Notes

1. INTRODUCTION

1. “The lack of originality among the poets of northern France has frequently been noted, at least insofar as the chanson d’ amour is concerned. The sentiments they express, the manner of presenting them, the style, the stanzaic structures of their poems, are all copied from the troubadours.”—Théodore Gérold, La Musique au moyen âge, p. 169.

“The art of the singers of the south burst forth in the chateaus of Flanders, of Burgundy, of Champagne . . . These love songs were copied and translated by our northern minstrels, and from these translations they frequently went on to more-or-less free imitations.”—Paulin Paris, in Histoire littéraire de la France, Vol. XXIII, p. 519.

“This ancient French lyrical poetry, such as it was developed in this period, is the complete complement of that of Provence, to which it is related in form and content. The similarity can be found in the most casual elements of the composition.”—J. Bédier and P. Hazard, Histoire illustrée de la littérature française, Vol. I, p. 28.

“The courtly poetry of the lands of the langue d’oui, and particularly their lyrical poetry, are largely in debt to the poetry of the troubadours. The amorous poetry of the north is considerably inferior to its southern sister . . . with respect to their degree of finesse and variety of ideas, as well as their elegance of expression.”—Paul Meyer, in Romania, XIX, 1890, pp. 42, 7.

2. J. Anglade, ed., Les poésies de Peire Vidal, pp. 118 and iv.

3. C. Appel, ed., Bernart von Ventadorn, No. xxvi. Appel put Bernard’s visit in the year 1155 and thought that he went to England for the coronation of Henry II. Ibid., lvi ff.

4. The author of Roman de joufroy writes:

A squire who went to seek him came to London without delay; he was remarkably courteous and well-mannered, and he was a trouvère of considerable merit. Indeed King Henry recognized him, for he had seen him frequently at his court. “Be welcome in our country, Marcabru,” King Henry told him.

(K. Hoffmann, Joufray’s altfranzösisches Rittergedicht, Halle, 1880, verses 3599 ff.). Queen Matilda, wife of Henry I, was renowned as a patroness of poets.

In the thirteenth century, Savaric de Mauleon, another troubadour, lived in England. Jean de Nostredame called him “The Englishman.” Jean de Nostredame, Les Vies des plus célèbres et anciens poètes provençaux, ed. C. Chabaneau and J. Anglade, p. 66.

5. Jean de Gaufridi, Histoire de Provence (1684), Vol. I, p. 101. Jean, Duke of Brabant, who was present, indulged in the composition of some poems in Provençal. Histoire litteraire de la France, Vol. IX, p. 177.

6. A. Luderitz, Die Liebestheorien der Provenzalen bei den Minnesaenger der Staufzeit, 1904; K. Bartsch, Deutsche Liederdichter; K. Bartsch in Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum, Vol. XI, pp. 145-162. The minnesinger Rodolphe de Neuchâtel translated one of Peire Vidal’s poems (J. Anglade, ed., Les Poésies de Peire Vidal, No. XXVIII). “The direct imitation of the Provençal and the French Muses only lasted a short while,” said Bartsch, “but the indirect imprint of Romance lyric art on that of Germany remained profound. This imprint penetrates German thought and its epic form in structure and spirit. The sentiments related to sexual relations were to show this influence for a long time to come.” (Liederdichte, pp. ix ff.) The German poets of a later epoch came to ridicule the courtly conventions, and Walther von der Vogelweide, the greatest and the last of the minnesingers, expressly rejected the influence of the troubadours, but his works nevertheless show their influence very clearly.

7. H. J. Chaytor, The Troubadours and England; W. H. Schofield, English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer; Jean Audiau, Les Troubadours et l’Angleterre.

“It is evident that English lyric poetry is greatly indebted to the troubadours . . . Every study of English stanza forms must take the Provençal lyric art as its point of departure.”—Chaytor, p. 135.

“The influence of the troubadours on the English poets has been as real as their influence on any other European literature.”—Audiau, p. 129.

“The second half of the twelfth century . . . already acknowledges the establishment under Provençal influence of that official chanson d’amour or chanson courtois, which ultimately succeeded in impressing itself upon the imagination of the Renaissance no less than upon that of the Middle Ages, and may be said to have fixed the type of literary romantic sentiment, from the Canzionere of Petrarch to The Angel in the House . . . The moment is fundamental for the understanding of all subsequent literature in England as well as in France.”—F. K. Chambers, p. 281.

8. Owen Ruffhead, “Life of Pope,” p. 425.

9. John Dryden, “Dramatic Essays” (ed. Everyman, p. 274).

10. “Pro se vero argumentatur alia, scilicet oc, quod vulgares eloquentes in ea primitus poetati sunt tamquam in perfectiori dulciorique loquela.”—Dante, De vulgari eloquentia, I, x.

“At the time that it flourished the Provençal language was held in esteem throughout the western countries, and held by far the highest place among all languages. So that every man, be he French, Flemish, Gasconian, Burgundian, or of any other nationality, who desired to write well, especially in verse, would write in the Provençal language, whether or no he was a Provençal.”—P. Bembo, Delia volgare lingua, ed. Sonzogno, pp. 150 f.

“All of the pre-sixteenth century schools of courtly lyric derive, directly or indirectly, from that brief flowering of that art which appeared in Languedoc.”—M. Menéndez y Pelayo, Antologia des poetas liricos castellanos, Vol. I, p. lxxviii.

11. The language of the troubadours is not the dialect of any given district, but was formed by the adoption of words and phrases from all dialectical varieties found from Aragon to Limousin. It was thus a composite literary language, what the older critics called a “nolanguage,” and the Greeks, who frequently employed such superdialectical blends, called “common” language. In much the same manner Chaucer eked out the insufficiencies of London English by drawing upon northern, Kentish, and western dialects. Troubadour speech is closely related to the Galician and Catalan of the period.

12. J. Anglade, Les Poésies de Peire Vidal, p. 60.

13. Bertram de Born, Poésies, ed. A. Stimmung, Romainsche Bibliothek, Vol. VIII (Halle, 1892), p. 140.

14. U. A. Canello, La Vita e le opere del trovatore Arnaldo Daniello (Halle, 1883), p. 105 f.

15. Gaston Paris, Histoire poétique de Charlemagne, p. 150.

16. The Art of Writing. Lecture IX.

17. C. Appel, ed., Bernart von Ventadorn, p. 220.

18. Dante, Vita nuova, xxv. In the Convito (I, ix) Dante adds that likewise, “many noble princes, barons and knights” did not know Latin. Count Guilhem de Poitiers, the originator of courtly poetry, knew only very little Latin (A. Richard, Histoire des comtes de Poitou, Vol. I, p. 444), “only enough to say his prayers” (A. R. Nykl, The Dove’s Neck-Ring, p. cix, n. 16).

19. K. Weinhold, Die deutschen Frauen in dem Mittelalter, p. 188.

20. G. Schoepperle, Tristan and lsolt, Vol. II, p. 439.

21. Raymond d’Agyles, Histoire des Francs qui ont pris Jérusalem, in Guizot, Collection des mémoires relatifs à l’histoire de France, Vol. XXI, p. 144. The use of the term “Provençal” to indicate the literature of the lands of the langue d’oc became widespread only in the thirteenth century. Probably this usage was due to the Italians, who found it natural to designate all of that literature by reference to the region which was nearest Italy and with which it had the most intimate relations.

22. A. Jeanroy, in Revue des Deux-Mondes, Jan. 1899, p. 351.

“In spite of some similarities between the two forms of poetry it does not appear that there was any contact either direct or indirect, between the two.”—J. Anglade, Sommaire de la littérature méridionale au moyen âge, p. 20.

In this respect, Renan shared the ideas current in his academic milieu: “As for the literary and moral influences, they have been greatly exaggerated; neither Provençal poetry nor chivalry owed anything to the Moslems. There was an abyss which separated the form and the spirit of Romance poetry from the form and the spirit of Arabic poetry; there is no proof that the Christian poets were aware of the existence of Arabic poetry, and one can assert that if they were, they were incapable of understanding its language and spirit.”—Histoire des langues sémitiques, p. 397.

Although carrying all of the assurance on which the authority of a great scholar rests, this affirmation is grossly in error. Had Renan forgotten the oft-cited declaration of Bishop Alvarez of Cordova? “A large number of people compose poems in Arabic, which by their elegance, surpass those of the Arabs themselves” (Indiculus luminosus, in Migne, Patrologia latina, Vol. CXXI, col. 566), an assertion confirmed by Al-Maqqari, who reproduced a copy of these poems which Christian poets had composed in Arabic. A manuscript of ecclesiastical decrees at Madrid contains a dedication in Arabic verse by a priest named Vincent (A. González Palencia, Historia de la literatura arábigo-española, p. 272 f.). King Alphonse, the Wise, who had one of the pleasantest of the Arab fantasies diffused throughout European literature, the tale of the statue and the ring; his brother, Fadriquez, who was the author of the Libro de los engaños et los asaiamentos de las mujeres; Duns Scotus, who was a poet as well as a theologian, were all familiar with Arabic poetry.

Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita, the most illustrious of the medieval Spanish poets, knew Arabic poetry well and imitated it (Menéndez y Pelayo, Estudios de critica literaria, 2 da Serie, p. 390; J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed., 1938, Vol. XXI, p. 155). The Poema de Yuçuf, entirely Arabic in inspiration, is the work of an Aragonese poet who used Arabic characters when he wrote in his native language (Fitzmaurice-Kelly, loc. cit.). In one of the most widely circulated books of the Middle Ages, the Disciplina clericalis, which was translated into all of the European languages, Petrus Alphonsi attests that Arabic poetry was available to everyone after 1106 (ed. Paris, 1824, p. 6). The author of Averroès et l’ averroïsme could not have been unaware of the fact that Ibn-Roschd, in his commentary on Aristotle’s Poetique, presented the rules of Arabic prosody.

Petrarch wrote: “As for Arabic poets, I am well acquainted with them” (Epistolae, Bâle, 1554, Vol. II, p. 904). Whatever faults may be attributed to the author of this declaration, he was neither an idle boaster nor a liar. Renan, however, wanted to contradict him with a lie: “How could Petrarch have known Arabic poetry?” he wrote, and he returned to his assertion: “The Middle Ages had not the slightest notion of it” (Averroès et l’ averroïsme, p. 261, note). Petrarch, who was a better authority than Renan with respect to what he knew or did not know, indeed could not have had any knowledge of Arabic poetry if it had not been known in the Middle Ages, for the humanists of his time would have been the last people to seek knowledge of it. We admit freely that neither Petrarch’s information on this item, nor that possessed by the medieval clergy and literati, with the exception of those in Spain, amounted to much. Petrarch, violently orthodox and moved by a special hatred towards the Arabs, described their poetry as “flabby, nerveless and obscene” (loc. cit.). The question is not of much importance for us, for neither the learned men nor books had any more to do with the diffusion of song in the eleventh century than they do in the twentieth century. Be all this as it may, one should not place much confidence in the precision of Renan’s statement, nor of the expressions of many others who hold to the theory of the autochthonous origin of troubadour poetry.

23. Diez wrote: “As models for this style of poetry I have cited liturgical poetry, popular songs and some relics of ancient Latin lyrical composition. But how this poetry (of the troubadours) differs from all others! And with what rapidity it developed! It resembles a fairy garden which appears suddenly at the wave of a magician’s wand” (Leben und Werken der Troubadours, p. xii).

According to Jeanroy, Provençal literature “appeared to us from the start as having been removed from any foreign influence; it burst forth like a flower, rising from the earth without root or stem” (Revue des Deux-Mondes, Jan., 1899, pp. 350 f.).

Indeed, it is in similar conclusions, making appeal to the supernatural, that all of the theories—the Latin hypothesis, the popular song hypothesis, the Limousin hypothesis, the May festival hypothesis—which regard the advent of Provençal poetry as an autochthonous blossoming culminate. Such theories, in spite of their rhetoric, are confessions of failure. This error would have been avoided by an examination of the sources of the foreign influences which the hypotheses in question would deny, but to which their failure would oblige us to give attentive consideration, even if there were no other reason for doing so.

What could be simpler and apparently more reasonable than to envisage an evolution having a local popular poetry as its point of departure? Nevertheless, this hypothesis, which is so simple and so easy to suggest, at once encounters difficulties which cannot be overcome. We are indebted to Alfred Jeanroy, whose industry in the search of data and their precise presentation is worthy of considerable admiration, for having revealed, in the very act of attempting to establish this theory, the difficulties with which such an undertaking is confronted. Indeed, he saw himself in the position of having to make use of one of the most formidable frameworks of doubtful conjectures that had ever been called upon to support a speculation of this type, and to conclude by excusing himself for his inability to offer anything more than “belabored and cold hypotheses.”

Although not committing himself, J. Bédier pricked these speculations with a point of fine irony by qualifying as “divinatory” the work of Jeanroy and asking himself if the theory of Gaston Paris, who derived all of the works of the troubadours, the Petrarchists and of the trouvères from the May festivals of the late Middle-Ages, was only a myth” (Revue des Deux-Mondes, May, 1896, pp. 146 f. and 172). Indeed these hypotheses are derived from the realms of divination and myth rather than that of criticism. We shall see that the traits of the popular poetry on which Jeanroy tried to found the structure of his conjectures ran through the Hispano-Mauresque poetry, just as it was the custom to embellish these latter with an illusion to Spring.

24. Eugène Baret, Les Troubadours et leur influence sur la littérature du Midi de l’Europe, p. 44 f. In fact, Baret recognized the importance of the Arabie influence and insisted on it; yet the editors of the Larousse du XX^e siècle found it desirable to cite this passage without any reference to the existence of Moorish Spain.

Dr. J. Dumont obtained some fragments of Latin poetry which originated in Anjou and date back to the time that courtly poetry was developing in this area (De la versification latine en Anjou pendant les XI^e et XII^e siècles, Angers, 1865). Neither in form, nor in style, nor in content do they exhibit any similarity, even the most remote, to any kind of popular poetry or to that of the troubadours.

“There is no relation between this ancient civilization and troubadour poetry.”—Paul Meyer, Revue critique, 1867, p. 172.

“Latin poetry had long since died out.”—A. Jeanroy in the Revue des Deux-Mondes, 1899, p. 350 f.

“Those who knew Latin . . . exerted no influence on the popular poetry, which they detested.”—Gaston Paris, La Poésie au moyen âge, 1913, p. 22.

The poetry of the troubadours “originated outside of the educated circles of the time.”—J. Anglade, Histoire sommaire de la poésie méridionale, p. 20.

“It is generally admitted that Provençal poetry is not related to Latin poetry.”—L. M. Brandin, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1932, Vol. XVIII, p. 638.

25. Rudolph Erckmann, “Der Einfluss der spanisch-arabischen Kultur auf die Entwicklung des Minnesangs,” Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, 1931, p. 240 f.; C. Appel, in Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, Dec. 1932; R. Schröder, in Germanisch-romanische Monatschrift, 1933, pp. 162 ff.

26. Although completely espousing Diez’ opinion concerning the autochthonous origin of troubadour poetry, the French writers on Romance literature could not suppress a smile when the same Diez similarly wanted to represent as indigenous the poetry of the German minnesingers. (Anglade, Les Troubadours, p. 321, note 22). This latter opinion is as widespread in Germany as the notion of the autochthonous origin of Provençal poetry is in France. W. Scherer wrote: “The courtly song of love arose in Austria and Bavaria from popular songs. We should regard it as an inheritance of the most remote past” (Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, p. 202). Even this was surpassed. The Visigoths were credited with having brought popular poetry to Germany (M. Hartmann, Die arabische Strophengedicht, p. 237).

