It is not surprising, then, that the nobles of the time took up love, one might almost say, as an avocation. They had nothing to do, much of the time, but cultivate the fine arts. They caught the trick of making verses and melodies. It was natural that love should be the chief theme of their songs. And in Provence, the southeastern part of modern France, there arose toward the end of the eleventh century, the cult or institutions of the Troubadours. The Troubadours were primarily nobles, cultivating the arts as a pastime. But many men of lower rank also took up the fashion, winning their way through the beauty of their song. All that we regard as most typical of French art was in their music and verses--delicacy of wit and fancy, beauty of form, purity of diction. They represented the utmost refinement to which their age attained. They did not, like the jongleurs, accept money for their singing, though they were proud to receive gifts from lords and ladies whom they praised. But they often retained the jongleurs in their service. They seem to have had ambitions of spreading their reputations as composers and, as it was unbecoming their rank to sing in the market-places, they hired jongleurs, as personal servants, to do it for them. Thus the wandering minstrel of the ninth century, while losing something of his artistic preëminence, gained no little in social dignity. Some gained high reputation. We recall the story of Blondel, minstrel to Richard the Lionhearted, who, when his liege lord was a prisoner in Germany on his return from the Holy Land, sought him far and wide and made himself known by his singing outside the castle, later bringing help and liberty to his king. In the north of France flourished the Trouvères, similar to the Troubadours of the south. They were less delicate in touch, less polished, but far more serious, frequently composing, in their own fashion, works of science and history, theology and philosophy. Among the Troubadours and Trouvères were Count Guillaume of Poitiers, Count Thibaut of Champagne, King of Navarre, and Adam de la Halle. The last named was not of noble blood, but gained high standing as singer to the Count of Artois. In Spain, as well as in France, the institution of courtly song took root and the noble singers were known as _Trobadores_. In Italy the singer was known as _Trovatore_, though the Provençal song did not gain much vogue in the land which was being stirred by the awakening of the Renaissance. The Trouvères, through the Norman court of London, influenced the native minstrelsy of England, thus spreading over half of Europe the fame of the Provençal song.