longer
refrain poem of later date, but in neither is the return of the same
rhyme in each stanza necessarily observed, as in the French _ballade_.
The _alba_ is a leave-taking poem at morning, and the _serena_ (if it
can be called a form, for scarcely more than a single example exists) a
poem of remembrance and longing at eventide. The _pastorela_, which had
numerous sub-divisions, explains itself. The _descort_ is a poem
something like the irregular ode, which varies the structure of its
stanzas. The _sextine_, in six stanzas of identical and complicated
versification, is the stateliest of all Provencal forms. Not merely the
rhymes but the words which rhyme are repeated on a regular scheme. The
_breu-doble_ (double-short) is a curious little form on three rhymes,
two of which are repeated twice in three four-lined stanzas, and given
once in a concluding couplet, while the third finishes each quatrain.
Other forms are often mentioned and given, but they are not of much
consequence.

The prose of the best period of Provencal literature is of little
importance. Its most considerable remains, besides religious works and a
few scientific and grammatical treatises, are a prose version of the
_Chanson des Albigeois_, and an interesting collection of contemporary
lives of the Troubadours.

[Sidenote: Third Period.]

The productiveness of the last two centuries of Provencal literature
proper has been spoken of by the highest living authority as at most an
aftermath. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Arnaut Vidal
wrote a Roman d'Aventures entitled _Guillem de la Barra_. This poet,
like most of the other literary names of the period, belongs to the
school of Toulouse, a somewhat artificial band of writers who flourished
throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, held poetical
tournaments on the first Sunday in May, invented or adopted the famous
phrase _gai saber_ for their pursuits, and received, if they were
successful, the equally famous Golden Violet and minor trinkets of the
same sort. The brotherhood directed itself by an art of poetry in which
the half-forgotten traditions of more spontaneous times were gathered
up.

To this period, and to its latter part, the Waldensian writings entitled
_La Nobla Leyczon_, to which ignorance and sectarian enthusiasm had
given a much earlier date, are now assigned. There is also a
considerable mass of miscellaneous literature, but nothing of great
value, or having