The troubadours

When about the end of the fourth century (A.D.) Germanic and Asiatic hordes began to invade the Western Empire with more and more irresistible force, the refined voice of Roman...

The north of France was the birth country and chief seat of epic poetry in the Middle Ages. The _chanson de geste_, the _roman_, the _fabliau_ frequently bear witness of a consu...

The remains of the artistic epic, although scanty, are more numerous than those of popular origin. They were held in greater estimation, and therefore naturally had a better cha...

‘Flamenca’ is unequalled in mediæval literature for natural eloquence of diction and psychological subtlety; in the _langue d’oc_, more especially, there is nothing worthy of be...

Here the brief summary of the non-lyrical literature in the Provençal language comes to a close. In a work mainly devoted to the poetry of the Troubadours I have not thought it...

‘O brother,’ cried he, pointing with his hand, ‘This spirit whom I show far better knew To weld the language of his native land. In lays of love and in romances too He bore the...

Sufficient has been said in the preceding pages to show the superiority of lyrical over epic poetry in Provence. This inequality of the two branches implied a commensurate diffe...

The name ‘Troubadour,’ we have seen, is synonymous with our ‘lyrical poet.’ His office was, strictly speaking, limited to the writing, or at least producing, of songs. But for t...

The Troubadours, it has been said more than once, were court poets, their songs a court literature, taking its theme from, and reciprocally appealing to, the upper classes of so...

Songs of the morning and evening—_alba_ and _serena_—are amongst the most characteristic embodiments of Provençal poetry. To us these words come through the medium of northern F...

The _balada_ is not to be mistaken for the ballad of modern parlance. It is, as its etymology indicates, a song serving to accompany the dance. This destination proves at once i...

In the forms of lyrical verse hitherto considered by us we were able to trace some popular germs, considerably modified and highly developed though they might appear. But any su...

My division hitherto has been made chiefly with regard to form. Such poetic creations as the _pastoreta_ or the _balada_ are, it is true, to some extent recognisable by the subj...

The formal principle on which the division in the earlier chapters has been made must henceforth be abandoned entirely. The two great classes of poetry to which we now must turn...

With the _canzo_ we have at last reached the climax and innermost essence of the poetry of the troubadours. I have in the above called the idea of the troubadour as exclusively...

Petrarch, in the fourth chapter of his ‘Trionfo d’Amore,’ in speaking of the love-poets of various nations, mentions the name of ‘William, who, by his song, shortened the flower...

Peire Vidal is one of the most versatile and many-sided amongst the troubadours. His character is a psychological riddle. High gifts and wildest eccentricities are strangely mix...

Bertran de Born is a perfect type of the warlike baron of the middle ages, continually fighting with his neighbours or with his own vassals, and treating the villeins and clowns...

How this great influence over the young King was acquired the old manuscripts do not tell us. The first time we hear of Bertran in history is in connection with the quarrels bet...

The manuscripts tell a curious story with regard to this treachery. The reader will remember that at the beginning of the war Henry had entered into a league with the King of Ar...

Of the life of the Monk of Montaudon the old manuscripts tell us little. We are ignorant even of his name, and only know that he was descended from a noble family residing at Ca...

The great struggle for religious liberty, which began with Huss and Wycliffe, culminated in the age of Luther, Calvin, and Cranmer, and continues to pervade modern thought and f...

that is—‘No man on earth, how great a lord he may be, can drive me from my land but for the Church.’ These lines are taken from a narrative of the crusade against the Albigenses...

The question remains to be asked,—which side did the troubadours take in this struggle? Did they prove themselves to be men of mettle in a contest in which their own literary ex...

Against Folquet of Marseilles scores of troubadours might be named, who boldly espoused the cause of their country and of liberty against Frenchmen and priests. The opposition t...

In a poetry so thoroughly imbued with one prevailing passion as is that of the troubadours, and in the civilisation of which this poetry is the utterance, woman naturally occupi...

The only lady-troubadour of whose poems we possess a sufficient number to allow of a fair judgment of her capability is the Countess Beatrice de Die. She may also serve to illus...

There is yet one other important character in which I should wish to introduce the lady of Provence to the gentle reader. It has already been pointed out that to her influence t...

The foundation of poetry, that is of the expression of human feelings in verse, is rhythm. According to Aristoxenus, the greatest metrical scholar of Greece, rhythm is the divis...

In no other language of Western Europe has the artistic development of poetical forms ever reached so high a degree of perfection as that to which it was raised by the troubadou...

The immense number of rhyming words in the Provençal language has been already referred to. Of the fifty-four forms of the verb of the first conjugation, only nine have the acce...

We now come to the third division of the subject—the formation of the stanza. The consideration of metre and rhyme has shown the skill of the troubadours, but also the danger in...

Li douz cossire The sweet thoughts Qem don amors soven, Which to me gives love often, Domnam fan dire Lady, me make say De vos maint vers plazen; Of you many a poem pleasant; Pe...