The _trouvères_, or poets, who wrote the fabliaux--I need hardly remark that _trouvère_ is the same word as _trobador_, but in the northern dialect of the French language--appear to have flourished chiefly from the close of the twelfth century to the earlier part of the fourteenth. They all composed in French, which was a language then common to England and France, but some of their compositions bear internal evidence of having been composed in England, and others are found in contemporary manuscripts written in this island. The scene of a fabliau, printed by Méon (i. 113), is laid at Colchester; and that of La Male Honte, printed in Barbazan (iii. 204), is laid in Kent. The latter, however, was written by a trouvère named Hugues de Cambrai. No objection appears to have been entertained to the recital of these licentious stories before the ladies of the castle or of the domestic circle, and their general popularity was so great, that the more pious clergy seem to have thought necessary to find something to take their place in the post-prandial society of the monastery, and especially of the nunnery; and religious stories were written in the same form and metre as the fabliaux. Some of these have been published under the title of "Contes Devots," and, from their general dulness, it may be doubted if they answered their purpose of furnishing amusement so well as the others. CHAPTER VIII. CARICATURES OF DOMESTIC LIFE.--STATE OF DOMESTIC LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.--EXAMPLES OF DOMESTIC CARICATURE FROM THE CARVINGS OF THE MISERERES.--KITCHEN SCENES.--DOMESTIC BRAWLS.--THE FIGHT FOR THE BREECHES.--THE JUDICIAL DUEL BETWEEN MAN AND WIFE AMONG THE GERMANS.--ALLUSIONS TO WITCHCRAFT.--SATIRES ON THE TRADES; THE BAKER, THE MILLER, THE WINE-PEDLAR AND TAVERN-KEEPER, THE ALE-WIFE, ETC. The influence of the jougleurs over people's minds generally, with their stories and satirical pieces, their grimaces, their postures, and their wonderful performances, was very considerable, and may be easily traced in mediæval manners and sentiments. This influence would naturally be exerted upon inventive art, and when a painter had to adorn the margin of a book, or the sculptor to decorate the ornamental parts of a building, we might expect the ideas which would first present themselves to him to be those suggested by the jougleur's performance, for the same taste had to be indulged in the one as in the other. The same wit or satire would pervade them both. [Illustration: _No. 71. A Mediæval Kitchen Scene._]