For obvious reasons Southern France during the early middle ages had far outstripped the Northern provinces in art, learning, and the refinements of civilisation. Roman culture had made its way into Southern Gaul at an early date and had been readily accepted by the inhabitants, while Marseilles and Narbonne had also known something of Greek civilisation. Bordeaux, Toulouse, Arles, Lyons and other towns were flourishing and brilliant centres of civilisation at a time when Northern France was struggling with foreign invaders. It was in Southern Gaul, again, that Christianity first obtained a footing; here the barbarian invasions of the fifth and sixth centuries proved less destructive to civilisation than in Northern France, and the Visigoths seem to have been more amenable to the influences of culture than the Northern Franks. Thus the towns of Southern Gaul apparently remained centres in which artistic and literary traditions were preserved more or less successfully until the revival of classical studies during the age of Charlemagne. The climate, again, of Southern France is milder and warmer than that of the North, and these influences produced a difference which may almost be termed racial. It is a difference visible even to-day and is well expressed by [6] the chronicler Raoul de Caen, who speaks of the Provençal Crusaders, saying that the French were prouder in bearing and more war-like in action than the Provençals, who especially contrasted with them by their skill in procuring food in times of famine: "inde est, quod adhuc puerorum decantat naenia, Franci ad bella, Provinciales ad victualia".[3] Only a century and a half later than Charlemagne appeared the first poetical productions in Provençal which are known to us, a fragment of a commentary upon the De Consolatione of Boethius[4] and a poem upon St Foy of Agen. The first troubadour, William, Count of Poitiers, belongs to the close of the eleventh century.