  us  in  thought  restore  to  these  words  the  melody  and 
coloring  of  their  original,  of  which  a  translation  into  prose  and 
into  our  modern  style  of  language  must  necessarily  deprive 
them,  and  it  will  be  admitted  that  Folquet  preached  the  crusade 
of  Spain  at  least  as  well  as  the  other  Troubadours  could  have 
preached  the  crusade  of  Syria. 

But  it  appears  that  he  found  none  to  listen  to  his  appeal  but 
the  men  who  were  just  then  returning  from  the  third  crusade, 
discontented,  worn  out  and  decimated,  and  extremely  averse 
to  a  fourth,  which  in  fact  did  not  take  place  this  time.  At  any 
rate,  we  do  not  see  anything  in  the  nistory  of  Spain  at  this 
epoch,  to  which  the  name  of  crusade  could  with  propriety  be 
applied.  Moreover,  the  Almohades  continued  to  be  the  masters 
of  the  Peninsula.  The  only  check  which  they  experienced  was 
the  loss  of  Yacoub  Almanzor,  the  most  successful  and  the 
greatest  of  their  chiefs,  who  died  in  1199,  leaving  as  his  sue* 
cessor  his  son  Mohammed,  surnamed  El  Nassir. 

Under  the  latter  the  Spaniards  recovered  their  self-confi- 
dence ;  and  it  was  not  long  before  they  were  again  in  commo- 
tion. Mohammed  did  not  at  first  seem  to  pay  much  attention 
to  their  movements.  This  apparent  indifference  made  them 
assume  a  still  more  menacing  attitude ;  and  the  monarch  of  the 
Almohades,  resolved  at  last  to  curb  them,  began  to  make  zea- 
lous preparations  for  a  descent  on  Spain.  These  preparations 
were  of  such  a  description,  that  they  appeared  to  be  intended 
not  so  much  for  the  maintenance  of  a  conquest  already  made, 
as  for  the  conquest  of  entire  Europe.  Mohammed  El  Nassir 
arrived  at  Seville  in  1210,  followed  by  an  army  which  he  had 
distributed  into  three  divisions,  the  smallest  of  which  is  said  to 
have  consisted  of  160,000  men,  infantry  and  cavalry. 

Spain  had  not  waited,  to  be  terrified  at  the  levy  of  such  a 
prodigious  force,  to  see  it  on  this  side  of  the  strait.  This  force 
had  not  yet  left  Africa,  when  the  Christians  were  already 
making  extensive  preparations  on  all  sides  in  order  to  resist  it. 
All  the  princes  of  the  Peninsula  had  united  their  armies  under 
the  general  command  of  Alphonso  IX. ;  and  Roderick,  the  bishop 
of  Toledo,  was  scouring  France  and  Italy,  imploring  every- 
where the  assistance  of  the  kings,  the  nobles  and  the  people. 
The  Troubadours  were  as  prompt  on  this  as  on  every  previous 
occasion,  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  Christian  world ;  they 
seconded  with  their  martial  songs  the  call  of  the  Spanish  clergy 
against  the  barbarians  of  Africa. 

The  only  remaining  one  of  all  these  songs  is  that  by  Gavau- 
dan  the  Elder,  a  Troubadour  but  very  little  known,  but  who 
deserves  to  be  so  more  generally,  were  it  only  for  the  song  in 
question.  It  is  in  fact  the  most  beautiful  and  the  most  ener- 


452  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

getic  piece  of  the  kind,  the  one  which  is  pervaded  by  the  purest 
inspiration,  and  the  argument  of  which  is  managed  in  its  detail 
with  most  poetic  skill.  The  only  pity  is,  that  it  contains  one 
or  two  very  difficult  passages,  which  can  only  be  translated  in 
a  somewhat  hazardous  manner.  I  subjoin  here  the  whole 
of  it.  ^ 

"  Seigniors,  'tis  on  account  of  our  sins,  that  the  power  of  the 
Saracens  is  thus  increasing.  Jerusalem  has  been  taken  by 
Saladin,  and  it  is  not  yet  reconquered;  and  all  at  once  the 
king  of  Morocco  now  prepares  for  war  against  all  Christian 
kings,  with  his  treacherous  Andalusians,  with  his  Arabs  armed 
against  the  faith  of  Christ."* 

"  He  has  assembled  all  the  races  of  the  west,  the  Mazmudes, 
the  Moors,  the  Berbers  and  the  Goths.  Vigorous  or  feeble,  not 
one  of  them  has  stayed  behind ;  and  never  did  the  rain  descend 
more  closely  than  they  pass  on,  encumbering  the  plains  and 
famishing  each  other.  They  feed  upon  dead  bodies,  as  the 
eheepon  grass,  which  they  devour  blade  and  root." 

"They  are  so  proud  of  their  number,  that  they  consider  the 
world  as  theirs.  When  they  halt  upon  the  meadows,  crammed 
one  against  the  other,  Morocco's  hordes  against  the  Marabouts, 
the  Marabouts  against  the  Berbers,  then  they  deride  us  among 
themselves.  Franks,  they  say,  make  room  for  us !  Toulouse 
and  Provence  are  ours ;  and  ours  the  whole  interior  of  the 
land,  as  far  as  Puy.  Was  there  ever  before  heard  raillery 
JBO  insolent  from  the  mouth  of  the  false  dogs  of  this  lawless 
race?" 

"  Hear  them,  O  emperor,  and  you  too,  king  of  France,  king 
of  the  English,  and  you,  the  count  of  Poitiers  !  and  come  to  the 
assistance  of  the  king  of  Castile.  No  one  had  ever  such  fair 
opportunity  for  serving  God ;  with  his  aid  you'll  conquer  all 
these  pagans,  whom  Mahomet  deluded,  these  renegades,  this 
refuse  of  mankind." 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  85.    Piece  No.  II.  Entire  1-8. 

Senhors,  per  los  nostres  peccatz  Geta'ls  paysser  com  a  berbitz, 

Creys  la  forsa  dels  Sarrasis  ;  E  no  y  reman  brotz  ni  razitz. 
Iherusalem  pres  Saladis, 

Kt  encaras  non  es  cobratz ;  Tant  an  d'erguelh  sels  qu'a  triatz 

Per  que  manda'l  reys  de  Maroc  Qu'els  cuio'l  mons  lur  si'aclis  ; 

Qu'ab  totz  los  reys  de  Crestias  Marroquenas,  Marrabetis 

Se  combatra  ab  dos  trefaa  Pauzon  amons  per  mieg  los  pratz  ; 

Andolozitz  et  Arabitz,  Meat  lor  gabon  :  "  Franc,  faiz  noa  loc  ; 

Contra  la  fe  de  Crist  garnitz.  Nostr'es  Proensa  e  Tolzas, 

Entro  al  Puey  totz  los  meias." 

Totz  los  Alcavis  a  mandatz,  Anc  tan  fers  gaps  no  fon  auzitz 

Masmutz,  Maurs,  Gotz  e  Barbaris,  Dels  falses  cas,  ses  ley,  marritz. 
E  no  y  reman  gras  ni  mesquis, 

Que  totz  no'ls  ayon  ajostatz  ;  Emperayre,  vos  o  aniatz, 

Anc  pus  menut  ayga  non  ploc  E'l  reys  de  Pransa,  e  sos  cozfo, 

Cum  els  passon,  e  prendola  plas ;  E'l  reys  engles,  corns  peitavis, 

La  caraunhada  dels  milaa  Qu'al  rey  dYEspanha  socorratz. 

Etc.  etc.  etc.— Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Trwibadours.  453 

"  Jesus  Christ,  whose  word  has  called  on  us  to  make  a  happy 
end,  shows  us  the  way  to  it  to-day ;  he  points  us  to  repentance 
as  the  means  by  which  the  sin  committed  in  Adam  shall  be 
forgiven  us.  He  promises,  if  we  will  but  believe  it,  that  he'll 
be  willing  to  receive  us  among  the  blessed,  and  to  be  our  guide 
against  these  degraded  traitors." 

"  Let  not  us,  who  are  the  firm  possessors  of  the  grand  law, 
let  us  not  abandon  our  heritage  to  the  black  dogs  from  beyond 
the  sea.  Let  each  one  meditate  how  to  avert  the  danger.  Let 
us  not  wait  until  they  have  reached  us  here.  The  Portuguese, 
the  Castilians,  those  of  Galicia,  of  Navarre  and  Aragon,  who 
ere  while  were  a  barrier  in  our  van,  are  now  defeated  and  dis- 
honored." 

"  But,  let  the  noble  crusaders  come  from  Germany,  from 
France,  from  England,  from  Brittany,  from  Anjou,  from  Beam, 
from  Gascony,  and  from  Provence ;  let  them  unite  with  us  into 
one  solid  mass,  and  with  the  sword  in  hand,  we'll  plunge  intd 
the  herd  of  infidels,  striking  and  cutting,  until  we  have  exter- 
minated all  of  them ;  and  then  we  will  divide  the  booty  amongst 
us  all." 

"  Don  Gavaudan  will  be  a  prophet ;  that  which  he  says  will 
be  accomplished ;  the  dogs  will  perish,  and  there,  where  Ma- 
homet was  invoked,  God  shall  be  served  and  honored." 

And  the  Troubadour  was  really  a  prophet,  as  he  had  boasted 
himself  to  be.  The  Christian  forces,  having  encountered  those 
of  the  Almohades  in  the  vicinity  of  Toloza  in  Andalusia,  won, 
in  the  month  of  July,  1212,  the  famous  battle,  called  the  battle 
of  Navas  de  Toloza,  by  which  the  Christians  recovered  for 
a  time  their  former  preponderance  in  Spain.  Gavaudan  ap- 
pears to  have  fought  there  in  person,  in  the  midst  of  sixty 
thousand  auxiliaries,  who  had  flocked  together  from  beyond 
the  Pyrenees ;  he  was  thus  one  of  the  heroes  of  the  expedition, 
to  which  he  had  been  the  Tyrtseus.  i 

This  piece  of  Gavaudan's  is  the  last  of  its  kind  which  we  find 
in  the  Provencal  manuscripts,  as  the  crusade  which  it  cele- 
brates also  is  the  last  against  the  Mussulmans  beyond  the  Py- 
renees. Subsequently  to  the  battle  of  Navas  de  Toloza,  the 
Andalusian  Arabs  maintained  their  ground  in  the  Peninsula 
for  three  centuries  longer.  But  from  the  date  of  this  great 
battle,  the  Christian  forces  of  the  country  were  sufficient  to  re- 
strict them  gradually  to  closer  limits,  until  the  fatal  day  arrived, 
when  the  simple  decree  of  the  king  of  Spain  could  send  their 
miserable  remnants  to  perish  in  Africa. 

I  think  I  may  now  resume  for  a  moment  the  consideration  of 
the  period  of  the  crusades  against  the  Mussulmans  of  the  Penin- 
sula. 


454:  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

During  the  whole  of  this  period  the  condition  of  the  Arabs 
of  Andalusia  presented  striking  analogies  to  that  of  the  Christ- 
ians, who  assailed  them.  To  them,  as  well  as,  nay  even  more 
than  to  the  latter,  this  war  was  a  sacred  war,  a  veritable  cru- 
sade under  another  name.  It  was,  as  we  know,  a  duty  imposed 
by  his  religion  on  every  Mussulman,  to  fight  for  the  extension 
of  Islamism.  Every  Mussulman  who  lost  his  life  in  the  fulfill- 
ment of  this  duty  was  considered  a  martyr,  and  received  the 
appellation  and  the  honors  of  one. 

Thus  far  the  analogy  was  a  vague  and  a  very  general  one ;  it 
was  coextensive  with  all  the  Mussulmans  and  all  the  Christians. 
But  between  the  Arabs  of  Andalusia  and  the  Christians  of  the 
south  of  France  it  was  more  particular  and  more  explicit. 

The  former,  as  well  as  the  latter,  had  their  poets,  their  Trou- 
badours, who  likewise  preached  their  sacred  war  to  them,  who 
celebrated  their  victories  over  the  Infidels,  deplored  their  de- 
feats, who,  in  a  word,  gave  utterance  to  all  the  national  or 
popular  emotions  excited  by  the  various  chances  of  this 
war. 

It  would  have  given  me  pleasure  to  make  known  some  of 
these  poems  of  the  Andalusian  Arabs  relative  to  their  crusades 
against  the  Christians ;  it  would  have  been  curious  and  inter- 
esting for  us  to  institute  a  comparison  between  them  and  the 
corresponding  productions  of  the  Troubadours,  and  to  see  in 
what  manner  the  latter  would  have  sustained  the  parallel. 

To  my  great  regret,  however,  my  time  will  not  admit  of  such 
developments ;  and  all  that  1  can  do,  in  order  to  give  some  idea 
of  the  poetic  compositions  of  the  Arabs  of  Spain  on  their  wars 
against  the  Christians,  is  to  quote  one  of  them,  which  has  been 
published  and  translated  by  M.  Grangeret  de  la  Grange  in  an 
excellent  collection  of  Arabic  poetry,  which  appeared  in  1828. 

The  piece  in  question  is  from  the  pen  of  a  celebrated  poet  by 
the  name  of  Aboul-baka-Saleh,  from  the  city  of  Honda,  in  the 
kingdom  of  Granada.  It  is  a  general  lamentation  over  the  re- 
verses and  the  decline  of  Islamism  in  Spain,  and  more  particu- 
larly over  the  loss  of  the  powerful  city  of  Seville,  which  was 
taken  in  1246  by  Ferdinand  III.,  the  king  of  Castile.  The 
piece,  as  I  give  it  here,  is  somewhat  abridged.  Though  I  have 
availed  myself  of  the  excellent  translation  of  M.  Grangeret,  I 
still  thought  that  I  might  be  permitted  to  modify  it  with  refer- 
ence to  my  purpose.  It  is  as  follows : 

"  Whatever  has  reached  its  zenith  must  decrease  ;  therefore, 
O  man  !  do  not  permit  thyself  to  be  seduced  by  the  blandish- 
ments of  life  !"* 


in  the 


The  piece  forms  part  of  an  article  on  the  Arabs  in  Spain  by  Grangeret  de  la  Grange 
"  Journal  Asiatique,"  and  is  found  in  vol.  iv.  of  the  First  Series,  p.  367.— Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  455 

"  The  world  is  a  perpetual  revolution ;  and  if  the  present 
brings  an  enjoyment,  the  future  will  bring  sorrows." 

"  Nothing,  here  below,  persists  in  the  same  state. . ." 

"  Time  destroys  the  cuirass,  on  which  the  lances  and  the 
swords  were  blunted." 

"  There  is  no  sword  which  time  does  not  lay  bare  (unsheath) 
and  break,  and  were  it  even  the  sword  of  Dzou-yazen,  were  it 
a  sword  which  had  the  fortress  of  Gomdan  for  its  scabbard." 

"  Where  are  the  powerful  monarchs  of  Yemen  ?  where  are 
their  crowns  and  diadems  ?" 

"  The  inevitable  destiny  has  seized  them."  .... 

"  This  destiny  has  made  kings,  kingdoms,  and  nations  what 
they  are  now,  something  that  has  resemblance  to  the  phantoms 
of  sleep. v 

"  There  are  reverses  for  which  one  may  console  himself,  but 
the  reverses  of  Islamism  admit  of  no  consolation." 

"  A  remediless  disaster  has  smitten  Andalusia,  and  with  An- 
dalusia the  whole  of  Islamism." 

"  Our  cities  and  provinces  are  deserted. . . ." 

"  Ask  Valencia  what  has  become  of  Murcia  ;  where  are  Jaen 
andXativa?" 

"  Ask  where  Cordova  is  now,  the  abode  of  knowledge,  and 
what  became  of  all  the  men  of  genius  who  flourished  there  ?" 

"  And  where  is  now  Seville,  with  its  delights,  with  its  grand 
river  of  pure  sweet  water  ?" 

"  Cities  magnificent  and  proud,  ye  were  the  pillars  of  the 
land  ;  must  not  the  country  crumble  to  ruins,  when  it  has  lost 
its  pillars  ?" 

"  As  the  lover  bewails  his  lady-love,  so  Islamism  bewails  its 
provinces  deserted,  or  inhabited  by  Infidels." 

"  There  where  the  mosques  stood,  stand  now  the  churches 
with  their  bells  and  crosses." 

"  Our  sanctuaries  are  nothing  but  brute  stone,  and  still  they 
weep !  Our  pulpits  are  but  senseless  wood,  and  yet  lament!" 

"  O  thou,  who  heedest  not  Fortune's  monitions,  thou  art 
perhaps  asleep,  but  know  that  Fortune  remains  awake !" 

"  Thou  marchest  proud  of,  and  enchanted  by  thy  country  I 
But  can  a  man  still  have  a  country,  after  the  loss  of  Seville  ?" 

"  Ah !  this  misfortune  makes  one  forget  all  those  which  have 
preceded ;  and  none  other  will  ever  cause  us  to  forget  it." 

"  O  ye,  who  mount  swift  coursers,  flying  like  eagles  between 
the  clashing  swords ;" 

"  O  ye,  who  carry  trenchant  glaives  from  India,  glittering 
like  fires  across  the  eddying  night  of  dust ;" 

"  O  all  ye,  who  beyond  the  sea  are  living  in  peace,  and 
finding  in  your  abodes  glory  and  power ;" 


4:56  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

"  And  have  you  then  not  heard  the  news  from  Andalusia  ? 
Yet,  messengers  departed  to  announce  to  you  our  misfortune." 

"  How  many  unlucky  men  have  implored  your  succor  I  But 
not  one  of  you  has  risen  to  assist  them,  and  they  are  dead  or 
captives." 

"Pray,  what  does  this  division  signify  among  you,  who  all 
are  Mussulmans,  all  brethren  and  servants  of  God  ?" 

"  Are  there  not  among  you  proud  souls  and  generous  ?  And 
id  there  no  one  to  defend  religion  ?" 

"  Oh,  how  they  now  are  humbled  by  the  Infidels,  these  An- 
dalusians,  ere  while  so  glorious !" 

"  Yesterday  they  were  kings  in  their  own  homes ;  to-day  they 
are  slaves  in  the  land  of  unbelievers." 

"  Ah  !  hadst  thou  witnessed  how  they  wept  when  they  were 
sold,  grief  would  have  made  thee  lose  thy  reason." 

"  Ah !  who  could  endure  to  see  them  thus  distracted,  with- 
out a  guide,  without  any  raiment  but  the  rags  of  servitude  ?" 

"  Wno  could  endure  to  see  mountains  between  the  infant  and 
its  mother,  like  a  barrier  between  soul  and  body  ?" 

"  To  see,  fair  as  the  sun,  when  it  is  rising,  all  coral  and  all 
ruby." 

"Young  damsels,  with  tearful  eyes,  with  hearts  ready  to 
break,  dragged  on  by  the  Barbarians  to  servile  labor  ?" 

"  Oh !  at  such  sights  all  hearts  would  rend  with  grief,  had 
yet  our  hearts  a  vestige  of  religion  left." 

Among  the  pieces  of  the  Troubadours  relating  to  the  wars  of 
the  crusades,  which  might  be  put  in  comparison  with  the  Ara- 
bic piece,  I  will  specify  one  in  particular,  of  which  the  reader 
will  doubtless  have  some  recollection.  It  is  that  of  the  Proven- 
gal  Templar,  deploring  the  disasters  of  the  year  1265.  These 
disasters  were  probably  still  greater,  still  more  irreparable  to  the 
Christian  powers  of  Syria,  than  was  the  taking  of  Seville  to  the 
Arabs  of  Andalusia.  And  this  circumstance  is  to  be  marked, 
as  one  which  is  calculated  to  render  the  contrast  between  the 
two  pieces  more  salient. 

