Subsequently it became their business to go about singing the songs of their masters, in short, to become their publishers. The troubadours themselves were nobles, originally those of southeastern France. They got their first inspiration from the folk songs, but their own songs were distinguished by refinement and improved melody. These knightly singers existed simultaneously with the jongleurs, who sang and played for money. The most celebrated troubadours were King Thibaut, of Navarre (1201-1253), and Adam de la Halle (1240-1286). It is a notable and significant fact that the songs of the troubadours, like most of the folk songs, ignored the church modes and moved in the modern major and minor keys. The last of the German minnesingers, Heinrich von Meissen, died in 1318, but the celebrated Confrèrie de St. Julien des Ménestriers, of Paris, lasted at any rate till 1741, for it is recorded that in that year Louis XV. made Jean Pierre Guignon "le Roy des Violons." The songs of the troubadours and wandering minstrels were the popular songs of the day of Columbus, and in Spain the troubadours still survived. The character of the music sung by these persons is well described by Fanny Raymond Ritter in her "Essay on the Troubadours." She says:-- "The merit of the troubadours in furthering the progress of music as an art was that they liberated melody from the fetters of calculation, gave it the stamp of individuality, and bore it on the wings of fancy into the domains of sentiment. They had the further merit of introducing new and peculiar changes of time, which, apparently irregular, were really forcible, symmetrical, and original. It is also more than probable that the troubadours received new ideas in regard to melody from the East; as they found among the Arabs not only a different system of tones, but many fanciful vocal ornaments then unknown in Europe, and which they introduced in their own songs on their return from the Crusades. But as harmony was in that day yet undeveloped, the flowing vine of melody received little support from it, and therefore often appears weak. The rules of composition were then highly complicated and ill classified, yet they were well understood by the best educated troubadours; and though their earlier songs were stiff, closely resembling the Gregorian chant in form and style, in some of the latter ones we find graceful melodies that leave little to be desired, and that possess more real variety and individuality of character than do the words attached to them."