Yet such things, and far better things, are to be met everywhere in the literature which, during the period we have had under review, took definite form and shape. It produced, indeed, none of the greatest men of letters--no Chaucer nor Dante, no Froissart even, at best for certainties a Villehardouin and a William of Lorris, a Wolfram and a Walther, with shadowy creatures of speculation like the authors of the great romances. But it produced some of the greatest matter, and some of not the least delightful handlings of matter, in book-history. And it is everywhere distinguished, first, by the adventurous fecundity of its experiments in form and kind, secondly, by the presence of that spirit which has been adumbrated in the last paragraph. In this last, we must own, the pupil countries far outdid their master or mistress. France was stronger relatively in the spirit of poetry during the Middle Ages than she has been since; but she was still weaker than others. She gave them expression, patterns, form: they found passion and spirit, with not seldom positive story-subject as well. When we come upon some _nueva maestria_, as the old Spanish poet called it, some cunning trick of form, some craftsman-like adjustment of style and kind to literary purposes, we shall generally find that it was invented in France. But we know that no Frenchman could have written the _Dies Irae_; and though we recognise French as at home in the Rose-Garden, and not out of place in the fatal meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere, it sounds but as a foreign language in the towers of Carbonek or of Montsalvatsch. INDEX. Abbat, Peter, 406. Abelard, 14, 17. Adam de la Halle, 316-321. Adam of St Victor, 8, 10. Alberic of Besancon, 157. Albertus Magnus, 18. Alcamo, Ciullo d', 387. Alexander Hales, 18. _Alexander_, romances of, chap. iv. _passim_. Alfonso X., 409, 410. _Aliscans_, 75 _sq._ "Alison," 210, 211. Amalricans, the, 20 note. Amaury de Bene, 18. Ancona, Professor d', 387. _Ancren Riwle_, the, 198-201. Anna Comnena, 378. Anselm, 14, 17. _Apollonius_, the Spanish, 407. Aquinas, Thomas, 18. "Arch-poet," the, 5. Arnold, Matthew, 55, 278. Ascham, 128. _Aucassin et Nicolette_, 330-332. Audefroy le Bastard, 275. Aue, Hartmann von, 246-251. Bacon, Roger, 18. Bartsch, Herr K., 270. _Bastart de Bouillon, le_, 57. _Baudouin de Sebourc_, 32 _sq._ Beauvais, Vincent of, 18. Bede, 90. Bedier, M., 276. Benoit de Sainte-More, 177 _sq._ _Beowulf_, 30, 36, 188. Berceo, G., 407. Bernard of Morlaix, 8, 11-13. Bernard, St, 8, 322. Bodel, Jean, 26 note, 148. Bonaventura, 18. Borron, Robert de, 138. Brunetiere, M. F., 55, 83. _Brut._ See Geoffrey of Monmouth, Layamon, and Wace. Budge, Mr Wallis, 152. Callisthenes, the Pseudo-, 152 _sq._ Caradoc of Lancarvan, 91. _Carmina Burana_, 4. Celano, Thomas of, 9. Champeaux, William of, 17. Chrestien de Troyes, 101 _sq._, 195. _Cid, Poema del_, 23, 376, 393, 398 _sq._ Ciullo d'Alcamo, 387.