That  of  the  Templar  was  dictated  by  spite  and  anger ;  it  is  a 
bold  and  animated  satire,  in  which  the  humiliated  pride  of  chi- 
valry blames  God  himself  for  its  disappointments  and  reverses, 
and  is  ready  to  suspect  the  verity  of  a  creed,  the  defenders  of 
which  are  defeated  in  battle  by  the  adherents  of  another  creed. 
The  Arabic  piece,  on  the  other  hand,  is  pervaded  by  a  melancholy 
sentiment  of  the  nothingness  of  human  things,  by  a  religious 
faith  which  its  material  reverses  do  not  shake,  by  a  profound 
resignation  to  the  decrees  of  Necessity,  a  resignation  which  still 
does  not  go  so  far  as  to  prevent  the  effusion  of  the  liveliest  sym- 
pathy for  the  affronts  and  the  misfortunes  of  the  country.  We 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  457 

discover  in  this  piece  the  work  of  a  poet,  trained  under  the  in- 
fluences of  a  high  civilization,  while  in  the  piece  of  the  Temp- 
lar there  is  something  that  resembles  the  relics  and  reminis- 
cences of  barbarity. 

With  respect  to  the  form,  the  differences  between  the  two 
pieces  is  no  less  marked  and  no  less  characteristic ;  but  here  the 
comparison  would  perhaps  turn  out  to  the  advantage  of  the 
Provencal  piece,  the  execution  of  which,  though  less  brilliant, 
less  ingenious,  and  less  refined,  is  in  return  much  simpler,  more 
lively,  and  more  bold. 

From  all  that  I  have  said  on  the  religious  songs  of  the  Pro- 
vengals  relating  to  the  crusades,  it  will  undoubtedly  appear  that 
this  subject,  taken  in  earnest,  was  a  little  above  the  lyrical 
genius  of  the  Troubadours — a  genius  which  was  enthusiastic, 
original  and  graceful,  but  at  the  same  time  infantile,  petulant, 
and  rather  believing  than  religious. 

There  were  other  wars  which  these  poets  sung  with  more 
partiality  and  talent  than  those  of  the  crusades.  These  were 
the  wars  which  daily  arose  between  the  feudal  powers  of  the 
times,  both  great  and  petty.  The  prowess  of  chivalry,  as  ex- 
hibited in  these  wars,  having  nothing  to  do  which  required  too 
much  calculation,  constancy  or  discipline,  could  shine  in  all  its 
splendor,  and  freely  follow  its  inspirations,  nay,  its  caprices 
even — always  sure  of  being  admired  and  celebrated,  whether  it 
was  successful  or  not  so.  Such  wars  were  the  real  theme  for 
the  heroic  poetry  of  the  Troubadours. 

The  pieces  which  we  have  from  them  of  this  description  are 
very  numerous,  and  in  producing  examples  the  choice  can  be 
the  only  source  of  embarrassment.  I  shall  limit  myself  to  giving 
a  few  specimens,  selected  with  a  view  to  show  the  generic 
shades  of  difference  by  which  they  vary  among  themselves,  and 
the  decided  opposition  which  distinguishes  them  from  all  those 
in  which  the  preaching  of  the  crusades  was  the  theme. 

I  give  here,  in  the  first  place,  a  very  short  one  (it  contains 
but  thirty  verses),  from  the  pen  of  Bertrand  de  Born.  It  would 
take  up  too  much  of  our  time  to  determine  its  historical  motive 
with  adequate  precision ;  but  it  is  sufficient  to  know  that  the 
question  turns  on  the  moment  when  the  war  between  Philip 
Augustus  and  Richard  Coeur-de-Lion  was  about  to  break  out, 
to  the  latter  of  whom  Alphonso  IX.,  king  of  Castile,  was  ex- 
pected to  bring  succor.  Transported  with  the  hope  of  a  tine, 
good  war,  Bertrand  de  Born  gives  vent  to  his  joy  in  the  follow- 
ing manner : 

u  I  wish  to  make  a  sirvente  on  the  two  kings :  we  shall  soon 
see  which  of  them  has  the  most  chevaliers.  Alphonso,  the 
valiant  king  of  Castile,  I  hear,  conies  to  assist ;  and  the  king 


458  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

Richard  is  going  to  spend  gold  and  silver  by  bushels  and  by 
sellers  ;  for  he  takes  pride  in  spending  and  in  giving,  and  is 
more  eagerly  intent  on  war,  than  the  hawk  is  on  the  partridge." 

"  If  the  two  kings  are  valiant  and  brave,  we  shall  soon  see 
the  fields  strewed  with  the  wrecks  of  helmets  and  of  shields,  of 
swords  and  saddle-bows,  of  heads  and  shoulders  cloven  to  the 
belt.  We  shall  see  wandering  up  and  down  chargers  without 
their  riders,  lances  projecting  from  the  sides  and  breast  of 
the  wounded  ;  we  shall  hear  laughing  and  weeping,  cries  of 
distress  and  cries  of  joy  ;  great  will  be  the  losses  ana  immense 
the  gain  !" 

"  Trumpets  and  drums,  standards,  banners  and  ensigns,  horses 
both  black  and  white  —  this  is  the  company  we  are  going  to  live 
in  !  And  a  grand  time  will  it  be  then  !  Then  will  the  usurers 
be  pillaged  ;  nor  will  the  pack-horse  on  the  road  be  safe  ;  nor 
will  be  seen  a  commoner,  or  a  merchant  coming  from  France, 
but  what  will  tremble.  Then  will  be  rich  whoever  dares  to 
take." 

"  Let  but  King  Eichard  be  triumphant  !  As  for  myself,  I 
shall  either  be  alive  or  cut  to  pieces.  If  I  shall  live,  how  great 
the  pleasure  of  having  conquered  !  but  if  I  am  in  pieces,  how 
charming  the  deliverance  from  every  care  !" 

The  species  of  martial  frenzy  which  inspired  these  verses  does 
not  constitute  their  only  merit.  They  are  remarkable  for  a 
harmony,  a  rotundity  and  a  vivacity  of  expression,  which  can- 
not well  be  felt  except  in  the  original.  Eertrand  de  Born  him- 
self has  written  few  more  beautiful  than  these. 

We  have  nevertheless  pieces  from  several  other  Troubadours, 
which  will  sustain  a  comparison  with  this,  and  others  that  are 
but  little  inferior  to  it  ;  and  we  may  add,  that,  by  a  singularity 
which  proves  how  natural  this  sort  of  martial  dithyramb  came 
to  the  Tyrtseuses  of  chivalry,  this  kind  of  Proven£al  poetry  is 
the  only  one  in  which  we  would  be  embarrassed  to  instance  a 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  176.    Piece  No.  XVIII.  1-4. 

Miez  sirventes  vuielh  far  dels  reys  amdos,       E  gang  e  plor  e  dol  et  alegransa  ; 

Qu'en  brieu  veirem  q'aura  mais  cavailhiers     Lo  perdr'er  granz,  e'l  gasainhz  er  sobniers. 

?»elV/di?  aulveenaf  vorraN80^adie9rs  •  Trompas,  tabors,  seinheras  e  penos 

m^^?W&^*^?  '  £t  enlres'einhs  e  cayals  blancs^e  niers 

Auret  argent,  e  ten  sa  benanansa  Verrem  en  brieu,  q'el  segles  sera  bos, 

-Metr'  e  donar  e  non  vol  sa  fiansa,  §ue  hom  *?!»  *  aver  als  usuners, 
Ans  volguerramaisque  cailla  esparvier, 


Ni  mercadiers  qui  enga  dever  Fransa,  . 

S'amdm  li  rei  son  pros  ni  corajos,  Ang  gera  rics  qui  tolra  volontiers. 

En  brieu  veirem  camps  joncatz  de  quartiers, 

D'elms  e  d'escuts  e  de  branz  e  d'arsos,  Mas  s'el  reis  yen,  ieu  ai  en  dieu  fiansa 

E  de  fendutz  per  bustz  tro  als  braiers,  Qu'ieu  sera  vius  o  serai  per  qartiers  ; 

Et  a  rage  veirem  anar  destriers,  E  si  sui  vius,  er  mi  gran  benanansa, 

E  per  costatz  e  per  piechz  manta  lansa,          E  se  ieu  mueir,  er  mi  grans  deliuriers. 

—Ed, 


The,  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  459 

really  bad  or  insipid  composition,  abundant  as  are  such  in- 
stances in  all  the  other  kinds. 

And  it  was  not  only  the  great  feuds  between  king  and  king,  or 
the  battles  fought  by  powerful  armies,  that  inspired  the  Pro- 
vencal poets  with  such  animated  songs  of  war ;  they  sung  with 
the  same  extravagant  enthusiasm  the  wars  between  seignior 
and  seignior,  between  chateau  and  chateau — those  petty  wars, 
where  one  might  have  counted  the  blows  inflicted  by  the  lance 
and  sword.  1  have  noticed  a  piece  of  this  kind,  which  is  so 
much  the  more  curious,  as  it  doubtless  represents  many  others 
of  the  same  description  which  have  not  come  down  to  us.  Its 
author  is  Blacasset,  the  soil  of  Blacas,  both  of  whom  were  Pro- 
vencal seigniors  of  great  celebrity  in  the  poetic  and  chivalric 
traditions  of  their  country. 

The  piece  is  none  of  the  clearest,  and  the  only  copy  we 
have  of  it  is  incomplete  and  full  of  errors.  Thus  mucn,  however, 
is  evident  from  its  contents,  that  it  was  addressed  to  Amic  de 
Curban  and  to  Seignior  d'Agoult,  two  Provencal  castellans, 
who  had  a  quarrel  between  themselves,  which  they  were  pre- 
paring to  settle  by  force  of  arms.  The  object  of  the  piece  is, 
to  exhort  the  champions  to  persist  nobly  in  their  project  OL 
bringing  the  matter  to  a  warlike  crisis,  and  by  all  means  to 
guard  against  resorting  to  the  vulgar  methods  of  accommoda- 
tion. He  eulogizes  each  of  them  with  equal  unction  ;  he 
naively  manifests  his  eagerness  to  see  them  fight,  and  still  more 
naively  declares  his  resolution  to  espouse  the  cause  of  one  of 
them,  without  saying  which.  The  first  and  the  last  stanza  of 
this  piece  will  suffice  to  give  us  a  conception  of  the  whole. 

"  War's  my  delight :  I  like  to  see  it  commence !  For  'tis  by 
dint  of  war  that  brave  men  rise.  War  makes  the  nights  pass 
rapidly ;  war  brings  us  presents  of  stately  coursers ;  it  makes 
the  miser  turn  liberal  perforce ;  it  obliges  the  powerful  man  to 
give  and  take  away.  "War  is  an  excellent  dispenser  of  justice ; 

it's  my  delight — war  without  end  and  without  armistice  !"* 
*  ****** 

"  Oh,  when  shall  I  see,  in  some  commodious  field,  our  adver- 
saries and  ourselves  arrayed  in  battle-line,  and  serried  so  closely, 
that  the  first  fair  shock  would  level  with  the  ground  a  multi- 
tude on  either  side !  Then  many  a  squire  would  be  cut  to 

*Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  215.    Piece  No.  XLI.    Strophes  1  and  4. 

Gerra  mi  play  quan  la  vey  comensar,  Bel  m'es  q'ieu  veia  en  un  bel  camp  rengatz 

Qar  per  gerra  vey  los  pros  enansar,  Els,  et  ill  nos,  per  tal  bruit  ajostatz, 

E  per  gerra  vey  mantz  destriers  donar ;  Q'al  ben  ferir  n'i  aia  de  versatz , 

E  per  gerra  vey  1'escas  larc  tornar,  Aqi  veirem  manz  sirventz  peceiatz, 

E  per  gerra  vey  tolre  e  donar  Mantz  cavals  mortz,  mantz  cavaliers  nafratz ; 

E  per  gerra  vey  las  nueigz  trasnuechar ;  Se  nulls  non  torna  ja  non  serai  iratz  ; 

Don  gerra  es  drechuriera,  so  m  par,  Mas  vueilh  murir  qe  viure  desonratz. 
E  gerra  m  play  ses  jamais  entreugar.  — Ed. 


460  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

pieces,  many  a  fair  charger  slain,  and  many  a  knight  wounded. 
And  were  none  destined  to  return,  it  matters  not ;  the  thought 
will  not  distress  me :  I  would  rather  die  than  live  dishonored." 

The  wars  which  the  Troubadours  sung  and  celebrated  in  this 
manner  were  not  even  always  positive  and  determinate  wars, 
petty  or  great ;  it  was  sometimes  merely  war  in  the  abstract,  the 
idea  of  war  itself.  The  most  exalted  of  all  the  war-songs  of  this 
kind  is,  perhaps,  a  piece  attributed  to  Bernard  Arnaud  of  Man- 
tua, a  Knight-troubadour,  concerning  whom  nothing  is  known, 
except  that  he  lived  in  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century, 
and  that  he  was  attached  to  the  service  of  one  of  the  counts  of 
Toulouse.  I  subjoin  here  the  three  best  stanzas  of  this  song, 
which  has  but  five  of  them. 

"  Spring  never  brings  such  charms  to  me,  as  when  it  comes 
accompanied  by  hurly-burly  and  by  war,  by  trouble  and  aifright, 
by  grand  displays  of  cavalry  and  booty.  Then  he  who  thus  far 
was  only  wont  to  give  advice  and  sleep,  darts  forth  courageously, 
his  arm  already  raised  to  strike."  * 

"  I  like  to  see  the  neat-herds  and  the  shepherds  wandering 
through  the  fields,  in  such  distress  that  none  of  them  knows 
where  to  look  for  shelter.  I  like  to  see  rich  barons  forced  to  be 
prodigal  of  what  they  had  been  stingy  and  avaricious.  Then 
such  a  one  is  eager  to  impart  what  he  had  never  dreamt  of 
giving.  Then  such  another  honors  the  poor,  whom  he  had 
been  accustomed  to  despise.  "War  forces  every  wicked  seignior 
to  a  kindly  disposition  toward  his  own." 

"There  is  not  in  the  world  so  great  a  treasure,  nor  such 
exalted  power,  for  which  I'd  give  one  of  my  gloves,  were  the 
exchange  to  turn  to  my  disgrace.  The  coward  lives  no  longer 
than  the  brave  man :  a  life  without  renown  is  worse  to  me  than 
death,  and  basely  hoarded  riches  are  beneath  my  honor." 

I  have  now  given  specimens  enough  of  the  martial  poetry  of 
the  Troubadours,  to  enable  us  to  perceive  how  much  more  freely 
and  more  boldly  the  Provencal  imagination  displayed  itself  in 
these  songs  of  daily  warfare,  than  in  the  predications  of  the 
crusades. 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  254.    Piece  No.  IV.    Strophes  1,  2,  4. 
Ancmais  tan  gen  no  vi  venir  pascor,  Qu'ara  data  tals  que  cor  non  avia, 

Qu'el  ve  guarnitz  de  solatz  e  de  chan,          E  montara'l  pages  qu'aunir  solia, 
E  ve  guarnitz  de  guerra  e  de  mazan,  Que  grans  guerra,  quant  horn  no  i  pot  gandir, 

E  ve  guarnitz  d'esmay  e  de  paor,  Fai  mal  senhor  vas  los  sieus  afranquir. 

E  ve  guarnitz  de  gran  cavalairia, 

E  ve  guarnitz  d'una  gran  manentia ;  El  mon  non  a  thesaurs  ni  gran  ricor 

Que  tals  sol  pro  cosselhar  e  dorrair  Que  si'aunitz,  sapchatz  qu'ieu  prezun  guan 

Qu'ara  vay  gent  bras  levat  aculhir.  Qu'aitan  tost  mor,  mas  non  o  sabon  tan, 

Avols  cum  bos ;  e  vida  ses  valor 

Belh  m'es  quan  vey  que  boyer  e  pastor        Pretz  meyns  que  mort,  a  pretz  mais  tota  via 
Van  si  marrit  q'us  no  sap  vas  o  s  an,  Honor  e  pretz  qu'aunida  manentia, 

E  belh  quan  vey  que'l  nc  baro  metran        Quar  selh  es  folhs  que  se  fai  escarnir, 
So  don  eron  avar  e  guillador,  E  selh  savis  que  se  fai  gen  grazir. 

— Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  461 

It  remains  now  to  add  a  few  words  on  the  proper  use  and 
the  special  destination  of  these  songs ;  for  there  was  scarcely 
any  kind  of  lyric  poetry  among  the  Provencals  which  was  not 
more  or  less  strictly  appropriated  to  some  one  of  the  habits  of 
social  or  of  private  life. 

The  itinerant  Jongleurs,  who  made  a  business  of  reciting  the 
poetic  productions  of  the  Troubadours  on  their  own  account, 
not  only  frequented  the  cities,  the  market-towns  and  the  castles, 
but  they  penetrated  wherever  they  were  sure  of  finding  as- 
semblages of  men — into  the  fields,  to  the  walls  of  beleaguered 
places,  among  the  marching  armies,  playing  on  their  different 
instruments,  singing,  seeking  to  rivet  for  a  moment  the  atten- 
tion of  the  men-at-arms.  It  is  possible,  that  they  may  have 
sung  there,  as  elsewhere,  poems  of  every  description,  chansons 
of  love,  satiric  verses,  fragments  of  epic  romances ;  but  there  is 
scarcely  any  doubt,  but  that  the  songs  of  war  were  more  especially 
destined  to  be  executed  on  occasions  of  this  kind.  To  such  a 
purpose  they  were  admirably  and  at  all  times  appropriate,  but 
more  especially  to  circumstances,  when  it  was  required  to  in- 
flame the  courage  of  the  warriors,  as  for  example  at  the  ap- 
proach of  an  assault,  of  a  battle,  or  of  any  danger  whatsoever. 
These  songs  were  in  fact  well  calculated  to  enhance,  among  those 
who  heard  them,  the  sort  of  savage  impetuosity  and  of  martial 
ardor,  which  the  simple  disposition  to  listen  to  them  already 
presupposed.  It  must,  however,  be  borne  in  mind,  that  in  the 
motives  which  made  these  men  find  warfare  so  attractive  and 
so  beautiful,  this  martial  ardor,  this  chivalric  enthusiasm  were 
far  from  constituting  the  only  ingredients.  The  poets,  the 
chevaliers,  the  barons  themselves  observe,  that  war  obliged 
the  feudal  chiefs  to  treat  with  particular  consideration  all 
those  who  had  it  in  their  power  to  assist  them  in  making  it. 
They  were  required  to  be  lavish  of  their  money,  their  honors 
and  their  privileges,  or  in  other  words,  to  divide  their  power 
with  those,  whose  services  they  needed  to  defend  it ;  so  that 
the  society  of  this  stormy  period  gained  at  least  in  liberty  and 
moral  dignity,  that  which  it  lost  in  calmness  and  repose. 


462  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE   LYRICAL    POETRY  OF    THE    TROUBADOURS. 
II.     SATIRE. 
MORAL. 

IN  the  monuments  of  Provencal  poetry  anterior  to  1150,  one 
might  search  in  vain  for  the  least  vestige  of  a  systematic  classi- 
fication. Any  and  every  lyric  composition,  whatever  might 
have  been  its  subject  or  extent,  was  simply  denominated  vers  ; 
and  this  term  was  borrowed  from  the  Latin  versus,  which  in  the 
rituals  of  the  Christian  churches  was  used  to  designate  hymns 
not  only  rhymed,  but  constructed  with  the  most  elaborate  and 
complicated  interlacements  of  the  rhyme  and  wholly  after  the 
manner  of  the  Troubadours. 

