ON THE TROUBADOURS. THE Troubadours, or poets of Provence, claim the proud distinction of softening by their strains, dedicated to religion, love, and chivalry, the general asperity of manners; of originating and promoting the desire of learning; of proclaiming and recommending the blessings of social intercourse; and of contributing, in no slight degree, to the perfection of the French language. The Lingua Romana, the vulgar tongue of the country, however barbarous in its origin and grotesque in its combination, (for it was formed of the Celtic, the Greek*, the Latin, and the Tudesque, or German,) gradually acquired, by their taste and feeling, a polish, grace, and harmony, that raised it to notice and celebrity. It was called Provençal from the name of Provincia, given by the Romans to Gallia Narbonensist, and was spoken, with a Considerable variety of idioms, in Provence, Languedoc, Auvergne, Dauphiné, Gascony, and Guyenne. To the poets of that part of France divided from the North by the Loire, the appellation of Troubadour: has been long given, while to their rivals of Flanders, Picardy, Normandy, the Isle of France, and the neighbouring provinces, has been assigned that of Trouvères. The two words are synonymous, and designate the true characteristic of poetry, the faculty of invention. In the infancy of their institution, the Troubadours travelled from town to town and from castle to castle. They attended the carousals and public entrances of princes. They were present at processions, jubilees, and fairs, and contended for a pre-eminence which was adjudged to the worthiest. They collected anecdotes, and noted curious characters and events. Their memory was constantly exercised upon subjects of public or private interest. They coupled them with rhyme, and thus produced the siventes and fabliaux, many of which are at this moment both instructive and amusing. That they were of great utility in an age of rudeness, ignorance, and oppression, when the superior classes pressed upon the inferior with barbarous violence and cruelty, when feudality had outlived whatever was valuable in its system, and servitude, with all its bitter inheritances of fines, penalties, stripes, and imprisonment, had brutalized mankind, is undeniable. The strains of the Troubadours, generally accompanied with music, refined the sulky and morose humour of the times, and imparted a feeling and tone of gaiety and cheerfulness, that led to friendly and generous associations. * Marseilles was founded by a colony of Phocians from Asia Minor, nearly six hundred years before Christ, and became justly celebrated for its commerce, laws, literature, and the purity of its morals. The Phocians soon succeeded in extending their influence and power into the interior of the country. They built Agde, Nice, and Antibes, and introduced a knowledge of the Greek language, of agriculture, and the useful arts. From the Gauls and Romans who frequented Marseilles, they acquired the Celtic and Latin, and were called Trilingues, “quod et Græcè loquerentur et Latinè et Gallicè (Don Bouquet, Recueil). Cicero speaks of Marseilles in the highest terms of commendation-"Ut omnia ejus instituta laudari faciliùs possint quàm imitari." (Orat. pro Flacc.) Greek was spoken in Marseilles during the first and second ages of Christianity, and was used in the service of the Church in several towns of Gallia Narbonensis, up to the fourth century. + Originally called by the Romans Nostra Provincia. The principal seats of education and learning were, Narbonne, Arles, Vienne, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Autun, Marseilles, Nismes, and Lyons. Tacitus says in his Annals, that it supplied Rome with illustrious characters before the reign of Claudius. Insignes viros è Gallia Narbonensi transivisse.” 66 The stupid selfishness of barbarism was charmed and roused from the heavy lethargy in which it had so long and so wretchedly slumbered. New feelings, new affections, and new wants, were inspired, which evinced the value of social relations, and demonstrated the benefits of mental improvement. The gates of the palace, the cathedral, and the cloister, were thrown open to them; and the trumpet of chivalry and the lays of the poet were soon united in celebrating the triumphs of gallantry, religion, and honour. They were received with distinction in the courts of sovereigns and the castles of the great lords, and some raised themselves from obscurity to an equality with the most eminent for rank and fortune*. The singular adventures of some of the poets themselves gave a peculiar éclat, an extraordinary fashion to their verses. They had either realized, or were ready to achieve, what their muse extolled. Sometimes the heroes of their own strains, they wrote as they had loved, fought, and suffered. Their productions acquired additional force and energy from the affection and sympathy infused into an audience by those who recited their own exploits, their delights and sorrows. They excited more attention and interest, because they told, not only that which they had personally witnessed, but in the failure or success of which they had a considerable share. It was not forgotten that the poet was a pars magna of the heroic tale he recounted; and his joy or grief was the more easily communicated to, and the more deeply felt by his auditors. They were united with the most illustrious and valiant knights throughout Europe, and they formed and maintained a brotherhood which flourished for a long time in France, England, Italy, Spain, and Germany. Among their fellows, they counted the