le. Had
not the troubadours developed their theory of courtly love, with its
influence upon human nature, we cannot say what course early Italian
literature might have run. Moreover, the troubadours provided Italy and
other countries also with perfect models of poetical form. The sonnet,
the terza rima and any other form used by Dante are of Provencal origin.
And what is true of Dante and his Beatrice is no less true of Petrarch
and his Laura and of many another who may be sought in histories
specially devoted to this subject.

CHAPTER VIII [109]

THE TROUBADOURS IN SPAIN

The South of France had been connected with the North of Spain from a
period long antecedent to the first appearance of troubadour poetry. As
early as the Visigoth period, Catalonia had been united to Southern
France; in the case of this province the tie was further strengthened by
community of language. On the western side of the Pyrenees a steady
stream of pilgrims entered the Spanish peninsula on their way to the
shrine of St James of Compostella in Galicia; this road was, indeed,
known in Spain as the "French road." Catalonia was again united with
Provence by the marriage of Raimon Berengar III. with a Provencal
heiress in 1112. As the counts of Barcelona and the kings of Aragon held
possessions in Southern France, communications between the two countries
were naturally frequent.

We have already had occasion to refer to the visits of various
troubadours to the courts of Spain. The "reconquista," the reconquest of
Spain from the Moors, was in progress during the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, and various crusade poems were written by troubadours [110]
summoning help to the Spaniards in their struggles. Marcabrun was the
author of one of the earliest of these, composed for the benefit of
Alfonso VIII. of Castile and possibly referring to his expedition
against the Moors in 1147, which was undertaken in conjunction with the
kings of Navarre and Aragon. The poem is interesting for its repetition
of the word _lavador_ or piscina, used as an emblem of the crusade in
which the participants would be cleansed of their sins.[32]

Pax in nomine Domini!
Fetz Marcabrus los motz e.l so.
Aujatz que di:
Cum nos a fait per sa doussor,
Lo Seignorius celestiaus
Probet de nos un lavador
C'ane, fors outramar, no.n' fon taus,
En de lai deves Josaphas:
E d'aques