In  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century,  when  the  pieces  of 
lyric  poetry  had  multiplied  to  an  incredible  extent,  it  became 
necessary  to  establish  some  distinction  among  them.  They  were 
divided  into  two  principal  classes,  the  cansos  and  the  syrventes. 
The  first  of  these  denominations  comprised  the  songs  of  love 
and  of  chivalric  gallantry,  and  this  was  the  kind  of  poetry  par 
excellence,  from  which  the  poet  derived  his  chief  glory  and  the 
high  society  its  most  fastidious  enjoyments. 

In  regard  to  the  name  of  the  syrventes,  it  is  to  be  remarked, 
that  this  was  but  a  vague  and  we  might  say  a  negative  term, 
employed  to  designate  all  those  pieces  which  had  not  love  for 
their  subject,  or  those  in  which  it  was  not  treated  with  sober 
earnest.  There  is  but  one  thing  explicitly  denoted  by  this 
epithet,  and  that  is  the  moral  and  poetical  inferiority  of  these 
pieces,  as  compared  with  others,  with  those  which  were  conven- 
tionally and  preeminently  termed  chansons,  though  both  the 
one  and  the  other  were  alike  destined  to  be  set  to  music  and  to 
be  sung. 

It  thus  appears,  that  this  comprehensive  name  syrventes 
comprised  and  confounded  several  widely  different  species  of 
lyrical  compositions,  as  for  example  the  crusade-songs  and 
war-songs,  which  I  have  already  detached  into  a  separate  group, 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  463 

and  which  occupied  our  attention  in  the  preceding  chapter. 
It  now  remains  for  me  to  detach,  in  the  same  manner,  the 
satires  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term. 

The  sirventes,  to  which  the  name  of  satire  properly  belongs, 
are  in  the  first  place  so  numerous  and  on  the  other  hand  so 
diversified  in  their  character,  that  it  is  indispensable  to  dis- 
tribute them  into  several  groups,  in  order  to  treat  of  them  sum- 
marily and  with  some  little  method.  I  shall  therefore  divide 
the  satirical  poetry  of  the  Troubadours  into  two  principal  kinds, 
into  the  historical  and  into  the  ideal  or  moral  satire.  I  propose 
to  begin  with  the  latter. 

The  moral  satire  of  the  Troubadours  may  be  subdivided  into 
the  general  and  special,  the  first  being  directed  against  the 
general  vices  of  mankind  and  tending  to  enforce  the  validity  of 
the  universally  admitted  notions  of  morality ;  and  the  second 
against  the  vices  opposed  to  the  local  and  particular  system  of 
morality,  at  that  time  predominant  in  the  South,  in  other 
words,  to  the  system  of  chivalry.  This  distinction,  however, 
though  a  real  one,  will  not  be  found  to  be  either  absolute  or 
even  clearly  determined,  and  I  shall  endeavor  to  profit  by  its 
convenience  without  attaching  too  much  importance  to  it. 

As  might  be  readily  presumed,  and  as  we  have  already  had 
occasion  to  convince  ourselves  more  than  once,  the  moral  ideas 
of  the  Troubadours  were  neither  very  profound,  nor  very  defi- 
nite. But  the  disorders  and  the  vices  of  the  society  in  which 
they  lived  were  such,  that  the  most  ordinary  notions  of  order 
and  of  justice  were  sufficient  to  enable  one  to  perceive  and  to 
qualify  them.  They  did  not  so  much  stand  in  need  of  precise 
and  positive  enlightenment*  in  order  to  break  their  lances  in  the 
face  of  vices  so  unrestrained,  so  open  and  so  proud  of  them- 
selves, as  they  did  of  a  general  instinct  of  humanity,  of  a  certain 
degree  of  moral  courage  and  of  social  culture.  And  in  these 
respects  the  Troubadours  were  not  deficient. 

By  celebrating  the  ideas  and  the  sentiments  of  chivalry,  they 
had  imparted  to  these  ideas  and  to  these  sentiments  a  degree  of 
fixity  and  of  authority,  to  which  they  probably  would  never 
have  risen  without  them.  To  have  thus  brought  the  virtues  of 
chivalry  into  vogue,  was  already  an  important  advance  in 
social  order.  But  they  did  not  stop  short  here :  they  assailed 
with  energy  the  injustice  and  the  violence  of  the  feudal  power 
wherever  they  perceived  it.  This  constituted  the  dominant 
theme  of  their  satire,  which,  under  a  very  general  point  of 
view,  may  perhaps  be  regarded  as  the  first  protestation,  made 
in  the  Middle  Age  in  favor  of  human  liberty  and  dignity 
against  the  excesses  of  brutal  force.  The  Troubadours  spared 
no  one ;  under  whatever  title  a  power  might  present  itself, 


4:64:  History  of  Provengal  Poebry. 

whether  under  that  of  pope,  or  king,  they  assailed  it  from  the 
moment  when  in  their  opinion  it  dishonored  itself  or  trans- 
gressed its  limits.  Several  of  their  number  became  also  the 
victims  of  the  boldness,  with  which  they  expressed  themselves 
at  the  expense  of  the  great  personages  of  their  times. 

In  this  moral  and  social  point  of  view  the  satirical  poetry  ol 
the  Provencals  is  a  very  interesting  phenomenon,  but  one 
which  appertains  rather  to  the  history  of  civilization  than  to 
that  of  literature.  In  a  purely  literary  connection,  it  cannot 
have  the  same  importance.  The  stiffness  and  the  monotony, 
which  are  perceptible  more  or  less  in  all  the  forms  of  Provengal 
poetry,  recur  in  this  too.  But  here,  as  elsewhere,  these  defects 
are  strongly  counterbalanced  by  original  beauties,  which  de- 
serve to  be  known. 

There  is  a  multitude  of  Troubadours,  who  have  composed 
satires,  more  or  less  vague,  more  or  less  general,  on  the  manners 
and  morals  of  their  time ;  and  so  far  from  being  able  to  make 
them  all  known,  I  cannot  even  speak  of  the  small  number  of 
those  who  merit  this  honor  more  particularly,  as  for  example 
Pierre  d'Auvergne.  I  have  selected  as  the  representative  of 
all  of  them  in  general,  the  one  whom  I  regard  as  the  most 
distinguished,  both  in  regard  to  character  and  talent.  This  is 
Pierre  Cardinal. 

Pierre  Cardinal  was  born  at  Puy,  in  the  ancient  province  of 
Yelai,  and  was  descended  from  a  very  distinguished  family  of 
the  country.  His  parents,  who  designed  him  for  ecclesiastical 
dignities,  had  him  educated  in  accordance  with  this  intention. 
But  having  arrived  at  the  age  of  discretion,  and  feeling  himself, 
says  his  biographer,  handsome,  young  and  gay,  Peter  gave 
himself  up  to  the  vanities  of  this  world,  and  turned  his  attention 
to  inventing  (trobar)  fine  arguments  and  songs ;  or  in  other 
words,  he  embraced  the  profession  of  a  Troubadour.  But  he 
was  one  of  those  Troubadours  of  high  rank,  who  constituted,  as 
it  were,  the  noblesse,  the  aristocracy  of  the  order,  and  who  had 
in  their  pay  Jongleurs,  whom  they  sent  about  everywhere  for 
the  purpose  of  singing  their  verses,  and  who  made  themselves 
welcome  and  respected  in  all  the  courts.*  Pierre  Cardinal 
frequented  more  especially  those  of  the  kings  of  Aragon  and  of 

*  "  Et  anavaper  cortz  de  reis  e  de  gentils  barons,  menan  ab  si  son  joglar  que  cantava 
BOS  sirventes.  E  molt  fo  onratz  e  grazitz  per  mon  seignor  lo  bon  rei  Jacme  d'Aragon  e 
per  honratz  barons."  Raynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  302.  Of  the  estimation,  in  which  the 
sirventes  of  this  poet  were  held  by  his  contemporaries,  as  represented  by  his  biogra- 
pher, the  following  passage  may  serve  as  an  example :  "  En  los  cals  siveutes  demons- 
trava  molt  de  bellas  razos  e  de  bels  exemples,  qui  ben  los  enten,  quar  molt  castiavala 
follia  d'aquest  mon ;  e  los  falsclergues  reprendia  molt,  segon  que  demonstron  li  sieu 
sirventes."  Of  the  historical  sirventes  of  the  Provencal  poets  Raynouard  has  given  us 
LV1 1  specimens,  of  those  which  the  author  of  this  work  calls  moral,  LX  specimens, 
which  the  student  will  find  in  vol.  iv.  page  139-393.  Remarks  upon  the  character  of 
the  sirvente  with  some  specimens  are  contained  in  vol.  ii.  p.  206-221. — Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  465 

the  counts  of  Toulouse.  He  died  before  the  close  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  and  as  his  biographer  affirms,  at  the  advanced 
age  of  nearly  a  hundred  years. 

Pierre  Cardinal  was  one  of  that  small  number  of  Provencal 
poets,  who  were  unacquainted  with  the  charms  of  love,  or  who 
at  any  rate  abstained  from  singing  it.  So  far  was  he  from  do- 
ing this,  that  in  a  piece  of  his,  which  is  yet  extant,  he  congra- 
tulates himself,  with  considerable  display  of  piquancy,  on  being 
an  exception  to  his  poetic  contemporaries  in  this  respect.  "  'Tis 
now,"  says  he,  "  that  I  can  be  content  with  love ;  for  now  it  robs 
me  neither  of  my  appetite  nor  of  my  sleep ;  I  experience  neither 
heat  nor  cold  from  it ;  I  neither  gape  nor  sigh  on  its  account. 
....  I  say  not  that  I  love  the  fairest  of  the  ladies,  I  do  not 
pay  her  any  homage,  and  I  am  not  her  captive ;  I,  on  the  con- 
trary, boast  of  exemption  from  all  servitude." 

Pierre  Cardinal  was  a  man  of  a  high-minded  and  generous 
nature,  who  could  not  be  a  witness  to  iniquity  without  being 
incensed  at  it,  and  whose  vocation  it  was  to  expose  and  stigma- 
tize it  whenever  he  saw  it — a  laborious  task  in  an  age  in  which 
individual  forces  were,  at  every  instant,  outweighing  and  con- 
trolling that  of  society.  He  expressed  himself  nobly  in  this  re- 
spect in  many  a  passage  of  his  poems.  "  On  the  day  when  I  was 
born,"  says  he  somewhere,  "  the  part  allotted  to  me  in  life  was 
to  love  the  good,  and  to  hate  injustice  and  all  wickedness.  I 
thus  endure  the  penalty  for  the  sins  of  others,  and  I'm  tor- 
mented by  their  errors." 

He  also  shows  himself  occasionally  preoccupied  with  the 
dangers  to  which  his  frankness  was  exposing  him.  "  I  suffer," 
says  he  in  another  place,  "  I  suffer  more  than  if  I  wore  hair- 
cloth round  my  body,  when  I  see  wrong  and  violence  done  to 
any  one,  and  that  because,  from  fear  of  the  power  and  the 
haughtiness  of  men,  I  dare  not  cry  out  at  the  violence  or 
wrong." 

It  is  probable  that  Pierre  Cardinal  exaggerates  here  modestly 
his  circumspection  in  regard  to  his  wicked  contemporaries.. 
The  satires,  which  we  have  of  him,  no  matter  whether  they  are 
directed  against  the  higher  castes  of  society  or  against  power- 
ful individuals  of  these  castes,  exhibit  so  much  boldness,and 
vivacity,  that  we  can  scarcely  believe  him  capable  of  the  cau- 
tion of  which  he  accuses  himself. 

In  order  to  adhere  as  strictly  as  possible  to  the  plan  of  this 
survey,  I  shall  choose  the  specimens,  which  I  can.  give  of  the; 
satirical  sirventes  of  Pierre  Cardinal,  from  among  those,  which 
treat  of  the  most  general  subjects.  The  following  is  one  of  con- 
siderable originality  of  detail,  though  its  ground-work  is  vague 
and  common. 

30 


466  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

"  I  have  always  detested  treachery  and  deceit ;  I've  taken 
justice  and  truth  for  my  guide ;  and  whatever  may  be  the  con- 
sequences of  this  my  resolution,  I  shall  deem  good  and  be  con- 
tent with  whatever  may  result  from  it.  I  know  that  there  are 
men  who  are  ruined  for  having  been  upright,  and  others  who 
prosper  for  having  been  treacherous  and  perverse ;  but  I  know 
also,  that  no  one  ever  rises  to  this  prosperity  of  the  wicked,  un- 
less, it  is  to  fall  again  sooner  or  later."* 

"  The  men  in  power  have  the  same  compassion  for  others, 
which  Cain  had  for  Abel ;  there  are  no  wolves  more  ravenous 
than  they ;  there  is  no  abandoned  woman  that  takes  more  delight 
in  falsity.  If  one  were  to  stave  them  in  two  or  three  places, 
believe  not  that  a  single  verity  could  come  out  of  them ; 
nothing  but  falsehoods  would  come  out ;  their  heart  contains 
a  spring  of  it,  which  bursts  forth  and  inundates,  like  the  surges 
of  a  torrent." 

"  I  know  many  a  baron  in  many  a  high  position,  who  figures 
there  like  glass  in  a  ring ;  to  take  such  for  diamonds  would  be 
an  error,  like  that  of  buying  a  wolf  for  a  lamb.  There  is  no 
standard  nor  weight,  like  that  of  the  adulterated  currency  of 
Puy — pieces,  the  face  of  which  exhibits  the  effigy  of  the  flower 
and  of  the  cross,  but  where  you  find  no  silver,  when  you  come 
to  test  them." 

"  I  will  propose  a  new  agreement  to  the  world,  from  the  ris- 
ing to  the  setting  sun.  To  every  honest  man  I'll  give  a  bezan 
for  a  nail,  which  every  rogue  shall  give  me.  To  every  courte- 
ous personage  I'll  give  a  mark  of  gold,  for  every  copper,  Tours 
currency,  which  every  discourteous  man  shall  give  me.  Let 
every  liar  give  me  an  egg,  and  I  will  give  a  mountain  of  gold 
to  every  man  of  veracity. 

"  It  would  not  require  a  large  piece  of  parchment,  on  which  to 
write  the  whole  of  the  law,  practised  by  the  masses  of  man- 
kind. The  half  of  the  thumb  of  my  glove  would  be  sufficient 
for  it.  A  cake  would  be  enough  to  satisfy  the  appetite  of  all  honest 
men ;  they  are  not  those  who  raise  the  price  of  living.  But  if 
any  one  were  to  desire  to  feast  the  wicked,  all  he  would  have 
to  do  would  be  to  cry  in  every  direction,  without  regard  to 
person :  '  Come,  come  to  eat,  ye  brave  men  of  this  world !' ': 

The  following  piece,  as  general  in  its  character  as  the  last,  in 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  347.    Piece  No.  XL.    Strophes  1-6. 
Tos  temps  azir  falsetat  et  enjan,  Li  ric  home  an  pietat  tan  gran 

Et  ab  vertat  et  ab  dreg  ni  capdelh,  De  paubra  gen,  com  ac  Caym  d'Abelh ; 

.E  si  per  so  vauc  atras  o  avan,  Que  mais  volpn  tolre  que  lop  no  fan, 

No  m'en  rancur,  ans  m'  es  tot  bon  e  belh,  E  mais  mentir  que  tozas  de  bordelh : 
Qu'els  uns  dechai  lialtatz  mantas  vetz,  Si  'Is  crebavatz  en  dos  locx  o  en  tres, 
E'Ls  autres  sors  enjans  e  mala  fes;  No  us  cugessetz  que  vertatz  n'issis  ges 

Mas  si  tant  es  qu'om  per  falsetat  mon,  Mas  messongas,  don  an  al  cor  tal  fon 
D'aquel  montar  dissen  pueys  en  preon.  Que  sobrevertz  cum  aigua  de  toron. 

Etc.,  etc.—  Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  467 

so  far  as  it  likewise  relates  to  a  mere  abstract  collection  of  indi- 
viduals, is  nevertheless  definite  and  special  in  the  sense  of  being 
exclusively  directed  against  a  particular  vice,  against  that  of 
falsehood.  It  is  neither  less  ingenious  nor  less  animated  in  its 
details  than  the  preceding,  and  its  diction  is  perhaps  still  more 
elegant  and  more  graceful.  Although  it  must  necessarily  lose 
many  of  its  beauties  in  another  costume,  I  will  nevertheless 
endeavor  to  translate  it. 

"  I  never  heard  a  Breton  or  Bavarian,  a  Greek,  a  Scotchman 
or  a  Gaul,  who  was  as  difficult  to  be  understood,  as  is  a  shame- 
less liar.  There  is  no  Latinist  at  Paris,  but  who  would  stand 
in  need  of  a  diviner,  to  know  when  such  a  man  speaks  what  is 
true  and  when  he  lies."* 

"  How  were  it  possible,  indeed,  to  comprehend  a  being  en- 
dowed with  speech,  whose  words  are  all  nonentities,  and  which 
we  know  are  false  ?  By  its  fruits  we  know  the  tree,  and  by  its 
odor  we  know  the  rose  without  even  seeing  it.  Thus  false- 
hood reveals  a  heart  that  is  treacherous  and  base." 

"  I  am  acquainted  with  more  than  thirty,  whose  purposes  and 
thoughts  I  am  utterly  unable  to  comprehend  ;  for  their  speech 
is  vanity,  their  oath  is  but  a  snare.  No  sooner  have  they  sworn 
that  they'll  remain,  than  they  make  preparations  to  decamp. 
May  God  protect  me  against  their  oath  !" 

"  I  know  a  certain  man,  whose  body  is  replete  with  false- 
hoods. He  rattles  them  out  three  by  three,  twenty  a  day,  five 
hundred  per  month,  six  thousand  by  the  end  of  the  year.  I 
never  saw  such  an  enormous  luggage  in  so  small  a  space,  nor 
such  a  small  space  always  so  full.  Each  night  replenishes  the 
void  of  every  day." 

"  Ye  master  artisans  of  falsehood !  the  air  which  ye  inspired 
was  pure,  and  free  and  fresh,  but  ye  exhale  it  in  lies  more 
fetid  than  manure.  Like  forgers  of  base  money,  ye  coin  de- 
ceitful words  out  of  your  deceitful  inclinations,  and  from  your 
false  proceedings  you  deserve  to  reap  a  false  reward." 

The  satirical  sirventes  of  Pierre  Cardinal  contain  three  or 
four  pieces  under  the  rubric  of  sermons — a  rubric  which  they 
deserve  in  every  respect ;  for  they  are  moral  exhortations  which 
have  every  appearance  of  having  been  intended  to  be  sung  in 
public.  One  of  these  pieces  is  a  fiction  of  great  originality, 
and  equally  beautiful  both  in  a  poetical  and  in  a  moral  point  of 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  308.    (Fragment). 

Anc  no  vi  Breto  ni  Baivier  ...  Al  frug  conois  horn  lo  fruchier ; 

Que  tan  mal  entendre  fezes  Si  com  horn  sent  podor  de  fermorier 

Cum  fai  home  lag  messorguier ;  Al  flairar,  ses  tot  lo  vezer. 

Qu'a  Paris  non  e  latinier,  Aissi  fai  lo  mentir  parer 

Si  vol  entendre  ni  saber,  Lo  fals  coratje  torturier. 

Que  devis  non  1'aia  mestier  .  .  . 


