And this last remark indicates at the same time the clue to the whole extraordinary phenomenon of the privileged social position of the Troubadours. These poets were the stern censors of moral and political depravity as well as the singers of love. They possessed the public ear, and, conscious of their power, they wielded it, often no doubt to noble purpose, but no less frequently with a strong admixture of that personal bias which so few pamphleteers and party writers know how to eschew. The bitterness and rancour of the Provençal _sirventes_ are equalled by few satirists of other nations, surpassed by none; and many a noble—and many a lady too, for that matter—who might be comparatively indifferent to the Troubadour’s praise were fain to evade his blame by ministering to his comfort or his vanity. CHAPTER VII. THE JOGLAR. The name ‘Troubadour,’ we have seen, is synonymous with our ‘lyrical poet.’ His office was, strictly speaking, limited to the writing, or at least producing, of songs. But for the publication of these poems two more cooperators were required—the musical composer and the singer or reciter. Frequently the Troubadour invented his own melodies, and takes pride in stating that fact; some even combined with these two faculties that of the executive musician; ‘Pons de Capduelh,’ we are told, ‘was a poet (_trobava_), and could play the violin and sing.’ Others, however, were not so variously endowed, and in that case they engaged the services of an assistant, technically called joglar. The joglar proper seems to be an exclusively Provençal institution. The necessities of musical composition and promulgation of course existed more or less in all poetic communities. Boccaccio says of Dante that he loved to associate with musicians who supplied his canzone and sestine with melodies, but we nowhere read that he kept a professional composer for that purpose.