Among the thousands of poets who flourished during this time, none ever wrote anything of any special note. The love, romance and imagination of these poems breathes that chivalry toward women, amounting almost to veneration, which was a feature of this class of poetry. It is therefore to be regretted that as actual tales, shorn of the poetical and chivalric setting, there was something left to be desired. The immorality of the incidents, and the coarseness of the language, makes this "Gay Science," as the Troubadours called it, unfit to be classed with the best literature. In 1092 the crown of Provence passing to the Count of Barcelona brought a more refined taste into the Provencal poetry; the arts and the sciences of the Arabians obtained a foothold in the country; rhyme--the method used in Arabian poetry, was adopted by the Troubadours, and from them has been handed down to the nations of modern Europe. This period has been described as "one that shone out at once over Provence and all the south of Europe, like an electric flash in the midst of profound darkness, illuminating all things with the splendor of its flame." During the Crusades many of the Troubadours departed for the Holy Land. In the history of the world there is no event that fired the poetry and imagination of the people like these holy wars, and religious enthusiasm began to influence the poetry of the time. When the Plantagenet kings of England assumed by right the sovereignty over Languedoc (as Provence was called), a new impetus was given to the Provencal poetry, as well as a wider scope, when it was introduced into England. Chaucer, the father of English literature, found in the Provencal literature all his first models. With the decline of the Troubadours occurred the rise of the Trouveres in northern France. In the tenth century Normandy was invaded by Rollo the Dane, who incorporated himself and his followers with the Normans. They adopted the Norman-French; but gave it a power and scope it had hitherto lacked. While the Romance-Provencal in the South was a language of sweetness and beauty, the Northern language after the advent of Rollo, was strong and warlike. Its poetry, which differed from the love chansons of the South, was the song of brave warriors, recounting the heroic deeds of their ancestors.