468  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

view.  I  propose  to  translate  it ;  for  this  piece,  being  of  a  sim- 
ple and  earnest  style,  can  be  rendered  without  losing  any 
thing,  except  the  effect  of  the  versification  and  of  the  rhyme, 
which  in  this  instance  is  very  inconsiderable. 

"  There  was  a  city  once,  I  know  not  which,  where  fell  a  rain 
so  marvellous,  that  people  who  were  caught  in  it,  all  lost  their 
reason."* 

"All  but  a  solitary  lucky  man  without  companion  ;  and  he 
escaped,  because  he  slept  at  home,  when  the  prodigy  took 
place." 

"  The  rain  having  ceased,  and  this  man  being  roused  from 
sleep,  he  went  at  large,  and  found  the  world  around  him  per- 
petrating follies." 

"  The  one  was  dressed,  the  other  nude  ;  the  one  was  spitting 
against  heaven,  the  other  hurling  stones,  the  other  darts,  an- 
other tore  his  clothes." 

"  This  one  would  strike,  that  one  would  push,  this  other  one, 
imagining  himself  a  king,  would  hold  his  sides  majestically, 
and  still  another  one  would  leap  over  benches." 

"  Such  a  one  menaced,  such  a  one  cursed  another,  such  a  one 
would  talk,  not  knowing  what  he  said ;  another  eulogized  him- 
self." 

"  Who  was  amazed,  unless  it  was  the  man  who  had  remained 
in  his  sound  senses?  He  was  indeed  aware  that  they  were 
fools ;  he  looked  above,  he  looked  below,  to  see  if  he  could  find 
a  man  of  sober  mind,  but  a  man  of  sober  mind  could  not  be 
found." 

"  He  continued  to  be  amazed  at  them  ;  but  they  were  still 
more  amazed  at  him,  imagining  that  he  had  lost  his  reason." 

"  Whatever  they  did  seemed  rational  to  them ;  and  what  the 
poor  sage  ventured  to  do  otherwise,  they  judged  insen- 
sate." 

"  They  then  began  to  beat  him  :  one  struck  him  on  his  cheek, 
another  against  his  neck,  half  breaking  it." 

"  Some  push  him  forward,  and  others  push  him  back ;  he 
meditates  flight  from  the  midst  of  them ;  but  the  one  pulls  and 
and  the  other  tears  him.  He  receives  blow  after  blow  ;  he 
falls,  he  rises,  and  he  falls  again." 

"  Constantly  falling,  constantly  rising,  constantly  fleeing,  he 
reaches  at  last  his  home;  a  single  bound  and  he  is  in!  be- 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  366.    Piece  No.  XLIX.  (entire). 

Una  cieutat  fo,  no  sai  quals,  Que  era  dins  una  maizo 

On  cazet  una  plueia  tala  On  dormia,  quant  aco  fo  : 

Que  tug  1'ome  de  la  cieutat  Aquel  levet,  quant  ac  dprmit 

Que  toquet  foron  dessenat.  E  t'on  se  de  ploure  gequit, 

Tug  dessenero,  mas  sol  us  ;  E  venc  foras  entre  las  gens 

Aquel  escapet  e  non  plus,  On  tug  feiron  dessenamens. 

Etc.,  etc — Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  469 

smeared  with  mire,  beaten  half  dead,  and  still  delighted  to  have 
effected  his  escape." 

"  This  fiction  is  an  image  of  what  passes  here  below. 
The  unknown  city  is  the  world  replete  with  folly.  For,  to 
love  God,  to  fear  him,  and  to  observe  his  law,  is  man's  chief 
excellence  and  wisdom.  But  this  wisdom  is  lost  in  our  day : 
a  marvellous  rain  has  fallen ;  it  has  caused  to  spring  up*  a 
cupidity,  a  pride,  and  a  wickedness,  which  have  gained  the 
mastery  over  all  mankind.  And  if  God  perchance  has  saved 
any  one  from  this  calamity,  he  is  considered  crazy  by  all  the 
rest ;  they  hoot  at  and  maltreat  him,  because  he  is  not  rational 
in  their  sense  of  the  term  ;  the  friend  of  God  pronounces  them 
insensate  in  that  they  have  abandoned  the  wisdom  of  God ;  and 
they,  in  their  turn,  find  him  insensate  for  having  renounced  the 
wisdom  of  the  world." 

Does  not  this  fiction  contain  something^ grave  and  profound 
which  does  honor  to  the  imagination  of  JPierre  Cardinal,  if,  as 
everything  authorizes  us  to  presume,  it  is  really  of  his  inven- 
tion ?  Fictions  of  this  character  are  rare  among  those  of  the 
Troubadours. 

Pierre  Cardinal  composed  a  large  number  of  other  pieces, 
several  of  which  are  not  inferior  in  any  respect  to  the  three, 
which  I  have  just  translated.  But  these  ought  to  suffice  to  give 
us  some  notion  of  his  style  and  talent.  Of  all  the  Troubadours, 
he  is  perhaps  the  one  in  whom  we  might  find  most  esprit,  in  a 
sense  approximating  the  modern  acceptation  of  the  term.  It 
seems  to  me,  that  the  very  pieces,  which  I  have  given  as  spe- 
cimens, exhibit  to  us  more  than  one  trait  in  proof  of  this  asser- 
tion ;  and  among  all  those,  which  I  have  omitted  to  notice, 
there  is  perhaps  not  one,  in  which  one  might  not  find  traits 
similar  to  these  or  even  still  more  piquant.  I  think  I  can 
quote  one  or  two  of  them.  The  following,  for  example,  are  the 
first  eight  verses  of  a  sirvente,  of  which  they  constitute  the  best 
and  most  ingenious  portion  : 

"As  men  lament   over  a  son,  a  father  or  a  friend,  whom 
death  has  snatched  away,  so  I  lament  the  living  traitors  and 
evil-doers  left  in  the  world.     ...     I  weep  o'er  every  man, 
however  little  he  may  be  a  debauchee  or  robber.     I  weep  ex-  , 
ceedingly,  if  he  enjoys  the  advantage  of  his  misdemeanors  long  ;  j 
I  weep  still  more,  if  he's  not  hung  lor  them."* 

A  certain  profound  sentiment,  which  is  rather  indicated  than 

*  Baynouard,  vol.  v.  p.  305  (Fragment). 

Aissi  com  horn  planh  son  filh  o  son  paire 
Ho  son  amic,  quant  mort  lo  1'a  tolgut, 
Plane  eu  los  vius  que  sai  son  remazut 
Fals,  desleials,  felons  e  de  mal  aire.    .    .    . 
Etc.,  etc.,  etc.— Ed. 


470  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

expressed,  constitutes  the  principal  merit  of  these  pieces.  Here 
is  another  passage,  where  on  the  contrary  the  singularity  of  the 
expression  constitutes  the  only  merit  of  a  very  common  thought. 
"  A  traitor  is  even  worse  than  a  ravisher,"  says  the  Trouba- 
dour, "  for  as  a  convert  is  changed  into  a  shaven  monk  (moine 
tondu\  so  a  traitor  is  changed  into  a  wretch  suspended  (un 
pendu)" 

The  poetry  of  Pierre  Cardinal  would  furnish  us  a  multitude 
of  examples  and  observations  of  this  kind,  had  we  the  time  to 
dwell  on  them.  But  this  is  not  the  case  here  ;  and  we  are  obliged 
to  survey  from  a  somewhat  more  elevated  point  of  view  and  in 
larger  masses  the  different  divisions  of  the  lyric  poetry  of  the 
Provencals. 

I  have,  however,  not  yet  quite  finished  my  observations  on 
Pierre  Cardinal.  Among  the  compositions  yet  extant  from  him, 
there  is  one  which  is  too  curious  to  be  passed  over  without  a 
few  remarks. 

The  epoch  of  Pierre  Cardinal  was  not  a  philosophical  epoch, 
at  least  not  in  the  south  of  France.  The  grand  problem  of 
human  destiny,  which  since  his  time  philosophy  has  pro- 
pounded and  discussed  with  so  much  profundity  and  eloquence, 
this  grand  problem,  I  say,  had  not  yet  been  propounded  and 
solved  except  by  the  Christian  religion,  in  the  age  and  country 
in  question ;  and  all  the  w6rld,  the  poets  as  well  as  others, 
were  depending  on  that  solution. 

Pierre  Cardinal  is  the  only  one  who  seems  to  have  had  some 
intention  of  proposing  and  of  solving  it,  in  a  sirvente,  which  an 
intention  like  this  would  alone  suffice  to  render  an  object  of 
curiosity,  but  which  becomes  still  more  so  by  virtue  of  its  in- 
trinsic excellence.  I  subjoin  here  the  poem  entire  and  in  all 
its  naivete.* 

"  I  wish  to  begin  a  new  sirvente,  which  I  shall  recite  on  the 
day  of  judgment,  in  the  presence  of  him,  who  has  created  me 
and  drawn  me  out  of  nothing,  in  case  he  intends  to  accuse  me 
of  anything,  or  in  case  he  wishes  to  lodge  me  among  the  wicked. 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  364.    Piece  No.  XLVIII.  (entire). 

(1)  Un  sirventes  novel  vuelh  comensar  Per  que   devetz  m'arma  e  mon  cors 

Que  retrairai  al  jorn  del  jutjamen  salvar, 

A  selh  que  m  fetz  e  m  formet  de  nien ;          E  que  m  valhatz  a  mon  trespassamen  ; 
Si'l  me  cuia  de  ren  ochaizonar,  E  far  vos  ai  una  bella  partia, 

E  si'l  me  vol  metre  en  la  diablia,  Que  m  tornetz  lai  don  muec  lo  pre- 

leu  li  dirai :  Senher,  merce  no  sia  mier  dia, 

Qu'el  mal  segle  trebaliey  totz  moa  ans,         O  que  m  siatz  de  mos  tortz  perdonans ; 
E  guardatz  me,  si  us  plai,  dels  turmeu-         Qu'ieu  uo'lsfeira,  si  no  fos  natz  enans. 

tans. 
„  #  ^  #  #  (6)  S'ieu  ai  sai  mal,  et  en  yfern  ardia, 

Segon  ma  fe,  tortz  e  peccatz  seria ; 

(5)  leu  no  mi  vnelh  de  vos  dezesperar,  Qu'ieu  vos  puesc  be  esser  recastinans, 

Ans  ai  en  vos  mon  bon  esperamen ;  Que  per  un  ben  ai  de  mal  mil  aitans. 

— Ed* 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  471 

I'll  tell  him  :  No,  no,  Lord,  have  compassion  !  Be  pleased  to 
defend  me  from  the  executioners  of  the  pit,  me,  who  haye  passed 
the  years  of  all  my  life  in  tormenting  myself  in  this  wicked 
world,  where  thou  hadst  placed  me." 

"  All  the  celestial  court  will  be  amazed  on  hearing  my  de- 
fence ;  I'll  tell  God,  that  it  would  be  wronging  his  friends  to 
think  of  destroying  them  or  plunging  them  into  hell.  Who- 
ever loses  what  he  might  gain,  has  no  right  to  complain  of 
poverty ;  God,  therefore  should  be  lenient  and  save  his  souls 
from  death." 

"  He  ought  not  to  prohibit  them  from  entering  Paradise. 
Such  interdiction  would  be  a  great  dishonor  to  Saint  Peter, 
who  is  its  porter.  It  would  be  just,  that  every  soul,  desirous  of 
an  entrance,  should  enter  there  with  joy.  The  court,  where 
some  are  weeping  and  others  laughing,  is  no  longer  a  well  re- 
gulated court.  And  however  powerful  a  monarch  God  may  be, 
if  he  does  not  receive  us,  the  reason  of  such  refusal  will  be  de- 
manded of  him." 

"He  might  with  great  propriety  annihilate  the  devil;  he 
would  gain  many  a  soul  by  it ;  this  act  of  power  would  be  ac- 
ceptable to  all  the  world  ;  for  my  part,  I  should  be  most  grateful 
for  it ;  and  as  for  him,  he  might,  we  all  know,  pardon  and  ab- 
solve himself  for  it.  Do,  therefore,  good  Lord  God,  annihilate 
our  ruthless  and  importunate  enemy." 

"  I  shall  not  yet  despair  of  thee  ;  no,  far  from  it ;  in  thee  I 
put  my  confidence ;  for  thou  must  be  my  help  in  the  hour  of 
my  death,  and  save  my  soul  and  body.  If  this  is  to  be  other- 
wise, then  I'll  propose  the  honest  alternative :  Restore  me  to 
the  state,  in  which  I  was  before  my  birth,  and  out  of  which 
thou  took'st  me,  or  else  pardon  my  faults,  which  I  should  never 
have  committed,  had  I  not  existed." 

"  If  after  having  suffered  here,  I  were  to  burn  in  hell,  this 
would  in  my  opinion  be  an  injustice ;  for  I  can  solemnly  assure 
thee,  that  for  one  good,  which  I  shall  have  enjoyed  in  life,  I 
have  endured  a  thousand  ills." 

We  must  not  misapprehend  the  character  of  this  singular 
piece  ;  we  must  not  see  either  pleasantry  or  irony  in  it.  The 
author  did  not  wish  to  convey  anything  of  the  kind.  His  lan- 
guage is  popular  and  frequently  borders  on  the  burlesque  ;  his 
idea  is  a  vague  and  confused,  but  a  grave  and  serious  one.  We 
perceive  through  the  impropriety  and  the  vulgarity  of  his 
words,  that  he  imagines  the  existence  of  evil  to  be  the  conse- 
quence of  a  sort  of  dualism,  but  of  a  dualism  which  might  be 
called  an  accidental  one,  and  which  God  might  at  his  pleasure 
reduce  to  unity.  The  piece  may  be  to  some  extent  a  reflection 
of  the  heresy  of  the  Albigenses,  in  the  midst  of  which  Pierre 


472  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


Qardinal  iiy;ed — a  heresy  which  admitted  two  principles  in  the 
universe.  At~aH  events,  it  was  quite  natural,  that  this  heresy, 
fermenting  in  a  multitude  of  heads,  should  influence  some  of 
them  to  propose  and  to  solve  the  grand  problem  of  human  des- 
tiny in  a  manner  differing  from  that  of  Christianity.  But  I 
have  digressed  too  far  from  my  subject,  and  I  must  now  return 
to  it. 

The  moral  satire  of  the  Troubadours,  in  those  cases  even, 
when  it  is  based  on  the  most  general  ideas  of  social  order  and 
humanity,  necessarily  contains  special  allusions  to  the  morality 
of  chivalry.  Nevertheless  the  former,  being  predominant  in 
the  kind  of  satire  in  question,  determine  its  character,  and 
ought  also  to  determine  its  name,  if  it  is  to  have  one. 

But  among  the  satirical  sirventes  of  the  Troubadours,  there 
are  to  be  found  some  very  remarkable  ones,  which  properly  de- 
serve the  name  of  chivalric  satires.  There  are  those,  in  which 
the  censure  and  the  praise  have  direct  reference  to  the  ideas 
and  to  the  principles  of  chivalry  as  such.  The  most  interesting' 
of  these  pieces  are  from  the  last  years  of  the  twelfth  century. 
If  there  was  any  epoch  of  the  Middle  Age,  in  the  south  of 
France,  to  which  the  epithet  chivalric  could  be  applied  with 
greater  propriety  than  to  any  other,  it  was  undoubtedly  this.  It 
was  then,  in  fact,  that  the  majority  of  the  chiefs  of  the  feudal 
order  flourished,  who  regarded  the  principles  of  chivalry  in  a 
,  serious  light,  and  exerted  the  utmost  of  their  power  to  apply 
these  principles  to  the  organization  and  the  government  of  so- 
ciety. It  was  then,  that  the  sentiment  of  love  was  experienced 
and  celebrated  with  the  greatest  enthusiasm,  and  that  the  insti- 
tutions of  chivalry  were  nearest  to  the  point  of  forming  a 
systematic  whole,  exercising,  as  they  did,  an  influence  over  the 
manners  and  the  social  relations  of  life,  which  was  peculiar  and 
distinct  from  every  other. 

And  yet  all  the  poets  of  this  epoch,  who  endeavor  to  form 
an  abstract  idea,  a  more  or  less  ri^id  theory  of  the  system  of 
chivalry,  by  a  singular  though  easily  conceived  illusion,  speak 
of  it  as  having  already  lost  some  of  its  pristine  splendor,  and  as 
continuing  to  decline  rapidly.  They  would  have  been  very 
much  embarrassed  to  tell,  in  what  place  and  at  what  time  it  had 
been  in  a  more  flourishing  state.  It  was  however  true,  that 
in  reality  it  did  not  completely  correspond  with  the  ideal 
they  had  formed  of  it ;  hence  in  accordance  with  the  general 
tradition  of  mankind,  which  always  dreams  of  an  ideal  happi- 
ness and  good  in  the  past  and  under  the  form  of  a  historical 
fact,  the  Troubadours  assumed  a  golden  age  of  chivalry  already 
far  removed  from  them,  and  depicted  their  own  epoch  as  the 
iron  age  of  the  institution. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  473 

This  poetic  illusion  manifests  itself  every  moment  and  in 
twenty  different  ways  in  the  poetry  of  the  Troubadours,  some- 
times by  rapid  and  isolated  coruscations,  sometimes  by  a  full 
and  entire  effusion ;  often  by  melancholy  regrets  of  the  past, 
still  oftener  in  accents  of  anger  and  of  contempt  for  the  pre- 
sent. It  has  inspired  a  great  number  of  the  finest  verses  of 
Provencal  poetry. 

Of  all  the  Troubadours  Giraud  de  Borneil  is  the  one  who 
has  most  freely  indulged  in  this  illusion,  and  who  has  turned 
its  poetic  advantages  to  the  best  account.  I  shall,  therefore, 
borrow  from  him  some  examples  of  the  kind  of  satire  to  which 
it  has  given  rise.  But  I  ought  in  the  first  place  to  recall  to 
mind,  that  of  all  the  Troubadours  who  deserve  translation, 
Giraud  de  Borneil  is  the  most  difficult  to  be  translated  and 
the  one  who  loses  most  by  it.  Here  is  for  example,  in  the  first 
place,  an  isolated  stanza  from  one  of  his  pieces,  which  might 
serve  as  an  epigraph  to  many  others. 

"  I  gladly  would,  if  I  but  could,  but  I  cannot,  forget  (that  which 
afflicts  me),  how  the  great  seigniors  have  renounced  all  noble 
generous  doings.  Alas  !  to  what  extent  a  cowardly  prudence 
has  gained  the  mastery  over  them,  which  annihilates  youth, 
hunts  it  down  and  frightens  it  away  !  I  could  not  have  believed, 
that  in  a  thousand  years  valor  and  virtue  could  have  fallen 
so  low,  as  I  perceive  them  now.  Chivalry  and  love  are  no 
longer  what  they  were ;  they  have  ceased  to  be  the  charm  of 
noble  souls,  from  the  moment  they  began  to  pay  attention  to 
their  misfortunes  or  their  happiness." 

Several  of  the  pieces  of  Giraud  de  Borneil  are,  I  repeat  it, 
but  a  more  or  less  poetic  commentary  on,  the  more  or  less 
varied  development  of,  this  melancholy  fancy.  The  least  that 
I  could  do,  in  order  to  finish  my  observations  on  this  particular 
point  of  Provencal  poetry  in  a  suitable  manner,  wjll  be  to 
translate  one  of  these  pieces  of  Giraud.  The  following  ap- 
peared to  me  to  be  one  of  the  finest,  besides  having  the  merit 
of  containing  several  allusions  of  great  interest  in  regard  to  the 
general  history  of  the  poetic  culture  of  the  South. 