Emperor Frederic I., the lion-hearted Richard, Alphonso King of Arragon, Roger King of Naples, Berenger Count of Provence, a duke of Brabant, a dauphin of Auvergne, and Thibaut Count of Champagne, with a long list of lords and barons eminent for their virtues and talents. Most of these were at once knights and Troubadours; and several specimens of the compositions of Frederic, Berenger, Richard, and Thibaut, are still preserved. Those of the English hero come more closely in unison with our feelings. He had been, for several years during the life of his father, Count of Poitou, and had acquired, in consequence of his frequent visits to the court of Berenger, the great resort of the Troubadours, a peculiar taste for the poetry of Provence. He has left two sirventes, or satirical pieces, and part of an ode. In one of the sirventes, given by Pasquier in his "Recherches de la France," and addressed to the Dauphin of Auvergne and his cousin Count Gui, with whom he was at variance, he pledges himself to make war manfully and loyally against them, even should they conduct themselves with perfidy: "Mas una rem † vos outroi, Si vos me faussastes la loi; The base treatment of Richard by Leopold Duke of Austria, on his return from the Holy Land, is an historical fact; and in an ode supposed to have been written during his imprisonment, he laments the Nostradamus, Fauchet, Pasquier, Caseneuve, Millot, Massieu, Ravaillere, Roquefort, Raynouard, Ginguené, &c. + chose. length and severity of his confinement, as well as the seeming neglect of his French and English subjects. The second strophe of the ode is quoted by M. Fabre d'Olivet, in his "Poésies Occitaniques." "Or sachan ben mos. homs é mos Barons, Mas souy dos hivers prèz*." The productions of Thibaut Count of Champagne and King of Navarre, who died about the middle of the thirteenth century, were the subject of general admiration in France and Italy. Dante has immortalized his muse. Love is the endless burden of his strains, which are occasionally distinguished for tenderness of sentiment and delicacy of expression. He was not destitute of erudition, for he abounds in passages drawn from sacred, profane, and natural history; but he sacrificed too freely to the licentiousness of the age in which he lived. He is considered by some critics to have been the first who succeeded in the common use of masculine and feminine rhymes. Some of his verses are as intelligible as those of modern times. The following, written in 1226, remind us of the manner of Voiture, and might be attributed to that witty and ingenious poet: "Chacun pleure sa terre et son pays, Quand il se part de ses joyeux amis ; The Provençal was peculiarly adapted to subjects of tenderness and gallantry, to the beauties of simple nature and the charms of social life. It possessed considerable advantages over its rivals, the Spanish and Italian. Its vocabulary was enriched with a copious collection of words from the Celtic, the Greek, and the Latin, which enabled the poet to give to the same idea an agreeable variety of expression, and to augment or decrease the meaning of the same term, in the use both of the substantive and adjective. Of this conformity to the genius of the Latin language, a pleasing instance is given in a madrigal quoted by M. Fabre d'Olivet: "Las rosas muscadetas Ni les flous del bouysou, Qu' aubtendra la favou Que les teng en prisou." "Les roses musquées ni les fleurs qui parent les buissons, n'ont ni la tendre couleur de ton sein, ni la douce odeur qu'il exhale. Heureuse la main qui pourra pretendre à la faveur de détacher la petite épingle qui le tient en prison." The verbs were very numerous, and six or seven often expressed the *In the language as it is now spoken, "Maintenant qu'ils apprennent mes sujets et mes Barons, Anglais, Normans, Poitevins, et Gascons, qu'il n'y a rien que je possède que je n'eusse donné plutôt que de laisser le moindre de mes compagnons en prison. Certes, je ne veux pas leur faire reproche, mais voilà deux hivers que je suis prisonnier." same action, differently modified. Images and metaphors were so familiarized to the idiom, that before the end of the thirteenth century it possessed all the advantages enjoyed by long-established languages. Its monosyllables, of which there was a vast number, were neither hardened by the shock of consonants, nor enfeebled by the concurrence of mute vowels. Many of them were indigenous, but many more were from the Latin*. With circumstances so very favourable, we cannot be surprised, that this part of France should have been called in its own tongue, La Boutiqua dels Troubadours. Nostradamus enumerates 120, all of acknowledged merit; and Caseneuve † asserts, that he had read the compositions of 155, all written three centuries before. Petrarch in his triumph mentions 15 of them, and places Arnaud Daniel at their head: "Era tutti il primo Arnaldo Daniello, Gran maestro d'Amor, ch'à la sua terra They were warriors as well as poets: Et mille altri ne viddi, à cui la lingua, Dante had before extolled their works; Boccace borrowed freely from their thoughts and expressions; and it is candidly admitted by Cardinal Bembo, that the Tuscan was indebted to them for many of its noblest ornaments. The encouragement they received was certainly great and general, and the rewards bestowed upon them liberal and even magnificent. The richest dresses, the finest horses, precious gems, and considerable sums of money, were not considered compensations too valuable for the recital of their verses; but to the courts or parliaments of love, may be attributed