is new ideal was not founded on an
authority which had to be accepted in good faith; it had its direct
origin in the passionate yearning of the human soul. Man had
re-discovered himself and become conscious of his personal creative
force. A very great thing had been accomplished; the seed which, slowly
gathering strength, had lain in the soil for a thousand years, had at
last burst its husk, and was rapidly growing into the magnificent tree
of the European civilisation. In silent opposition to the system of the
accepted ecclesiastical values, the new ideal of _pretz e valor e
beutatz_ (worth and value and beauty), of _cavalaria_ and _cortezia_
(chivalry and courtesy), was upheld in Provence. Four worldly virtues,
wisdom, courtly manners, honesty and self-restraint, were contrasted
with the ecclesiastical cardinal virtues. The courts of the princes
became centres of new life and art. The new spiritual-aesthetic concept
of feasting and enjoyment transformed the former orgies of eating and
drinking. Woman, who had heretofore been excluded from male society, was
all at once transferred to the very centre of being; for her sake men
controlled their brutal tempers and exerted themselves to please by
good manners, taste and art. She, whom the Church had done everything to
depreciate, who had been denied a soul at the Council of Macon (in the
sixth century), had become the very vessel of the soul; man looked up to
her and bent his knee before the newly-created goddess.

The cultivation of the new courtly manner coincided with the nascent art
of the troubadours. There was no gradual growth and development in the
latter; at the very outset it had reached perfection. The first
troubadour whose name has come down to us was Guillem of Poitiers, Duke
of Aquitania (about 1100); great lords and barons gloried in the
exercise of this new art. Every court boasted its poets, hospitably
received and loaded with presents; the great ones of the earth were
beginning to exercise that patronage of art and letters which in the
Renascence reached such extravagant proportions. Every distinguished
poet employed salaried musicians, the joglars (jongleurs), who wandered
from court to court, singing their masters' new songs. Others again, the
comtaires, related romances of love and adventure, gathering round them
a rapt throng of lords and ladies. Courtly manners and lofty principles
quickly became the recognised ideal; the man who was satisfied with t