"  For  a  long  time  I  have  tried  to  wake  up  solatz*  from  its 
sleep,  and  to  restore  exiled  prowess  to  its  home.  But  I've  re- 
nounced the  work,  deeming  it  impracticable,  and  seeing  my 
force  and  will  more  and  more  subdued  by  injuries  and  mis- 
fortune.'^ 

*  Soulas,  i.  e.  bande,  compagnie  joyeuse. — Diet.  Acad. 

f  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  290.    Piece  No.  XX.    Strophes  1-7. 

(1)  Per  solatz  revelhar,  Mi  cuyel  trebalhar ; 

Quar  es  trop  endormitz,  Mas  er  m'en  sui  giquitz, 

E  per  pretz  qu'es  fayditz  Per  so  quar  sui  falhitz, 

Aculhir  e  tornar,  Quar  non  es  d'acabar  ; 


1 


474:  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

"  This  evil  will  hereafter  be  difficult  to  endure.  'Tis  I  who 
tell  you  so,  I,  who  know  how  courtesy  and  valor  formerly  were 
received.  In  our  day  chevaliers  ride  like  villeins,  without  a 
lance,  without  care  for  adventures." 

"  Formerly  I  was  wont  to  see  barons  in  fine  armor  giving 
and  following  tournaments ;  and  one  might  hear  them  some- 
times discourse  of  those,  where  the  finest  feats  had  been  ac- 
complished. Their  honor  now  consists  in  stealing  cattle,  sheep 
and  lands.  Oh !  shame  on  every  cavalier  when  he  appears  be- 
fore his  lady,  who  with  his  own  hand  drives  the  bleating  flocks 
of  sheep,  or  pillages  the  churches  and  the  travellers !" 

"  The  Jongleurs,  whom  once  I  saw  received  so  graciously, 
are  now  discarded.  They  have  lost  the  guides  with  whom 
they  travelled  formerly.  And  now  that  valor  has  declined,  I 
see  .the  Troubadours,  who  long  marched  at  the  head  of  nu- 
merous companions,  in  noble  gorgeous  attire,  now  solitary  and 
forsaken." 

"  I  have  seen  infant  Jongleurs  in  elegant  apparel,  going  from 
court  to  court,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  singing  the  praises  of  the 
ladies ;  but  now  they  dare  no  longer  sing,  so  much  has  gal- 
lantry declined  !  And  instead  of  hearing  the  ladies  lauded,  we 
hear  men  speak  ill  of  them.  Say  it's  their  own  fault,  say,  that 
it  is  the  fault  of  the  chevaliers ;  but  I  say,  it's  the  fault  of  all,  if 
there  is  no  longer  any  faith  or  glory  in  love." 

"As  for  myself,  who  have  heretofore  been  ever  ready  to 
celebrate  in  my  songs  every  gallant  and  courteous  man,  I 
know  no  longer  which  side  to  take,  when  instead  of  the  accents 
of  joy  I  hear  displeasing  cries  at  all  the  courts.  They  now  re- 
ceive at  the  courts  a  frivolous  tale  with  equal  favor  and  ap- 
plause, as  they  do  a  noble  song  on  the  grand  events,  on  the 
exploits  of  past  ages." 

"  Moreover,  it  serves  no  purpose  now,  to  recall  those  ancient 
noble  deeds  and  exploits  long  forgotten,  in  order  to  reanimate 
hearts,  that  are  sunk  too  low.  1  ve  formed  the  resolution  to 
remain  silent,  and  I  shall  keep  it ;  I  shall  no  longer  relapse 
into  the  wish,  of  which  I've  cured  myself,  to  wake  up  gallantry 
and  solatz  from  their  sleep.  Hereafter  it  will  be  enough  for 
me,  to  turn  and  to  revolve,  to  balance  and  to  test,  in  every 
sense,  within  my  mind,  whatever  transpires  in  the  world,  ap- 
proving or  condemning,  according  to  desert." 

Cum   plus   m'en   ven    voluntatz   e  Ni'ls  viels  faitz  remembrar, 

talans,  Que  mal  es  a  laissar 

Plus  creys  de  lai  lo  dampnatges  e'l  Afar  pus  es  plevitz, 

dans.  E'l  mal  don  sui  guaritz 

No  m  qual  ja  mezinar, 
Mas  so  qu'om  ve,  volv  e  vir  en  balans, 

(7)  Mas  a  cor  afrancar,  E  prenda  e  laid  e  forss'  e  dams  los 

Que  se  's  trop  endurzitz,  pans. 

Mon  deu  horn  los  oblitz  — Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  475 

Leaving  aside  the  historical  illusion,  which  is  the  motive  of 
this  piece,  we  cannot  help  admitting  that  its  melancholy  is  of 
a  graceful  and  a  poetic  caste,  and  that  it  presupposes  a  soul  and 
an  imagination  of  uncommon  elevation.  The  verses  are  very 
beautiful,  and  among  those  which  make  us  regret  that  the  idiom 
in  which  they  were  written  should  now  be  entirely  dead. 

Now,  whatever  may  be  the  shades  of  difference  between  the 
several  specimens,  which  I  have  just  given  of  the  moral  or 
ideal  satire  of  the  Troubadours,  we  will  still  have  been  able  to 
observe  that  they  are  pervaded  by  a  certain  identity  of  style, 
of  taste  and  sentiment,  on  the  strength  of  which  we  may 
affirm  that  they  all  belong  to  the  same  school,  to  the  same 
epoch,  to  the  same  country,  and  that  they  are  the  manifestations 
of  one  and  the  same  genius.  It  is  however  not  without  import- 
ance to  remark,  that  there  are  other  Provencal  compositions  of 
the  kind,  in  which  the  general  characteristics  of  the  school  and 
of  the  epoch  disappear  almost  entirely  under  the  impress  of  an 
independent  and  capricious  individual  genius,  ignoring  or  dis- 
daining the  conventional  rules  and  limits  of  his  art  as  observed  and 
practised  in  his  time.  Such  are,  for  example,  several  pieces  of 
the  same  Marcabrus,  of  whom  I  have  already  spoken  several 
times,  and  of  whom  I  would  have  to  speak  again  here,  had  I 
the  time  to  do  so.  Such  are  more  particularly  those  of  another 
Troubadour,  whom  I  have  named  elsewhere  and  concerning 
whom  it  is  now  proper  to  say  something  further. 

This  Troubadour  was  a  monk,  and  is  only  known  under  the 
name  of  the  Monk  of  Montaudon.  He  was  from  the  chateau 
of  Yic,  near  Aurillac  in  Auvergne.  His  father,  a  nobleman  of 
the  country,  having  undoubtedly  other  sons  besides  this  one, 
made  him  enter  the  celebrated  monastery  of  Aurillac.  This 
was,  however,  by  no  means  the  vocation  of  the  young  man  ; 
still  he  suffered  himself  to  become  what  his  superiors  wished, 
apparently  under  the  consoling  conviction,  that  the  habit  of  the 
monk  would  not  prevent  him  from  leading  the  life  of  pleasure 
for  which  he  felt  himself  born. 

Soon  after  having  entered  the  cloister,  he  was  made  prior  of 
Montaudon,  a  monastery  in  the  neighborhood  of  that  of  Aurillac, 
and  dependent  on  it.  feeing  now  at  liberty  to  follow  his  natu- 
ral bent  for  poetry,  he  there  began  to  compose  pieces  of  verse 
of  every  description,  and  particularly  sirventes  on  the  events 
which  excited  some  talk  in  the  country.  These  pieces,  full  of 
animation  and  of  sprightliness,  soon  made  him  loiown  in  the 
neighboring  castles.  The  barons  and  chevaliers  of  the  country 
rescued  him  by  a  sort  of  violence  from  his  monastery,  and 
vied  with  each  other  in  feasting  him,  and  in  loading  him  with 
presents. 


476  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

The  monk  preferred  pleasure  to  money ;  he  used  his  credit 
only  for  the  good  of  his  priory,  which,  poor  as  he  had  taken  it, 
he  soon  had  made  a  rich  one.  Believing  that  by  these  services 
he  had  acquired  a  claim  to  the  indulgence  of  his  abbot,  he  ad- 
dressed to  him  what  certainly  must  be  regarded  as  the  strangest 
request  that  a  monk  ever  made  of  his  superior ;  he  asked  his 
permission  to  lead  in  future  the  kind  of  life  which  the  king  of 
Aragon  was  anxious  to  prescribe  for  him. 

?  The  abbot,  who  was  probably  a  secular  abbot,  that  is  to  say, 
j  a  warrior  and  chevalier,  such  as  there  were  many  at  that  time 
\  at  the  head  of  rich  monasteries — the  abbot,  I  say,  made  no  dif- 
\  ficulty  about  complying  with  his  request. 

The  king  of  Aragon,  who  knew  the  monk,  if  not  personally, 
at  least  by  reputation,  directed  him  to  live  in  the  world,  to  in- 
dulge in  good  cheer,  to  compose  verses,  to  sing  and  to  love  the 
ladies.  Never  was  a  royal  decree  better  observed  than  this ; 
the  monk  of  Montaudon  followed  more  freely  than  ever  his 
worldly  and  poetic  propensities,  and  was  made  seignior  of  the 
court  of  Puy.  It  was  a  singular  office,  this  seigniorship  of  the 
court  of  Puy ;  and  it  is  so  much  the  more  natural  to  say  some- 
thing further  about  it,  as  the  fact  to  which  it  relates  is  at  once 
very  little  known  and  extremely  curious  in  regard  to  the  his- 
tory of  Provencal  poetry  and  civilization. 

Li  the  twelfth  century,  and  during  a  part  of  the  thirteenth, 
Puy,  which  was  then  called  Puy  or  Mount  St.  Mary,  was  the 
place  where  the  most  chivalric  festivals  were  celebrated  peri- 
odically. The  barons,  great  and  small,  the  chevaliers,  the  Trou- 
badours, the  Provencal  Jongleurs  flocked  together  there  from 
every  part  of  the  South,  so  that  for  a  number  of  days  in  succes- 
sion all  the  beauty  and  the  gallantry  of  the  country  would 
be  united  there  as  at  a  single  court.  Besides  the  martial  chal- 
lenges of  the  tournaments,  there  were  also  poetic  challenges  on 
these  occasions,  or  tournaments  of  the  Troubadours,  and  prizes 
were  awarded  to  the  victors  in  the  latter  as  well  as  in  the 
former. 

Festivals  like  these  always  involved  enormous  expenses,  and 
(thus  furnished  the  seigniors  of  the  South  with  opportunities  for 
jdisplaying  that  magnificent  liberality,  which  was  at  that  time 
reputed  one  of  the  highest  virtues  of  chivalry.  Among  these 
seigniors  there  was  always  to  be  found  one,  who  was  ready  to 
incur  the  risk  of  ruining  himself  by  voluntarily  assuming  the 
responsibility  of  defraying  all  the  expenses  of  the  festival,  and 
there  was  a  regularly  established  ceremony  for  declaring  one's 
resolution  to  this  effect.  In  the  midst  of  a  hall  of  vast  dimen- 
sior  s,  when  all  the  barons  who  had  come  to  the  festival  were 
assembled,  there  was  seated  an  isolated  personage,  who  was 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  477 

holding  a  hawk  on  his  fist.  The  baron,  whom  his  heart 
prompted  to  signalize  himself  by  such  an  act  of  magnificent  liber- 
ality, stepped  forward  toward  the  hawk  and  took  it  upon  his 
fist ;  and  this  was  the  mode  of  announcing  to  those  present  that 
he  pledged  himself  to  meet  the  expenses  of  the  fete. 

The  personage  charged  with  the  business  of  holding  and  pre- 
senting the  hawk  on  the  day  of  the  ceremony  described,  was 
called  the  Seignior  of  the  court  of  Puy,  and  this  was  the  office 
conferred  upon  the  monk  of  Montaudon.  The  subsequent  part 
of  his  life  is  but  little  known  ;  we  are  only  informed,  that  he 
retired  to  Spain  in  the  end,  where  he  lived  for  some  time  in 
favor  among  the  kings  and  barons,  and  where  he  died  to- 
ward the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

We  have  from  him  pieces  of  various  kinds ;  but  those  of  the 
satirical  description  are  the  only  ones  which  deserve  our  par- 
ticular attention.  Some  of  them  exhibit  a  singularly  original 
and  fantastical  turn  of  imagination.  Of  this  description  are, 
among  others,  the  two  or  three  which  he  wrote  against  the 
usage,  common  among  the  ladies  of  his  time,  of  painting  their 
faces  to  excess,  even,  as  it  appears,  when  they  did  not  stand  in 
any  need  of  any  such  adventitious  ornament,  which  they  applied 
simply  for  the  purpose  of  appearing  a  little  handsomer  than  nature 
had  made  them.  I  shall  endeavor  to  give  an  analysis  of  them. 

In  one  of  these  pieces,  which  is  the  oddest  of  them  all,  the 
monk  of  Montaudon  supposes  himself  translated  into  Paradise, 
not  in  spirit,  but  in  body  and  in  his  friar's  frock,  and  present 
at  the  judgment-seat  of  God,  before  whom  the  different  crea- 
tures, at  variance  with  each  other,  are  pleading  their  several 
causes,  some  as  accusers  and  others  as  defendants. 

After  the  adjustment  of  several  cases  on  which  I  need  not 
dwell  here,  a  party  of  litigants  of  a  very  singular  description 
appear  in  their  turn  before  the  supreme  judge.  They  are  the 
walls  and  vaulted  ceilings  of  houses.  These  ceilings  and  these 
walls  are  alive  ;  they  speak  and  they  have  matters  of  grave 
importance  to  communicate.  They  come  for  the  purpose  of 
bringing  a  complaint  against  the  ladies,  who  by  making  use  of 
paint  to  embellish  their  faces,  were  no  longer  leaving  any  for 
them.  The  ladies  are  present  in  order  to  defend  themselves, 
and  the  monk  for  the  purpose  of  reporting  the  debate  and  the 
judgment. 

This  idea,  in  which  we  might  say  that  there  was  something 
Aristophanic,  is  incontestably  the  most  characteristic  and  the 
most  striking  feature  of  the  piece.  Its  execution  is  harsh,  dry 
and  crude,  but  lively  and  ingenious.  The  following  are  some 
passages  from  this  extravagant  production. 

"  A  litigation  has  commenced  between  the  ceilings  and  the 
ladies ;  the  ceilings  speak  first  and  say : 


478  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

"Ladies,  we  have  been  dead  and  annihilated  ever  since 
you've  taken  away  the  paint*  It  is  a  grave  misdemeanor  in 
you  to  color  and  varnish  yourselves  to  such  excess ;  and  we  have 
never  seen  at  any  other  time,  that  it  was  customary  thus  to 
illuminate  one's  self." 

"  And  the  ladies  replied,  that  this  privilege  was  conceded  to 
them  more  than  a  hundred  years  before  there  ever  was  any 
such  thing  as  a  ceiling  in  the  world,  either  great  or  small." 

"  There  is  one  lady  among  the  rest,  who  says  to  the  ceilings : 
your  complaint  is  an  unjust  one.  Have  I  not  the  right  to  paint 
the  wrinkles  below  my  eyes  ?  When  they  are  well  effaced,  I 
still  can  act  the  part  of  haughty  dame  with  many  an  amorous 
knight,  who  takes  a  fancy  to  such  ornament." 

"  God  then  says  to  the  ceilings :  Provided  you  have  no  ob- 
jection, I  will  accord  to  the  ladies  the  permission  to  paint  them- 
selves for  twenty  years,  after  their  twenty-fifth." 

"  But  the  ceilings  demur :  We  can  not  consent  to  this,  they 
say  ;  but  simply  to  oblige  you,  we  will  concede  them  ten  years 
for  painting,  and  we  demand  security." 

Thereupon  Saint  Peter  and  Saint  Andrew  interpose  be- 
tween the  parties  for  the  purpose  of  settling  the  matter  in  dis- 
pute. The  difference  in  regard  to  the  times,  during  which  the 
ladies  were  to  have  the  privilege  of  applying  rouge,  is  divided 
by  two  ;  and  it  is  agreed  that  the  term  shall  be  fifteen  years. 
Under  this  condition  the  agreement  is  concluded :  the  ladies 
and  the  ceilings  pledge  themselves  by  oath  that  they  will  ob- 
serve it,  and  then  both  parties  withdraw. 

But  scarcely  have  they  returned  to  their  homes,  when  the 
ladies  begin  again  to  violate  the  compact  most  unscrupulously, 
by  continuing  to  paint  themselves  far  beyond  the  term  accorded 
to  them.  From  morning  till  night  they  are  busily  engaged  in 
preparing  colors  and  pastes  of  various  sorts,  of  which  the  poet 
deligently  enumerates  the  multitudinous  ingredients,  the  price 
of  all  of  which  is  raised  by  this  sudden  increase  of  the  demand. 
The  monk  would  willingly  and  patiently  submit  to  this  enhance- 
ment of  the  price ;  but  he  cannot  pardon  that  of  saffron,  which 
has  become  so  scarce  that  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  find  any 
for  the  kitchen. 

The  following  piece  is  supposed  to  form  the  sequel  to  the 
foregoing.  It  is  far  more  elegant  in  its  execution  and  much 
clearer  in  its  details — too  clear  even  to  make  it  possible  for  me 
to  translate  the  whole  of  it.  But  the  portion,  which  I  can 
translate,  is  worth  the  trouble,  as  it  furnishes  us  an  example  of 
the  excess  to  which  the  unlimited  freedom  of  imagination  would 
sometimes  carry  the  Troubadours. 

"  The  other  day,  I  pefadventure  was  in  the  parliament  of 
God,  where  I  heard  the  ceilings  lodge  a  complaint  against  the 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  479 

ladies,  who  by  painting  their  visages  had  enhanced  the  price  of 
paints."  * 

"  (I  have  returned  there  since)  and  God  told  me  frankly  : 
Monk,  I  hear  the  ceilings  are  suffering  an  encroachment  on 
their  rights.  Go  quickly  down,  for  the  love  you  bear  me,  and 
in  my  name  command  the  ladies  to  desist  from  painting ;  I 
want  no  more  proceedings  on  the  subject ;  and  if  they  continue 
to  paint  in  spite  of  my  command,  I  shall  myself  go  and  erase 
their  work." 

"  Gently !  Lord  God  !  I  then  replied,  thou  oughtst  to  have  a 
little  more  indulgence  for  the  ladies.  "Tis  nature  that  prompts 
them  to  adorn  their  countenances ;  this  ought  not  to  displease 
thee,  and  the  ceilings  ought  not  to  have  complained,  or 
quarreled  with  the  ladies  on  this  account,  who  can  no  longer 
endure  them." 

"  Monk,  God  then  replied  to  me,  it  is  a  great  folly  and  a 
mistake  in  you  to  approve,  that  my  creature  should  adorn  her- 
self against  my  wish.  The  ladies  would  be  as  powerful  as  I  am, 
if,  while  I  make  them  grow  older  every  day,  they  could  rejuve- 
nate themselves  by  painting  and  by  glossing." 

"  Lord,  thou  speatest  superbly,  because  thou  knowest  thyself 
in  the  possession  of  the  power.  Nevertheless  there  is  but  one  way 
of  preventing  the  ladies  from  painting  themselves ;  it  is  to  allow 
them  to  retain  their  beauty  until  they  die,  or  else  to  annihilate 
all  paints  and  every  style  of  painting,  so  that  hereafter  there 
shall  be  nothing  of  the  kind  left  in  the  world." 

