In the year 1323 a society was formed in Toulouse of seven troubadours, the "sobregaya companhia," for the purpose of preserving and encouraging lyric poetry (lo gay saber). The middle class of Toulouse seems at all times to have felt an interest in poetry and had already produced such well-known troubadours as Aimeric de Pegulhan, Peire Vidal and Guillem Figueira. The society offered an annual prize of a golden violet for the best _chanso_; other prizes were added at a later date for the best dance song and the best _sirventes_. Competitors found that songs to the Virgin were given the preference and she eventually became the one subject of these prize competitions. The society produced a grammatical [139] work, the Leys d'Amors, under the name of its president, Guillem Molinier, in 1356,[39] no doubt for the reference and instruction of intending competitors. The competition produced a few admirable poems, but anxiety to preserve the old troubadour style resulted generally in dry and stilted compositions. The _Academie des jeux floraux_[40] altered the character of the competition by admitting French poems after 1694. At the end of the sixteenth century, Provençal poetry underwent a revival; in our own time, poets such as Jasmin, Aubanel, Roumanille and above all, Mistral, have raised their language from a patois to a literary power. The work of the félibres has been to synthetise the best elements of the various local dialects and to create a literary language by a process not wholly dissimilar to that described at the outset of this book. But the old troubadour spirit had died long before; it had accomplished its share in the history of European literature and had given an impulse to the development of lyric poetry, the effects of which are perceptible even at the present day. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND NOTES LITERARY HISTORY F. Diez, _Leben und Werke der Troubadours_, 2nd edit., re-edited by K. Bartsch, Leipsic, 1882. _Die Poesie der Troubadours_, 2nd edit., re-edited by K. Bartsch, Leipsic, 1883. K. Bartsch, _Grundriss zur Geschichte der provenzalischen Literatur_, Elberfeld, 1872. A new edition of this indispensable work is in preparation by Prof. A. Pillet of Breslau. The first part of the book contains a sketch of Provençal literature, and a list of manuscripts. The second part gives a list of the troubadours in alphabetical order, with the lyric poems attributed to each troubadour. The first line of each poem is quoted and followed by a list of the MSS. in which it is found. Modern editors have generally agreed to follow these lists in referring to troubadour lyrics: e.g. B. Gr., 202, 4 refers to the fourth lyric (in alphabetical order) of Guillem Ademar, who is no. 202 in Bartsch's list. A list of corrections to this list is given by Gröber in Böhmer's _Romanische Studien_, vol. ii. 1875-77, Strassburg. In vol. ix. of the same is Gröbers' study of troubadour MSS. and the relations between them.