If now we set aside the very special class of ribald _galiardi_, and if we set aside also the distinction drawn by Thomas de Cabham on purely ethical grounds between the minstrels of the love-songs and the minstrels of saintly or heroic gest, the net result is the twofold classification of higher and lower minstrels already familiar to us. Roughly--it must always be borne in mind how roughly--it corresponds on the one hand to the difference between the Teutonic and the Roman tradition, on the other to the distinction between the established ‘minstrel of honour’ and his unattached rival of the road. And there is abundant evidence that such a distinction was generally present, and occasionally became acute, in the consciousness of the minstrels themselves. The aristocrats of minstrelsy, a Baudouin or a Jean de Condé, or a Watriquet de Couvin, have very exalted ideas as to the dignity of their profession. They will not let you, if they can help it, put the _grans menestreus_ on the same level with every-day _jangleur_ of poor attainments and still poorer repute[253]. In the _Dit des Taboureurs_ again it is a whole class, the _joueurs de vielle_, who arise to vindicate their dignity and to pour scorn upon the humble and uninstructed drummers[254]. But the most instructive and curious evidence comes from Provence. It was in 1273, when the amazing growth of Provençal poetry was approaching its sudden decay, that the last of the great troubadours, Guiraut de Riquier, addressed a verse _Supplicatio_ to Alphonso X of Castile on the state of minstrelsy. He points out the confusion caused by the indiscriminate grouping of poets, singers, and entertainers of all degrees under the title of _joglars_, and begs the king, as high patron of letters, to take order for it. A reply from Alphonso, also in verse, and also, one may suspect, due to the fertile pen of Guiraut Riquier, is extant. Herein he establishes or confirms a fourfold hierarchy. At the head come two classes, the _doctors de trobar_ and the _trobaires_, who are composers, the former of didactic, the latter of ordinary songs and melodies. Beneath these are the _joglars_ proper, instrumentalists and reciters of delightful stories, and beneath these again the _bufos_, the entertainers of common folk, who have really no claim to be considered as _joglars_ at all[255]. One of the distinctions here made is new to us. The difference between _doctor de trobar_ and _trobaire_ is perhaps negligible. But that between the _trobaire_ or composer and the _joglar_ or executant of poetry, is an important one. It is not, however, so far as the Teutonic element in minstrelsy goes, primitive. The _scôpas_ and the French or Anglo-Norman _ioculatores_ up to the twelfth century composed their verses as a class, and sang them as well[256]. In Provence, however, the Teutonic element in minstrelsy must have been of the slightest, and perhaps the Roman tradition, illustrated by the story of Laberius, of a marked barrier