The gifts with which a successful song was rewarded, were of course influenced by the liberality of the giver. Horses, richly caparisoned, elegant vestments, and money, are mentioned in this connection.[267] Meanwhile the troubadours occasionally display the utmost contempt for their assistants, the before mentioned _jongleurs_, and reproach nobles, in some verses, with receiving such persons (who play at village fairs, dance on the tight rope, and exhibit performing monkeys), into their castles. Yet not all of the poets shared in this feeling, for Boccaccio tells us that Dante loved to associate with the musicians who set his _canzone_ to music. In the thirteenth century, Guirant Riquier (called the “last of the troubadours”) complains to the king of Castile, Alfonso X., of the decadence of the troubadour’s art, and attributes it to the indiscriminate mixing of troubadours and jongleurs, in popular estimation. He says—“You know that all men live in classes differing and distinguished from each other. Therefore it seems to me that such a distinction of names ought also to be made amongst the joglars; for it is unjust that the best of them should not be distinguished by name as well as they are by deed. It is unfair that an ignorant man of small learning, who knows a little how to play some instrument, and strums it in public places, for whatever people will give him, or one who sings low ditties to low people about the streets and taverns, and takes alms without shame from the first comer,—that all these should indiscriminately go by the name of joglars ... for joglaria was invented by wise men to give joy to good people by their skill in playing on instruments.... After that came the troubadours to record valiant deeds, and to praise the good, and encourage them in their noble endeavor.... But in our days, and for some time past, a set of people without sense and wisdom have undertaken to sing and compose stanzas and play on instruments,”[268] etc. The poor troubadour desired the king to classify them, and to title the best. The king’s answer is extant, wherein he endeavored to do so, but as the real essence and life had departed from the whole institution, it was unavailing. The troubadours often had poetical combats, when they would indulge in a verse-battle about some “Law of Love,” and the judges were selected from the fairest and wittiest of the noble dames. These were called the “Courts of Love.” The muse of some of them seems to have taken a most curious turn, for there are still in existence some “_Essenhamens_,” or books of etiquette for young ladies, which emanated from these lyrical pens, which are of the quaintest description. We reproduce a quotation from one, written by “Amanieus des Escas, called God of Love.”[269]