The French writers on Romance literature, however, yielded nothing to the Germans in patriotic ardor, and their sentiments led them to equally surprising conclusions. Jeanroy’s speculations bear on the imitation of a lyrical style of poetry from the north of France, “today lost,” but which was cultivated by the foreigners, “since they considered everything which came from France to be of the highest quality (Origines de la poésie lyrique en France, pp. xxiii, 125). Thus, “in our eyes the old German lyric art represents an obscure phase in the progress of the French lyrical poetry”; “it was poetry from northern France, or southern France, which influenced the first Italian works”; and it seemed probable to him that “most of the themes popular in Portugal reached that country from France” (Ibid., pp. 125, 306, 334). Portugal was one of the oldest and most celebrated and most fertile homes of the popular Hispano-Arabic song (R. A. Nicholson, History of Arabic Literature, p. 364). But not content with attributing to northern France the origin of the popular poetry of all other countries, Jeanroy and Gaston Paris, reversing the historical evidence, want to trace to northern France the inspiration which led to the flourishing of Provençal poetry in the south. Gaston Paris wrote that the hypothetical popular poetry which preceded that of the troubadours “was cultivated in the north and ended by returning to revive in the south the most ancient styles, which had fallen into disuse” (Mélanges de littérature française du moyen âge, p. 571).

On the other hand, the Italians—among whom the thread of tradition had never been broken, and who always admitted the dependence of their poetry on that of Provence when the latter remained completely unknown in France—always regarded the matter of the derivation of Provençal poetry from Spain as being beyond dispute. Perhaps Dante was aware of this circumstance (De vulgari eloquio, II, xii). In the sixteenth century Giammaria Barbieri devoted a chapter to “La propagation de la poésie rimée des Arabes parmi les Espagnols et les Provençaux” (Dell’origine della poesia rimata, Modona, 1571, pp. 44 ff.). The same sentiments are expressed by Lodovico Zuccolo (Discorso delle ragioni del numero del verso italiano, Venice, 1623, p. 10); G. Crescimbeni (L’Istoria della vol gare poesia, p. 6); G. Tirasboschi (Preface to his edition of Barbieri, pp. 11 ff.); F. S. Quadrio (Della ragione d’ogni poesia, Vol. II, p. 299); P. G. Andrés (Dell’origine, progressi e stato attuale d’ogni letteratura, Vol. II, pp. 66 ff. and the whole volume); J. Sismondi (Histoire de la littérature du Midi de l’Europe, 1813, pp. 38 ff.). These testimonials have little authoritative value; what they show is that in Italy, in the absence of traditional and no doubt unconscious prepossessions, there was no need for a condescending attitude toward the suggestion that Provençal poetry was of Hispano-Arabic origin. One would be inclined to believe that the Italians were aware of a tradition bearing on this matter, or a “legend” from a more authentic source than the conjectures of some philologists. A trivial, but significant, detail is the fact that Verdi’s Opera, Il Trovatore, has for its locale not Provence, but Spain.

27. “It is necessary to seek a unique point of departure in some intermediate region, Poitou, Le Marche, Limousin . . . There are serious reasons for believing that all of the lyrical poetry of old France had its origin in that district . . . and spread thence to the north and south.”—Gaston Paris, Mélanges de littérature française du moyen âge, p. 571.

“The question of its origins is in any case resolved. Songs existed in Poitou. Apparently numerous popular songs were composed in this part of France, where the dialects of oc and those of oil were in contact . . . It is indeed in Limousin and partly in Poitou, most likely on the common boundary of these two provinces, that the origins of troubadour poetry may be located. Was not the first troubadour Guillaume VII, Count of Poitiers?”—J. Anglade, Les Troubadours, p. 8.

“The circumstances which led to the development of courtly poetry at the court of Poitiers and in the neighboring castles did not result from a nexus between such poetry and popular local poetry. As Jeanroy himself said, “I will admit that I do not see the basis for the generally accepted opinion that Guillaume composed in the Limousin tongue, or at least that the language he employed was based on Limousin.”—Les Chansons de Guillaume IX, p. xiii, note 3.

28. Dimitri Scheludko, who enumerates in detail the various theories put forth to account for the origin of the art of the troubadours, and who is particularly prone to attack suggestions of a Hispano-Mauresque derivation, is nevertheless only able to oppose such suggestions with a declaration of faith. He sees in Provençal poetry a manifestation of the “spirit of the whole of the Middle Ages” (Beiträge zur Entstehungsgeschichte der altprovenzalischen Lyrik, in Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur, 1929, pp. 1-38, 201-266, and Archivum romaïcum, 1927, pp. 201 ff., 1928, pp. 30-127). This formula is certainly comprehensive enough to accommodate all tastes. However, this “very spirit of the Middle Ages,” at the time of the twelfth century renaissance, had itself arisen, in all its aspects and elements, from the contact made by Europe at this date with the civilization of Islam.

II. MOORISH ORIGIN

1. R. A. Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs, p. 416.

2. H. A. R. Gibb, art. “Arabic Literature,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed., 1938. Vol. II, p. 195.

3. R. A. Nicholson, loc. cit. The Hispano-Moorish poets “broke with tradition and their works much more resemble those of the Europeans than those of the Arabic poets” (A. S. Tritton, art. “Shi’r,” in Encyclopédie de l’Islam).

4. C. P. Caussin de Perceval, Essai sur l’histoire des Arabes avant l’islamisme, Vol. II, pp. 314 ff.; E. H. Quatremère, Mélanges d’histoire et de philologie orientale, p. 225; Anne and Wilfrid Blunt, The Seven Golden Odes of Pagan Arabia, p. 14; Syed Ameer Ali, A Short History of the Saracens, p. 455.

5. In his account of Tauk al-Hamama (Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, LXIX, pp. 192 ff.), I. Goldziher gives a list of the predecessors of Ibn Hazm. R. A. Nicholson’s The Mystics of Islam is the best general survey of Sufi literature. On this subject, see also: Selected Poems from the Divani Shamsi Tabriz, by the same author; I. Goldziher, Vorlesungen über den Islam; E. J. W. Gibb, History of Ottoman Poetry, Vol. I, pp. 32 ff.; Grangeret de Lagrange, Anthologie arabe, pp. 41 ff., 132 ff.

The writings attributed to Denys, the Areopagite, were one of the favorite reference books of the Sufi mystics; they were at the same time the source of European medieval mysticism. The pseudo-Denys inspired both Al-Ghazāli and Abelard.

The Sufi assimilation of profane love with divine love was not entirely abstract and symbolic; the amorous experience was regarded as necessary for the comprehension of God. Love (‘isk) is the union of the created with the creator. “There is no more sublime Master in the universe,” they said; and again, “Love is not its own goal, but a bridge leading to the truth” (Gibb, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 20 f.). The anguish of the lover was compared to the separation of the soul from the object of its happiness, that is to say, divine love. The “cruelty” of the beloved represented the difficulties which confront intelligence in its efforts to understand God. Thus the experience of earthly love—“the science of hearts,” ‘ilm al-qulub (Massignon, in Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. XII, p. 16)—was itself indispensable to the comprehension of the amative relation between man and God (Ibid., p. 22). Cf. Grangeret de Lagrange, Anthologie arabe, p. 41: hymns of Ibn al-Farid (1) to love and (2) to wine.

6. A. R. Nykl, “The Dove’s Neck-Ring,” p. cv. “Certain adepts of philosophy,” said Ibn Dawūd, “have claimed that God—may His name be exalted—created every soul in a round form, like a sphere; then he cut each soul in half and placed each half in a separate body. And each body which encounters the body containing the other half of its soul is loved by it as a result of the original affinity. And it is thus that human beings associate with one another in obedience to the necessities of their nature. And thus did Jamil speak.” (L. Massignon, La Passion d’Al-Hallaj, Vol. I, p. 177.) Ibn Dawūd praised “those who love, but remain chaste and do not manifest their love . . . If the very chastity of lovers, their isolation from filth and their heed of their purity were not protected by religious laws and by mores, it would still be the duty of each of them to remain chaste in order to render their desire eternal” (ibid., p. 174 f.). “This refined conception of human love, this poetic theme of ‘very pure profane love,’ ” said Massignon, encountered in Ibn Dawūd a singularly fervent and sincere interpreter. He is the genuine precursor of Ibn Quzmān of Cordova; anticipating the latter, he sang of courtly love, the themes of which, popularized by the new metres of the mowashshahat, would come to influence the lyrical impulse of the poets who composed in the langue d’oc, Provençals, Catalans, Galicians, and Italians. Thus the first systematization of idealism appeared in Arabic as a result of the inversion of the cult of divine love. It is the only ideal acceptable to the Zaharite theologian” (ibid., p. 176).

7. R. Dozy, Scriptorum arabum loci de Abbadidis, Vol. II, p. 75, n. 57. “Of all of the Spanish authors, Ibn Hazm was the most eminent by virtue of the extent and depth of his knowledge of the sciences cultivated by the Arabs, his profound mastery of the Arabic language, and his talents as an elegant writer, as a poet and as a historian” (Ibn Bachuwal, cited by Ibn Khallikan, ed. De Slane, Vol. II p. 268). Al-Maqqari claimed that the Almohade Al-Mansūr once said, “All men of learning must need have recourse to Ibn Hazm” (Analectes, II, p. 160).

8. The text of Tauk al-Hamama fi ul-Ulfa wa’l Ullaf (The Dove’s Necklace, Of Love and Lovers) by Mūhammad ‘Ali Ahmad Ibn Hazm al-Andalousi, was published by D. K. Petrof, Leiden, 1914. A translation in English by A. R. Nykl appeared in Paris in 1931, under the title: The Dove’s Neck Ring, About Love and Lovers. On Ibn Hazm, see: C. Brockelman, Geschichte der arabischen Literatur, Vol. I, p. 400; R. Dozy, Histoire des Musulmans en Espagne, Vol. III, pp. 341 ff.; Goldziher’s account of Nykl’s edition in Zeitschrift der morgenlāndischen Gesellschaft, Vol. LXXIX, pp. 192 ff.; and Asín Palacios, Abenhazam de Córdoba y su historia critica de las ideas religiosas, Madrid, 1927.

9. Tauk al-Hamama, trans. Nykl, p. 6.

10. Ibid., p. 112.

11. Ibid., p. 137.

12. Ibid., p. 141.

13. Ibid., pp. 31 f.

14. Ibid., pp. 28 f.

15. Ibid., p. 13.

16. E. Garcia Gomez, Poemas arábigo-andaluces, p. 97.

17. Grangeret de Lagrange, Anthologie arabe, pp. 33, 36, 41.

18. The terms traditionally used in the courtly poetry of the troubadours, such as joi, joven, gilos, enoyos (generally used as a synonym for “spouse,”) leial, mezura, lauzengier (slanderer), were identified with their equivalents used in the same manner in the Hispano-Moorish poetry (A. R. Nykl, El cancionero de Aben Guzmán, p. xlvii; Lichtenstaater, in Islámica, 1931, p. 17). It is interesting to note that these terms were employed in the oldest Sufi poetry in an allegorical sense. Thus, washi, the term equivalent to lauzengier, stood for the logical faculty. (R. A. Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism, p. 178). Cf. note 5, above.

19. See: Jérôme and Jean Tharaud, Marrakech, ou Les Seigneurs de l’Atlas, pp. 173 ff.

20. R. Altamira, Historia de España, Vol. I, pp. 287 ff.; J. Ferrandis Torres, La vida en el Islam español, p. 14; J. Ribera, Disertaciones y opúseulos, Vol. I, pp. 345 ff.

21. Al-Maqqari, tr. Gayangos, History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, Vol. I, pp. 161-167; Clément Huart, in Journal asiatique, 1881, pp. 5 ff.; A. Cour, Ibn Zaidoun, un poète arabe d’Andalousie.

22. Ibn Khaldūn, Prolégomènes, trans. De Slade, Vol. II, pp. 415 ff.

23. With the exception of the zither and the harp, which originated in the Orient at an earlier date, all of the musical instruments in use in the Middle Ages were of Moorish origin. The rabab, ancestor of the violin as well as of the rota, the gigha and the rebeck, was also the original form of the viol (usually six-stringed and without frets), the instrument which was most often used to accompany lyrical singing. The Arabs imported it from Persia, but they perfected it by the invention of the bow (aws). Seven different forms of the Moorish rabab are known to us: the rectangular viol (murabba’), the round viol, shaped like a boat, a pear or a hemisphere (kamandja), the pandora and the open-framed rabab. The archpriest Ruiz mentioned the “loud rabab” and the “Moorish rabab.” Ordinarily it had two strings. The lute “was apparently introduced into Europe in the tenth century by the Moors.” The oldest known representation of a lute is found on an ivory carving from Cordova. The carving, which bears the date 968, is preserved in the Louvre. A large variety of instruments was developed in Andalusia and passed on to Christian Europe, See T. Gérold, La Musique au moyen âge, pp. 368 ff.; M. Brenet, “Notes sur l’histoire du luth en France,” Rivista musicale, 1898; E. López Chavarri, Música popular española, pp. 74 ff.; H. G. Farmer, art. “Rabab”, Encyclopedie de l’Islam; H. G. Farmer, Studies in Oriental Musical Instruments; Salvador-Daniel, La Musique arabe (Algiers, 1879); Ibn Khaldūn, Prolégomènes, trans. De Slane, Vol. II, pp. 417 ff. Menéndez Pidal, Poesia juglaresca, pp. 55 ff.

“The origins of the music of the Middle Ages are oriental in the sense that the songs of the troubadours are inspired by those of the Arabs” (L. J. Fétis, Histoire générale de la musique, Vol. V, pp. 7 f.).

24. Martial, VI, lxi.

“Crusmata,” from ϰρov⍵, Latin pulso, were a type of castanets. The Betis was the Guadalquivir which gave its name to the province of Baetica. Cf. on the dances of Cadiz: Martial, I, 42, 12; XIV, 203; Juvénal, Sat., XI, 162.

25. S. De Sacy, Traité élémentaire de la prosodie et de la métrique des Arabes, pp. 2 ff.; A. S. Tritton, art. “Shi’r,” in Th. Houtsma, Encyclopédie de l’Islam; Weil, art. “Arud,” ibid.

26. Martin P. W. Hartmann, Das arabische Strophengedicht: I. Das Muwassah, pp. 112 ff.; Weil, loc. cit.; Mohammed Bencheneb, art. “Muwashshah,” Encyclopédie de l’Islam.

27. M. Hartmann, op. cit., p. 218: “Most authors do not make any distinction between muwashshah and zajal”; Georges S. Colin, in Hesperis, XVI, 1933, p. 166: “The zajal is purely and simply a muwashshah written in the Spanish dialect, rather than in the classical language.”

28. Hammer-Purgstall, “Sur les formes artificielles de la poésie arabe,” Journal asiatique, 4th series, Vol. XIV, 1849, P. 249.

29. Ibn Khaldūn (III, p. 361), cited by M. Hartmann, op. cit., p. 216: “The Bedouins also have another type of poetry, arranged in stanzas of four lines, the last of which has a rhyme differing from that of the first three, so that the fourth rhyme is repeated in each bait to the end of the poem.” Cf. René Basset, “Un épisode d’une chanson de geste arabe,” Bulletin de correspondance africaine, 1885, pp. 136 ff., 142, n. I, 144, n. 3.

“Tradition says that at the time of Harūm a young female slave inaugurated the fashion of writing verse in the vernacular tongue, although the pedantically minded did not consider it poetry.” A. S. Tritton, art. “Shi’r,” Encyclopédie de l’Islam.

According to Casiri, the encyclopedic writer Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi (860-939). who flourished at the court of the Umayyad Caliphs, was the inventor of the muwashshaha (Michael Casiri, Bibliotheca arabicohispana escurialensis, Vol I, p. 127). According to Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddan Ibn Mū’afa al-Qabri al-Darir (c. 880) was its inventor, (Ibn-Khaldūn, Mugaddima, ed. Quatremère, Vol. III, p. 404, trans De Slane, Vol. III, 436). Ibn Bassam (Al-Dhakhira, p. 200) also attributes the “invention” of this genre to Al-Qabri. A great deal of weight may not be attached to the assertion that Al-Qabri was actually the “inventor.” In the Middle Ages, in both Muslim and Christian countries, the “invention” of all sorts of things was attributed to anyone who distinguished himself in their use. Ibn Khaldūn, after having named the “inventor” of the muwashshaha, adds: “It is true that some ballads were circulating in Spain before his time.” The dates are really the noteworthy items. Strophic poetry, muwashshahat and the azajal, was widespread in Spain in the tenth century, and apparently even in the ninth.

“We have certain knowledge of five muwashshahat dating from 1027 to 1030” (Hartmann, op. cit., p. 210).