The  debate  is  prolonged  still  further,  but  it  becomes  too 
cynical.  I  can  only  say,  that  the  monk  persists  in  his  refusal 
to  become  the  bearer  of  God's  message,  who  at  last  resolves  to 
let  the  ladies  do  as  they  please,  with  the  reserve,  however,  of 
sending  them  a  certain  infirmity,  extremely  detrimental  to  their 
paints.  i. , 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  42.    Piece  No.  XX.    Strophes  1-5. 

Autra  vetz  fuy  a  parlamen  Ab  que  s  fan  la  cara  luzir 

El  eel,  per  boa'  aventura  ;  Del  tench,  com  lo  degran  laissar. 

E'l  vout  fazion  rancura 

De  las  domnas  que  s  van  penhen ;          Pero  m  ditz  dieus  mot  francamen : 
Qu'ieu  los  n'  auzi  a  dieu  clamar  Monges,  ben  aug  qu'  a  tortura 

D'elhas  qu'an  fag  lo  tench  carzir,  Perdon  li  vout  lur  dreitura 

Etc.,  etc.— Ed. 


480  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


CHAPTEK  XXH. 

THE   LYEIOAL  POETRY   OF  THE   TROUBADOURS. 

VII.     SATIRE. 

HISTORICAL. 

FROM  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  to  the  end  of  the  thirteenth 
centuries,  there  was  no  lack  of  historical  subjects  for  the  satires 
of  the  Troubadours.  The  manuscripts  are  full  of  sirventes, 
some  of  which  are  directed  against  the  men  and  others  against 
the  events  of  these  epochs ;  so  that  the  species  naturally  sub- 
divides itself  into  personal  and  into  general  satire. 

I  do  not  intend  to  dwell  on  the  first ;  I  have  not  the  leisure 
for  it.  But  it  is  not  without  some  regret  that  I  pass  over  in 
silence  a  certain  number  of  compositions  of  this  class,  remark- 
able for  the  energetic,  though  sometimes  cynical  and  scurrilous 
sentiments  by  which  they  were  inspired.  The  satires  of  Wil- 
liam of  Bergnadan,  a  Catalonian  knight,  are  perhaps  the  most 
sprightly  and  the  most  poetical,  but  at  the  same  time  the  most 
shameless  compositions  of  the  kind.  He  wrote  among  others 
two  or  three  against  a  certain  bishop  of  Urgel,  who  appears  to 
have  been  his  personal  enemy.  They  are  of  such  a  character, 
that  I  should  not  venture  to  translate  them,  if  I  had  room  for 
them.  I  think,  however,  that  I  may  be  permitted  to  signalize 
them  historically,  as  an  evidence  of  the  excess  to  which  the 
reciprocal  enmity  between  the  feudal  order  and  the  clergy  was 
carried  during  the  thirteenth  century,  and  as  a  specimen  of 
what  the  poets  dared  to  write  against  the  priests.  And  it  must 
not  be  forgotten,  that  what  the  poets  wrote  at  that  time  was  not 
destined  to  be  looked  upon  in  books,  which  scarcely  any  one 
would  have  read,  scarcely  any  one  knowing  how  to  read.  These 
compositions  were  set  to  music,  and  sung  in  all  the  castles  and 
even  in  the  cities  among  the  commoners.  We  therefore  scarcely 
know,  which  scandal  is  most  to  be  wondered  at,  whether  that  of 
the  vice  or  that  of  its  revelation  and  its  censure.  I  pass  on  to 
the  general  or  public  historical  satire  of  the  Troubadours. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  481 

The  facts,  to  which  they  principally  relate,  are  facts  of  a 
complex  nature,  the  incidents  of  which  were  more  or  less 
varied  and  prolonged.  They  may  be  reduced  to  four  principal 
events : 

1st.  The  wars  of  the  German  emperors  against  the  indepen- 
dence and  the  nationality  of  the  Italians. 

2d.  The  struggle  between  the  kings  of  France  and  England 
for  the  supremacy  in  the  provinces,  at  that  time  dismembered 
from  the  French  monarchy  and  subject  to  English  princes. 

3d.  The  crusade  against  the  Albigenses. 

4th.  The  establishment  of  Charles  of  Anjou  in  Provence, 
which  was  the  signal  of  a  great  revolution  in  the  culture  and  in 
the  social  condition  of  that  part  of  the  South. 

The  Troubadours,  who  were  contemporary  with  these  events, 
took  a  more  or  less  passionate  interest  in  all  of  them.  They 
judged  of  them  after  their  fashion ;  they  approved  of  or  conr 
demned  them  according  to  their  ideas  of  morality,  of  social 
order  and  of  humanity,  and  these  ideas  were  sometimes  vague 
and  general,  and  sometimes  special  and  local,  or  in  other 
words  chivalric.  I  propose  to  indicate  in  a  very  summary 
manner  the  impression  which  these  events  produced  on  them, 
and  what  results  with  reference  to  Provencal  poetry  attended 
the  manifestion  of  these  impressions. 

And  in  the  first  place,  with  respect  to  the  revolutions  in. 
Italy,  we  need  not  be  surprised  to  see  the  Troubadours  take  a 
direct  and  lively  interest  in  them.  They  were  in  the  habit  of 
frequenting,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  courts  and  the  cities 
of  this  country  ;  they  had  admirers,  disciples  and  rivals  there. 
Several  of  their  number,  after  having  once  descended  into  the 
rich  plains  of  Lombardy  or  into  the  beautiful  cities  of  Tuscany, 
were  so  delighted  with  them,  that  they  were  unwilling  to  quit 
them  again,  and  spent  the  remainder  of  their  life  there.  There 
was  hardly  any  need  of  so  many  reasons  to  induce  men,  who 
were  naturally  of  such  an  ardent  temperament  and  of  so  lively 
an  imagination,  to  espouse  the  cause  of  one  or  the  other  of  the 
two  parties,  which  were  then  contesting  their  respective  claims 
to  the  supremacy  over  Italy. 

Among  all  the  European  nations,  with  which  the  Troubadours 
stood  in  relation,  the  Germans,  who  in  the  Provengal  were  de^ 
nominated  Ties  (an  alteration  of  the  word  Teutschen\  were  the 
one  with  which  the  Troubadours  had  the  least  sympathy.  They 
found  them  brutal,  coarse  and  discourteous.  They  nad  particu- 
larly a  great  prejudice  against  their  language  ;  and  if  any  one 
perchance  had  told  them,  that  this  very  language  contained 
verses  perhaps  as  elegant  and  as  sweet  as  their  own,  thev  could 
scarcely  have  believed  him.  I  do  not  nemember  now  which  one 

31 


History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

of  them,  speaking  of  this  idiom,  compares  it  to  the  barking  of 
dogs,  and  ne  is  not  the  only  one  who  treats  it  with  this  disdain- 
ful repugnance. 

This  being  the  case,  it  is  not  extraordinary  that  some  of  the 
Troubadours  should  have  sided  with  the  Italians  against  the 
Germans  and  against  the  emperors.  Generally  speaking,  how- 
ever, these  poets  were  men  of  the  court  and  of  the  castle,  whose 
inclinations  had  nothing  in  common  with  democracy.  It  was 
particularly  from  the  emperors  whom  they  came  to  see  in  Italy, 
that  they  expected  the  best  reception  and  the  richest  presents. 
The  cause  of  the  latter  was  therefore  the  one,  which  they  were 
the  most  eager  to  embrace,  and  their  victories  those  which  they 
were  fondest  of  celebrating  in  their  songs.  Their  defeats  were 
a  source  of  astonishment  and  sadness  to  them ;  it  was  repugnant 
to  their  feelings  to  see  chevaliers,  warriors  by  profession,  worsted 
by  the  commoners.  This  did  not  seem  to  them  to  be  in  order, 
and  if  they  had  been  tempted  to  celebrate  these  victories  of  the 
commoners,  the  task  would  have  embarrassed  them,  as  a  strange 
and  novel  one. 

I  think  I  may  dispense  with  translating  any  of  the  satirical 
sirventes  of  the  Troubadours  relative  to  the  feuds  between  the 
emperors  of  Germany  and  the  Italian  powers.  These  pieces 
may  be  of  some  interest  in  civil  and  political  history,  but  I  have 
met  few,  which  were  remarkable  for  any  poetical  merit,  and  I 
experience  no  very  great  regret  at  an  omission  by  which  the 
reader  will  sustain  no  loss. 

This  is  not  the  case  with  the  Provencal  pieces  relative  to  the 
various  incidents,  which  happened  during  the  struggle  of  Philip 
Augustus,  first  against  Henry  II.  and  subsequently  against 
Richard  the  Lion-hearted.  The  majority  of  these  pieces  are  by 
Bertrand  de  Born,  one  of  the  five  or  six  most  eminent  Trouba- 
dours, who  by  his  talent  and  his  character  exercised  a  more 
extensive  influence  over  the  powers  and  the  events  of  his  time 
than  any  other  member  of  his  profession.  The  picture  of  his 
life  and  the  examination  of  his  works  deserve  developments 
which  I  am  unable  to  bestow  on  them.  I  shall  content  myself 
with  translating  the  most  important  items  of  information  which 
the  Provencal  traditions  furnish  us  in  regard  to  him  ;  it  will  then 
be  an  easy  matter  to  attach  to  this  account  a  general  idea  of  the 
satirical  pieces  of  Bertrand. 

"  Bertrand  de  Born,"  says  his  ancient  biographer,  "  was  a 
castellan  of  the  bishopric  of  Perigueux,  viscount  of  Hautefort, 
a  castle  with  a  population  of  nearly  a  thousand  men.  He  had 
a  brother  by  the  name  of  Constantine,  who  had  a  great  desire  to 
rob  and  to  destroy  him,  and  who  would  have  succeeded  in  his 
attempt,  had  it  not  been  for  the  king  of  England  (Henry  H)." 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  483 

"  Bertrand  de  Born  was  perpetually  at  war  with  all  the 
seigniors  of  his  vicinity,  with  the  count  of  Perigueux  and  the 
viscount  of  Limoges,  with  his  brother  Constantine  and  with 
Richard  (Cceur-de-Lion),  who  at  that  time  was  as  yet  only  count 
of  Poitiers.  Bertrand  was  an  excellent  chevalier,  an  excellent 
warrior,  an  excellent  Troubadour,  an  excellent  lover  of  the 
ladies,  well  informed  and  a  good  talker,  and  well  versed  in  the 
art  of  governing  himself  both  in  prosperity  and  in  adver- 
sity." 

"  He  was  the  master  of  the  king  of  England,  Henry  II.,  and 
of  his  three  sons,  as  often  as  he  wished  to  be  so.  But  he  always 
endeavored  to  embroil  them  in  wars  against  each  other,  the 
sons  against  the  father  and  the  brothers  among  themselves.  He 
likewise  did  all  in  his  power  to  involve  the  kings  of  France  and 
England  in  quarrels ;  and  during  the  intervals  of  peace  between 
these  monarchs  he  composed  sirventes,  in  order  to  show  the 
dishonor  which  each  of  them  sustained  from  the  conditions  of 
this  peace,  and  for  the  purpose  of  endeavoring  to  break  it.  By 
these  means  he  excited  feuds  among  them,  from  which  he  de- 
rived great  advantages  and  great  misfortunes.  He  composed 
only  two  chansons,  but  many  sirventes.  The  king  of  Aragon 
(Alphonse  I.)  called  the  chansons  of  Girard  de  Borneil  the  wives 
of  the  sirventes  of  Bertrand  de  Born."  * 

In  this  notice  the  old  biographer  indicates  the  dominant  trait 
of  Bertrand's  character  very  distinctly;  it  was  an  unbridled 
passion  for  war.  He  loved  it  not  only  as  the  occasion  for  ex- 
hibiting proofs  of  valor,  for  acquiring  power,  and  for  winning 
glory,  but  also  and  even  more  on  account  of  its  hazards,  on 
account  of  the  exaltation  of  courage  and  of  life  which  it  pro- 
duced, nay  even  for  the  sake  of  the  tumult,  the  disorders,  and 
the  evils  which  are  accustomed  to  follow  in  its  train.  Bertrand 
de  Born  is  the  ideal  of  the  undisciplined  and  adventuresome  war- 
rior of  the  Middle  Age,  rather  than  that  of  the  chevalier  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  term.  The  latter  engaged  in  warfare  with 
a  moral  aim,  for  social  order  and  for  peace,  the  former  solely 
for  the  sake  of  war  itself.  When  Bertrand  had  arrived  at  an 
advanced  age  he  repented  of  the  life  which  he  had  led,  turned 
monk,  and  died  in  a  convent.  This  pious  end  did  not  prevent 
Dante  from  assigning  to  the  bellicose  Troubadour  a  very  low 
place  in  hell,  where,  as  we  know,  he  represents  him  as  carrying 
his  head  in  his  hand  after  the  manner  of  a  lantern,  a  punish- 

*  The  biographer  continues :  "  Et  aquel  que  contava  per  el  ayia  nom  Papiol.  Et  era 
azautz  e  cortes ;  e  clamava  Rassa  lo  corns  de  Bretanha  ;  e'l  rei  d'Englaterra  Oo  e  No ; 
e'l  rei  jove  so  filh,  Marinier.  E  raetia  tot  son  sen  en  mesclar  guerras:  e  fes  mesclar  lo 
paire  e'l  filh  d'Englaterra,  tan  qu'el  rei  jove  fo  mortz  d'un  cairel  en  un  castel  d'EN  Ber- 
tran  de  Born,"  etc.  The  notice  of  his  life  and  writings  ia  extended  from  p.  76  to  p.  97, 
of  vol.  v.,  Kaynouard'a  Choix. — Ed. 


4:84  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

Iment  symbolical  of  the  crime  of  having  alienated  the  chief  from 
the  members,  that  is  to  say,  the  father  from  his  children. 

The  majority  of  the  pieces  of  Bertrand  de  Born  are  a  sort  of 
martial  dithyrambs,  composed  for  the  purpose  of  rousing  to  war 
those  nobles  over  whom  ne  had  some  influence  or  ascendant ; 
and  satires  against  his  adversaries,  against  those  wrhom  he 
charged  with  cowardice  when  they  did  not  yield  to  his  instiga- 
tions. We  have  already  been  able  to  form  an  idea  of  the  former 
from  what  I  have  quoted  in  treating  of  the  martial  poetry  of 
the  Proven£als;  and  this  is  now  the  place  for  giving  some 
specimens  of  the  latter ;  but  I  must  forewarn  the  reader  not 
to  expect  too  much,  as  these  specimens  will  necessarily  be  very 
inadequate.  The  argument  of  all  the  satirical  pieces  of  Ber- 
trand de  Born  being  based  on  historical  facts,  and  being  even 
linked,  for  the  most  part,  to  certain  curious  and  very  little  known 
particularities  of  these  facts,  it  is  impossible  to  make  them  un- 
derstood or  relished  without  a  long  commentary.  All  that  I 
can  quote  therefore  from  these  pieces  will  be  a  few  detached 
passages,  and  not  even  those  which  are  the  most  poetical,  but 
simply  those  whose  motive  requires  the  least  explanation. 

I  give,  in  the  first  place,  four  stanzas  of  a  sirvente,  in  which 
the  poet  portrays  in  lively  colors  the  habitual  agitation  of  his 
life ;  it  was  composed  after  one  of  his  returns  from  the  perpetual 
wars  which  he  was  waging  against  the  majority  of  the  seigniors 
in  his  vicinity : 

"  Daily  I  am  obliged  to  war,  to  exert  and  to  defend  myself, 
to  put  myself  out  of  breath ;  on  all  sides  they  burn  and  pillage 
my  domain,  they  uproot  my  trees  and  they  assart  my  woods  ; 
they  intermingle  my  grain  with  straw ;  and  I  have  no  enemy, 
coward  or  brave  man,  who  does  not  come  to  assail  me." ' 

"  Daily  I  readjust,  reprune,  retouch  our  barons ;  I  preach  to 
them  and  urge  them,  1  fain  would  temper  their  hearts  anew. 
But  surely  I  am  a  fool  for  undergoing  such  fatigue  :  pretending 
to  reform  them  is  tantamount  to  hammering  the  iron  of  Saint 
Leonard  while  it  is  cold." 

"Talleyrand  needs  neither  war-steed  nor  stallion ;  he  never 
budges  from  his  lair,  nor  has  he  anything  to  do  with  arrows  or 
with  lances.  He  lives  a  sort  of  Lombard-life,  so  cowardly  and 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  142.    Piece  No.  II.  Strophes  4-7. 

(4)  Tot  jorn  contend!  e  m  baralh,  E  lur  cug  metre  cor  auzart, 
M'escrim  em  defen  e  m  coralh,  E  sui  ben  fols,  quan,  m'en  regart, 
C'om  me  fond  ma  terra  e  la  m'art,  Qu'ilh  son  de  peior  obralha 

E  m  fai  de  mos  arbres  eyssart,  Que  non  es  lo  fers  San  Launart, 

E  mescla'l  gra  ab  la  palha,  Per  qu'es  fola  qui  s'en  trebalha. 

E  no  i  a  ardit  ni  cpart  ^  Talairans  non  trota  ni  salh 

Evemic  que  no  m'assalha.  Ni  no  s  mov  de  son  artenalh 

(5)  Tot  jorn  ressoli  e  retalh  Etc.,  etc.— Ed. 
Los  baros,  e'ls  refon  e'ls  calh, 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  485 

^___go  jefiBffikrate ;  and  when  all  others  exert  their  prowess,  he  wont 
do  anything  but  stretch  himself  and  yawn." 

"  Mounted  on  my  Bayard,  I  will  appear  at  Perigueux,  so 
close  up  to  the  wall  that  I  might  reach  it  with  a  beetle-blow ; 
and  if  I  there  encounter  some  dull-brained  Poitevin  he'll  soon 
find  out  how  well  my  sword  cuts.  I'll  make  a  breach  in  his 
head,  through  which  the  fragments  of  his  helmet  shall  mingle 
with  his  brain." 

I  do  not  see  precisely  on  what  occasion  Bertrand  de  Born 
composed  against  the  barons  of  Limousin  the  sirvente  commen- 
cing with  the  stanza  which  I  am  going  to  quote ;  but  it  was 
undoubtedly  in  some  conjuncture,  when  they  had  but  feebly 
responded  to  his  warlike  appeals ;  and  his  verses  give  an  ad- 
mirable picture  of  his  contempt  for  those  seigniors  who  were 
more  pacific  than  himself. 

"  I'll  make  another  sirvente  still  against  our  lazy  barons ;  for 
never  will  ye  hear  me  praise  them.  I've  broken  more  than  a 
thousand  spurs  on  them  without  being  able  to  make  a  single 
one  of  them  either  trot  or  canter.  They  suffer  themselves  to  be 
plundered  without  a  murmur !  Oh,  curses  on  these  our  barons ! 
And  what  do  they  intend  to  do?  There  is  not  one  among  them 
but  one  might  shear  and  shave  him  like  a  monk,  or  shoe  him, 
like  a  beast,  on  hand  and  foot,  without  the  use  of  trammels."  * 

The  pieces  from  which  these  fragments  are  extracted  have 
only  reference  to  the  private  quarrels  and  wars  of  Bertrand  de 
Born.  In  order  to  give  now  some  specimens  of  greater  histori- 
cal importance,  I  shall  select  them  from  the  pieces  which  he 
composed  on  the  feuds  between  Philip  Augustus  and  Richard 
Co3ur-de-Lion.  The  two  sovereigns  took  the  field  against  each 
other  in  the  year  1189,  and  their  armies  met  in  the  vicinity  of 
Niort,  where  they  were  only  separated  by  the  river  Jaure. 
They  remained  fifteen  days  in  the  presence  of  each  other, 
awaiting  the  moment  of  the  conflict,  and  thus  gave  the  ecclesi- 
astics of  both  parties  time  to  interpose  and  to  negotiate  a  truce. 
Thus  terminated,  without  a  blow,  a  campaign,  which  was  ex- 
pected to  become  a  bloody  and  a  decisive  <*ie. 

