Though they lack the variety, the pathos, the romantic chivalry, and the mystical attractions of the Arthurian romances, there is little doubt that they paint, far more accurately than their successors, an actually existing state of society, that which prevailed in the palmy time of the feudal system, when war and religion were deemed the sole subjects worthy to occupy seriously men of station and birth. In giving utterance to this warlike and religious sentiment, few periods and classes of literature have been more strikingly successful. Nowhere is the mere fury of battle better rendered than in _Roland_ and _Fierabras_. Nowhere is the valiant indignation of the beaten warrior, and, at the same time, his humble submission to providence, better given than in _Aliscans_. Nowhere do we find the mediaeval spirit of feudal enmity and private war more strikingly depicted than in the cycle of the Lorrainers, and in _Raoul de Cambrai_. Nowhere is the devout sentiment and belief of the same time more fully drawn than in _Amis et Amiles_. [Sidenote: Authorship.] The method of composition and publication of these poems was peculiar. Ordinarily, though not always, they were composed by the Trouvere, and performed by the Jongleur. Sometimes the Trouvere condescended to performance, and sometimes the Jongleur aspired to composition, but not usually. The poet was commonly a man of priestly or knightly rank, the performer (who might be of either sex) was probably of no particular station. The Jongleur, or Jongleresse, wandered from castle to castle, reciting the poems, and interpolating in them recommendations of the quality of the wares, requests to the audience to be silent, and often appeals to their generosity. Some of the manuscripts which we now possess were originally used by Jongleurs, and it was only in this way that the early Chanson de Geste was intended to be read. The process of hawking about naturally interfered with the preservation of the poems in their original purity, and even with the preservation of the author's name. In very few cases[41] is the latter known to us.