Another privilege enjoyed by the troubadour, and prized by him much higher than all those previously mentioned, was the favour of noble ladies, granted to him as the guerdon of his impassioned song. The relation between lady and troubadour has been a favourite subject with writers of history and romance from the early middle ages to the present time, and it is to be feared that the popularity of Provençal poets rests quite as much on their love-affairs as on their literary achievements. From the story of Flamenca previously told and numerous other incidents to be mentioned in the following pages, the reader may form an idea of the laxity of morals in those days, especially as regards the marriage-vow. Considering this moral atmosphere and the free intercourse of the sexes existing in Provençal society, where the _dueña_ or any similar institution seems to have been unknown, the frequent occurrence of a guilty passion between a troubadour and a high-born lady—for instance, the wife of his protector—is intrinsically but too probable. But it is nevertheless an undoubted fact, although the old biographers are by no means prone to acknowledge it, that the homage offered by the troubadour and accepted by the lady did not necessarily imply guilty weakness on the part of the latter. This is sufficiently proved by the attitude of a third and strongly interested party, the husband. In many instances he thought himself honoured by the eloquent praise lavished on his wife, and was willing to make allowance for occasional outbursts of passion mixed with the more conventional terms of distant adoration. Count Barral de Vaux, the good-natured husband of Azalais, the lady whom Peire Vidal celebrated under the pseudonym of Vierna, went so far as to adjust little differences arising between his wife and that eccentric poet. Count Richard of Poitou also encouraged his sister Mathilda to accept the homage of Bertran de Born, which seems to establish the acknowledged possibility of a perfectly innocent relation of the kind alluded to beyond a doubt. The future King of England would hardly have exposed a lady of his house to ignominious suspicion for the sake of a vassal, much as he stood in dread of the dangerous gifts of that vassal.