O vos, bursæ turgidæ, Romam veniatis, 52. Two or three other poems, which it is strange to find in company with the satirical verses just described, are of a serious cast. Such is the Predicatio Golice, in which Golias is supposed to preach to his clerical brethren; but the thread of address and admonition gradually widens into a magnificent ébauche of the Catholic creed. Man, it says, Dignitate præminet universæ rei, Factus ad imaginem majestatis Dei ; Obligavit omnia nostræ servituti, His nos beneficiis voluit ditari, Est inenarrabilis ista genitura, &c. 53. But the strict Latinists scouted the idea of any such concessions to a corrupt modern taste as were implied in the practice of riming; when they wrote poetry, they used the metres as well as the language of the Latin poets. Thus Geoffrey de Vinsauf wrote a Latin poem, entitled De Nova Poetriâ, and addressed to Innocent III., the intention of which was to recommend and illustrate the legitimate mode of versification in opposition to the leonine or barbarous species. Actuated by the same prepossessions, Josephus Iscanus, a monk of Exeter, who flourished about 1180, wrote a long poem in Latin hexameters, entitled De Bello Trojano, which possessed considerable literary merit. Though now forgotten, it enjoyed so great a popularity, even as late as the fifteenth century, as to be thumbed by school-boys in every grammar-school, and ranked by teachers side by side with the genuine poets of Rome. Joseph was a schoolfellow at Exeter of Baldwin, who was afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and a life-long friendship was established between them. He lived for many years at Geldres, where he was found by Baldwin, when on his way to Palestine in 1189, to join the Third Crusade, and induced by his patron to join him. His valedictory letter to Guibert, the pious abbot of Gemblours, is still extant. Baldwin died at Acre, and Joseph, returning home, wrote the Antiocheis, a poem in the same metre as that on the Trojan war, of which only fragments survive. The poem De Bello Trojano can be shown by internal allusions to have been written between 1173 and 1183. It opens thus : Iliadum lacrimas, concessaque Pergama fatis, 54. A classical metre was also employed by Nigellus Wireker, a monk of Canterbury and precentor of the cathedral, in his satire entitled Speculum Stultorum, written about 1190. The poem is in Latin elegiacs, which, though full of what we should call false quantities, are easy and flowing. It has so much point and humour that the reader will not be sorry to have an abstract of its contents:: The hero of the Speculum Stultorum is Brunellus or Burnellus (little brown ass), the property of Bernardus, an Italian farmer. He runs away from his master, and begins to speculate on self-improvement. He considers that the fundamental misery of his condition lies in the shortness of his tail, and, to remedy this defect, he seeks counsel and assistance from all quarters. He goes to consult a physician named Galienus. Galienus tells him he is a fool; why not be content with his tail as it is? Louis, King of France, is obliged to be content with his tail; so are his bishops and barons: why not Burnellus? At last, to get rid of him, Galienus tells him that the only way is to go to Salerno, and get the necessary recipe and drugs from the great medical school there. The journey into Italy gives occasion for many satirical descriptions. Burnellus studies at Salerno; is cheated there by a London merchant; at last, laden with phials, medicines, and prescriptions, he sets out for home. Misfortunes, chiefly caused by monks, overtake him. The Benedictine monk Fromundus sets his dogs on him; they bite off half his tail; his baggage is thrown off, the phials broken, and the medicines lost. He is in despair; at last he resolves to go to Paris, that he may at least return home a scholar. To the University of Paris, of which a satirical description follows, he is accompanied by Arnoldus, who has joined him on the road, and tells a curious story. Burnellus joins himself to the scholars of the English nation. He is thick-headed, and does not get on, so he resolves to turn monk. He passes in review all the orders; the Hospitallers of the White Cross, the Black Monks (Cluniacs), the White Monks (Cistercians), the monks of Grandmont, the Carthusians, the Black Canons, the Premonstratensians or Norbertines, the Secular Canons, and the Gilbertines of Sempringham. Not one of them pleases him entirely, and the modest idea occurs to him of founding a new order, which shall combine the good points and avoid the defects of all the rest. But suddenly his nose bursts out bleeding, and he takes this as a sign of coming evil. Bernardus his master appears, claims his property, and drives him off, after he has been on the loose for some five-and-twenty years. His master tells him that he shall have light work; only a few faggots, two brass panniers, two sacks of flour, and him 1 See the excellent monograph by Jusserand, Paris, 1877. self on the top of all. For greater security, he cuts off both the ears of poor Burnellus : Funditus abscidit aurem Bernardus utramque, Cautior ut fieret, cauteriatus ita. Cured of ambition, our hero thenceforth subsides into the normal existence of donkeys. 55. In the interesting volumes which contain Wireker's Speculum (Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets of the Twelfth Century, ed. by T. Wright, Rolls series) may be read the Epigrams of Henry of Huntingdon, and an elegiac poem of about 800 lines, De Vita Monachorum, by Alexander Neckam. This Neckam was the foster-brother of Richard I. He studied at Paris, and was known as one of the most brilliant scholars of his day, his special subjects being Grammar, Elocution, and Prosody. But the preference of a dead language, even as the medium for poetry, could not in the nature of things hold its ground. In poetry, the originality of the thought, the vigour and aptness of the expression, are what constitutes the charm : we read it, not that we may learn about things, but that we may come in contact with thoughts. But no one can think with perfect freedom except in his native tongue, nor express himself with remarkable degrees of force and fire, unless upon subjects coming closely home to his feelings. To an ecclesiastic, whose home is the church, the church's