This artifice occurs in Provençal, as, indeed, in most poetry pretty advanced on the formal side, and was employed either as an aid to memory or as an ornament pure and simple. It is in technical points that this writer displays his skill, and he half succeeds in elevating popular verse into a fine art. Minot is something of a court-minstrel, something of a balladsinger, but he was not strong enough to do what Chaucer might have done in his place-transfigure this combination in the role of a great national poet.1

1 The Poems of Laurence Minot. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by Joseph Hall, M.A. Oxford, The Clarendon Press. See also, Thomas Wright, Political Poems and Songs relating to English History. London, 1859.

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CHAPTER II.

TOWN-VERSE AND FOLK-SONG.

DECLINE OF THE TROUBADOUR ART-THE 'LEYS D'AMORS'-LEGEND OF CLEMENCE ISAURE-OLD PORTUGUESE POETRY-CATALONIAN VERSE -GERMAN LOVE OF SONG-THE MEISTERSINGERS-VOLKSLIEDERMINNESINGERS IN LEGEND-REIMSPRECHER-THE LOW COUNTRIESENGLISH MINSTRELS-WELSH BARDS-ROBIN HOOD-SCOTTISH BALLADS-NORTH FRENCH 'PUIS '-ITALY.

What "bourgeois Litera

ture" means.

IT has been said that the decline of court-poetry and the growth of middle-class culture are to be regarded, not as independent phenomena, but as, on the whole, the same thing contemplated from different points of view. Much of the literature already reviewed is unmistakably bourgeois. What makes it bourgeois is not so much that its professors were men of humble station or plebeian origin -that is a detail, in itself of no great importance— but the triumph of matter over manner. The Germans have a convenient phrase for expressing this traitI do not know that we have any quite so apt-stoffinteresse. Regarding the tone of the new verse (and the remark applies to both lyrical and narrative com

positions) there is revealed a growing strictness, the working of a Puritanical spirit. The citizen was appreciably more serious than the knight, being not so much a social animal delighting in feast and song as a man of commerce to whom honesty was a thing of weight, and the father of a family responsible for its decent bringing-up. Possibly also a substantial householder-it was to such that the "masters" did most commonly resort-accustomed to impose his ideas on a circle of admirers and hangers-on. Morality, love of home, power of the purse-out of these three factors was evolved the awful notion of respectability, always and everywhere the middle-class fetich.

Fate of the

Let us turn in the first place to the smooth and polished art associated primarily with Provence. At the very outset we are confronted by a langue d'oc. startling discovery. "Great Pan is dead!" Diez' Poesie der Troubadours, still perhaps the best introduction to the subject, closes with the year 1300, while the last of the Troubadours in general repute was Giraut Riquier, who flourished 1234-1292. The wonder is that the literature had lasted so long. Nearly a century before, the house of Anjou and the Pope had entered into an unholy alliance for the extirpation of the langue d'oc, tainted by the heresy of the Albigeois. The result was an exodus of the poets to foreign lands. The barons fared just as ill. Like the English nobility in the Wars of the Roses, they were engulfed in the national disasters-in other words, slain or disseized. The old order became a thing of the past.

So far as Provence itself is concerned, interest centres almost exclusively in the "sobregaya comThe Over-gay panhia dels VII. trobadors de Tholoza." Company. We have now reached the stage of meistergesang, or co-operative authorship, and the efforts made to prolong the term of Troubadour verse issued in a night of lunar academic poetry. The form remained; the glory had departed. In the year 1323 seven of the principal inhabitants of Toulouse conceived the idea of a circular invitation bidding the poets in Languedoc to a contest on May-day 1324. The competition took place, and Arnaut Vidal de Castelnaudary (author of Guilhem de la Barra) won the prize-a violet of pure gold - for a hymn in honour of Mary. It was decided to repeat the event, and a constitution was drawn up, which included a chancellor and seven stewards (mantenedors), and could even boast of bedels. These expressions suggest, what was indeed the case, that the consistory was formed on the model of the universities. It conferred the degrees of bachelor and doctor "of the science of gay knowledge," and the laureate who had thrice gained the prize was entitled to rank as troubadour. The first prize, a golden violet, was given to the best canso or descort. The second prize, a silver eglantine, rewarded the best sirventes, pastorella, or hymns in honour of the Virgin. And the third prize, a silver marigold, was conferred on the best balada and dansa, and the less meritorious examples of the former classes.

The term "science" correctly defines the poetry as

The Leys d'Amors.

an artificial product demanding no special inspiration, as an affair of rhyme and rhythm. But 'gay science" is a misnomer. True to its bourgeois inception, the consistory encouraged, in the compositions submitted to it, a religious tone. The poets were to sing for the glory of God, and instead of earthly maiden were to eulogise Our Lady. And yet, in one sense, the adjective may be deemed in place, inasmuch as the assemblies formed part of the recreation of the people. In 1355 the society commissioned its chancellor, Guilhem Molinier, to draw up the rules of poetical composition, and this was the origin of the Leys d'Amors. In the metrical section the treatise enumerates, distinguishes, and illustrates all the ancient sorts of poetry, with the exception of the tensos, which had apparently fallen into disuse; and no doubt it exercised considerable influence on the later French, Spanish, and Portuguese technique, at the time of the Renaissance. On the other hand, the Leys themselves were indebted to Uc Faidit's Donatz Proensals and the Rasos de Trobar of Raimon Vidal de Besaudun. There are two versions of the Leys d'Amors. One, not yet printed and containing many erasures and corrections, probably represents the first draught. The other, which is at Barcelona, in the archives of the Crown of Aragon, is the work as finally approved.

Clemence Isaure.

The name which, more than any other, will always be associated with the Floral Games of Toulouse is that of Clemence Isaure. The object of a local cult, it is by no means certain that