The crushing out of the Troubadours is ascribed to the Albigensian crusade, which lasted from 1207 to 1244. The Albigenses’ home was in the very heart of the Troubadour country and the legate of Pope Innocent III, sent as inquisitor, was murdered there during his attempt to extirpate the heresy. The crusade of revenge which followed was particularly directed against Count Raymond of Toulouse, staunch patron of the Troubadours, who flocked to his standard and raised their voices in songs of war and religious controversy. Their _odes_, _pasquinades_, and _sirventes_ were sung by their Jongleurs in market places and at fairs, while they themselves girt on their swords and fought. During a fierce war of twenty years waves of soldiers and clergy swept through the lonely vineyards and gardens, leaving only blackened ruin in their wake. The bright days of the Troubadour were ended; the society that supported him was crushed, and the blow that fell in Provence reverberated through all the land. The race was not extinct, however; its representatives found a welcome at the courts of Castille, of Aragón, and of Sicily, where Frederick II was king. From this last centre they unquestionably exerted an important influence upon the Italian Renaissance, to which we shall recur in a later chapter. In this connection we may mention the interesting fact that the poet Dante early in the fourteenth century visited the Troubadours in their home and drew inspiration from their art. The Trouvères’ ascendancy dates from about 1137, when Eleonore of Aquitaine became queen of France. At her court the knights who spoke the _langue d’Oïl_ came in contact with those of the south, and from them received their poetic impulse. Besides this linguistic difference, the only other distinction is the somewhat more earnest character of Trouvère songs. Among their illustrious representatives we must name, first, King Richard I (1169-1199) of England (_Cœur-de-Lion_) and his _ménéstrel_ Blondel de Nesle. Then there are Marie de France, at the court of Henry II of England; Thibaut IV, count of Champagne, afterward king of Navarre (1208-1253); Raoul de Coucy (end of the twelfth century); Perrin d’Angecourt; Audefroi le Bastard; Guyot de Dijon; Jehan de Bretal; and Adam de la Halle (or _de la Hâle_)[78] surnamed _le bossu d’Arras_ (the hunchback of Arras), whose works are preserved to us and are published by Coussemaker in modern notation.[79] That he was a genuinely inspired poet and composer is eloquently attested by his _chansons_, _rondeaux_, and motets, in which he also displays a complete mastery of the musical science of his day. The most important of his works is the pastoral comedy, _Le geu de Robin et de Marion_, which he arranged at the command of the king of Naples, about the year 1285. Very little of the music was his own, most of it was taken from the stock of popular song. As a wanderer over Europe, a man of