A concise account must first be given of the two Gallic literatures, “French” and Provençal. Provençal flourished early, and enjoyed but a brief life. We may, therefore, trace this branch first, then the northern French, and afterwards compare and combine the two. Though northern France had its song of Roland and other _chansons_ at as early a date as the love lyrics of Provence, yet, if literature implies conscious art and system, Provençal composition is—with the exception of Anglo-Saxon—the first real literature of modern Europe; it stimulated Spain on the one hand, and Italy on the other; but it was in advance of either. It is earlier than Dante, and, although it is appreciably indebted to Ovid, and in some degree to Virgil, it is anterior to the influence of the classical forms or spirit of the first Renaissance. It began, helped by Moorish or “Arabian” impulses and lessons, in the eleventh century, enjoyed a brilliant existence for two hundred years, and died with the dying _langue d’oc_. Though it was never enriched and made immortal by the work of any one transcendent genius, it can boast a large number of composers possessed at least of talent and taste. Provençal verses became models for all neighbouring countries. Frederick Barbarossa in Germany, Richard Cœur-de-Lion in Anglo-French England, Alfonso II in Aragon, Frederick II in Sicily, these royal personages went out of their way to compose in the fashionable style and rhythm of Provence. They became, in fact, _troubadours_. The terms needs some explanation. A troubadour is not properly a wandering minstrel carrying a guitar. That itinerant minstrel is an inferior order of person, the _jongleur_ (in Provençal _joglar_). He stands to the troubadour as the Anglo-Saxon “gleeman” to the “maker.” The troubadour was the “finder,” the poet, generally a noble, a knight, sometimes even a prince. It is no doubt true that the jongleur, who originally sang the troubadour’s ditties, was fain, like other inferiors, to assume the higher rank, try his own hand at composing variations, and call himself a troubadour, and so the title became degraded. It is true also that the real troubadours frequently chanted their own songs of love and glory, and so helped to cause confusion between themselves and the mere jongleur minstrels. But the troubadour proper was one who travelled sumptuously mounted and attired, to be the honoured guest of _châtelains_ and princes.