We present the transliteration of the first strophes of a zajal dating from the beginning of the eleventh century:

The murabba’ form, aa, bbba, ccca, is regular; the marqaz is repeated. The theme of the song is love. “I have never been pleased when she fulfilled her promise in the evening and told me in the morning: ‘It was wine which brought color to my cheeks; it was the North Wind which smote my face.’ She is among those who slay hearts; just seeing her walk fills me with concern. May her eyes cast me back into iniquity! Sweet lips, lined with pearls, assuage the fire which consumes me. I am ill with love; I shall never break my promises, and I shall not cease to hope, however unconcerned you may appear.”

30. M. Hartmann, op. cit., p. 215; R. Dozy, Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes.

31. Friederich Ruckert, Die Verwandlungen des Abu Seid von Serug, oder Die Makamen des Hariri, Vol. I, p. 88.

R. A. Nicholson has also translated many pieces drawn from Hariri’s Maqama.

The following strophes are by Muhammed Ibn Hasan al-Nawaji (d. 1455). The text is given by Grangeret de Lagrange, Anthologie arabe, p. 202.

32. J. Valera, according to A. F. Von Schack, Poesie und Kunst der Araber in Spanien und Sizilien, Vol. II, p. 272.

33. The Arabic text of the zajal is given on p. 176, note 58, in the original French version of this book. I add a transliteration of this passage from A. R. Nykl, El cancionero de Aben Guzmán, p. 266 f, and a translation.

34. Bartsch, Chrestomathie, col. 245. In Bartsch’s transcription the refrain is repeated after each verse, whereas in the manuscript only the first two words are. Concerning this, see Jeanroy, Origines, p. 413.

35. Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, IV, p. 503.

36. C. Appel, Provenzalische Chrestomathie, p. 90.

37. C. Raynouard, Choix de poésies originales, Vol. II, p. 236. Another of Gaucelm Faidit’s “albas” begins:

An “alba” of Cadenet has the following form:

38. P. Bembo, Della volgare lingua, p. 184 f., ed. Sonzogno.

According to Leone Allacci, a strophe of the model aaabb, attributed to Vincenzo d’Aleano, would be the oldest example of Sicilian poetry:

The piece dates only from the last years of the twelfth century.—(G. Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana, Vol. IV, Part II, pp. 384 f.)

A popular thirteenth-century Italian song had the following form:

39. A. Jeanroy, ed., Les Chansons de Guillaume IX, p. 28 f.

Or again :

One of Walther von der Vogelweide’s pieces contains perhaps a relic of the popular Provençal form:

The rare examples in France are even more obviously in the “Provencializing” style:

The rhyme-pattern aaab became extremely common in England. Indeed, from the beginning of the thirteenth century until the verse of the Elizabethan age, and within not many years from Shakespeare, the murabba’ model dominates English lyrical stlyle, at least so far as its surviving relics enable us to judge. In E. K. Chambers and F. Sidgewick’s anthology of Early English Relics, out of 102 examples, 44 are pure murabbas. That surprising circumstance appears to arise from the fact that, in direct opposition to what happened in France, the authors of those verses are all, or nearly all, clerics. Their subjects are mostly religious. Being under no obligation of decking themselves with elegant variations to curry favor with courtly clients, the writers of church-lyrics continued in the use of their original form. A large proportion are Christmas carols, as, for example, the one cited in note 45.

There are, however, not a few amatory lyrics, e.g.

It is notable that Chaucer, drawing his poetical models immediately from France, uses the aaab pattern but once (Anelida and Arcite, verses 220 ff.), while that ordonnance held the field among his ecclesiastical contemporaries. His sources were “courtly”; those of Church ditties were “popular.” The prevalence of the form among the latter again bears witness to its having been more widespread in France and Provence than direct evidence would indicate.

41. F. Sabatier, “Saint François d’Assise,” p. 419; see: Fr. Ozanam, Les Poètes franciscains en Italie au XII siècle; Delia Giovanna, S. Francesco giullare.

42. Laude di frate jacopone da Todi, ed. G. Ferri, p. 90. For example :

45. E. K. Chambers and F. Sidgewick, Early English Lyrics, p. 117; Bodleian Library, English Poetry, e I.

46. Chambers and Sidgewick, Early English Lyrics, p. 146; Bodleian Library, English Poetry, e I.

47. Chambers and Sidgewick, Early English Lyrics, p. 80; Bodleian Library, Rawlinson, c. 813.

48. Here is such an example; it is a popular noel :

The monk Hilaire, who was of English origin, according to Mabillon, and a disciple of Abelard, favored in his verse a form which has a Provençal cast.

The jongleurs who composed Mystères for the churches very often used similar forms which were frequently bilingual. See E. du Méril, Origines latines du théâtre moderne, pp. 225, 241. All of these examples belong to an epoch in which Provençal poetry was supreme. Sometimes they would be entirely in Provençal :

The English monks and song-makers, who travelled constantly back and forth between England and France, were remarkably polyglot. Pieces in three languages are far from uncommon. For example:

I add the following for its quality:

The jongleurs who wrote miracle-plays frequently used similar bilingual forms. See E. du Méril, Origines latines du théâtre moderne, pp. 225, 241.

49. E. du Méril, Poésies populaires latines du moyen âge, p. 26.

50. A. Jeanroy, Origines de la poésie lyrique en France, pp. 76, 338. Paul Meyer dates these productions still later, placing them toward the end of the thirteenth century (Romania, XIX, 1890, p. 25).

51. A. Jeanroy, Origines, pp. xiii, 125.

52. A. Jeanroy, Les Chansons de Guillaume IX, p. xiv.

53. A. Jeanroy, Origines, pp. 105, 106, 108.

54. M. Hartmann, Das arabische Strophengedicht, pp. 100 f.

55. A. Jeanroy, Origines, p. 412.

56. A. Jeanroy, Les Chansons de Guillaume IX, p. xiv.

57. A. Jeanroy, Origines, p. 398, note. There was another rule of the Hispano-Moorish songs which was also imposed on the lyrical poetry of the troubadours: In both cases the songs were constrained to consist of seven or eight stanzas. This rule is observed with great regularity in both cases. “The commonest number of baīt is “seven,” said Ibn Khaldūn (Histoire des Berbères et des dynasties musulmanes de l’Afrique septentrionale, trans. by De Slane, Vol. III, p. 541).

58. Marcabru, who had a liking for the murabba’ form, adheres closely to the Andalusian rhythm. A. R. Nykl compares a strophe from the “l’Etourneau” series with a zajal of Al-Abjad (note 29):

59. J. Anglade, Les Poésies de Peire Vidal, p. 23.

60. C. Appel, ed., Bernart von Ventadorn, p. 260.

61. Alphonse d’Aragon, in Raynouard, Choix de poésies, Vol. II, p. 118.

62. Gaucelm Faidit, in A. Kolsen, Dichtungen der Troubadors, p. 30; C. Appel, Provenzalische Chrestomathie, p. 90; Gauceran, in A. Kolsen, op. cit., p. 17 f.; Bertram de Born, Poésies, ed. Stimmung, p. 145; Folquet de Romans, in Crescini, Manualetto provenzale, p. 225; le Moine de Montaudon, ed. O. Klein, pp. 44, 84; Peire Cardenal, in C. Raynouard, Lexique roman, Vol. I, p. 459; Guilhem Rainols et Magret, Histoire littéraire de la France, Vol. XVII, pp. 538 ff.; Guilhem Figuiera, in Crescini, Manualetto provenzale, p. 327; Arnaud Plaguès, Hist. litt. de la France, Vol. XVII, p. 636; Nicolet de Turin, ibid., p. 626.

63. Ibn Sanā’ al-Mūlk intoned the praises of the Hispano-Moorish songs with oriental prolixity and extravagance. “Those who do not recognize the natural beauty in them, once they have heard them,” he wrote, among other things, “exhibit a dull, parochial nature, a lack of sensitivity and intelligence, a stupified spirit, possessing no element of good education, and foreign to any refinement. Such, in my opinion, is the character of any man who is able to remain indifferent upon hearing them” (Hartmann, op. cit., p. 52).

64. Ibn Bassam, Al-Dhakira, in Raynouard, Choix de poésies, Vol. II, p. 118.

65. ‘Abd al-Walid al-Marrakishi, Histoire des Almohades, tr. E. Fragnan, p. 77 f.

The Arab authors, such as Ibn Khaldūn, say that the popular poetry (zajal) was derived by imitation of the literary strophic poem (muwashshaha). This is nothing but a scholastical preconception. To the contrary, Hartmann and most of the orientalists believe that the strophic literary poem is an imitation of the popular poem (Hartmann, op cit., pp. 209, 218; Z. Veil, art. “‘Arud,” Encyclopédie de l’Islam).

66. In Dozy’s opinion, the name of Ibn Quzmān is not related to the Visigoth name, Guzman, as one might suspect and as Gunzburg seems to have believed. It is thoroughly an Arab name. He is very often mentioned by Arabic authors, notably in Ibn Khaldūn, in Maqqari, in Al-Muhibbi and in Ibn Bassam. Rosen disputed his right to the title “vizir,” and was followed by Brockelmann (Geschichte der arabischen Literatur, Vol. I, p. 272); but Dozy proved, in a letter to Gunzburg, that Ibn Quzmān was fully entitled to it. It is necessary to recognize, however, that the title was frequently attributed to someone without that person’s actually exercising the implied functions. After the fall of Al-Mu’tamid, Ibn Quzmān returned to Cordova, but also travelled considerably in many parts of Spain. The interesting question is: What sort of person was he? Rosen and Brockelmann represent him as a “poor wretch,” almost a beggar, living on the charity of his benefactors. His Diwān contains many pieces dedicated to his patrons, and he often complains of his poverty; The Diwān itself is dedicated to Al-Washki Ibn Hamdin. It is necessary, however, to take into account the fact that he imitated the style of the popular singers, although he was a cultivated man. All things considered, it is probable that, relying on the largesse of his benefactors, he led a life very similar to that of the majority of the troubadours.

67. The Diwān of Ibn Quzmān, of which the only manuscript is found in Leningrad, having come there by way of Syria, was published in phototype by Baron David von Gunzburg in Berlin, in 1896. It was number 136 of the Arab Mss. in the Asiatic Museum. Twentyfour pages of the manuscript are missing. Victor Rumanovitch von Rosen published a short account of the Ms. with extracts (Notice sommaire des manuscrits arabes du Musée asiatique, St. Petersburg, 1881, pp. 242-254). The distinguished Arabic scholar, Dr. Julian Ribera y Tarrago, deserves the credit for having first drawn attention to the importance of the Diwān (Diseurso leído en la Real Academia Española: “El cancionero de Aben Guzmán,” Madrid, 1912; reprinted in Disertaciones y opúsculos, 1928, Vol. I, pp. 3 ff.) A. R. Nykl, of the Chicago School of Oriental Languages, published a partial transscription, with a transliteration in Latin letters and translations of a member of the azajal of the Diwān (El cancionero de Aben Guzmán, Madrid, 1933). See in addition: F. J. Simonet, “Las anacreonticas de Ibn Guzman,” in La ilustración española y americana, Madrid, 1885, no. 45, pp. 331 ff.; A González Palencia, Historia de la literatura arábigo-española, pp. 107-112, 329-332; G. S. Colin, in Hespéris, XVI, 1933, pp. 161-170; Jean de Goeje, art. “Ibn Kozman,” Encyclopédie de l’Islam; Fehim Bajraktarevic, ibid., Supplément.

68. Arabic scholars, accustomed to literary Arabic, and unfamiliar with the Arabic spoken in the twelfth century, refer to the songs of Ibn Quzmān in terms which recall those used by Ibn Bassam. Dozy claims that the poems of Ibn Quzmān are composed “in an uninflected vernacular.” “The language of these songs,” says M. Ribera, “is not the poetic language taught in the schools, but certainly the vulgar tongue which was current in Cordova; it contains jests, coarse speech and the vulgar jokes of the street. It is the language of students and gamins and represents the commonplaces of domestic expression.” (Julian Ribera y Tarrago, Disertaciones y opúsculos: “El cancionero de Aben-Guzmán,” I, p. 41). These descriptions are likely to produce an erroneous impression. One must not imagine that Ibn Quzmān committed grammatical blunders or that his language was uncultivated and hardly literate. This is no more true of Ibn Quzmān than it was of Dante when he wrote in the “vulgar tongue” instead of Latin and when he used the coarsest of words in “The Divine Comedy.”

69. Al-Mostathref fi kulli fennin mostazref, cited by Hammer-Purgstall, “Sur les formes artificielles de la poésie arabe,” Journal asiatique, 4th series, XIV, p. 249.

Another type which would have delighted Marcabru and which was represented in Ibn Quzmān is cited and discussed in the Hamasa of Abū Tammam Habib ibn-Aws (d. 850). It has for its theme Madhammati’l Nisa, “The abuse of women” (R. A. Nicholson, The Literary History of the Arabs, p. 130).

70. Admittedly it is necessary to take account of Arabic usage, which, not allowing the naming of a woman directly, very often led to the substitution of the masculine gender for the feminine in speaking of the object of amatory passion. “Why does one so often find among the Muslim poets so many pieces in which the object of their love is depicted by attributes which are not those of the female sex?” asks De Slane. And he answers: “It was considered improper to make references to sex, either in conversation or in writing. Therefore, it became necessary to depict the beloved object by using adjectives and verbs of the masculine gender . . . this change of gender is even permitted in some cases by the spirit of the Arab language . . . Even today, in Cairo, the musicians who run about the streets must use the masculine gender when the matter of love comes into their songs; otherwise, public morality would be offended and the singer would be exposed to severe punishment for having lacked decency and broken a police regulation. “The Moslem poet has thus been forced to abide by this rule posed by public opinion” (De Slane, “Sur le sens figuré de certains mots qui se rencontrent dans la poésie arabe,” Journal Asiatic, 3rd series, VII, p. 175.) And August Cour noted: “The beloved object was depicted by epithets and with traits proper to the male sex. Whatever the motive may have been, an ancient fear of magic, or sexual jealousy, or the influence of Islam, this dissimulation is a fact; and this fact is recognized by public approval, the supreme authority in literary matters” (A. Cour, Ibn Zaidoûn: un poète arabe d’Andalousie, p. 135.)

The meticulous protocol of Arabic etiquette which requires that on each encounter with a friend or an acquaintance one enquires individually about the health of all the male relatives, does not allow one to mention wife, daughter or mother, and to do so would be an inexcusable affront. An analogous situation is found in Provençal poetry, in which the senhal, by which the lady is designated, is sometimes masculine. Thus Bernard de Ventadorn extols Marguerite de Turenne under the name of “Tristan” (ed. C. Appel, p. 254), and Bertram de Born addresses Maheut, viscountess of Talleyrand, by the term “fair lord” (A. Stimmung, Bertran von Born, p. 13). The term midons, “my lord,” was in general use.

71. C. Raynouard, Choix de poésies originales des troubadours, Vol. II, p. 249. Also Bernard de Ventadorn:

72. For example, the second strophe of the tenth zajal is thus conceived :

O my poor Salviato (Silibato), you (tun) are sad and vexed (penado), this day will be a ruined (gastado) for you (tun); you haven’t tasted a single morsel.

One encounters such words as “nabbali” (navaja, dagger) and Fulano (so and so). In item number lxxxiv, an old Spanish woman speaks a mixture of Spanish and Arabic. Cf. azajal xix, xx, lxxxii, xlix, cii. See J. Ribera, Disertaciones y opúsculos, Vol. I, p. 36.

In a thirteenth century Portuguese song book, in the Vatican library, there is found a song of the murabba’ model in Portuguese, mixed with phrases in a corrupt Arabic.

One frequently finds a large number of bilingual pieces in Christian Europe dating from the same time. Generally the main part is in Latin, the refrain in Provençal. For instance a manuscript in the Vatican contains a bilingual “aube” (reproduced in facsimile in E. Monaci, Facsimili di antichi manoscritti, fol. 78; Cf. J. Schmidt, in Zeitschrift fūr deutsche Philologie, XII, pp. 333, 41). The monk Hilarius has many pieces with Provençal codas (Hilarii versus et Ludi, pp. 14, 25, 27, 41). Latin is sometimes mixed with English:

—(E. du Méril, Poésie populaire latine du moyen-âge, p. 7, cf. p. 123, note.)

