This latter circumstance connects our story with less obscure portions of history. It is well known that in 1182 King Henry demanded of his sons Richard and Geoffrey to do homage to their elder brother for the possessions respectively held by them, a demand indignantly refused by Richard. Hence the invasion of Aquitain by young Henry, and hence perhaps also the latter’s intimacy with our poet, who, as the intellectual mover of the rebellion against Richard, was an ally by no means to be despised. Thus the war between the brothers went on raging for a time, Bertran fighting in the foremost ranks, and at the same time fanning the flame with his songs. We still possess _sirventeses_ in which he addresses the chief barons by name, reminding them of their grievances, praising the brave and castigating the waverers with his satire. Such were the means of diplomatic pressure in those days. But primitive though such measures of admonition may appear, they were none the less efficacious with those concerned. Papiol, Bertran’s faithful minstrel, went about the country boldly reciting his master’s taunts in the lordly hall of the baron or at the gate of the castle, where the throng of the vassals would listen to his song. Taking into account the excitability of the southern nature further inflamed by the struggles of the time, together with the general interest of the subject and the consummate art of treatment and delivery, one can form some idea of the dangerous influence of the troubadours, too dangerous and too generally acknowledged to be despised by the mightiest princes of the time.