The hearers who do not understand anything when they hear a fine poem will pretend that they understand perfectly... because they [123] think that men would consider it a fault in them if they said that they did not understand.... And if when they hear a bad troubadour, they do understand, they will praise his singing because they understand it; or if they will not praise, at least they will not blame him; and thus the troubadours are deceived and the hearers are to blame for it." Raimon Vidal proceeds to say that the pure language is that of Provence or of Limousin or of Saintonge or Auvergne or Quercy: "wherefore I tell you, that when I use the term Limousin, I mean all those lands and those which border them or are between them." He was apparently the first to use the term Limousin to describe classical Provençal, and when it became applied to literary Catalonian, as distinguished from _plá Catalá_, the vulgar tongue, the result was some confusion. Provençal influence was more permanent in Catalonia than in any other part of Spain; in 1393, the Consistorium of the _Gay saber_ was founded in imitation of the similar association at Toulouse. Most of the troubadour poetical forms and the doctrines of the Toulouse _Leys d'Amors_ were retained, until Italian influence began to oust Provençal towards the close of the fifteenth century. On the western side of Spain, Provençal influence evoked a brief and brilliant literature in the Galician or Portuguese school. Its most [124] brilliant period was the age of Alfonso X. of Castile, one of its most illustrious exponents, and that of Denis of Portugal (1280-1325). The dates generally accepted for the duration of this literature are 1200-1385; it has left to us some 2000 lyric poems, the work of more than 150 poets, including four kings and a number of nobles of high rank. French and Provençal culture had made its way gradually and by various routes to the western side of the Spanish peninsula.