73. “Aragonais was very similar to Valencian, or, more properly, to Limousinian.” Mayans y Siscar, Origenes de la lengua española, Vol. I, p. 54. Cf. C. Michaelis de Vasconcellos and Th. Braga, Geschichte der portugiesischen Literatur, in Groeber, Grundriss der romanische Philologie, Bd. II, Abt. 2, p. 134, n.

74. A. González Palencia, Historia de la literatura arábigoespañola, p. III.

75. J. Ribera y Tarragó, Disertaciones y opúsculos, Vol. I, p. 71.

76. Dante, Vita nuova, XXV: “E non molto numero d’anni passati, che apparino prima questi poeti volgari . . . Se volemo cercare in lingua d’oc e in quella di si, noi non troviamo cosedette anzi lo presente tempo per cento e cinquanta anni.”

77. This is also the view of A. R. Nykl. “I am of the opinion,” he wrote, “that Guilhem de Poitiers was responsible for the beginning of the formative period of this poetry.” (The Dove’s Neck-Ring,” p. cviii.) The case, however, is not singular. Everything seems to indicate that the diffusion of Provençal poetry and of “courtly” ideas into northern France was largely due to the personal action of the granddaughter of the troubadour prince, Aliénor d’Aquitaine, and that of her daughters, Marie de Champagne and Aélis de Blois. This is the opinion of Gaston Paris (Romania, XII, 1883, pp. 523 ff.).

78. Ibn Khaldūn, III, p. 426, cited by Ribera, Música de las cántigas, p. 60 f. The share of the expedition commander, Guillaume de Montreuil, consisted of not less than 1,500 young girls. Some were sent to the Emperor of Byzantium (Menéndez Pidal, La España del Cid, Vol. I, p. 165 f.).

79. This may be concluded with certainty, in the opinion of A. Richard, although it is not expressly stated (Histoire des comtes de Poitou, Vol. I, pp. 404 ff.). Count Guilhem was not at Poitou nor was he in Provence. The daughter of Count Guillaume IV of Toulouse, the young queen of Aragon—she was between 20 and 22 years of age—was the legitimate heiress of the count. She would not have been able to consider returning to the shire of Toulouse, where her uncle (Raimon de St. Gilles) would certainly not have tolerated her presence. In view of the privileges due her, one may suspect that suitors for her hand were not lacking, but the Duke of Aquitaine was able to supplant all of them. Young, charming, handsome, he had all of the personal qualifications which would enable him to conquer the heart of a young woman. . . The date of the marriage is not known, but there is every reason to believe that Guillaume did not long delay, for he was the husband of Phillippa before the end of the year 1094.

Guillaume spent the summer and the autumn of 1094 on the preparation for and the consummation of this union, for to eliminate the competitors that were necessarily in his way, he certainly did not hesitate to make use of his personal charm. Thus for a long time he was away from Poitou, leaving the field free for rivalries and ambitions to break out unchecked . . . The celebrations and the entertainments of all sorts which necessarily accompanied Guillaume’s marriage were too much to his liking for him to allow them to be interrupted. . . . History does not record any trace of the Duke of Aquitaine during the year 1095.

As A. R. Nykl observes (op. cit., p. lxvii), it would have been the reverse of everything we know about the customs of the time if there had not been in the retinue of the young queen of Aragon some jongleurs or some female singers similar to those who were present at the capture of Barbastro. Thus Guilhem of Poitou would have had the occasion then to familiarize himself with the Moorish song.

80. Ordericus Vitalis, Historia ecclesiastica, ed. A. le Prévost, Vol. IV, p. 132. The chronicler is poorly informed with respect to the doings and the trial of the Count of Poitiers in the Holy Land. He was never in captivity. After the annihilation of his army in Anatolia, Guilhem de Poitou spent about a year midst the luxuries and pleasures of Antioch as the guest of Tancrède. This was another excellent opportunity for him to get to know the Moorish songs, which were then current in Syria. (See above, note 30).

81. Gaston Paris, Histoire poétique de Charlemagne, p. 48. Cf. R. Briffault, The Mothers, Vol. III, p. 425 ff.

Ribera put forth the thesis that the form of the Provençal heroic song (chanson de geste) was itself derived from a Hispano-Moorish form. (“Discurso leido ante la real academia de historia, “La épica entre los musulmanes españoles.”) The Chanson de Roland owes its origin and its inspiration to the crusades in Spain from 1018 to 1120, in which a large number of French knights took part. Certainly the heroic tales were widely diffused among the barbaric nations; but the rhymed forms were not. The latter were of the form of the Arabic qasīda.

The opinion of J. Bédier, according to which the chansons de geste would have been composed in connection with pilgrimages, such as that of Santiago de Compostela (Bédier, Les Légendes épiques) is in accord with Ribera’s theory. Groeber compares the chansons de geste with a sort of a Baedeker, which would have recalled to the pilgrims, the myths associated with the places which they had visited.

82. Juan Ruiz, El libro de buen amor, coplas 115-117.

83. Calderón de la Barca, “Amar después de la muerte,” Jorn. I, esc. i, Biblioteca de autores españoles, Vol. XII, p. 681.

For comments on the zajal in Spanish literature, see J. Ribera, Disertaciones y opúsculos, Vol. I, pp. 68 ff. The murabba’ form of versification is found yet today in popular songs in Morocco (Rafael Arévalo, Método prdctico para hablar el árabe marroquí, Tangier, 1909, p. 146).

84. P. de Sandoval, Crónica del ínclito emperador Alonso VII, p. 68. The authors of L’Histoire générale de Languedoc (Vol. III, p. 694) raise some doubts concerning this enfeoffment, but their objections do not seem capable of dismissing the detailed account of the chronicler. This account is repeated by Zurita, an Aragonese historian, who certainly would have had reason to raise doubts, if such existed, concerning the claims of the King of Castile. The Aragonese Kings’ affirmation of their rights to the shire of Toulouse dates back to 1093 (A. Richard, Histoire des comtes de Poitou, Vol. II, p. 403).

85. C. Raynouard, Lexique roman, Vol. I, p. 512.

86. Le Troubadour Folquet de Marseille, ed. S. Stronski, p. 85. Cf. Bernard d’Auriac:

Mathieu Paris (1213) spoke of heretics in partibus Tolosanis et Aragonum regno.

87. Poésies de Marcabru, ed. Dejeanne, p. 109. “Reial” was very common in France as a battle-cry. It was also used in Portugal (Manuel Mila y Fontanals, Trovadores en España, p. 79, n.). The oldest Provençal money, coined by the counts of Toulouse, bore the crown of Aragon and was known by the names, “royal sous” or “crown sous” (Jean de Gaufridi, Histoire de Provence, Vol. I, p. 78).

88. E. Baret, Les Troubadours et leur influence sur la littérature du Midi de l’Europe, p. 24.

89. R. Dozy, Recherches sur l’histoire et la littérature de l’Espagne pendant le moyen âge, Vol. I, p. 99.

90. J. Anglade, ed., Les Poésies de Peire Vidal, p. 2.

91. Juan de Mariana, Historia de España, Book IX, ch. 1.

92. R. Dozy, Histoire des Musulmans en Espagne, Vol. III, pp. 83 ff.; R. Altamira, Historia de España, Vol. I, pp. 215 f.

93. R. Dozy, Recherches sur l’histoire et la littérature de l’Espagne, Vol. I, pp. 215 f.

94. R. Altamira, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 262; R. Dozy, Recherches, Vol. I, p. 201.

95. Dadin de Hauteserre, Rerum aquitanarum libri v, p. 513, citing the Chronicon malleacense. There seems to have been some confusion concerning Guilhem’s two principal expeditions into Spain. Nevertheless, the chronicle explicitly gives June 17, 1115 as the date of the victory gained by the count and his Limousin knights at Cordova. Fauriel says that he was on all of these expeditions. (Histoire de la poésie provençale, Vol. I, p. 464). Cf. Besly, Histoire des comtes de Poitou (1647), pp. 434, 437; Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, Vol. XII, pp. 119, 413.

96. Jaufré de Vigeois, in Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, Vol. XII, p. 425.

97. J. Anglade, Peire Vidal, p. 58 f.

98. Dejeanne, Poésies de Marcabru, p. 108.

99. Ibid., p. 109.

100. J. Ribera, La epica entre los musulmanes españoles, p. 12.

101. Al-Maqqari, Analectes, Vol. I, p. 247.

102. A. Gonzalez Palencia, Historia de la literatura ardábigoespañola, p. 56.

103. Milá y Fontanals, Los trobadores en España, p. 102.

104. Ibid., pp. 261 ff.

105. ‘Abd al-Wahid, Histoire du Maghreb, trans. by Dozy, p. 72 f.

106. R. Dozy, Histoire des Musulmans d’Espagne, Vol. III, p. 31.

107. Les Poésies de Cercamon, ed. A. Jeanroy, p. 21.

108. J. Anglade, Peire Vidal, p. 12.

109. Annales du Midi, Vol. XXI, p. 317; Menéndez Pidal, Poesia juglaresea y juglares, p. 167.

110. R. Menéndez Pidal, Poesía juglaresca y ju glares, p. 140 f. Cf. “Chronicon Adelfonsi imperatoris,” in España sagrada, Vol. XXI, p.354.

111. Al-Maqqari, Analectes, Vol. II, p. 424.

112. P. Sandaval, Crônica del inclito emperador Alonso VII, p. 70 f.

113. Chronicon Adelfonsi imperatoris, España sagrada, Vol. XXI, P. 379.

114. Roderici toletani archepiscopi de rebus Hispaniae, 1155, Book VII, Chapter IX, in Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, Vol. XII, p. 383.

115. R. Menéndez Pidal, Poesía juglaresca, p. 152.

116. P. Mariana, Historia de España, Book XI, Chapter III. Cf. Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, Vol. XII, p. 413, note.

117. Histoire littéraire de la France, Vol. XVIII, p. 571.

118. R. Altamira, Historia de España, Vol. I, p. 425.

119. V. A. Canello, Arnaldo Daniello, p. 105. Of the eighteen of his songs which we possess—a very small fraction of his total works—at least three deal with a lady of Aragon who, judging by the numerous puns on l’aura, must have been named Laura. Arnaud would not have lost his love “for all the riches of Lucerna,” or “for the throne of the kingdom of Ebro” (xvi and x). Lucerna, today Lucena, which he mentions in two songs, is a town in the province of Valencia. In Arnaud Daniel’s time Lucerna was a Moorish village, the taïfa of Valence not having been annexed by the Christians until 1238. Lucerna was the scene of the novel, Enfance Vivien, to which Arnaud Daniel frequently refers.

120. A. Jeanroy, “Les Troubadours en Espagne,” Annales du Midi, XXVII, p. 147.

121. Seconde Biographie de Bertram de Born, ed. Stimmung, p. 54.

122. C. Chabaneau, in Histoire générale de Languedoc, Vol. X, p. 223, n. 5.

123. Ibid.

124. Ibid.

125. A. Jeanroy, “Les Troubadours en Espagne,” Annales du Midi, Vol. XXVII, p. 146.

126. C. de Lollis, “II Canzoniere provenzale, Codex Vat. 523W”, Studi di filologia romanza, Vol. III, p. 610.

127. Menéndez Pidal, Poesía juglaresca, p. 149.

128. The only historical trace of the passage of Guilhem de Cabestanh into Spain is the appearance of his name in the list of knights who took part in the battle of las Navas de Tolosa. It is given by Pero Anton Beuther and regarded by Chabaneau as being authentic. The Provençal biography of Cabestanh consists merely of a romantic legend, but it is significant that in this tale the prince who avenges the murder of the lovers is none other than the king of Aragon, Alphonse II.

129. Milá y Fontanals, Trobadores en España, p. 324.

130. Menéndez Pidal, op. cit., p. 147.

131. Menéndez Pidal, op. cit., p. 9.

132. Ibid., p. 23 f. C. Michaelis de Vasconcellos (Cancioneiro de Ajuda, Vol. II, p. 650) thought the word to be Provençal. In Italian the word was zieglero (G. Crescimbeni, Istoria della volgare poesia, p. 96), thus apparently confirming Ribera’s conjecture. Cf. also Menéndez Pidal, Poesia juglaresca, p. 23.

133. Giraud Riquier, Epître lxxiv, vv, 87f, in Mahn, W erke der Troubadours, Vol. IV, p. 210.

134. P. Meyer, Recueil d’anciens textes, i. 82; Crescini, Manualetto provenzale.

The old French term “gouliar” is never applied, as some have erroneously assumed, to any kind of jongleur. It was a popular epithet referring to noisy, drunken and disorderly bands of Latinquarter students. However, it may be that, like several French pejorative designations, such as “savate” (Sp. zabatos) for old shoes, “habler”, boaster, bragger, from Sp. hablar, to speak, that “gouliar” was a pejorative application of the Italian guillaro.

135. P. Rajna, I reali di Francia, Vol. I, p. 588.

136. G. Crescimbeni, L’Istoria della volgare poesia, (1714), p. 96. Any association with the German Ziegler, a brickmaker, can be safely excluded.

G. Crescimbeni. Istoria della volgare poesia, p. 96. The most common designation in Italian is gioellero, which is usually interpreted “provider of joy” (from gioia). It is, however, to be noted that this is a Tuscan form, while the activity of the early Italian jongleurs and troubadours was almost entirely confined to the north of the Apennines. Now among the most distinctive characteristics of all northern Italian dialects are (1) that the soft g’s become sibillants, (2) that there are no i diphthongs, (3) that there are no reduplicated consonants (Zorzo for “Gi orgio”, Shosa for “Chioggia”, losa for “loggia”). Thus the Tuscan form gioellero would in its original form, in northern Italy, be zozeller, which is essentially similar to zoellero, and comes very close to the Arabic. C. Michaelis de Vasconcellos thinks—quite likely rightly so—that the Italian appellation derived from the Provençal (Cancioneiro de Ajuda, Vol. II, p. 658). The French “Ségrier” is clearly a rendering of the Italian or the Provençal term.

137. Ibn Khaldūn, Prolégomènes, tr. De Slane, Vol. III, p. 425; Hammer-Purgstall, “Note sur les mowaschschahah et les ezajal,” Journal asiatique, 3rd series, Vol. VIII, 1899, p. 160.

138. Menéndez Pidal, op. cit., p. 135.

139. Menéndez Pidal, Poesía juglaresca, p. 31.

140. A. Jeanroy, Dejeanne et Aubry, Quatre poésies de Marcabru, 3rd song; J. Ribera, La jota aragonesa, pp. 138 f.; Id. La música arabe en las canciones de trobadores, troveros y minnesinger.

“The jota is the supreme dance of Aragon, whose fanaticisms of love, heroism and religion it symbolizes. When an Aragonese speaks of the jota it is with the fervor of an enthusiast, with the sacred passion that one offers to a deity. It represents a veritable pagan cult.” (Raoul Laparra, “La Musique populaire en Espagne,” Enc. de la musique.)

In order to allow readers who are musicians to make a comparison I present (pp. 244-45) Jeanroy-Aubry’s transcription of Marcabru’s song, followed by an example of the jota. The notation of the modal system does not provide any indication of the rhythm. It thus allows the singer to alter it at will and to introduce all sorts of variations. In Marcabru’s song the stanza consists of lines of eight syllables and a refrain of four syllables. This is also the structure of the jota. It very much resembles that of the fandango, and it is difficult to make an absolute distinction between the two. According to Larrāmendi, in his Coreografia de Guipúzcoa, the Basque fandango is a variant of the Aragonese jota. (E. López Chavarri, Música popular española, p. 124.) “The melody of the dance is not always identical with that of the couplets. When the singer begins, the instruments become silent, except for the guitars which mark the rhythm,” (E. Lopez Chavarri, op. cit., p. 114, n.) The cadence is 3/4 or 6/8. Sometimes, as at Valence, the jota is danced and sung to a very slow measure.

141. T. Gérold, La Musique au moyen âge, p. 91.

142. Jean Renart, Galeran de Bretagne, ed. Lucien Foulet, vv. 1168 ff.

143. The subject of popular Spanish poetry prior to the poetry of the troubadours is too large a theme and requires research sufficiently impracticable under prevailing circumstances for me to discuss it fully. I shall confine my efforts to outlining its general traits. Hartmann and Ribera, as well as many Arab authors, are in agreement in believing that the marqaz, or the khargaz, of the Andalusian azajal, which were composed in the romance tongue, represent fragments of some popular songs which were wholly composed in that language.