their principal celebrity. Love had its jurisprudence, its tribunals, pleadings, cases of conscience, decrees, and. legal phraseology; and the skill and sagacity of the doctors and barristers, who practiced in its courts, were exercised with a subtilty that could not be surpassed by the most renowned sophists. These singular monuments of love and chivalry lasted from the twelfth to the beginning of the fifteenth century. They punished infidelity in either sex, and their awards were rigorously enforced. The poet, who composed invitá Minerva, and the lady who proved faithless, were alike subject to their authority. A Troubadour found guilty of plagiarism was whipped with rods at Nismes; and a demoiselle convicted of violating her plighted faith, was expelled with public ignominy from Aix. § The fair sex were bound by the statutes of love, to behave with candour to all honourable suitors. If the knight found favour in the sight of his mistress, and felt himself justified in making a formal tender of his passion, she answered: 66 Accomplished kright, I attest Heaven, that I shall consider you alone the object of my chaste affection. If you prove loyal to me, * As som, somnus; lum, lumen; fum, fumus; font, fons; dol, dolor; os, os ; aimar, amare; cap, caput; cant, cantus; causa, causa; clam, clamor; ferir, ferire; fugir, fugere; joc, jocus; lauz, laus; legir, legere; ley, lex; liberar, liberare; luz, lux; mandar, mandare; man, manus; miror, mirari; nas, nasum; nou, novus; potir, potiri; pas, pax; pan, panis; pigres, piger; quere, quærere; res, res; sanar, sanare; &c. &c. + Origine des Jeux Floreaux. Caseneuve wrote this treatise in 1643. Fauchet, Massieu, Daire, Millot, &c. Marchangy, La Gaule Poétique. I shall be faithful to you, and reward your services worthily, provided they be sincere and do not offend my honour*." He was then allowed to fix at the end of his lance the ribands presented to him by his mistress, which were thence called favours. That the Troubadours were often decorated with these testimonies of pure and honourable affection, there can be no doubt. Few were indeed more susceptible of the tender passion than themselves, and among them love had its martyrs, its pilgrims, its visionaries, and hermits. Geoffroy Rudel expired for an imaginary object t; Guillaume de la Tour could not survive his mistress; André de Provence, and Guillaume d'Adhemar‡ breathed their last for love; Pierre Rogiers, Raimond Jordan, and Richard Barbesieux, became hermits, and Pierre Vidal lost his reason. Some prayed, some fasted, some inflicted the severest punishments on themselves with their own hands, some undertook pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and some, buckling on their armour, joined the Crusades in the name of their mistresses. These courts not only took cognizance of all questions and difficulties between the ladies, the knights, and the poets, but granted injunctions for the prevention of unequal marriages, and stopped proceedings, when it was ascertained, that the inclinations of the parties had not been consulted. The first tribunal was held at Aix, and was maintained with extraordinary dignity and magnificence. There were also three inferior courts in Provence. An attempt to revive the institution at Paris, by the Queen of Charles VI. in 1392, did not prove successful. It gave rise to some whimsical, and perhaps indecent expositions. The corruption of the age was probably too gross for the purity and refinement of the original system; yet it appears, that only forty years before, a special protection for the Courts of Love had been granted by Pope Innocent the VI. § Les Jeux Florcaux were of a very different nature. Founded solely for the encouragement of poetical talent and the improvement of the language, they have continued for very nearly 500 years to promote the general interests of Literature. This society sprang up amidst the abstruse discussion of mystical divinity, and the scholastic disputes of false grammar, false logic, and false metaphysics. Seven gentlemen of Toulouse, poets themselves, and desirous of encouraging the art in others, were accustomed to meet in a pleasant retreat at a small distance from the city. They wished, by increasing their number and reputation, to give stability to the plan of association they had formed; and letters, seen. Amanieu, l'Education des Dames. † Geoffroy Rudel was in love with the Countess of Tripoli, whom he had never He embarked for Africa, accompanied by Allamon, a brother Troubadour. On his arrival at Tripoli, he was so very ill that he could not leave the vessel, and the Countess, learning his singular passion, visited him on board. He expired while she held his hand. A tomb of porphyry was erected at Tripoli to his memory by the Countess.-(Pasquier, Recherches de la France.) Guillaume d'Adhemar was a gallant knight and an eminent Troubadour. He was enamoured of the Countess of Die, and hearing that she was to be married to the Count of Embrun, he fell dangerously ill. The Countess, with her mother, visited him in his castle of Grignon, when he was so affected by her presence, that taking her hand, which she had graciously presented to him, he kissed it, sighed, and expired. Adhemar was the author of Lou Catholog de las Donnas illustras.-(Histoire Lilleraire de la France, continued by members of the Institut.) Martial d'Auvergne, procureur au parlement de Paris, and no mean poet, compiled about 1470, his Arresta Amorum, founded on the actual proceedings and decisions of these Courts. This compilation was augmented with ample commentaries, |