the warrior; it is no
longer Aude, barely mentioned in the _Chanson de Roland_, but Nicolette,
that fairest, sweetest of the mediaeval heroines of romance, who is of
more interest than Aucassin in the story. And this little _chantefable_,
as it is aptly called, of _Aucassin et Nicolette_, is so nearly
Provencal that Provence has claimed it; it lies on the borderland
between the manner of the troubadours and that of the _trouveres_. A
woman is here distinctly a heroine, no longer a mere foil to the hero;
and the lovely little tale is manifestly intended to please an audience
of ladies as well as of knights.

We have spoken of this Provencal influence and sought to illustrate what
may be the method of its working, through the minstrel in the lady's
bower, but we do not care to lay too much stress upon it, because it may
not be entirely distinct from a still greater and kindred influence.
When the hosts of Peter the Hermit, crazed with religious fanaticism
such as the world sees but once in a great while, straggled back from
their crusade it might have been thought that they brought with them
nothing but the memory of their sufferings, or the precious memory of
those holy places they had journeyed so far and endured so much to see.
But their crusade had been a success; they had won the holy places from
the infidel, and after they had achieved their success they had had time
to look about them upon the new civilization with which they found
themselves in contact. When they come back to their homes they bring
enthusiastic memories of the glories of the East, and soon the spirit of
sheer adventure replaces, almost insensibly, religious feeling, and
crusade follows crusade, till we find one that does not even pretend to
go to Palestine, but devotes itself to the conquest of Constantinople,
full of riches and luxuries undreamed of in France. When Geoffrey
Villehardouin gives a glowing description of the magnificence of
Constantinople we see that already there is appreciation of things that
the first crusaders would have scorned or ruthlessly destroyed. The
influence of the Crusades in introducing higher standards of domestic
comfort, greater luxury, greater refinement, has been too often dwelt
upon to need further notice here.

The cause of woman and of civilization was helped in another way by the
Crusades. While the warlike barons found a vent for their surplus
fighting blood in smiting the infidel and robbing the Greek, the