We know that the Arabian influence on the European arts came to us by the way of Spain, and although we can see traces of it very plainly in the Spanish music of to-day, the interim of a thousand years has softened its characteristics very much. On the other hand, the much more pronounced Arabian characteristics of Hungarian music are better understood when we recall that the Saracens were at the gates of Budapesth as late as 1400. That the European troubadours should have adopted the Moorish _el oud_ and called it "lute" is therefore but natural. And in all the earlier songs of the troubadours we shall find many traces of the same influence; for their _albas_ or _aubades_ (morning songs) came from the Arabic, as did their _serenas_ or serenades (evening songs), _planhs_ (complaints), and _coblas_ (couplets). The troubadours themselves were so called from _trobar_, meaning to invent. In the works of Fauriel and St. Polaye, and many others, may be found accounts of the origin of the Provencal literature, including, of course, a description of the troubadours. It is generally admitted that Provencal poetry has no connection with Latin, the origin of this new poetry being very plausibly ascribed to a gypsy-like class of people mentioned by the Latin chroniclers of the Middle Ages as _joculares_ or _joculatores_. They were called _joglars_ in Provencal, _jouglers_ or _jougleors_ in French, and our word "juggler" comes from the same source. What that source originally was may be inferred from the fact that they brought many of the Arab forms of dance and poetry into Christian Europe. For instance, two forms of Provencal poetry are the counterpart of the Arabian _cosidas_ or long poem, all on one rhyme; and the _maouchahs_ or short poem, also rhymed. The _saraband_, or Saracen dance, and later the morris dance (_Moresco_ or _Fandango_) or Moorish dance, seem to point to the same origin. In order to make it clearer I will quote an Arabian song from a manuscript in the British Museum, and place beside it one by the troubadour Capdeuil. Arabian Melody [Figure 39] Pons de Capdeuil [Figure 40] The troubadours must not be confounded with the _jougleurs_ (more commonly written _jongleurs_). The latter, wandering, mendicant musicians, ready to play the lute, sing, dance, or "juggle," were welcomed as merry-makers at all rich houses, and it soon became a custom for rich nobles to have a number of them at their courts. The troubadour was a very different person, generally a noble who wrote poems, set them to music, and employed _jongleurs_ to sing and play them. In the South these songs were generally of an amorous nature, while in the North they took the form of _chansons de geste_, long poems recounting the feats in the life and battles of some hero, such as Roland (whose song was chanted by the troops of William the Conqueror), or Charles Martel.