ry from the pollution of
the minstrel and his circle of vulgar auditors, to cause it to be
cultivated by studious men and women, whose tastes had become refined
by the study of the Latin classics, and who were themselves emulous of
gaining a literary reputation by the cultivation of the art of serious
composition.

Vernacular poetry, having the sanction and esteem of the higher
circles of life, came to be generally appreciated; and the mind, which
is naturally responsive to matters of good taste, was willing to throw
aside the incubus of low stories, dependent for their interest upon
prurient situations, and to rise to the acceptance of literature whose
interest centred around persons and situations that made their appeal
by reason of worthiness or dignity. The patronage of letters by the
nobility led many, especially ecclesiastics, to develop their talents
in that direction. Wace, a canon of Bayeux and a prolific rhymester,
expressly states that his works were composed for the "rich gentry who
had rents and money." Even the stormy reign of Stephen seems to have
been no impediment to the cultivation of the literary taste which had
its beginning in the court of Henry I. and in the patronage of his
queens. The vernacular histories were either written or rendered into
the popular tongue, and in this way became the intellectual property
of the female world; they were not infrequently inspired by the wish
of some lady--a wish which became the law of the lay or clerical
writer.

The story of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the unhappy queen of Henry II.,
who in her later life frequently signed herself "queen by the wrath of
God," illustrates a phase of domestic infelicity which was not without
many parallels. It also serves to show that, with the perfervid
sentiment of chivalrous devotion to women, it was easy enough to
forget the higher demands of faithfulness in the real relations of
life. This queen herself was not blameless, and to an extent must
be regarded as suffering the penalties of her own indiscretions. The
story is almost too familiar to need reciting. She discovered that,
although ostensibly Henry's wife, the position was really filled by
one with whom the king had previously contracted marriage. The
family of Rosamond Clifford was as respectable as and scarcely less
illustrious than her own. During a sojourn at Woodstock, the jealous
eye of the queen had observed the king following a silk thread through
the labyrinth o