This theory is reminiscent of Jeanroy’s hypothesis concerning the origin of the refrains, but it is rather more likely in this case, since it is a matter of two distinct languages and not of a mere “tradition” for which there is no proof. However, there is no doubt that the Spanish dances, and in particular the Aragonese jota, which harks back to a time prior to that of the Roman occupation and is very likely of oriental origin (Phoenician, Syrian), were accompanied by songs. Gaston Paris and Jeanroy, as well as others (Du Méril, for example) are rightly in agreement in considering the songs which accompanied the dances, the ballettes, the caroles as the most characteristic and most indisputable forms of popular poetry. As in all other cases, we do not possess any Spanish dancing songs dating back to before the twelfth century. But these forms vary little; thus we are justified in forming an opinion, on the basis of those we have, concerning the nature of those from an earlier era. But those extant, which are very abundant in the song books, have the form of the Andalusian zajal. For example :

The Portuguese song book in the Vatican abounds in such examples.

These dancing songs—“almost invariably composed in three couplets, each of which is followed by a refrain,” a form Jeanroy attributed to the French influence (Origines de la poésie lyrique en France, p. 308, f.)—reproduce the oldest type of the Spanish dancing song. The Castillian dialect did not exist in the eleventh century, or else it was a dialect of absolutely no importance. There is little doubt that the language of these Spanish ballettes was essentially the same as that of Aragon, the language of the jongleurs and the troubadours, “Provençal.” “Not long ago all of the singers and troubadours in our land, although they came from Castille, or Andalusia, or Estremadura, composed their works in the Galician language, that is Portuguese.” So said the marquis of Santillana in the fifteenth century (cited by Gottfried Bain, Geschichte der spanischen Literatur, in Groeber, Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, Bd. II, Abt. 2, p. 389. Cf. above, note 73). There was a Romance language which extended, if we exclude slight local variations, from Seville and Cordova as far as Toulouse and Poitiers.

There is a persistent popular tradition which would place the origin of the Aragonese jota in Valence and further would attribute its “invention” to the Arabs. This tradition indicates that the Aragonese people were aware of the influence which Arabic music and poetry exerted on their national dance, although this dance, which has for them the importance of a cult, probably arose even earlier.

144. Parnasse occitanien, p. 340; C. Raynouard, Lexique roman, Vol. I, p. 382.

It may very well be, and it is even probable, that the count of Poitiers, who was a man with an alert and extremely inquisitive mind, acquired at least a few fragments of Arabic during his sojourns in Spain and at Antioch. M. A. R. Nykl (The Dove’s Neck-Ring, p. cxiii) noted that the nonsense rhymes the count introduced into his Farai un vers por mi sonelh (No. 5 in the Jeanroy edition) had a decidedly Arabic appearance. Here is the strophe according to Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. fr. 856, which Mahn adopts:

Nykl suggests that this is a mixture of Arabic and Turkish and interprets thus: Tara wara-l-bab (look behind the door); marat or marten (women); biliorum (I know), ben (myself); sar nnhar bard (it is cold today).

Without attempting a reconstruction, which would only be conjectural, I propose rather:

Taking into account the defective Arabic and the errors of numerous copyists, the galimatias of the man who pretends to be dumb appear to be passably intelligible. It is not a matter, of course, of correctly deciphering these galimatias, but to show that they are amenable to transliteration.

The linguistic “abyss” between the Arabic world and the Latin world in the thirteenth century, as imagined by Renan and as is generally assumed, certainly did not exist. The many Arabic words in our languages bear witness against this supposition. Linguistic diffusion always consists of a transference of the language of the most civilized culture to that of the least civilized. Modern Europeans are of the opinion that the now decayed Arabic world is half barbaric; but in the twelfth century just the opposite was true: compared to barbarous Europe, the Arabic world was highly civilized. A large number of the Arabic words which have passed into our language are scientific words which we have obtained by means of books and education. But there are many others which have come by way of the daily commerce between the two peoples and which presuppose a certain, linguistic knowledge, even if only of the “pidgin” type, on the part of the Europeans. Words relating to commerce and government, such as “douane” (customhouse) from diwan, “amiral” (admiral) from émir or émir al-bahr; nautical terms, such as “cable” from habl, “goudron” (tar) from gatran, “caravel” (garaf), etc.; names of commodities: “café,” “sucre” (sugar), “candi” (candy), “chandelle” (candle) from candil, “jarre” (jar), “coton” (cotton), “baldaquin” (baldachin) from bagdadi, the name of a fabric which came from Baghdad, “baraque” (hut, barracks); names of flowers: “lilas,” “jasmin,” etc.; names of articles of clothing: “chemise” from kamis, “jupe” (Eng. jupe, shirt) or “jupon” from jubba, “savate” (shoe, sabot) from sebbat. The jongleurs called their musical instruments by their Arabic names. Words of Arabic origin, which imply a very intimate knowledge of a spoken language, are found in Provençal. For example: galaubia = magnificence, generosity; galib = chivalrous, literally, “resembling ‘Ali,” Islam’s ideal knight. Cf. “algarade” (Arab, al-garah = incursion).

145. Histoire littéraire de la France, Vol. IX, p. 174.

146. See miniature from the manuscript of “Cantigas de Santa Maria,” Bibl. Escurial (b. I. 2), reproduced as Figure 24 in the original French version of this book (Robert Briffault, Les Troubadours, Paris, Editions du Chêne, 1945).

147. C. Chabaneau, in Histoire générale de Languedoc, Vol. X, p. 127.

148. It has been said that on the occasion of the battle of Calatanazor (in the province of Soria), in which Al-Mansūr’s armies had undergone a reverse in 998 or 1002, a singer depored the disaster in a planh which was sung alternately in Arabic and in the vernacular Romance tongue (Mariana, Historia de España, Book VIII, Chapter IX). Father Mariana’s sources are Lucas de Tuy and Rodriquez Jiminez de Rada, archbishop of Toledo, who both wrote approximately a century after the event. The chronological confusion into which these authors typically fell has raised doubts concerning the authenticity of this Christian victory. However, this has nothing to do with the incident in question. Although the tale was, after the manner of the clerics of that time, embellished with miraculous incidents—the song would have been sung in Cordova the very day of the battle, but the singer suddenly vanished—the circumstance that he uttered in his song in both languages is put forth quite naturally. This indicates, at least, that similar bilingual presentations were not unusual in the eleventh century and that in Cordova itself a similar duplication was necessary in order that the entire population understand such announcements. At the end of the thirteenth century, Guiraut Riquier, “the last of the troubadours,” feeling the need of finding a patron, addressed himself to the Muslim emirs, seeking the position of singer at their courts (J. Anglade, Les Troubadours, p. 287). In an earlier era, the Hispano-Moorish singers themselves turned in the same way to the Spanish princes.

149. E. Renan, Averroès et l’averroïsme, p. 159. The abundant importation of novels, fables, narratives, etc., from the Islamic world to the West is generally recognized. Gaston Paris writes: “Whence came these tales which were so widely spread throughout Europe, many of which are popular even today? Most of them have their origin in the East. . . The Arabic importations took place through two very different locations: Syria and Spain . . . In the East, the crusaders, who lived very intimately with the Moslem population, received many of these tales by word of mouth.” (La Littérature française au moyen âge, p. 119 f.). The extent of this light type of literature is so great that Paris devoted a whole volume to its study (Les Contes orientaux dans la littérature française du moyen âge), and Groeber has a long chapter on it. The Disciplina Clericalis was translated into French, German, Italian, English, Catalan, the language of Beam and Icelandic; it gave rise to a whole line of tales. A vast literature of fableaux and fablieux extended through the time of Boccaccio and the Italian story-tellers, up through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In France, Floire et Blanchefleur, Aucassin et Nicolette, the Estormi of Huoun Peucele, Rutebeuf’s Testament de l’âne, the Longue nuit, the Vilain mire, from which Molière took the theme of his “The Doctor in Spite of Himself,” are derived directly from the repertories of the Arab and Hispano-Moorish story-tellers. The very novels of chivalry are adorned in oriental garb and sometimes, as for example in the case of Enfance Vivien, are actually Arabic stories. Even hagiology and the lives of the saints are derived from the same source, as for example, Barlaam et Josaphat (G. Paris, op. cit., pp. 233 ff.). Thus tales and narratives freely crossed this abyss which was deemed “uncrossable” to popular song.

Jeanroy aptly said, “If there is a buoyant, winged poetry which flies easily and rapidly from mouth to mouth, it is lyrical poetry.” But he added: “From early times our dances have also travelled beyond our frontiers” (Origines de la poésie lyrique, p. 125). In what direction? Surely not as a foreign importation into Spain, the cradle of the dance from time immemorial and, for the last two centuries, of lyric poetry also.

Ribera remarks on this subject: “This preference that the troubadours have shown for Spain, their frequent trips, and constant intercourse with that country, have been interpreted by scholars as indications of the influence of the poets from beyond the mountains on the poetry of the peninsula. The possibility has not occurred to their jaded imagination that the effect of these perpetual visits could have operated in the opposite direction, and that the Provençal singers may have learned anything bearing on that ‘new form of art’ which had seen the light of day long ago in Spain” (La música de las cántigas, p.142 n.).

150. Benjamin of Tudela, cited by Sabatier, op. cit., p. 7.

In 1195 the council of Montpellier forbade Christians to serve as domestics in the houses of Saracens or Jews (Manse: Sacr. conc. nova et ampliori coll., Vol. XXII, col. 669). “Decrevit etiam, ut Judaei sive Sarraceni nullam super Christianos habeant potestatem, nec eos Christianis praeficere quiquam praesumant, neque sub alendorum peurorum obtentu, nec pro servitio, nec alia qualibet causa, in domibus suis servientes Christianos aut Christianas permittantur habere.” Very probably the Jews played an important role in the diffusion of the Andalusian song, as well as in the diffusion of all Arabic literature and all the knowledge of the Arabs. The Spanish Jews were very often jongleurs by profession. Indeed the Jews have a predilection for the profession of music and song. Even today in Morocco most of the popular musical and dancing establishments are to be found in the mellah (ghettos) and the musicians, singers and dancers are Jews. “Many of the musicians in the service of the Spanish Kings were Jews, as the livres de raison of the royal houses attest” (E. López Chavarri, Música popular española, p. 27).

Juan Ruiz mentions the festivities with Jewish female singers (Libro de buen amor, couplets 1513 f.). During the reign of Alphonse X, “judging from accounts dating from the succeeding reign, the king’s palace employed a large number of Moorish and Jewish jongleurs” (R. Menéndez Pidal, Poesia juglaresca, p. 138). After the Almorivade conquest these Jewish jongleurs went everywhere; they were to be found even in England. Always great polyglots, the Jewish jongleurs were the interpreters of the songs which they chanted to their Provençal confreres. Moreover, a large number of Spanish Jews, following the example provided by all of the literate persons of Moorish Spain, cultivated poetry, composing it either in Arabic or in the romance tongue. Many of the most celebrated among them settled in Provence. The famous Aben-Ezra, himself the translator of Averroes and the Arabian philosophers, composed songs. Of the multitude of Jewish poets living in Provence, one may cite Abraham Bédersi de Béziers, Joseph Ezobi de Perpignan, Isaac Gorni, Al Mazizzi, Sulami (Renan, in Histoire littéraire de la France, Vol. XXVII, pp. 723 ff. Cf. Histoire générale de Languedoc, Vol. III, p. 865; G. Saige, Les Juifs du Languedoc antérieurement au XIV^e siècle.)

III. AMOUR COURTOIS

1. Diez and Jeanroy discovered the “germs” of courtly love in the poems of Guilhelm de Poitiers (Jeanroy, Les Chansons de Guillaume IX, p. xvii and f.). These “germs” are indeed embryonic. But Jeanroy goes even further. “The courtly formulary is given us complete in all its aspects in the songs of Guillaume IX” (“La poésie provençale au moyen âge,” Revue des Deux-Mondes, 1903, p. 668 f.). All the examples which Jeanroy cites to support this assertion are found in similar form, and even more distinct and mature, in the HispanoMoorish poetry in the treatise of Ibn Hazm and in the songs of Ibn Quzmān.

On this count Jeanroy certainly bears notable witness to the formulation in all its aspects of courtly love in Moorish Spain. I do not think, however, that we should be justified in pushing too far the attribution of courtly conventions to the Arabs.

2. Jaufré de Vigeois, in Recueil des historiens, Vol. XII, p. 424.

3. C. Chabaneau, in Histoire générale de Languedoc, Vol. X, p. 217. Chabaneau thinks that Ventadorn’s court of Eble was a school of courtly poetry whence sprang many generations of troubadours (Revue des langues romanes, XXXV, p. 382).

4. Ed. Stimmung, p. 54.

5. Ed. Dejeanne, p. 149.

6. Histoire générale de Languedoc, Vol. III, p. 859.

7. Raoul Glaber, “Historiae sui temporis,” in Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, Vol. X, p. 42.

8. Jaufré de Vigeois, in Recueil des historiens, Vol. XII, p. 144.

9. P. Andraud, La Vie et l’oeuvre du troubadour Raimon de Miraval, p. 162.

10. Let a single example suffice to show the contrast, which could be amply illustrated, between the conduct of the Muslims and that of the “Christians.” I take it from the history of Jérusalem, by Besant and Palmer: “It was agreed that the lives and property of the defenders of Acre would be spared on the conditions that they pay 200,000 dinars, free 500 captives and return the True Cross . . . Saladin made a down payment of 100,000 dinars, but refused to pay the rest or to hand over the prisoners until he had some guarantee that the Christians intended to keep their word and to free the inhabitants of Acre. . . . The money was weighed out, the prisoners brought to be freed and the True Cross presented. Richard the Lion Hearted, who was encamped at Merj’Ayun, had the prisoners of war placed behind him on a hill. Suddenly at a signal from King Richard, the Christian soldiers threw themselves on the unfortunate prisoners and put them all to the sword. Confronted with the spectacle of this atrocity, Saladin maintained the dignity and the humanity of his chivalrous character. The proud Saladin did not deign to sully his honor by making reprisals. He simply refused to give up the money or the Cross and sent the prisoners back to Damascus. Who, Saladin or Richard the Lion Hearted, was the true knight?”

As for the orders of knighthood, it has been demonstrated that the institution is considerably older in the Islamic world than in the Christian (Hammer-Purgstall, “La Chevalrie des Arabes antérieure à celle de l’Europe,” Journal asiatique, 1849, 4^e série, Vol. XIII, pp. 5 ff.). The Almohades were an order of chivalry. Cf. C. J. Wehe, Das Ritterwesen, Vol. I, pp. 132 ff. Viardot, Histoire des Arabes, Vol. II, p. 196; Wacyf Boutras Ghali, La Tradition chevaleresque chez les Arabes.

“Chivalry was born of the mingling of the Arabic people and the peoples of the north” (Châteaubriand, Etudes et discours, ed. 1841, p. 396).

11. Stendhal, L’Abbesse de Castro, Preface.

12. Miguel Cervantes, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, Part I, Ch. XXIII.

13. A. Stimmung, in Grober, Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, Vol. II, pp. 19 f.; J. Anglade, Les Troubadours, pp. 27 f.

14. Histoire littéraire de la France, Vol. XXIII, p. 512.

15. C. Raynouard, Choix des poésies, Vol. II, p. 160 f.

16. The profession of singer or minstrel was under a church ban from the time of Charlemagne. “He who brings actors, mimes and dancers into his house is forgetting the host of devils that he lets in along with them,” said Alcuin. “God forbid that the devil should establish himself in a Christian home” (Alcuin, in Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae Karolini Aevi, Vol. II, Epistola, CLXXV, p. 290). Leidrad, Archbishop of Rheims, denounced “the songs of the poets, the ostentations and the verses of actors, which corrupt the soul” (ibid. p. 541). These anathemas were repeated by many Councils (E. Faral, Les Jongleurs en France au moyen âge, pp. 272 ff.). The Sixth Council of Paris defined the duties of kings to be: “To prevent theft, to punish adultery, and to refuse to maintain jongleurs” (Migne, Patrologiae cursus, Vol. CXXXIX, col. 477). Jongleurs were refused the sacraments, “because they are the ministers of Satan” (W. Hetz, Spielmanns-Buch, p. 317; E. Gautier, Epopées françaises, Vol. II, p. 11). As the disgrace, however, continued to manifest itself, the church began to adapt itself and to compromise. Poems dealing with heroic deeds, particularly those of Christian heroes, were exempt from condemnation (E. Gautier, op. cit., p. 11; Faral, op. cit., p. 67; C. Nyrop, Storia dell’ epopea francese, pp. 279 ff.). This is probably the reason for the prevalence of the chanson de geste in France. Later on, companies of jongleurs were enrolled in the service of the Church; they composed sacred canticles and religious plays.

