In some instances the reputation of the lyrical trouvere was founded rather on his music than his verse. The metrical forms were various, and were gradually reduced to rule; the _ballette_, of Provencal origin, was a more elaborate _rondet_, consisting of stanzas and refrain; the _estampie_ (_stampon_, to beat the ground with the foot) was a dancing-song; the lyric _lai_, virtually identical with the _descort_, consisted of stanzas which varied in structure; the _motet_, a name originally applied to pieces of church music, was freer in versification, and occasionally dealt with popular themes. Among forms which cannot be included under the general title of chansons, are those in dialogue derived from the Provencal literature; in the _tenson_ or _debat_ the two interlocutors put forth their opinions on what theme they may please; in the _jeu parti_ one of the imagined disputants proposes two contrary solutions of some poetical or amorous question, and defends whichever solution his associate refuses to accept; the earliest _jeu parti_, attributed to Gace Brule and Count Geoffroi of Brittany, belongs to the second half of the twelfth century. The _serventois_ were historical poems, and among them songs of the crusades, or moral, or religious, or satirical pieces, directed against woman and the worship of woman. To these various species we should add the songs in honour of the saints, the sorrows of the Virgin uttered at the foot of the cross, and other devout lyrics which lie outside the _poesie courtoise_. With the close of the thirteenth century this fashion of artificial love-lyric ceased: a change passed over the modes of thought and feeling in aristocratic society, and other forms took the place of those found in the _poesie courtoise_. II FABLES, AND RENARD THE FOX The desire of ecclesiastical writers in the Middle Ages to give prominence to that part of classical literature which seemed best suited to the purpose of edification caused the fables of Phaedrus and Avianus to be regarded with special honour. Various renderings from the thirteenth century onwards were made under the title of _Isopets_,[1] a name appropriated to collections of fables whether derived from AEsop or from other sources. The twelfth-century fables in verse of Marie de France, founded on an English collection, include apologues derived not only from classical authors but from the tales of popular tradition. A great collection made about 1450 by Steinhoewel, a physician of Ulm, was translated into French, and became the chief source of later collections, thus appearing in the remote ancestry of the work of La Fontaine. The aesthetic value of the mediaeval fables, including those of Marie de France, is small; the didactic intention was strong, the literary art was feeble. [Footnote 1: The earlier "Romulus" was the name of the supposed author of the fables of Phaedrus, while that of Phaedrus was still unknown.]