An  ancient  Provencal  commentator  of  Bertrand  de  Born 
makes  some  curious  reflections  on  the  consequences  of  this  un- 
expected peace.  "  The  peace  having  been  concluded,"  says  he, 
"  the  two  kings  became  avaricious,  and  were  no  longer  willing 
to  expend  anything  on  men-at-arms,  but  only  on  falcons  and 

*  Eaynouard,  vol.iv.  p.  147.    Piece  No.  V.    Strophe  1. 

Un  sirventes  fatz  dels  malvatz  barons,          Maldiga'ls  dieus  !  e  que  cuian  doncs  far 
E  jamais  d'els  no  m'auziretz.  parlar ;  Nostre  baron?  C'aissi  com  us  confraire 

Qu'en  lor  ai  fraiz  mais  de  mil  agnlions,         No  i  es  uns  no'l  poscatz  tondr'e  raire, 
Anc  non  puoic  far  un  correr  ni  trotar ;         0  ses  congrenz  dels  quatre  pea  ferar — Ed. 
Ans  se  laissen  sea  clam  deseretar. 


486 


History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 


hawks,  on  dogs  and  on  hare-hounds,  on  the  purchase  of  lands  and 
domains,  and  they  began  to  harass  their  barons  to  such  an  ex- 
tent, that  these  barons,  those  of  France  as  well  as  those  of  king 
Richard,  felt  aggrieved  and  discontented  with  this  peace,  dur- 
ing which  the  two  kings  had  become  so  parsimonious  and 
mean." 

In  this  state  of  affairs,  Bertrand  de  Born  wrote  a  piece,  of 
which  I  can  only  translate  the  first  two  stanzas,  the  rest  being 
too  full  of  allusions  which  would  require  long  explanations. 
But  these  two  stanzas  will  suffice  to  show  to  what  extent  the 
Troubadour  calculated  on  the  influence  of  his  warlike  instiga- 
tions. 

"  The  barons  being  dejected  and  incensed  at  the  peace,  which 
the  two  kings  have  made,  I  will  make  such  a  song,  that,  when 
it  shall  be  known  and  spread  abroad,  all  will  be  eager  to  re- 
commence the  war.  I  do  not  like  to  see  a  spoliated  king 
make  peace  before  he  has  reconquered  the  possession  of  his 
rights/* 

"  The  French  and  the  Burgundians  have  exchanged  honor 
for  shame.  Oh !  cowardice  on  the  part  of  a  king  in  arms,  to 
come  to  negotiate  and  plead  upon  the  battle-field  !  King  Philip 
would,  I  vow,  have  done  much  better  to  commence  the  fight, 
than  thus  to  litigate,  all  armed,  on  the  hard  ground." 

These  reproaches  of  the  Troubadour,  which  were  intended  for 
both  kings,  were  not  without  their  effect.  Philip  was  not 
moved  by  them ;  but  Richard  took  the  field  again,  attacking, 
taking,  burning  both  castles  and  cities  of  the  domain  of  France. 
Bertrand  de  Born,  who  wanted  to  set  the  two  kings  to  fighting 
at  any  hazard,  wrote  the  following  piece  for  the  purpose  of  rous- 
ing king  Philip  to  retaliate.  It  is  of  a  more  elevated  tone  than 
the  preceding,  and  being  moreover  very  short,  I  shall  venture 
to  translate  it  entire. 

"  I  must  compose  a  song  which  will  spread  rapidly,  since  the 
fire  is  already  kindled  and  blood  spilt  by  King  Kichard.  I  love 
the  war  which  renders  avaricious  seigniors  liberal ;  I  like  the 
kings,  when  they  are  menacing  and  proud ;  I  like  to  see  the 
construction  of  palisades  and  the  building  of  bridges.  I  like  to 
see  them  pitching  their  tents  throughout  the  fields,  and  cheva- 
liers in  clashing  conflict  by  hundreds  and  by  thousands,  so 

'Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  170.    Piece  No.  XV.    Strophes  1,  2. 


Pus  li  baron  son  irat  e  lor  peza 
D'aquesta  patz  qu'an  faita  li  day  rey, 
Farai  chanso  tal  que,  quant  e  apreza, 
A  quadaun  sera  tart  que  guerrey : 
E  no  m'es  bel  de  rey  qu'en  patz  estey 
Dezeretatz,  e  que  perda  son  drey, 
Tro'l  demanda  que  fai  aia  conqueza. 


Ben  an  camjat  honor  per  avoleza, 

Sezon  qu'aug  dir,  Berguonhon  e  Prancey ; 

A  rey  armat  ho  ten  horn  a  flaqueza, 

Quant  es  en  camp  e  vai  penre  plaidey ; 

E  fora  mielhs,  par  la  fe  qu'ieu  vos  dey, 

Al  rey  Felip  que  mogues  lo  desrey 

Que  plaideyar  armat  sobre  la  gleza — Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  487 

haughtily  that  men  will  sing  of  it  when  we  are  gone  —  they  who 
compose  chansons  on  martial  feats."  * 

"  I  ought  already  to  have  received  blows  on  my  shield  and 
to  have  dyed  my  white  ensign  in  vermilion  ;  to  my  sorrow  I 
am  constrained  to  stand  aloof,  and  to  wait  until  king  Richard 
will  treat  me  more  generously.  I  can  indeed,  my  helmet  on 
my  head,  my  shield  upon  my  shoulder,  combat  in  person  for 
those  I  love.  But  I  have  no  host  at  my  command,  no  treasures 
to  go  warring  at  a  distance." 

"  King  Philip  might  have  burnt  at  least  one  bark  before 
Gisors,  or  overturned  part  of  its  wall.  He  might  have  made 
the  attempt  to  take  Rouen,  and,  beleaguering  it  from  hill  and 
/valley,  to  Mem  it  in  so  closely,  that  no  messenger  could  have 
Centered  there,  except  a  carrier-pigeon;  one  would  have  seen 
(then  that  he  is  truly  of  the  race  of  Charles,  the  most  glorious  of 
his  ancestors,  who  conquered  Apulia  and  Saxony." 

"  War  can  bring  nothing  but  shame  and  dishonor  to  him  who 
conducts  himself  effeminately.  But  since  King  Richard  has 
already  achieved  such  noble  teats,  since  he  has  taken  Cahors 
and  Cairac,  let  him  be  careful  not  to  surrender  them.  Philip 
would  offer  him  all  his  treasures  as  a  ransom.  With  such  a 
heart  as  he  brings  to  the  war,  he'll  conquer.  Munificient  and 
contemptuous  of  repose,  they  all  will  submit  to  him,  both  ene- 
mies and  friends." 

I  do  not  venture  to  multiply  extracts,  which  can  neither  an- 
swer my  design  nor  satisfy  the  expectations  of  my  readers  ;  and 
abstracting  from  the  chronological  order  of  events,  I  pass  on  to 
the  satirical  sirventes  to  which  the  accession  of  Charles  of  Anjou 
to  the  sovereignty  of  Provence  gave  rise. 

Charles,  a  prince  of  a  firm,  but  of  a  harsh  and  despotic  cha- 
racter, introduced  into  Provence  manners,  ideas,  pretensions 
and  views,  which  were  diametrically  opposed  to  those  of  the 
men  of  the  country.  His  government  was  also  at  first  but  a 
violent  struggle  against  all  the  local  forces,  which  assumed  the 
attitude  of  an  abrupt  opposition  to  him,  but  which,  acting  in 
an  isolated  and  disconnected  manner,  were  destined  to  an  ine- 

f  Baynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  177.    Piece  No.  XIX.    Strophes  1  2,  3,  4. 

Non  estarai  mon  chantar  non  esparja,  E  ns  encontrem  a  milliers  e  a  cens, 

Pus  N  Oc  e  NON  a  mes  foe  e  trag  sane,          Si  qu'apres  nos  en  chant  horn  de  la  gesta. 


The  words  Oc  e  NON  are  literally  the  Provencal  for  the  French  out  et  non  and  the 
English  yes  and  no.  Here,  however,  and  in  many  of  his  other  pieces,  Bertrand  employs 
them  as  a  proper  name  in  disguise  for  Richard  Coeur-  de-Lion.  See  Raynouard,  vol.  ii. 
p.  213.—  .Erf. 


488  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

vitable  defeat.  This  struggle  is  but  feebly  indicated  in  history. 
The  poetry  of  the  Provencals,  however,  contains  monuments, 
which  give  us  a  much  livelier  idea  of  it,  and  which  besides  this 
merit,  are  also  possessed  of  that  of  an  ingenious  and  poetical 
execution.  Such  among  others  is  the  following  sirvente,  com- 
posed by  a  Troubadour  of  the  country,  by  the  name  of  Granet, 
6f  whom  however  the  Provencal  traditions  make  no  mention. 
The  piece  is  addressed  to  Charles  of  Anjou  himself,  in  the  form 
of  a  remonstrance,  and  it  portrays  with  considerable  clearness 
the  antagonism  at  that  time  existing  between  the  spirit  of 
the  Provencals  and  that  of  the  new  chief  of  the  country.  The 
satire  is  so  much  the  more  piquant,  as  it  is  indirect  and  a  set-off 
to  the  advice  which  is  naively  and  honestly  imparted. 

"  Count  Charles,"  says  the  poet,  "  I  wish  to  make  you  listen 
to  a  sirvente,  of  which  the  arguments  are  all  verities.  My  pro- 
fession is  to  praise  the  good,  to  reprehend,  as  they  deserve,  the 
wicked,  and  to  expose  the  iniquity  of  all  the  world.  It  is  your 
duty  to  defend  me  in  my  right ;  and  if  misfortune  should  result 
to  me  from  it,  it  would  be  your  part  to  see  that  justice  is 
done  me."  * 

"  1  will  sing  then,  since  this  is  my  profession,  and  I  will  begin 
to  sing  of  you.  You  are  descended  from  the  noblest  lineage  of 
the  world,  you  are  valiant,  and  you  would  be  accomplished  in 
everything,  if  you  were  but  liberal.  But  you  are  not  so.  You 
have  power  and  territory ;  you  are  fond  of  gallantry  and  joy ; 
you  are  talented,  of  prepossessing  manners  and  conversation,  so 
long  as  you  are  not  asked  for  anything." 

"  Learn,  seignior  count,  that  in  this  country  every  great  baron 
suffers  disgrace,  when  he  allows  himself  to  be  robbed  of  any- 
thing without  resentment.  The  dauphin  has  deprived  you  of 
your  domains.  Do  therefore  no  longer  seek  what  you've  already 
found.  Depart  with  all  your  army.  Take  lodgings  along  the 
rivers,  across  the  fields  and  meadows,  until  the  dauphin  has  given 
you  satisfaction,  or  you  have  paid  him  in  his  own  coin." 

,  "  You  seem  to  me  to  meditate  certain  war,  in  which  you  will 
have  great  need  of  chevaliers  and  squires.  If  you  wish,  there- 
fore, that  the  Provencals  should  serve  you  loyally,  protect  them 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  237.    Piece  No.  LH.    Strophes  1-5. 

(I)  Comte  Karle,  ie  us  vuelh  far  entenden  (5)  Ar  auran  luec  pro  cavalier  valen 

Un  sirventes  qu'es  de  vera  razos:  E  soudadier  ardit  e  coratjos, 

Mos  mestiers  es  qu'icu  dey  lauzar  los  Elmes  e  brans,  tendas  e  papallos 

pros,  Escutz,  ausbercx  e  bon  cavalh  corren, 

E  del  blasmar  los  croys  adreitamen ;  E  fortz  castelhs  desrocar  e  cazer, 

E  devetz  me  de  mon  dreitz  mantener,  E  gaug  e  plor  mesclat  ab  desconortz, 

Quar  mos  dreitz  es  que  dey  blasmar  los  En  batailla  cazen,  feren,  levan 

tortz :  E  vuelh  o  ben,  e  m  play,  sol  qu'ieu  no 
E  si  d'aisso  m'avenia  nulh  dan,  y  an. 

•  Vos  *per  aisso  en  devetz  far  deman.  — Ed. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  489 

against  the  violence  of  your  officers,  who  commit  many  unne- 
cessary cruelties.  They  resort  to  every  expedient  for  extorting 
money.  Besides,  all  our  barons  consider  themselves  as  lost. 
Those  to  whom  formerly  was  given,  are  now  despoiled,  nor  do 
they  dare  complain  of  it  to  you." 

"  Be  just,  and  you  shall  have  a  host  of  knights,  of  warriors 
courageous  of  adventure  and  of  daring  prowess ;  you  shall  have 
helmets  and  swords,  pavilions  and  tents,  shields,  hauberks  and 
fleet  chargers.  Then  you  can  battle,  and  demolish  forts  and 
castles ;  then  you  will  see  fine  frays,  where  some  will  groan  and 
others  shout,  where  falling,  rising,  striking,  every  one  will  do 
his  best.  All  this  will  be  delightful ;  with  all  this  1  am  pleased, 
so  long  as  I  am  out  of  it." 

This  piece  of  Granet  contains  but  a  sort  of  presentiment  of 
the  misfortunes  and  the  vexations  which  were  awaiting  the 
Provence  under  the  dominion  of  Charles  of  Anjou.  The  com- 
plete expression  of  the  hatred  of  the  Provencals  for  this  domin- 
ion must  be  looked  for  in  other  poets.  Boniface  de  Castellane, 
one  of  the  inferior  nobles,  and  one  of  the  Troubadours  of  the 
country,  has  made  this  the  theme  of  several  sirventes,  which,  if 
they  are  not  the  most  elegant  and  the  most  poetical,  are  at  any 
rate  the  most  violent  and  the  most  impassioned.  The  follow- 
ing are  a  few  characteristic  passages  from  one  of  them,  where 
the  poet  expresses  nearly  as  much  indignation  at  the  patience 
of  the  Provencals,  as  he  does  at  the  oppressive  conduct  of  the 
French : 

"Though  the  season  be  not  gay,  I  still  intend  to  make  a 
sirvente  of  sharp  words,  against  the  recreant  and  the  perverse. 
The  French  leave  neither  shirt  nor  breeches  to  these  impov- 
erished, sorrowful  Provencals,  to  this  craven  and  degenerate 
race  of  men."  * 

"  Some  they  Meprive  of  lands  without  any  compensation. 
Others,  the  knights  and  squires,  are  sent  as  prisoners  to  the 
tower  of  Blaie,  where  they  were  wont  to  send  the  vilest  bandits ; 
and  if  they  die  there,  so  much  the  better  for  the  French,  who 
take  possession  of  their  property." 

"  Cowards  and  traitors  have  abandoned  me  with  all  their 
false  adherents.  But  I'm  not  grieved  at  it ;  I  shall  not  be  the 
weaker  for  it.  I  shall  maintain  myself  within  my  fortress  with 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  v.  page  109. 

(1)  Un  sirventes  farai  ab  digz  cozens  E  non  o  plane,  qu'ieu  non  valray  ja 
E  cui  diray  contra  totz  recrezens  mens ; 

Als  Proensals  paubres  e  cossiroa  E  attendrai,  qu'enquer  ai  fortz  maizos 

Que  non  lur  laysson  braya  Et  ai  ma  gent  veraya, 

Esti  Frances  a  1'avol  gen  savaya.  .  .  .         E'ls  trahidors  van  s  en,  dieus  los  des- 

*****  chaya 

(3)De  trahidors,  de  fals  e  de  glotos  Etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

Si  son  partitz  de  mi  ab  lurs  fals  gens,  — Ed. 


490  History  of  Provencal  Poebry. 

my  gallant  companions ;  and  it  matters  little  that  the  count  is 
coming  against  me  with  his  great  forces." 

"  Whoever  kills  shall  die.  Thus  says  the  Gospel.  The  day 
will  therefore  come,  when  the  count  will  suffer  for  what  he  now 
inflicts  on  others." 

"  Let  them  then  come  to  make  war  on  me,  and  I  shall  send 
them  back  doleful  and  sorry.  I'll  bathe  my  sword  in  their 
blood,  and  I  shall  wear  my  lance  into  a  stump  upon  them." 

We  perceive  from  these  fragments,  as  we  also  know  from 
history,  that  Boniface  de  Castellane  attempted  to  resist  the 
aggressions  of  the  count  of  Anjou.  The  latter  besieged  his 
castle,  captured  him,  and  had  him  suspended  from  the  gibbet. 
This  was  a  fine  subject  for  some  other  Troubadour  to  make 
another  sirvente  on ! 

It  only  remains  now  to  speak  of  the  satires  of  the  Troubadours 
relative  to  the  wars  against  the  Albigenses.  It  will  not  be  ex- 
pected that  I  should  indulge  in  any  direct  considerations  on 
this  war.  This  is  a  subject  of  such  serious  interest,  that  it  is 
better  not  to  touch  it  at  all,  than  to  rest  content  with  a  mere 
superficial  treatment  of  it.  Nevertheless,  this  history  is  by 
so  many  sides  and  so  closely  connected  with  that  of  the  litera- 
ture and  the  civilization  of  the  south  of  France,  that,  however 
limited  may  be  the  space  left  me,  I  still  believe  it  to  be  my 
duty  to  devote  a  part  of  it  to  a  rapid  indication  of  the  general 
connection  between  these  two  histories,  or,  as  we  might  call 
them,  these  two  parts  of  the  same  history. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  immediate  and  principal  cause 
;  of  the  crusade  against  the  Albigenses  was  of  a  religious  nature. 
A  great  heresy  had  invaded  the  South ;  it  became  more  and 
more  formidable  to  Catholicism.  It  was  impossible  for  the 
latter  not  to  use  all  the  means  then  in  its  power  to  suppress  it, 
and  unhappily  these  means  were  means  of  material  force,  of 
armies  and  of  crusades ;  it  was  war  with  all  its  hazards  and  all 
its  scourges.  But  it  is  no  less  certain,  that  this  heresy  and  this 
war  were  singularly  aggravated  by  antecedents  and  by  inci- 
dents which  were  altogether  of  a  local  character. 

This  great  catastrophe  was,  in  several  respects,  nothing  more 
than  a  crisis  of  the  ancient  struggle  between  the  feudal  order  and 
the  clergy.  Now,  in  this  struggle,  the  Troubadours,  who  were 
likewise  one  of  the  powers  of  society,  must  of  necessity  have  taken 
the  part  of  feudalism — in  other  words,  of  chivalry,  of  knightly 
gallantry,  of  all  the  themes  of  the  poetry  of  their  age.  By  re- 
fusing to  embrace  the  cause  of  the  political  chiefs  against  the 
clergy,  they  might  be  said  to  have  denied  their  own  origin  and 
to  have  abjured  their  destination.  Such  an  inconsistency  they 
were  very  careful  to  guard  against ;  the  ardor  and  the  unani- 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  491 

mity  with  which  the  Provencal  poets  strove  to  stigmatize  the 
ecclesiastical  power,  by  the  order  and  in  the  interest  of  which 
this  war  was  carried  on,  constitute  in  fact  one  of  the  most  no- 
table of  the  phenomena  of  the  war  of  the  Albigenses.  There  is 
to  my  knowledge  but  one  single  Troubadour,  mentioned  in  the 
Provencal  traditions  as  having  sided  with  the  crusaders  on  this 
occasion;  and  this  exception  deserves  attention  as  a  solemn 
confirmation  of  the  fact  to  which  it  relates.  The  Troubadour 
in  question  was  neither  deficient  in  talent  nor  in  fame.  His 
name  was  Perdigon,  and  he  was  born  at  Lesperon,  a  small 
borough  of  Gevaudan,  and  consequently  subject  to  the  count  of 
Toulouse.  The  son  of  a  poor  fisherman  by  birth,  he  had,  by  a 
succession  of  good  adventures,  attained  to  the  honors  of  knight- 
hood ;  and  he  figured  for  a  long  time  with  distinction  at  the 
court  of  the  dauphin  of  Auvergne,  who  had  loaded  him  with 
riches. 

