urt, a rough song in a Teutonic dialect[14]. In
default of direct evidence an argument has been sought to be founded on
the constant transitions, repetitions, and other peculiarities of the
Chansons, some of which (and especially _Roland_, the most famous of
all) present traces of repeated handlings of the same subject, such as
might be expected in work which was merely that of a _diaskeuast_[15] of
existing lays.

[Sidenote: Trouveres and Jongleurs.]

It is however probable that the explanation of this phenomenon need not
be sought further than in the circumstances of the composition and
publication of these poems, circumstances which also had a very
considerable influence on the whole course and character of early French
literature. We know nothing of the rise or origin of the two classes of
_Trouveurs_ and _Jongleurs_. The former (which it is needless to say is
the same word as _Troubadour_, and _Trobador_, and _Trovatore_) is the
term for the composing class, the latter for the performing one. But the
separation was not sharp or absolute, and there are abundant instances
of Trouveres[16] who performed their own works, and of Jongleurs who
aspired to the glories if not of original authorship, at any rate of
alteration and revision of the legends they sang or recited. The natural
consequence of this irregular form of publication was a good deal of
repetition in the works published. Different versions of the legends
easily enough got mixed together by the copyist, who it must be
remembered was frequently a mere mechanical reproducer, and neither
Trouvere nor Jongleur; nor should it be forgotten that, so long as
recitation was general, repetitions of this kind were almost inevitable
as a rest to the reciter's memory, and were scarcely likely to attract
unfavourable remark or criticism from the audience. We may therefore
conclude, without entering further into the details of a debate
unsuitable to the plan of this history, that, while but scanty evidence
has been shown of the existence previous to the _Chansons de Gestes_ of
a ballad literature identical in subject with those compositions, at the
same time the existence of such a literature is neither impossible nor
improbable. It is otherwise with the hypothesis of the existence of
prose chronicles, from which the early epics (and _Roland_ in
particular) are also held to have derived their origin. But this subject
will be better handled when we come to treat of the beg