17. Gui d’Ussel:

Gladly would I make more songs, but it would be bothersome to say continually that love makes me weep and sigh, for anyone can say as much. To this agreeable melody I should like to put some new words, but I can find nothing that has not already been said. How then, my love, should I address my entreaties to you? I shall say the same thing in a manner which appears different, thus apparently giving the form of novelty to my song.

—Les poésies des quatre troubadours d’Ussel, edited by Jean Audiau, p. 27.

18. F. Diez, Geschichte der Troubadours, pp. 117 f.; A Birch-Hirschfeld, Ueber den Troubadours des XII, und XIII. Jahrhunderts bekannten epische Stoffe, p. 40; L. Sudre, “Les Allusions à la légende de Tristan dans la littérature du moyen âge,” Romania, XV, p. 534f.

19. F. Diez, Die Poesie der Troubadours, pp. 128 ff.

20. Petrarca, I trionfi, III, 56-57.

21. M. E. Wechsler, “Frauendienst und Vassalitat,” in Zeitschrift fūr romanische Sprache und Literatur, XXIV, pp. 159 ff.

22. T. Ribot, La Psychologie des sentiments, p. 244.

23. Salvianus, De gubernatione dei, VI, 72; VII, 16, 27; in Migne, Patrologiae cursus, Vol. LIII, col. 120, 132, 135.

24. C. de Lollis, Studi medievali, I, p. 21.

25. P. Andraud, La Vie et l’oeuvre du troubadour Raimon de Miraval, p. 146.

26. E. J. W. Gibb noted in this respect (History of Ottoman Poetry, Vol. I, p. 24) : There are many poets who are primarily artistic in words; these take such for what they are worth as decorative adjuncts, and work them into verses to produce some desired aesthetic effect. . . While many poets were truly Sufis, others, and they are perhaps the majority, merely play with Sufi ideas and Sufi phrases . . . They found these ideas and phrases ready to hand, and these became, along with many things similarly acquired, so many “studio properties” for the poet, to be introduced into his words as occasion might suggest.

27. J. Anglade, Les Troubadours, p. 79.

28. Raymon Vidal, in Histoire littéraire de la France, Vol. XVIII, p. 634.

29. Ugo de Mataplana, in P. Andraud, La Vie et l’oeuvre du troubadour Raimon de Miraval, p. 138 f.

30. G. Paris, Poèmes et légendes du moyen âge, p. 173 f.

IV. CONCEPTION OF LOVE

1. Emil Lucka, Die drei Stufen der Erotik, Berlin, 1913, p. 137 f.

2. Louis Gillet, Dante, p. 22 f.

3. K. Weinhold, Die deutschen Frauen in dem Mittelalter, p. 181.

4. P. Andraud, La Vie et l’oeuvre du troubadour Raimon de Miraval, p. 162.

5. Guillaume de Malmesbury, De gestis anglorum, in Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, Vol. XIII, p. 19.

6. Jaufré Gros, Vita B. Bernardi abbati de Tirono, Rec. des historiens, Vol. XIV, p. 169. The establishment of an “Abbey” of debauchery is attributed to Count Guilhem (Guillaume de Malmesbury, loc. cit.; cf. P. Rajna, “La badia di Niort,” in Romania, VI, pp. 249 f.).

7. A. Jeanroy, Les Chansons de Guillaume IX, duc d’Aquitaine, p. 25.

8. Ibid., p. xviii.

9. Ibid., p. 15.

10. Boccaccio, Decameron, Third Day, I.

11. Les Chansons de Guillaume IX, p. 12 f.

12. Les Poésies de Cercamon, ed. A. Jeanroy, p. vii.

13. Ibid., p. 2.

14. Ibid., p. 7.

15. Ibid., p. 13 f.

16. Oeuvres de Marcabru, ed. Dejeanne, p. 1. About two centuries before Marcabru, Ibn Hazm said: “Who would trust a woman, but a fool?” (Tauk-al-Hamama, ed. Pétrof, p. 50).

17. Ibid., p. 84.

18. Ibid., p. 117.

19. Bernart von Ventadorn, ed. C. Appel, p. lxxiv.

20. Ibid., p. 207 f.

21. Ibid., p. 146.

22. Ibid., p. 159; cf. pp. 114, 152, 183, 195.

23. Les Chansons de Jaufré Rudel, ed. A. Jeanroy, p. 15. Love inspired by a lady that the lover has never seen is a very widespread theme. We saw it above in the book of Ibn Hazm. Love of a distant princess occurs frequently in “A Thousand Nights and One.” In fact, ordinarily a Muslim does not see his betrothed before the marriage. In the novel of Flamenca the hero falls passionately in love with a lady he has never seen. See: Lotte Zade, Der Troubadour Jaufré Rudel und das Motiv der Fernliche in der W eltliteratur.

24. Ibid., pp. 8 and 2; Raynouard, Choix des poésies, Vol. III, p. 94.

25. Dante, De vulgari eloquentia, II, xi.

26. Bertram de Born, ed. Stimmung, VII, 431, p. 69. Dante, who abuses Bertram de Born so atrociously and unjustly in Hell (Inferno, XXVIII, 118 ff.) cites him elsewhere as a notable example of largess and liberality (Convito, IV, 11).

27. Ibid., p. 130.

28. Ibid., p. 123 f. The gaillardises of Guilhem de Poitiers are sometimes equaled by those of Bertram de Born. For example, the song leu m’escondisc (ed. Stimmung, 31, p. 120 f.).

29. Les Chansons de Guilhem de Cabestanh, ed. Arthur Längfors, p. 11.

30. Ibid., p. 13.

31. Les Poésies de Peire Vidal, ed. J. Anglade, p. 6 f.

32. Ibid., p. 46.

33. Ibid., p. 58.

34. Ibid., p. 63.

35. Ibid., p. 63 f.

36. Ibid., p. 145 f; cf. p. 136.

37. P. Meyer, Recueil d’anciens textes bas-latins, provençaux et français, I, 82.

38. J. Anglade, Les Troubadours, p. 130.

39. C. Raynouard, Choix de poésies originales des troubadours, Vol. III,

40. Dante, Purgatorio, canto, xxvi, 117.

41. U. A. Canello, La Vita e le opere del trovatore Arnaldo Daniello, p. 111.

42. Ibid., p. 115 f.

43. Dante, Purgatorio, canto xxvi, 82.

44. U. A. Canello, op. cit., p. 95.

45. Dante, De vulgari eloquentia, II, x.

46. U. Canello, op. cit., p. 109. Petrarch imitated the famous phrase, “chatz la lebre ab lo bou.”

47. Ibid., p. 115.

48. Ibid., p. 102.

49. Ibid., p. 97 ff.

50. Raimon Jordan, in Le Parnasse occitanien, p. 200.

51. Gaucelm Faidit, in C. A. F. Mahn, Gedichte der Troubadours, Vol. I, p. 36.

52. Raimon de Durfort, in Parnasse occitanien, p. 75; Peire de Bussinhac, ibid., p. 292; Trues Molesc, “Ueber die in Italien befindlichen provenzalisiche Liederhandschriften,” in Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen u. Literatur, XXXIV, p. 200. “On the erotic poetry of the troubadours, one must cite some songs of Daude de Prades, Canon of Maguelone, the coarse poems of Montan and his lady, and those of Mir Bernard and of Sifre” (Anglade, Les Troubadours, p. 316).

53. C. Raynouard, Choix de poésies, Vol. III, p. 218. “Voluntatz qu’ai del vostre eors gen.” Cf. ibid., p. 203 f.

54. Ibid., Vol. III, p. 223.

55. We append the following examples:

Guilhem Adhemar, in C. Raynouard, Choix des poésies, Vol. III, p. 197.

Peire Rogier, in Mahn, Die Werke der Troubadours, Vol. I, p. 120:

Giraud de Salignac, in Raynouard, Choix de poésies, Vol. III, p. 395 :

Bernard Arnaud de Montcuc: Ibid., Vol. II, p. 217.

The same formulae were frequently used by the trouvères of the langue d’oil. Thus, for example, Seigneur de Couci, the most elegant among them, sings:

56. U. Canello, Arnaldo Daniello, pp. 99, 101.

57. Marcabru, Poésies complètes, ed. Dejeanne, p. 198.

58. Ibid., p. 180.

59. J. Anglade, ed., Peire Vidal, p. 2.

60. Maria de Ventadorn, in Parnasse occitanien, p. 267.

61. “Razo” à un poème de Miraval, [cited by] P. A. Andraud, Raimon de Miraval, p. 102.

62. Ibid., p. 124.

63. Andreas Capellanus, De Amore, ed. E. Trojel, p. 310 f.

64. Bernard de Ventadorn, cited in A. Langfors, Les Chansons de Guilhem de Cabestanh, p. 44. Cf. J. Anglade, ed., Peire Vidal, p. 2:

65. A. Langfors, Guilhem de Cabestanh, p. 14.

66. See Pätzold, Die individuellen Eigenthumlichkeiten einiger hervorragender Troubadours, para. 79.

We have seen that among the Arabs the corresponding term (lauzengier) had special connotations note (43). It has thus perplexed many commentators. Jeanroy said that the term “tells us hardly anything concerning its meaning” (“Etudes sur l’ancienne poésie provençale” in Neuphilologischen Mitteilungen, XXX, 1929, p. 225). Nevertheless, the Breviari d’amor are quite explicit: “Lauzengier e mal parlador, car il h fau les donas lunhar dels amadors am mal parlar” (II, 641).

67. Marcabru, ed. Dejeanne, p. 116.

68. Ibid., p. 179.

69. Les Poésies de Peire Vidal, ed. J. Anglade, p. 148 f.

70. C. Appel, “L’Enseignement de Garin le Brun”, Revue des langues romanes, XXIII, p. 406 ff.

71. Marcabru, ed. Dejeanne, p. 26.

72. Roman de Renard, III, 303.

73. William Langland, Piers the Plowman, Passus I, 85; ed. W. W. Skeat, p. 27. “Hit is as derworthe a drur ie as decre god himseluen.”

74. J. Bédier, Le Roman de Tristan, par Thomas, Vol. I, p. 259.

75. Dante, Inferno, canto xviii, line 133. In the Convito (III, 15), however, Dante speaks of “drudi della filosofia,” lovers of philosophy.

76. C. Appel, Bernart von Ventadorn, p. lxxiv.

77. F. Diez, Die Gedichte der Troubadours, p. 131.

78. P. Andraud, Raimon de Miraval, p. 34.

V. THE ALBIGENSES CRUSADE

1. Monumenta Germaniae historica, Poetae latini, Vol. I, p. 499.

2. “At this time . . . the Northern nobility, with much cruder mores, had scarcely any taste for poetical relaxation or for adventures which it could make the subject of poetry” (A. Jeanroy, Origines de la poésie lyrique, p. 76).

3. S. Munk, Mélanges de philosophie juive et arabe, p. 487 ff.

4. Georgius Cedrenus, Historia universalis, II, 153; Johannes Zonaras, Epitome Historion, II, xiv. “Dante only saw Muhammad as the author of a schismatic doctrine and Islamism as an Arian sect” (Renan, Averroès et l’averroïsme, p. 241).

5. Guizot, trans., Chronique de Guillaume de Puy-Laurens, Chapter VII.

6. St. Bernard, Epistola, CCXXI, in Migne, Patrologia, Vol. 182, col. 434.

7. Aucassin et Nicolette, Chapter VI.

8. C. Raynouard, Lexique roman, Vol. I, p. 382.

9. R. Altamira, Historia de España, Vol. I, p. 420 f.

10. Innocent III, Epist. LVII, LXXV, in Migne, Patrologia, Vol. CCXV, col. 355-57.

11. Dante, Inferno, XIX, 112; Paradiso, XXI, 135 f.

12. Petrarch, Rime, cxxxvii. Sonnets XIV and XVI are still more violent in their denunciation of the church: “Fiamma del ciel su le tue trecce piova” and “Fontana di diolore, albergo d’ira.” (May fire from heaven rain down on your trickeries; fountain of affliction, hostel of wrath.) Similar comments are to be found elsewhere in Dante:

The walls which were wont to be a house of prayer have become dens, and the hoods are sacks full of foul meal. But heavy usury is not exalted so counter to God’s pleasure as the fruit which doth so madden the monk’s heart.

Par. XXII.

14. The citations given are extracted from many different poems. K. Bartsch, Chrestomathie provençale, col. 173; Histoire littéraire de la France, Vol. XX, p. 577; Raynouard, Lexique roman, Vol. I, p. 451 f.; Choix des poésies, Vol. IV, p. 337.

15. V. Crescini, Manualetto provenzale, p. 328.

16. I. J. Döllinger, Beiträge zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters, Vol. I., pp. 120 f. Another dignitary, Julian of Palermo, came in 1201 to confirm the Cathars in Provence (C. Schmidt, Histoire de la secte des Cathares ou Albigeois, Vol. II, p. 145). The term “parfait” (perfect), which was applied to divinities (Pseudo-Denys l’Aréopagite, Les Noms divins. Oeuvres, trans. M. de Gandillac, p. 172), was current in the Orient as a hierarchical title among the Gnostic sects.

17. Chanson de la croisade, v. 497-500.

18. Guillaume le Breton, in the Grandes Chroniques de France, Vol. VI, p. 318. On the back of Lat. Ms. 5925, folio 291, the figure vi has been scratched out and first vii, then xvii substituted (Jules Viard, note in his edition of Grandes Chroniques, loc. cit.). The legate Milon, in his report to the Pope, wrote: “nostrique non parcentes ordini, sexui, vel aetati, fere viginti milli hominum in ore gladii peremerunt, factaque hostium strage permaxima spoliato est tota civitas et succensa, ultione divina in earn mirabiliter saeviente.” (Our people put twenty thousand people, without regard to rank, sex or age, to the sword, and after enormous slaughter of the enemy, sacked the whole city and set it on fire, for the divine vengeance raged so wonderfully against it.) Indeed the impression which was produced by the massacre of Béziers was such that considerable effort was expended to attenuate the enormity of it. Pierre of Vaux-Cernai said: “a minimo ad maximum omnes fere necati” (Historia Albigensium, Chapter XVI). From the humblest to the greatest, almost all were killed. Aubri of Trois-Fontaines wrote: “sexaginta millibus hominum et amplius in ea trucidati” (Alberici Monachi Trium Fontium Chronicon, Hanoverae, 1698, p. 450). (Sixty thousand people and more. were slaughtered.) Vincent de Beauvais put the number “above 70,000” (Speculum historiale, Book XXX, col. ix), and Césaire de Heisterbach brought it to 100,000 (Book V, col. xxi).

19. Marchegay et Mabille, Chroniques des églises d’Anjou, p. 58: “Immanissimam stragem haereticorum et catholicorum quos non potuerunt discernere.”

20. Caesaris Heisterbacensis chronicon, Book V, Chapter XXI.

21. V. Crescini, Manualetto provenzale, p. 333.

22. Pierre de Vaux-Cernai, Historia Albigensium c. xiv; Chanson de la croisade, verses 537-779.

23. Guillaume de Béziers, in Histoire littéraire de la France, Vol. XVIII, p. 552.

24. Grandes Chroniques de France, Vol. VI, p. 319.

25. A. Luchaire, Innocent III: la croisade contre les Albigeois, p. 182.

26. Chanson de la croisade, verse 1081 f.; Pierre de Vaux-Cernai, Chapter XXXVII.

27. Aiméric of Montréal is mentioned in the biography of Miraval, Parnasse occitanien, p. 221.

28. Chanson de la croisade, verse 1551 f.; Pierre de Vaux-Cernai, Chapter LII.

29. Chanson de la croisade, verse 1625 ff.

30. Ibid., verses 9308-20.

31. Pierre de Vaux-Cernai, Historia Albigensium, p. 145; Sixteenth century translation, ed. Guibin et Lyon, p. 49.

32. Pierre de Vaux-Cernai, Chapter LII. The same expression is repeated in the following chapter in a reference to sixty people who were burned at Casses.

