In a time when distinctions of rank were so closely observed, it was perhaps of special importance that these singers should be chiefly persons of noble blood. Women, it is true, have at all times shown a disposition to ignore rank in favour of bards and tenors; but the mediæval nobles might have hesitated, frequently, to extend to commoners the unlimited hospitality of their castles, and the privilege of adoring their wives in verse and action. These husbands, in fact, appear to have shown remarkable forbearance towards their poetic guests. No doubt it flattered their vanity (overtone of _Pride_) to have the charms of their spouse sung by a famous poet in person; and on account of the social influence wielded by the Troubadours, owing to their successive appearance at all the castles in the land, it was, moreover, wise not to forfeit their goodwill. Sometimes, however, Jealousy held high carnival, as, in the case of Guillem, the hero of Hueffer and Mackenzie’s opera, _The Troubadour_, who was murdered by the injured husband, and the faithless wife compelled to drink of the wine called “the poet’s blood,” adulterated in a horribly realistic manner. The women, likewise, were frequently moved by Jealousy—not in behalf of their husbands but of the Troubadours, of whose art and adoration they desired a Monopoly, whereas these bards were very apt to transfer their fickle affections to other women. Fickleness, however, was not the greatest fault of these Troubadours. Their great moral shortcoming was that they paid no attention to the borderline between conjugal and romantic love. Dr. Hueffer does not recollect a single instance amongst the numerous love-stories told in connection with the Troubadours, in which the object of passion was not a married lady—a strange point of affinity with the modern French novel to which he calls the attention of those interested in national psychology. A case in point is that of Guirant (1260), one of whose pastorals is analysed by Hueffer: “The idea is simple enough: an amorous knight, whose importunate offers to an unprotected girl are kept in check by mere dint of graceful, witty, sometimes tart reply.” These offers of love are repeated at intervals of two, three, seven, and six years, and finally transferred to the woman’s daughter, always with the same bad luck. His own wife, meanwhile, is never considered a proper object for his poetic effusions. Concerning the German imitator of foreign customs—Ulrich von Lichtenstein, mentioned a few pages back—we have likewise seen that his wife never entered his mind except when he came home “tired and dilapidated, to be restored by her nursing.”