He  was  probably  in  Provence  or  on  the  banks  of  the  Ehone 
in  1208,  the  epoch  at  which  the  famous  intrigue  against  the 
count  of  Toulouse,  Raymond  VI.,  began  to  be  concerted, 
which  may  be  considered  as  the  first  act  of  the  war  against  the 
Albigenses.  A  deputation  went  to  Rome  for  the  purpose  of 
denouncing  the  count  and  the  heretics  to  the  pope,  and  obtained 
permission  to  preach  a  crusade  against  them.  This  deputation 
consisted  of  William  de  Baux,  prince  of  Orange  (who  was  at 
the  head  of  it),  of  Folquet  de  Marseille  who  had  exchanged  the 
lyre  of  the  Troubadour  for  the  mitre  of  Toulouse,  and  of  the 
abbe  of  Citeaux,  every  one  of  them  a  personal  enemy  to  Ray- 
mond VI.  Perdigon  was  attached  to  the  embassy  and  distin- 
guished himself  by  the  virulence  of  his  zeal  against  his  liege- 
lord  and  against  the  heretics.  After  his  return  to  the  banks  of 
the  Rhone,  he  .composed  a  poem,  in  which  he  preached  the 
crusade  which  had  just  been  resolved  upon,  and  assuming  him- 
self the  cross,  he  assisted  first  at  the  capture  and  the  massacre  of 
Beziers  and  afterward  at  the  battle  of  Muret. 
"Tang  Pierre  of  Aragon,  who  was  InTTeoT"  in  this  battle,  had 
been  one  of  the  patrons  and  benefactors  of  Perdigon.  From 
this  moment,  the  Troubadour,  who  had  already  become  odious 
by  reason  of  all  that  he  had  done  for  the  promotion  of  the  cru- 
sade, became  the  object  of  general  execration  and  his  life  was 
henceforward  but  a  succession  of  bitter  experiences.  He  lost,  in 
a  short  time,  one  after  the  other  all  of  his  new  protectors  to 
whom  he  had  sacrificed  his  old  ones,  William  de  Baux,  the  count 
of  Montfort  and  the  other  leaders  of  the  crusade.  The  dauphin 
of  Auvergne  deprived  him  of  the  lands  which  he  had  given  him. 
He  no  longer  dared  to  make  his  appearance  at  any  court  or  in 


4:92  History  of  Provencal  Potfoy. 

any  fashionable  society ;  he  ceased  to  make  verses,  which  no 
one  would  have  been  willing  to  sing,  had  they  been  known 
to  be  by  him.  Proscribed,  dishonored,  dying  from  starvation, 
he  had  no  other  means  left  to  escape  the  horror  which  his 
presence  inspired,  than  to  retire  to  some  monastery  in  some 
secluded  spot,  and  this  even  was  not  easily  accomplished.  He 
was  forced  to  have  recourse  to  the  compassion  of  a  Provencal 
seignior,  of  Lambert  de  Monteil  the  son-in-law  of  William  de 
Baux,  who  procured  him  admission  into  Silvabela,  an  abbey 
of  the  order  of  Citeaux,  There  he  died,  we  know  not  at  what 
precise  time,  without  "having  obtained  the  forgiveness  or  re- 
covered the  good  will  of  any  one.  This  melancholy  end  of  the 
only  Troubadour,  who  had  imbrued  his  hands  in  the  blood  of 
the  crusade  against  the  South,  will  enable  us  better  than  any- 
thing else  to  understand,  to  what  extent  all  the  rest  were 
opposed  to  this  expedition,  which  for  having  been  atrocious  and 
sanguinary  was  none  the  less  chimerical  and  disgraceful. 

The  pieces  which  the  Troubadours  composed  expressly  on  this 
subject,  and  the  incidental  allusions  which  they  make  to  it  in 
their  other  pieces  are  very  numerous,  and  nearly  all  of  them 
directed  against  the  clergy,  to  whom  the  disasters  of  the  South 
were  generally  imputed.  The  French  are  likewise  handled 
with  a  good  deal  of  animosity ;  and  this  was  neither  to  be 
wondered  at  nor  was  it  an  injustice,  since  they  were  the  men 
who  composed  the  nucleus  and  who  furnished  the  general  of 
the  crusade.  But  it  must  be  admitted,  that  the  poetical  merit 
of  these  pieces  does  not  correspond  with  the  energy  of  sentiment 
which  dictated  them.  It  seems  even,  that  this  energy,  interested 
and  impassioned  as  it  was,  was  a  particular  obstacle  in  the  way 
of  art,  and  one  which  was  destined  to  modify  its  object  and 
effect.  Against  events  and  against  men,  which  inspired  the 
highest  degree  of  hatred  and  indignation,  every  complaint, 
every  censure,  every  clamor  was  good,  of  itself  alone  and  inde- 
pendently of  the  talent  of  its  author.  Thus  violence  too  easily 
usurped  the  place  of  beauty. 

Among  the  multitude  of  pieces,  composed  with  reference  to 
these  melancholy  events,  there  are  but  few,  if  we  except  those 
by  Pierre  Cardinal,  which  are  yet  pervaded  by  a  certain  free- 
dom of  imagination,  by  a  certain  elegance  of  execution  ;  and 
it  is  from  these,  that  1  shall  borrow  a  few  passages,  for  the 
purpose  of  giving  some  idea  of  the  species  of  poetic  action  and 
reaction,  which  took  place  in  the  countries  of  the  Provencal 
tongue  against  the  furious  excesses  of  the  crusade.  The  follow- 
ing extract  from  a  sirvente  relative  to  this  subject  contains  some 
very  remarkable  traits  in  illustration  of  it. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Trouladours.  493 

"  Who  wants  to  hear  a  sirvente  woven  of  grief,  embroidered 
with  anger  ?  He  has  only  to  ask  me  for  it  ;  I  have  already 
spun  it,  and  I  shall  know  how  to  warp  and  weave  it  well.  I 
can  distinguish  the  good  from  evil  ;  I  love  the  good  and  the 
valiant,  and  I  abhor  the  treacherous  and  the  perverse."* 

"  I  keep  myself  aloof  from  those  perfidious  clerks,  who  have 
amassed  for  their  own  benefit  the  haughtiness,  the  frauds  and 
the  cupidity  of  all  the  world.  They  have  created  a  monopoly 
of  treason,  and  by  dint  of  their  indulgences  they  have  extorted 
from  us  what  little  had  been  left  us.  And  what  they  once 
have  got  possession  of,  they  guard  with  jealousy.  Nor  God  nor 
man  can  see  anything  more  of  it." 

"  Dream  not  of  being  able  to  correct  them  :  the  higher 
is  the  rank  they  hold,  the  less  their  faith  and  the  greater 
their  fraud,  the  fainter  their  love,  the  more  flagrant  their 
cruelty." 

"  Well  might  we  bury  all  the  chevaliers,  so  that  there  would 
be  no  more  talk  of  them.  Henceforth  they  will  be  so  much 
detested,  that  their  life  will  be  worse  than  death  to  them.  They 
suffer  themselves  to  be  trampled  on  by  the  priests,  to  be  plun- 
dered by  the  kings,  and  at  the  rate  they  now  proceed  with 
them,  they  cannot  have  much  longer  to  endure." 

"  By  pillaging  the  churches,  and  by  invading  all  the  rest,  by 
lying  and  deceiving,  the  godless  clerks  have  become  the  masters 
of  the  world  and  trodden  under  foot  those  who  should  govern 
them.  Charles  Martel  understood  the  way  to  curb  them  ;  but 
they  now  see  that  the  kings  of  our  day  are  stupid  kings.  They 
let  .them  do  whatever  they  desire,  they  suffer  them  to  honor 
whatsoever  should  be  branded  with  disgrace." 

The  following  piece  gives  us  a  somewhat  more  general  and 
more  complete  idea  of  the  condition  of  the  South  at  an  epoch 
when  the  results  of  the  crusade  were  as  yet  undetermined, 
thanks  to  the  activity  and  the  energy  with  which  Kaymond 
VII.  had  striven  to  restore  what  had  been  lost  by  the  weaknesses 
and  the  impolitic  conduct  of  his  father : 

"  Iniquity  and  perfidy  have  declared  war  against  truth  and 
integrity,  and  have  already  been  victorious.  Avarice  and 
treason  conspire  against  munificence  and  loyalty.  Cruelty 

*  Lexique  Roman,  vol.  i.  p.  446.    This  piece  is  by  Pierre  Cardinal. 

Qui  volra  sirventes  auzir,  Dels  deslials  clergues  me  mir 

Tescut  d'enueitz,  d'antas  mesclat,  Que  an  tot  1'erguelh  amassat 

A  mi'l  deman,  qu'ieu  1'ai  filat,  E  1'engan  e  la  cobeitat, 

E  sai  lo  teisser  et  ordir ;  Que  horn  mais  elhs  no  sap  trahir  ; 

E  sai  be  los  savais  chauzir,  E  fan  soven  perdos  venir, 

E  conoisser  lor  malvestat ;  Per  aver  so  que  ns  es  restat, 

E  plazo  mi'l  pro  e'lh  prezat,  Et  aquo  lor  es  ben  gardat, 

E'ls  fals  e'ls  messongiers  azir.  Que  horn  ni  Dieus  non  pot  jauzir,  etc.,  etc. 

— Ed. 


494  History  of  Provencal  Poetry. 

triumphs  over  love  and  baseness  over  honor.    Crime  is  in  pursuit 
of  sanctity,  and  artifice  of  innocence."* 

"  Is  there  a  man  who  denies  God,  and  whose  only  care  is  his 
own  belly  ?  He  is  the  one  that  prospers.  "Whoever  loves 
justice  and  feels  indignant  at  the  workings  of  iniquity,  will 
often  be  maltreated.  Whoever  has  undertaken  to  lead  a  holy 
life,  will  be  sorely  persecuted.  But  every  deceiver  will  suc- 
ceed in  his  designs. 

"  It's  but  a  little  while,  since  many  a  new  usage  has  come  to 
us  from  France: — to  honor  none  but  those,  who  have  an 
abundance  of  good  eatables  and  drinkables,  and  to  despise  all 
those,  who  may  be  poor,  though  courteous — to  be  rich  and  pow- 
erful and  to  give  nothing — to  make  a  magistrate  of  a  dealer  in 
trumpery — to  elevate  traitors  and  to  humiliate  the  good." 

"The  priests  claim  our  obedience;  they  exact  faith,  but  on' 
condition  that  no  good  work  shall  be  comprised  in  it.  Be  not 
solicitous  to  watch  the  moments,  when  they  sin ;  they  do  it 
every  day  and  every  night.  Beyond  this,  thev  do  not  hate  any 
one ;  they  commit  no  simony  ;  they  love  to  give  and  they  take 
nothing  but  what  is  just." 

"  Count  Raymond,  duke  of  Narbonne,  marquis  of  Provence, 
your  gallantry  has  now  reached  such  an  eminence,  that  it 
embellishes  the  world.  Were  it  not  for  you,  a  false  and 
felonious  race  would  insolently  rule  from  the  sea  of  Bayonne 
to  Valencia.  It  is  you  that  commands  and  governs  with  no 
more  fear  of  this  inebriate  set  of  Frenchmen  than  a  hawk  has 
of  a  partridge." 

I  will  cite  one  more  passage  from  another  sirvente,  in  which 

the  ambition  of  the  clergy  is  the  special  object  of  attack. 

}      "  I  see  the  priests  working  with  migjht  and  main  to  get 

/  possession  of  the  world  ;  and  they  will  gain  possession  of  it,  no 

•-  matter  who  may  fare  the  worse  for  it.     They  11  have  it  (in  some 

wav  or  another),  be  it  by  dint  of  taking  or  by  dint  of  giving,  by 

their  indulgences  or  their  hypocrisies,  by  force  of  absolutions  or 

by  force  of  eating  and  of  drinking,  by  preaching  or  by  issuing 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  iv.  p.  338.    Piece  No.  XXXVI.  (entire). 

(1)  Falsedatz  e  desmezura  (3)  Aras  es  vengut  de  Fransa 

An  batalha  empreza  Que  horn  non  somona 

Ab  vertat  et  ab  dreytura,  Mas  selhs  que  an  aondansa 

E  vens  la  false/a  ;  De  vin  e  d'anona, 

£  deslialtatz  si  jura  E  qu'om  non  aia  coindansa 

Contra  Ijaleza  ;  Ab  paubra  persona, 

Et  avaretatz  s'atura  E  aia  mais  de  bobansa 

Encontra  largueza  :  Aquelh  que  meyns  dona, 

Feunia  vena  amor  E  qu'om  fassa  maior 

E  malvestatz  honor,  D'un  gran  trafeguador, 

E  peccatz  cassa  sanctor  E  qu'om  leve  la  trachor, 

E  baratz  simpleza.  E'ljustdezapona  .  .  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 


The  Lyrical  Poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  495 

prayers,  through  the  agency  of  God  or  through  the  agency  of 
the  devil."* 

In  the  same  poem,  from  which  I  have  derived  this  fragment, 
I  find  the  following  striking  verse,  likewise  directed  against  the 
priests : 

"  That  which  they  dare  to  do,  I  should  not  dare  to  utter."f 

The  exposition  of  ,the  full  import  of  this  sally  in  all  its  bear- 
ings and  to  the  whole  of  its  extent  would  make  it  necessarv  for 
me  to  adduce  certain  pieces  of  Pierre  Cardinal,  in  which  he 
vents  his  contempt  and  hatred  toward  the  clergy  with  still 
greater  freedom  than  is  done  in  the  preceding  verses.  The 
reader  would  then  be  as  much  embarrassed  as  I  am  to  con- 
ceive of  anything  he  might  have  said  in  addition.  But  if  he 
really  knew  things  about  the  priests  which  he  did  not  venture 
to  utter,  it  is  nevertheless  certain,  that  he,  as  well  as  many 
another  poet,  wrote  about  them,  and  there  is  more  than  one 
passage  of  the  kind  which  I  do  not  venture  to  translate. 

I  conclude  here  the  survey  which  I  intended  to  make  of  the 
principal  kinds  of  lyric  poetry  among  the  Provencals,  and  my 
course  of  this  year.  Space  was  wanting  to  me  to  render  this 
course  as  complete,  as  I  could  have  wished  it.  I  was  obliged 
to  glide  somewhat  rapidly  over  several  points  of  my  subject 
which  would  have  required  more  extended  developments ; 
there  are  others,  at  which  I  had  not  even  time  to  arrive  and 
concerning  which  it  is  now  necessary  for  me  to  make  a  few 
explanations. 

I  have  not  spoken  of  the  technical  part  of  Provencal  poetry, 
of  what  might  properly  be  termed  the  poetics  of  the  Trouba- 
dours.    But  this  is  not  a  matter  of  any  very  grave  importance 
except  in  regard  to  one  point,  on  which  depend  several  ques- 
tions of  more  or  less  general  interest.     This  point  has  reference 
the  syllabic  rhyme  and  accent,  considered  as  the  principles 
)f  metre  in  modern  poetry.     The  Provencal  verse  was  un- 
loubtedly  not  the  type,  after  which  the  different  nations  of 
Europe  constructed  their  own,  and  it  is  precisely  on  this  ac- 
cWnt  that  it  would  be  desirable  to  have  some  definite  informa- 
tion concerning  the  origin  of  this  Provencal  verse,  and  concerning 
its  relation  to  those  which  might  have  served  as  its  model.  The 

*  Raynouard,  vol.  ir.  p.  337.    Piece  No.  XXXV.    Strophe  4. 

Ab  totas  mas  vey  clergues  assajar 

Que  totz  lo  nums  er  lurs,  cuy  que  nial  sia  ; 

Quar  els  1'auran  ab  tolre  o  ab  dar, 

O  ab  perdon,  o  ab  ypocrizia, 

O  ab  asout,  o  ab  beur',  o  ab  manjar, 

O  ab  prezicx,  o  ab  peiras  lansar, 

0  els  ab  dieu,  o  els  ab  diablia.— Ed. 
t  Non  aus  dire  so  qu'elhs  auzon  far. — Ed. 


4:96  History  of  Provengal  Poetry. 

question  is  a  new  one  still,  in  spite  of  the  many  researches  and 
attempts  that  have  been  made  to  solve  it. 

The  organization  of  the  Troubadours  and  Jongleurs  into  a 
poetic  corporation  constitutes  another  question,  still  more  novel 
than  the  preceding  and  of  greater  importance.  There  is  always 
to  be  observed  an  intimate  and  curious  connection  between 
any  system  of  poetry  and  the  material  means  by  which  this 
poetry  attains  its  end,  and  by  which  it  operates  upon  the  society 
to  which  it  is  addressed.  Now  the  connection  in  question  is  a 
very  remarkable  one  in  the  Provencal  system,  and  the  organi- 
zation of  the  different  poetical  orders  or  professions  which  this 
system  implies,  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  facts  of  the  kind. 
Nowhere  do  we  find  anything  to  compare  with'  it,  except  among 
the  ancient  Greeks  and  among  the  Arabs.  This  is  a  fact  to 
which  I  had  intended  to  invite  attention,  while  concentrating 
the  whole  of  mine  on  its  exposition. 

I  had,  finally,  also  thought  of  a  comparison  or  summary 
parallel  between  the  lyric  poetry  of  the  Troubadours  and  that 
the  Trouveres  of  the  north  of  France.  In  drawing  the  parallel 
I  wished  to  prove,  that  the  latter,  both  in  respect  to  its  form 
and  to  its  matter,  was  nothing  more  than  a  direct  imitation,  a 
sort  of  counterfeit  copy  of  the  former.  I  proposed  to  show, 
that  the  language  of  the  Trouveres  also  was  but  a  slight  modi- 
fication of  that  of  the  Troubadours,  without  which  it  never 
would  have  become  what  it  was. 

These  points  appeared  to  me  to  be  sufficiently  interesting,  to 
prevent  me  from  abandoning  too  readily  the  hope  of  resuming 
them  for  a  few  moments  hereafter.  Their  discussion  will  be  as 
much  in  place  after  I  shall  have  said  what  I  propose  to  say  con- 
cerning the  epopee  of  the  Troubadours,  as  it  would  have  been 
here  at  the  close  of  my  remarks  on  their  lyrical  poetry. 

However  that  may  be,  the  history  of  the  Provencal  epopee 
in  its  connection  with  that  of  the  Middle  Age  in  general  will 
be  the  theme,  with  which  it  is  my  purpose  to  continue  the 
subject  of  this  course  of  lectures.  I  have  not  endeavored  to 
conceal  the  peculiar  importance  I  attach  to  this  branch  of  mv 
subject.  I  have  alluded  to  it  more  than  once,  and  always  with 
so  much  earnestness,  as  to  excite  the  attention  and  the  curiosity 
of  the  reader ;  and  in  doing  so  I  have  imposed  upon  myself  an 
additional  obligation  to  treat  it  with  all  the  diligence  and  care 
which  it  deserves. 


THE  END. 


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