33. C. Raynouard, Choix de poésies, Vol. IV, p. 191.

34. Peire Cardenal, in Histoire littéraire de la France, Vol. XX, p. 572; Parnasse occitanien, p. 187.

35. C. Raynouard, Lexique roman, Vol. I, p. 481.

36. Parnasse occitanien, p. 320.

37. Pierre de Vaux-Cernai, c. lxxii. See the end of the prose version of the Chanson de la croisade for the fate with which the papal legate menaced Toulouse.

38. Histoire littéraire de la France, Vol. XX, p. 571.

39. Dante, Paradiso, VI, 133 ff., 128. Eleanor of Provence married Henry III of England, and her sister, Sanchea, married Richard, Duke of Cornwall, who was elected King of Rome. Dante, however, was very poorly informed concerning Provençal affairs. He was unaware of the reconciliation of Bertam of Born with King Henry II (see Inferno, XXVIII, 118 f.). Like Petrarch, he paid homage to the sanctity of Folquet, Bishop of Toulouse (Paradiso, IX, 82 f.). The sources from which the great Ghibelline drew his information were evidently very Guelph.

40. Ford Madox Ford, Provence, p. 182.

41. J. Anglade, Les Troubadours, p. 177.

42. Guillaume de Saint-Pathus, Vie de Saint Louis, ed. H.-Fr. Delaborde, pp. 25, 26 f. Cf. Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis, 53. After publishing an edict against blasphemy, Louis ordered it to be punished by “burning the lips of the blasphemer with a glowing hot iron.” He organized a spy system to detect blasphemers. A certain knight who took a solemn oath on the “name of God” was condemned to have his lips burned with a red hot iron. A number of barons asked the king to grant him mercy, but the king would not listen to them and the knight was tortured. The victims were publicly exhibited in a pillory (ladder—échelle) with the entrails of beasts, filled with excrement, hung around their necks. The king had “échelles” erected for this purpose on the public squares in every town. Saint Louis did everything in his power “to chase the ‘bougres’ and other evil people from his kingdom, so that the land would be purged of them.”

43. Histoire générale de Languedoc, Vol. VI, p. 790.

44. H. C. Lea, A History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, Vol. II, p. 109 f.

45. J. J. Salverda de Grave, Le Troubadour Bertran d’Alamanon, p. 39 ff.

46. Diez, Die Poesie der Troubadours, p. 55.

47. C. Raynouard, Lexique roman, Vol. I, p. 481.

48. H. C. Lea, A History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, Vol. II, p. 11.

49. Ibid., p. 44 ff.

50. J. Anglade, Le Troubadour Guiraut Riquier, p. 336.

51. Ibid.

52. Jean de Nostredame, Vies des plus célèbres et anciens poètes provençaux (ed. Chabaneau-Anglade), p. 64. King Saint Louis demonstrated his piety by persecuting poets. “Il ne chantait pas les chançons du monde, ne ni soufrait pas que ceux qui estaient de sa mesniée les chantassent” (Guillaume de Saint Pathus, Vie de Saint Louis, p. 19). He did not sing worldly songs, nor did he suffer those in his retinue to sing them. “Their songs, he felt, are hiccoughs which too much resemble ribaldry.”

53. C. Raynouard, Choix des poésies, Vol. V, p. 230. Also H. C. Lea op. cit., Vol. II, p. 11.

54. J. Anglade, Les Troubadours, p. 297.

55. J. Coulet, Le Troubadour Guilhem Montanhagol, p. 73.

56. Ibid., p. 70.

57. Ibid., pp. 148, 141 f.

58. “As a result of the error common among the ancients during the last days of paganism, who imagined that in each country the indigenes had appeared there like mushrooms, various authors were convinced that these savage men who still felt the baseness and imperfection of their origin were in no way distinguishable from beasts. Indeed these authors believed that these men had existed a long time before their soul developed to the extent that they were capable of that docility which is required by laws and polite society. Athenaeus, like others accepting this principle, wrote that in the earliest times men did not solemnize marriages, and that they were as indifferent as animals in this matter until the time of Cecrops, who in codifying laws required his subjects to take one spouse and to be content with one. This infection of the authors propagated itself, and the truths of the Christian religion did not always enlighten a scholar sufficiently to enable him to rid himself of the ideas that he had taken from the pagan authors . . . On the contrary, it seems evident to me that marriage has always been regarded by all people as a sacred and solemn thing, which is respected by even the most barbarous nations. Indeed, although there are a large number of countries today which have maintained all of their savagery and which to us appear to live without laws, without religion, without civil order, we do not know one example of a people who do not observe some solemnities in the alliances which they contract and who are not jealous of conjugal fidelity. We have seen virginity respected from the most ancient times . . . This virtue was not widespread among all peoples at all times because of the necessity of the propagation of the human race, but within this necessity, conjugal chasity is respected and marriage, shameful in its practice, had laws of decency, of modesty, of pudency and of sentinence which nature inspires, which reason supports and which have been maintained in the midst of barbarism. I admit that among some people, at various times and places, depravity and coarse mores have introduced abuses in this matter and even shameful customs. But this has not been universal” (J. B. Lafiteau, Moeurs des sauvages amériquains comparées aux moeurs des premiers temps, Vol. I, pp. 535 f.).

The opinions of Père Lafiteau are not, however, shared by his confreres. The most intelligent among them, Père Paul Le Jeune, recounts: “I have been told that the savages were very chaste; I can not speak for all of them, not having seen them very often, but those with whom I have talked, men and women, are extremely lewd” (Relation, 1634, p. 117).

Jacques Cartier relates: “They have another wicked custom involving their daughters, who, from the time they are old enough to receive a man, are placed in a bordello abandoned to all who want them until they have found their mate. And we are speaking from experience, for we have seen the houses crowded with girls, like students in a French boy’s school” (J. Cartier, Bref Récit et succinct narration de la navigation faict en MDXXXV et MDXXXVI, Paris, 1654, fol. 30 verso). For some time I have been examining the methods followed by professors of ethnographic sociology; their methods are identical to those of Père Lafiteau and of the troubadour Montanhagol (The Mothers, Vol. II, pp. 13 ff.).

59. J. Coulet, Le Troubadour Guilhem Montanhagol, 141.

60. Ibid., p. 110 f.

61. Ibid., p. 51 f.

62. Matfré Ermengaud, Lo Breviari d’amor, ed. G. Azais, Vol. II, pp. 2ff., 5 ff.

63. Ibid., pp. 418 f.

64. C. A. F. Mahn, Die Werke der Troubadours, Vol. IV., p. 30; Cf. Anglade, Le Troubadour Guiraut Riquier, p. 243 f.

65. Gaucelm Faidit (1190-1240) in C. Raynouard, Choix de poésies, Vol. III, p. 293.

66. Gaucelm Faidit, in Mahn, Gedichte der Troubadours, Vol. I, p. 36; Pons de Capdoill, in Mahn, Die Werke der Troubadours, Vol. I, p. 353.

67. Guiraut Riquier, in Mahn, Die Werke der Troubadours, Vol. IV, p. 37.

68. Guillaume de Saint-Didier, in Raynouard, Choix de poésies, Vol. III, p. 300.

69. Guiraut Riquier, in Mahn, Die Werke der Troubadours, Vol. IV, p. 22.

70. Augier, in Raynouard, op cit., Vol. III, p. 105. The same formula is found in a very licentious poem by one of the oldest of the troubadours Raimbaud d’Orange, ibid., p. 251, where it is associated with an obscene play on words.

71. J. Anglade, Les Troubadours, p. 298.

72. C. de Lollis, Vita e poesie di Sordello di Goito, p. 200.

73. Ibid., p. 182.

74. Granet, in Mahn, Gedichte der Troubadours, Vol. III, p. 203.

75. C. de Lollis, op. cit., p. 172 ff.

76. J. J. Salveda de Grave, Le Troubadour Bertran d’Alamanon, p. 95: “Mout m’es greu d’En Sordel, car l’es faillitz sos senz.”

77. A. Rossler, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XV, p. 690.

78. The cult of the “virgin”—i.e. “unmarried”—goddess is discussed in detail in my work, The Mothers, Vol. II, pp. 450-455; Vol. III, pp. 168-171. The attributes of the universal goddess are identical with those of the Virgin Mary. See ibid., Vol. III, pp. 183 ff.

79. Gautier de Coincy, Miracles de la Sainte Vierge, col. 349. Cf. Sermones discipuli, Exemplum XXXII.

80. Les Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages, Paris, 1876-93, Vol. I, p. 96.

81. Sermones Discipuli, Exemplum XXIV; Cf. St. Alphonse de Liguori, Les Gloires de Marie, Vol. I, p. 222 f.

82. St. Alphonse de Liguori, The Glories of Mary, p. 547 f. (English translation by R. A. Coffin, 1868).

83. Ibid., p. 179.

84. Ibid., p. 231.

85. V. Lowinski, Zum geistlichen Kunstlied, pp. 10 f., 17; J. Anglade, Le Troubadour Guiraut Riquier, p. 285.

86. J. Anglade, Les Troubadours, p. 294.

87. V. Lowinski, loc. cit.

88. J. Anglade, op. cit., p. 297. Cf. Mahn, Die Werke der Troubadours, Vol. IV, p. 75.

89. Mahn, op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 75 f.

90. S. Stronski, Le Troubadour Folquet de Marseille, pp. 66 and 68. It is to be noted that of four hundred troubadours who have described the mortal anguish that the cruelty of their ladies caused them, not one, even in the romantic legends which we have concerning them, is said to have committed suicide because of love.

91. R. Zenker, Die Gedichte des Folquet von Romans, p. 13.

92. Bertran d’Alamanon, ed. J. J. Salveda de Grave, p. 119.

93. C. de Lollis, Vita e poesie di Sordello, p. 189.

94. Ibid., p. 199.

VI. THE TROUBADOUR TRADITION
IN ITALY AND ENGLAND

1. Pietro Bembo, “Della volgare lingua,” in Prose scelte (ed. Sonzogno, pp. 151 f.). From Dante up to the most recent critics, the Italians have exhibited the rare merit of recognizing the debt their literature owes to that of Provence, rather than abandoning themselves, as a result of a false conception of national pride, to the pursuit of speculations concerning an autochthonous origin of Italian literature.

2. Every reader of Dante must have wondered what was the book in which the lovers of Rimini were reading of the love of Lancelot:

Assuming that Francesca was sufficiently cultivated to read French, although it is hardly probable, one certainly can not attribute a similar linguistic knowledge to Paolo Malatesta, who had spent his life in the camps. Dante did not intend to inflict the ponderous prose of the French Lancelot on his lovers. In the twenty-sixth canto of Purgatory, speaking of Arnaud Daniel, he places the following words in the mouth of Guido Guinicelli:

Arnaud Daniel did, indeed, write some novels in prose. Unfortunately, we do not have any of these works, although they seem to have enjoyed considerable popularity in their time. Pulci mentions them many times in his Morgante Maggiore. Le Tasso, in one of his essays on epic poetry, mentions Arnaud Daniel, “who wrote Lancelot” (Discorso secondo del poema eroico, Vol. IV, p. 62; Cf. p. 210 ed. Florence, 1724). Cristoforo Landino, in his article on Dante, says that Arnaud Daniel composed a “moralité” (Chabaneau, Hist, générale de Languedoc, Vol. X, p. 222).

Canello offered a negative criticism of these items of evidence, but it is not clear that he succeeded in refuting Dante and Tasso. C. Fauriel (Hist. litt, de la France, Vol. XXII, pp. 212 ff.) thought that the German Lanzelot of Ulrich von Zatzihoven was a paraphrase of Arnaud Daniel’s Lancelot, but this opinion was based on an error in reading (Cf. G. Paris, in Romania, X, 48 ff. and XII, p. 459 f., note). In the thirteenth century, narrative poems in blank verse were sometimes referred to as “prose”; in his De vulgari eloquentia, Dante, however, uses the term “prose” in a manner which conforms to our usage. In Spain any composition which was not intended to be sung was designated as “prose.”

Dante, who never forewent an opportunity to express his admiration for Arnaud Daniel, has his lovers read his favorite author in the most poetically masterful episode of the Divine Comedy. Even the phrase, “seducers, like Galvain, were the book and its author,” though in the form of a reproof, paid homage to the cleverness of the troubadour whom he regarded as his master.

3. Dante, Convito, I, ii. “A perpetuale infamia e depressione delli malvagi uomini d’Italia, che commendendano lo Volgare altrui, e il lore proprio dispregiano.” The Convito is of earlier origin than De vulgari eloquentia. Dante appears to have altered his opinion later.

4. Dante, Inferno, xiii, 75.

5. A. Gaspary, Die sicilianische Dichterschule des dreizehnsten Jahrhunderts, pp. 17, 25, 30 and f.; Raynouard, Choix de poésies originales, Vol. III, p. 348.

6. Guittone d’Arezzo, Rime, canzone xxii.

7. Histoire générale de Languedoc, Vol. VI, p. 653.

8. Le Antiche rime volgari, ed. A. d’ancona c Comparetti, Vol. III, p. 89 f. C. de Lollis explained the relations between de Davanzati and the Provençals: “Sul canzionere di Chiaro Davanzati,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, Supp. I, pp. 82 f., iii f. On his relations with Guinicelli and the poets of the stil nuovo, see: N. Zingarelli: “Dante”; Storia letteraria d’Italia, Vol. V., p. 57 f., and C. J. G. W. Koken, Guittones von Arezzo Dichtung und sein Verhältniss zu Guinicelli von Bologna.

9. Guittone d’Arezzo, Rime, Vol. I, p. 16 f.

10. Dante, De vulgari eloquentia I, xv.

11. Dante, Purgatorio, canto XXVI, line 97 f.

12. Vita nuova, XXV, 6.

13. “Las Razos de trobar,” Romania VIII, 344 f.

14. Poeti del primo secolo della lingua italiana, Vol. I, p. 93.

15. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 70.

16. Ibid., p. 90.

17. Ibid., p. 96.

18. Codex vaticanus, No. 3793.

19. G. Salvadori, La Poesia giovanile e la canzon d’amore di Guido Cavalcanti, p. 95.

20. Rimatori del dolce stil nuovo, p. 12 ff., pp. 29, 36, 39.

21. E. Monaci, Crestomazía det primi secali, p. 59.

22. Dante, Inferno X, 52 ff.

23. Roger Bacon, Opus majus, ed. S. Jebb (1735), p. 44.

24. C. B. Jourdain, Recherches critiques sur l’âge et l’origine des traductions d’Aristote, pp. 95 ff.

25. Dante, Convito, II, xiv. The treatise, Diarwani ilm alnudjrum, by Ibn Kathir al-Farghani, an astronomer who flourished in the ninth century, had been translated by Gérard de Crémone and by Jean de Séville (Johannes Hispalensis) under the title Liber aggregationibus scientiae stellarum. Dante’s citation from it is found in Chapter VIII.

26. Ibid., II, Chapter VI.

27. Ibid., II, Chapter III. Averroès, Summa, III, ed. de Venise, 1562, Ch. II, p. 144.

28. Ibid., II, Chapter IV. Al-Bitrodji (Alpetragius) was translated by Calo Calonymos under the title Planetarum theoria. The work was printed at Venice in 1531. See S. Munk, Mélanges de philosophie juive et arabe, pp. 518 ff.

It could be alleged that Dante drew his Arabic astronomy from Albertus Magnus, whom he had read and who cited the same authorities. But a second-hand knowledge would not account for the fundamental interest which Dante exhibited from the Vita nuova onwards in Arabic science and thought. Moreover, Albertus Magnus (who Dante called “Albert the German,” Alberto da Magna) was a violent anti-Averroist; Dante, on the other hand, was an admirer of Ibn Roschd. The case of Siger de Brabant is conclusive. Condemned at Paris for Averroism, Siger came to die in Italy (on Siger, see: Histoire littéraire de la France, Vol. XXI, pp. 96 ff.; Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l’averroïsme latin au XIII^e siècle, Louvain, 1911). Braving Church authority, Dante placed Siger in Paradise among the great masters of theology and lavished praise on him (Paradiso, X, pp. 135 ff.). Thus it was not through Albertus Magnus that Dante came to know the science of the Arabs.

