We now reach a group of three troubadours whom Dante[21] selected as typical of certain characteristics: "Bertran de Born sung of arms, Arnaut Daniel of love, and Guiraut de Bornelh of uprightness, honour and virtue." The last named, who was a contemporary (1175-1220 _circa_) and compatriot of Arnaut de Marueil, is said in his biography to have enjoyed so great a reputation that he was known as the "Master of the Troubadours." This title is not awarded to him by any other troubadour; the jealousy constantly prevailing between the troubadours is enough to account for their silence on this point. But his reputation is fairly attested by the number of his poems which have survived and by the numerous MSS. in which they are preserved; when troubadours were studied as classics in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Guiraut's poems were so far in harmony with the moralising tendency of that age that his posthumous reputation was certainly as great as any that he enjoyed in his life-time. Practically nothing is known of his life; allusions in his poems lead us [54] to suppose that he spent some time in Spain at the courts of Navarre, Castile and Aragon. The real interests of his work are literary and ethical. To his share in the controversy concerning the _trobar clus_, the obscure and difficult style of composition, we have already alluded. Though in the _tenso_ with Linhaure, Guiraut expresses his preference for the simple and intelligible style, it must be said that the majority of his poems are far from attaining this ideal. Their obscurity, however, is often due rather to the difficulty of the subject matter than to any intentional attempt at preciosity of style. He was one of the first troubadours who attempted to analyse the effects of love from a psychological standpoint; his analysis often proceeds in the form of a dialogue with himself, an attempt to show the hearer by what methods he arrived at his conclusions. "How is it, in the name of God, that when I wish to sing, I weep? Can the reason be that love has conquered me? And does love bring me no delight? Yes, delight is mine. Then why am I sad and melancholy? I cannot tell. I have lost my lady's favour and the delight of love has no more sweetness for me. Had ever a lover such misfortune? But am I a lover? No! Have I ceased to love passionately? No! Am I then a lover? Yes, if my lady would suffer my love." Guiraut's [55] moral _sirventes_ are reprobations of the decadence of his age. He saw a gradual decline of the true spirit of chivalry. The great lords were fonder of war and pillage than of poetry and courtly state. He had himself suffered from the change, if his biographer is to be believed; the Viscount of Limoges had plundered and burnt his house. He compares the evils of his own day with the splendours of the past, and asks whether the accident of birth is the real source of nobility; a man must be judged by himself and his acts and not by the rank of his