After the twelfth century the early lyrical literature of France undergoes some changes. In the first place it ceases to be anonymous, and individual singers--some of them, like Thibaut of Champagne, of very great merit and individuality--make their appearance. In the second place it becomes more varied but at the same time more artificial in form, and exhibits evident marks of the communication between troubadour and trouvere, and of the imitation by the latter of the stricter forms of Provencal poetry. The Romance and the Pastourelle are still cultivated, but by their side grow up French versions, often adapted with considerable independence, of the forms of the South[69]. Such, for instance, is the _chanson d'amour_, a form less artfully regulated indeed than the corresponding canzon or sestine of the troubadours, but still of some intricacy. It consists of five or six stanzas, each of which has two interlaced rhymes, and concludes with an _Envoi_, which, however, is often omitted. _Chansonnettes_ on a reduced scale are also found. In these pieces the alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes, which was ultimately to become the chief distinguishing feature of French prosody, is observable, though it is by no means universal. To the Provencal _tenson_ corresponds the _jeu parti_ or verse dialogue, which is sometimes arranged in the form of a Chanson. The _salut d'amour_ is a kind of epistle, sometimes of very great length and usually in octosyllabic verse, the decasyllable being more commonly used in the Chanson. Of this the _complainte_ is only a variety. Again, the Provencal _sirvente_ is represented by the northern _serventois_, a poem in Chanson form, but occupied instead of love with war, satire, religion, and miscellaneous matters. It has even been doubted whether the _serventois_ is not the forerunner of the _sirvente_ instead of the reverse being the case. Other forms are _motets_, _rotruenges_, _aubades_. Poems called _rondeaux_ and _ballades_ also make their appearance, but they are loose in construction and undecided in form. The thirteenth century is, moreover, the palmy time of the Pastourelle. Most of those which we possess belong to this period, and exhibit to the full the already indicated characteristics of that graceful form. But the lyric forms of the thirteenth century are to some extent rather imitated than indigenous, and it is no doubt to the fact of this imitation that the common ascription of general poetical priority to the Langue d'Oc, unfounded as it has been sufficiently shown to be, is due in the main. The most courageous defenders of the North have wished to maintain its claims wholly intact even in this instance, but probability, if not evidence, is against them. [Sidenote: Traces of Lyric in the Thirteenth Century.] [Sidenote: Quesnes de Bethune.] [Sidenote: Thibaut de Champagne.]