The monks were in the habit of throwing open their monasteries to all comers, under pretext of letting them taste the wine they had for sale, until, in 1233, an ecclesiastical council at Beziers prohibited this practice on account of the scandal it created. Petrarch has accused the popes of his day of persisting in staying at Avignon when they could have returned to Rome, simply on account of the goodness of the wines they found there. Some similar reasons may have led to the selection of Reims, during the twelfth century, as a place for holding great ecclesiastical councils presided over by the sovereign pontiff in person; and no doubt 'Bibimus papaliter' was the motto of Calixtus, Innocent, and Eugenius when the labours of the day were done, and they and their cardinals could chorus, _apropos_ of those of the morrow, 'Bonum vinum acuit ingenium Venite potemus.' [Illustration] The kings of France may have preferred the wines of the Orleanais and the Isle of France, and the monarchs of England have been content to vary the vintages of their patrimony of Guienne with an occasional draught of Rhenish; but the wines of the river Marne certainly found favour at Troyes, where the Counts of Champagne, to whom Epernay had been ceded as a fief, held a court little inferior in state to that of a sovereign prince. The native vintage mantled in the goblets and beakers that graced the board where they sat at meat amidst their knights and barons, whilst minstrels sang and jongleurs tumbled and glee-maidens danced at the lower end of the hall. It fired the fancy of the poet Count Thibault, to whom tradition has ascribed the introduction of the Cyprus grape into France on his return from the Crusades,[18] and helped the flow of the amorous strains which he addressed to Blanche of Castille. Nor was he the only versifier of the time who could exclaim, with his compatriot Colin Musset, that 'good wine caused him to sing and rejoice.'[19] Other local songsters, such as Doete de Troyes, Eustache le Noble, and Guillaume de Machault, sought inspiration at their native Helicon, and were equally ready with Colin Musset to appreciate a gift of 'barrelled wine, Cold, strong, and fine, To drink in hot weather,'[20]