Guillem of Poitiers, the reader will remember, led anything but an exemplary life. But towards the end of it he repented, and resolved to atone for his evil ways by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land at the head of a large army. So important an event in his life and thought the poet could not let pass in silence. He wrote a song in commemoration of it, which is a document of deepest interest both as regards its psychological and its historic import. It betrays a heart loth to leave the world’s joy and yet urged on to a holy purpose by the sense of a deep necessity of regeneration. ‘I go into exile,’ he says, ‘and leave behind me my son surrounded by warfare and fear and danger; for his neighbours are malevolent men.’ He conjures his cousin and his overlord to take care of the unprotected boy, who without such help would be lost. He next bids a sad adieu to knightly splendour and to the joys of love, and in token of sincere repentance he humbly asks the forgiveness of all whom he may have offended. The tone of the song is exceedingly sad, and full of a latent presentiment of death. On the other hand we miss the holy enthusiasm of the early crusaders. There is no appeal to the faithful, no proud determination to liberate the Redeemer’s tomb by deeds of valour, such as abound in similar poems by other troubadours. It has indeed been doubted whether the song referred to the crusade at all, and not rather to some shorter pilgrimage or temporary retirement from the world. But for a minor event of that kind the fear of danger for his son and country appears too grave, and it seems on the other hand but natural that a man of Guillem’s temperament and habits should speak of a separation from the haunts of his pleasure and the scenes of his glory as a dreary banishment. In his feeling this grief and disappointment would naturally be uppermost, but all the more worthy of emulation must have been the example of a resolve which in spite of all this remained unshaken. From this point of view Count Guillem’s poem holds a prominent place amongst the songs of the crusade.