language might perhaps be considered almost as his natural speech, so long as his thoughts are busied with religious objects. Thus no poem more startlingly real, more tender, more awe-inspiring, exists in any language, than the wonderful sequence Dies iræ, dies illa.' But for the themes of love, or war, or gaiety, with which poetry is principally conversant, the Latin could not be so apt a medium as the roughest of the vernacular tongues, since to the ear accustomed to the vivid and expressive utterances on these subjects to which the converse of daily life of necessity gives rise, its phrases must always have seemed cold, flat, and indirect. Hence, as the Trouvères and their imitators rise and multiply, the school of Latin poetry dwindles away, and after the middle of the thirteenth century nearly disappears. The poetry which, strong in its truth to nature, supplanted its more polished rival, was the growth of France; and to trace its origin, and analyse its many developments, is no part of the task of the historian of English literature. It is necessary, however, that the English student should have some general knowledge of the matter; otherwise he would very imperfectly understand the course of English poetry in this and in the following period. French Poetry. 56. The French poetry of the age was divided into two schools, the Norman and the Provençal. The poets of the one were called Trouvères; those of the other, Troubadours. The language of the one was the Langue d'oil, that of the other the Langue d'oc. The poetry of the Trouvères was mostly epic in its character; that of the Troubadours mostly lyric. Each most probably arose independently of the other, although that of the Troubadours sprang the soonest into full maturity, as it was also the first to decline and pass away. The origin of the Provençal literature is to be sought in the amicable intercourse which subsisted during the ninth and tenth centuries between the Moorish and the Christian states of Spain, resulting for the latter in their acquaintance with, and imitation of, the Arabic poetry and prose fiction. The poems of those children of the burning South were distinguished by an almost idolatrous exaltation of the female sex, and an inexhaustible inventiveness in depicting every phase, and imagining every condition, of the passion of love. The Catalan minstrels took up the strain in their own language, which was a variety of the langue d'oc; and from Catalonia, upon its being united to a portion of Provence, in 1092, under Raymond Berenger, Count of Barcelona, the newly kindled flame of romantic sentiment and idealising passion passed into the south of France, and gave birth to the poetry of the Troubadours. Of this poetry love is the chief, though not the sole, inspiration. It neglects the realities of life; it is impatient of historical themes which require learning and toil; it is essentially fugitive-subjective ---conventional. In a certain sense it may be called abstract poetry, since throughout a large portion of it the reader is removed from the world of concrete existences, and placed in an imaginary realm, peopled by beings who own no laws but the conventional decrees of a Court of Love, and know no higher ambition than that of being a successful suitor. Such a style evidently contains within itself the germ of a certain dissolution, unless it admit of change and enrichment from without. But external circumstances accelerated the fall of the literature of the Troubadours; the bloody wars of which the south of France was the theatre during the early part of the thirteenth century, silenced the minstrel's lute and substituted the wail of the mourner for the song of the lover. 1 So called from the different words signifying 'yes' in the two languages Attempts were subsequently made, down even to the fifteenth century, to revive the ancient style; but they failed to impart to it more than a transient and factitious vitality. But in its flourishing time the Gay Science was eagerly cultivated in every part of Western Europe, and kings were proud to rank themselves among its members. Our own Richard Cœur-deLion not only entertained at his court some of the most celebrated Troubadours of Provence, but himself composed several sirventes which are still extant. A tenson, the joint composition of himself and his favourite minstrel Blondel, is said, according to the well-known story in Matthew Paris, to have been the means of Blondel's discovering the place of the king's confinement in Germany. The 57. Almost the whole of the poetry of the Troubadours falls under two heads: the tenson and the sirvente.1 former was a kind of literary duel, or dialogue controversial, between two rival Troubadours, on some knotty point of amatory ethics, and often took place before, and was decided by, a Court of Love. To these courts we shall again have occasion to refer when we come to speak of Chaucer. The latter was employed on themes of war or politics or satire. Among the most eminent composers of sirventes were Bertrand de Born, the gifted knight of Périgord, whose insidious suggestions kept alive for years the feud which divided our Henry II. and his sons,-Peyrols, a knight of Auvergne,—and Sordello of Mantua. Bertrand and Sordello both figure in the great poem of Dante, the one in the Inferno,2 the other in the Purgatorio. Poems by these, and many other Troubadours, may be found in the great work of M. Raynouard on the Provençal poetry. 58. But the poetry of the Trouvères had a far more important and lasting influence over our early English literature than that of the Troubadours. We may arrange it under four heads: -Romances, Fabliaux, Satires, and Historical Poetry. To the first head belong, besides a great number of poems on separate subjects, four great epic cycles of romance; the first relating to Charlemagne, the second to Arthur and the Round Table, the third to the crusades for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, and the fourth to the ancient world and its heroes, especially Alexander the Great. Of the romances relating to Charlemagne, the oldest is the Chanson de Roland, a narrative of the last battle and death 1 Tenson is connected by Raynouard with 'contention.' Ducange explains sirventes as 'poemata in quibus servientium, seu militum, facta et servitia referuntur.' 2 Canto xxviii. 3 Canto vi. |