29. Ibid., II, xiv.

30. Ibid., II, vii.

31. Ibid., III, xiv.

32. Ibid., III, ii.

33. Ibid., II, xiv.

34. Ibid., III, xiv.

35. Ibid., I, i.

36. Ibid., II, v.

37. Ibid., III, xi.

38. Ibid., III, xiv.

39. Ibid., III, xii.

40. Ibn Masarra (833-931) was the first to introduce the neo-Platonic doctrines of the Alexandrian school into Spain; thus he exerted a considerable influence on his successors of the same gnostic and mystic tendencies, in particular on Ibn Arabi and on Ibn Gebirol. He travelled to Syria and brought back a so-called Empedoclean philosophy. The trait which particularly attracted the attention of his contemporaries and his successors was the similarity of his doctrines to those of pantheism, insofar as he postulated the existence of a universal substance, common to all created beings. But he avoided an absolute pantheism by supposing that this universal substance was an emanation of another substance, that of the Creator. “The partial souls,” he said, “are parts of the universal soul.” “The property of the universal soul,” he said, moreover, “is love; for in the contemplation of the intellect, with its beauty and its brightness, the partial soul loves it as one, desperately in love, loves the object of his love” (S. Munk, Mélanges de philosophie juive et arabe, p. 244).

Thus he is responsible for the transmission into Europe of those doctrines which were so widespread in the Middle Ages. Giordano Bruno was to be burned alive at Rome three centuries later for having expressed the same doctrines. The unifying character of all philosophical thought causes it inevitably to lead to monism, that is pantheism. One of the factors which forced the thinkers of the Middle Ages to adopt neo-Platonic mysticism is that it provided them a means of eluding pantheism, which was contrary to the Islamic as well as the Christian religion. Ibn Masarra, himself, was persecuted; this was the reason for his flight from Spain to the East.

In order to understand Arabic philosophic and scientific thought it is necessary to keep in mind that its development under the Omeyades of the East and the West was made possible by the religious scepticism of those princes and of the first Abassids, who were themselves muta’zil, that is to say rationalists. The decay of Islamic civilization coincided with the advent to power of fanatics who were inflamed with the zeal of neophytes.

The Arabs only knew Plato through the Alexandrine school; thus they often confused neo-Platonic ideas with those of Plato. They even imposed a neo-Platonic cast on Aristotle and attributed to him a Theology which was actually a forgery that came from Syria, the great “home of forgeries.” The same confusion was later transmitted to the Christian Middle Ages.

Jamal ad-Din al-Qufti has a note on Ibn Masarra in the article on Empedocles in his Dictionnaire des philosophes. See S. Munk, op. cit., pp. 241 ff.; Amari, Storia del Musulmani di Sicilia, Vol. II, pp. 100 f.; M. Asín Palacios, Abenmassarra y su escuela, Madrid, 1914; A. González Palencia, Historia de la literatura arábigo-española, pp. 206 ff.

41. Asín Palacios, Dante y el Islam, p. 78. It is known that Palacios developed the theory that the Divine Comedy is, in conception and in detail, completely derived from this legend of the voyage of Mahomet into the other world, as it was told by Ibn Arabi in the Futuhat (Miguel Asín Palacios, op. cit., and La escatologia musulmana en la Divina Comedia, Madrid, 1919. French translation by Cabaton, 1928. Cf. André Bellessort, “Dante et Mahomet,” Revue des Deux-Mondes, April 1, 1920; Blochet, “L’acension au ciel du prophète Mohammed,” Revue de l’histoire des religions de toutes les nations, Vol. XLI, 1901; Carra de Vaux, “Fragments d’eschatologie musulmane,” in Compte rendu du troisième Congrès scientifique international des catholiques, Brussels, 1905; Asín Palacios, “Historia y crítica de una polémica,” Boletin de la Academia Española, 1924.

In my opinion, the thesis was presented with more certainty than was warranted. The theme of a voyage into the other world is universal; it is encountered in all phases of culture, even the most primitive. Versions of it abound in the Middle Ages. It has long been the custom to compare them with Dante’s poem (see Ancona, I precursori di Dante). Palacios replies that these versions are of later origin than the Arabic tales, which is true, and that they are derived from the latter, which is extremely doubtful. There is no need to make recourse to Arabian tradition to explain their origin; the theme abounds in all of Celtic literature. Moreover the conception of the Divine Comedy can be accounted for without any need for invoking Arabian inspiration. However, it is also necessary in a different connection to keep in mind that Dante’s entire intellectual culture, and that of the Middle Ages as well, issued from Arabic works or was actually transmitted by the Arabs. Hence it is quite natural that, being imbued with a culture and thought of Arabic origin, Dante manifested this filiation of his spirit in his great poem as well as in the rest of his works. Although the notion of a voyage to the world beyond the grave is too widespread for it to be necessary to assume that Dante borrowed the notion from the Arabic tradition, the same cannot be said for the manner in which he made use of it. The philosophical novel is a peculiarly Arabic type. Thus, for example, Ibn Tofail, when he presents his theory of the development of innate thought (a quite erroneous conception, by the way), did it in the form of a philosophical novel, a sort of a Robinson Crusoe tale, dealing with a child who miraculously grew up on a desert isle (see Munk, Mélanges, pp. 412 ff.). Thus, if we have understood the sources of Dante’s inspiration, we should not have been surprised to have noted that throughout the tour the whole arrangement and architecture of the world beyond the grave, the circles of the inferno, those of the hill of Purgatory and of the spheres of Paradise, as well as their location, and innumerable details of the punishment received by the damned and the pleasures enjoyed by the saints, correspond exactly to those which Al-Arabi gave in his elaboration of the Islamic legend. This is not a proof of the Arabian source of Dante’s education, but the confirmation of that which we should have noted much earlier.

It is scarcely important that we cannot trace exactly and with certainty the route by which knowledge of Al-Arabi’s work came to Dante. Most of the books which pre-date the printing press are lost (no manuscript of the work of any Arabian philosopher is extant; all of their works have come down to us through Hebrew or Latin translations), and what we know about the literary history of the twelfth and thirteen centuries is indeed small compared with what we do not know. Signs which can buttress conjectures concerning the sources of the education of Brunetto Latini’s student certainly are not lacking. And that is the most for which we have any right to hope.

42. Dante, Convito, I, ii. Cf. De monarchia, I, 9.

43. Ibid., III, v.

44. Asín Palacios op. cit., p. 156.

45. Dante, Convito, II, v.

46. Ibid., II, vi.

“Theology has designated all of the celestial essences by their revelatory names which our divine initiator has divided into three orders. The first permanently encompasses God . . . these are the thrones . . . which in Hebrew are called cherubin and seraphin . . . The second order is composed of powers, of lordships and of forces . . . The third constitutes the last celestial hierarchy, the order of angels and of principalities” (Denys l’Aréopagite, La Hiérarchie céleste, trans. Maurice de Gandillac, pp. 205 f.).

“In order to explain the action of pure energy, or of God, on matter, the Arab peripatetics borrowed some neo-Platonic doctrines and put the Intelligences of the spheres between God and the world, by proposing a sort of emanation . . . In substance the Arabic doctrine is this. The celestial spheres, which are nine in number, each have a soul which is the source of their movement. In addition to the supreme Intelligence, there are nine other Intelligences which emanate from the latter . . . The last of these separate Intelligences, which presides over the sphere nearest to us (that of the moon), is the active intellect, through whose influence the passive intellect, which is in us, is developed . . .

According to Ibn Sina, as cited by Ibn Tofail, this philosophy is the cryptic meaning of Aristotle’s words. We find again among the Arabs this distinction between exoteric Aristotle and esoteric Aristotle, which was later adopted by the Italian Platonic school along with the mystic doctrines of the Kabbale, just as the Ischrakyyin of the Arabs became absorbed in Sufi mysticism” (S. Munk, Mélanges de philosophie juive et arabe, pp. 331 f.).

47. S. munk, op. cit., p. 158.

48. Rimatori del dolce stil nuovo, pp. 3 f.

49. Ibid., p. 11.

50. Dante, Convito, II, xi; IV, xxi.

51. Ibid., III.

52. Purgatorio, xxvi, line 119.

53. On the life of Sordello, see C. De Lollis, Vita e poesie di Sordello di Goito, Halle, 1896.

54. Purg., xxiv, lines 55 ff.

55. Rimatori del dolce stil nuovo, pp. 60 f.

56. Giovanni Boccaccio, Trattatello in laude di Dante, x, XII: “Tra cotanta virtù, scienza, quanta dimostrata è di sopra essere stata in questo mirifico poeta, truovo amplissimo luogo la lussuria, e non solamente ne’ giovani anni, ma ancora ne’ maturi.”

57. Purg., xxxi, line 40.

58. Parad., v, line 99.

59. Inf., xxii, lines 14-15.

60. Rime, lxxiii.

61. Purg., xxiii, line 115.

62. Lip., p. 174.

63. Purg., xxxi, line 54.

64. Ibid., line 45.

65. Purg., xxx, lines 136 ff.

66. Rime, lvi, lvii, lviii.

67. Purg., xxxi, line 59; Rime, lxxxvii-lxxxix.

68. Vita nuova, 36-38.

69. Purg., xxiv, lines 37 ff.

70. Rime, c-ciii.

71. Rime, cxvi.

72. The case of Petrarch and Laura is a very curious example of a literary “canard.” None of the rather numerous authors, many of whom were Petrarch’s contemporaries, such as Domenico Aretino, Coluccio Salutati, Vergerio, Filippo Villani, Manetti, Leonardo Bruni, who wrote on Petrarch during the century after his death, made any mention of an actual Laura. The notion that the poetic effusions of the grave clerk were related to a flesh-and-blood lady did not occur to them. Undoubtedly it would have seemed to them far too ridiculous a contrast to the character and habits of the worthy canon. It was only around a century later, at the court of the Medicis that the question was debated for the first time. The role of Petrarch’s “Laura” was assigned, indeed with little conviction, to various ladies. In the middle of the eighteenth century, the abbot de Sade proposed one of his female ancestors, Lady Laura de Sade, as a candidate for the role (Mémoires de la vie de Pétrarque, Amsterdam, 1764-1767). The abbot unearthed all of the identification papers of the Lady Laura, her baptismal certificate, her marriage contract, etc.; he even insisted on showing her ashes to prove that she was really dead. Obviously none of this had anything to do with Petrarch. The only item that appears to have even the slightest relation to the affair is a note on the margin of a manuscript of Virgil, relating to the death of “Laura,” which is said to be in Petrarch’s handwriting. Tassoni and Vellutello claimed that it was not. Even assuming that it were, it does not prove anything with respect to the Lady de Sade. Nevertheless, while Petrarch was reputed to have been distraught with love for “Laura,” he was in the process of fathering two children of an unknown lady at Vaucluse—probably a lady of low birth, likely his housekeeper or cook. It may be that the note on the Virgil manuscript refers to the death of this person; or indeed it could with equal likelihood simply be a literary memorandum noting that it was time to kill “Laura.” This would appear reasonable enough after the production of some 207 sonnets and a number of canzoni, sestinas, and madrigals.

In summary, there is not a shadow of proof. Moreover, most of the more reliable authorities, Settembrini, C. Cantu, Camerini, Costero, Leopardi, reject the Abbé de Sade’s story.

The name “Laura” very likely is drawn from Arnaud Daniel, Petrarch’s favorite troubadour, who enjoyed making puns on the word “l’aura.” One asks himself why Petrarch, during the greater part of his life, delivered this tide of poetic elegance with respect to an imaginary “Laura.” To emphasize the question implies a failure to take into account the strength of literary tradition. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries one could conceive of no other lyric theme than Love, such as it was imagined that the troubadours had conceived it, just as in the nineteenth century one could only conceive of a novel as a love story. This type of tradition is singularly tenacious. The Arabs rigorously prescribed not only the form of their qasīdas, but the subject of the first lines, that of the second group of lines, and so on. Likewise, the epic tradition prescribed, from the time of Homer, themes of severity, the invocation of the muse, the counsel in heaven, combat details, the divine messenger in human form, etc., and until Camoens and Milton the epic poem had been constrained to follow these rules.

73. Dante, La Vita nuova, 42.

74. Bettinelli, Saisone, p. 194.

75. S. T. Coleridge, Notes and Lectures upon Shakespeare . . . with other literary remains, ed. H. Coleridge (London, 1849), Vol. II, p. 23.

76. A. Tassoni, Considerazioni sopra le rime del Petrarca . . . col confronto di luoghi de’ poeti antichi di vari tempi, Modona, 1609; P. Bembo, Delia volgare lingua, Lib. I.

While pretending to defend Petrarch against the imputations of plagiarism made by Jehan de Nostradamus, Tassoni very effectively reinforced these accusations and provided them detailed support. Bembo did it with even more delicacy. The case of the Catalan poet, Auzias March, is rather piquant. He was a contemporary of Petrarch (1379-1459). He retained the troubadour tradition into the fifteenth century, and wrote “in limousin.” The similarity of his work to that of Petrarch extends even to his having met his lady in the church on Good Friday and to the extolling of her in a long series of sonnets after her death. Many modern authors cite him as an imitator of Petrarch. But their contemporaries, Odovillo Gomez and Giacopo Antonio de Ferrare, allege contrarily that it was Petrarch who robbed him (A. Tassoni, op. cit., p. 4; cf. Venanzio Todesco, “Auzias March,” in Archivum romanicum, Vol. XI, 1927, pp. 213 ff.). Let it suffice to pose the question of precedence; it is useless to pursue it. Ch-Ant. Gidel (Les Troubadours et Pétrarque) cites a number of similarities between Petrarch and the troubadours, most of which are drawn from Tassoni and which are rather poorly chosen.

77. Petrarch, Triumph I (The Triumph of Love), Part IV, lines 38-57.

78. Arthur Quiller Couch, The Art of Writing, Lecture IX.

79. The Poems of Sir Thomas Wiat, ed., A. K. Foxwell, Vol. I, pp. 272, 279, 301.

The murabba’ form occurs, in but rare instances, throughout English poetry posterior to the fifteenth century. It is almost exclusively confined to lyrics intended or supposed to be sung. It has also been employed in humorous ditties. See Sir Philip Sydneis Song, in Percy’s The Faery Pastorall or Forrest of Elves.

80. Othello, Act III, Scene 3, line 330.

81. Henry VI, Part II, Act IV, Scene 1.

82. Purg., canto xi, line 115.

83. Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 3.

84. Inferno, canto xxvi, line 118: “Take thought of the seed from which you spring. You were not born to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.”

85. Macbeth, Act V, Scene 3.

86. Sestina, I.

87. Tertullian, De cultu faeminarum, in Migne, Patrologia, series prima, Vol. I, col. 1305.

88. Ambroise, Commentaria in Epistola ad Corinthis prima, in Migne, Patrologia, Vol. XVII, col. 221 f.; cf. Athanasius, In passionem et crucen domini, XXX, in Migne, Series graeca, Vol. XXVII, col. 236; De virginitate, in Migne, ibid., Vol. XVII, col. 279; Ambroise, De Virginibus, Migne, Series prima, Vol. XIV, col. 192 f.

89. Tertullian, Apologeticus, in Migne, Series prima, Vol. I, col. 535.

90. Tertullian, De monogamia, III, in Migne, ibid., Vol. III, col. 535.

91. L’Histoire ecclésiastique d’Eusèbe, trans. C. de Seyssel (Paris, 1532).

92. Ambroise, Exhortatio virginitatis, in Migne, ibid., Vol. XVI, col. 343 f.; cf. Tertullian, Ad uxorem, IX, 3, 5, in Migne, ibid., Vol. I, col. 1278.

93. Ambroise, Exhortatio virginitatis, in Migne, ibid., Vol. XVI, col. 346.

94. Clement of Alexander, Paedagogus, II, 2, in Migne, Series graeca, Vol. VIII, col. 429.