Through his undermining of feudal and communal independence, and through his strong ruling with regard to the church, St. Louis pointed the way of absolute power to French royalty. He rendered it still another service. The remembrance of his virtues did not perish with him. Venerated in his lifetime as a saint, he was canonised after death. He put the seal of sanctification, so to speak, upon French royalty, and his descendants were fond of invoking at the head of their decrees the name and example of “Monsieur St. Louis.”[f] ASPECTS OF THIRTEENTH CENTURY CIVILISATION [Sidenote: [1100-1270 A.D.]] In proportion as the Middle Ages advanced, national individuality took more definite shape. Intellectual life had been during a protracted period confined almost exclusively to religious circles, and had been given expression in the universal language--Latin. Accordingly the beginning of the thirteenth century saw only three active established literatures--in Germany, in the north and in the south of France; the last having preceded the others and served them as models. This was the literature of the _langue d’oc_, also called Provençal, which overflowed the Pyrenean borders into Christian Europe, passed over the Alps into the whole of Italy, and awakened the muse that lay sleeping on the banks of the Ebro, as on those of the Po and the Arno. Brilliant, sonorous, harmonious, full of imagery and movement, it was unexcelled as the language of love and battle songs. Bernard de Ventadour, Bertram de Born, and Richard Cœur de Lion moulded it with a skill and ardour worthy of Tyrtæus. The songs of Bertram de Born, above all, were like swords, dazzling and penetrating; the passion of war flamed in them like fire. This language of the south, into which something of the Arabian accent has passed, lent itself gracefully to the requirements of the courts of love presided over by ingenious tribunals of noble dames. But the continued development of the north of France gave the preponderance to its idiom. The Normans carried it into Italy, where it failed to establish itself; and to England, where it prevailed during three centuries. By the crusaders it was everywhere disseminated. While the intellectual fame of Paris attracted there the eminent minds of the whole Catholic world, the vulgar tongue which the doctors disdained extended its empire well beyond the frontiers. We must add also that French genius, so often accused of epic sterility, poured over into the adjacent countries a flood of great poetry. The troubadours had been mute since the Albigensian crusade had drowned in blood the civilisation of the _langue d’oc_; and no more were heard the virile accents of Bernard de Ventadour or of Bertram de Born, nor the melodious lyrics of the _jeux partis_.[12] But north of the Loire the _trouvères_ still composed heroic songs--veritable epics, which were translated or imitated in Italy, England, and Germany.