themselves, single-rhyme and all, directly influenced
English writers. Of this, however, more will be found in the chapter
on the rise of English literature proper.

[Sidenote: _The_ jongleurs.]

Another, and for literature a hardly less important, consequence of
this intention of being heard, was that probably from the very first,
and certainly from an early period, a distinction, not very different
from that afterwards occasioned by the drama, took place between the
_trouvere_ who invented the _chanson_ and the _jongleur_ or minstrel
who introduced it. At first these parts may, for better or worse, have
been doubled. But it would seldom happen that the poet who had the
wits to indite would have the skill to perform; and it would happen
still seldomer that those whose gifts lay in the direction of
interpretation would have the poetical spirit. Nor is it wonderful
that, in the poems themselves, we find considerably more about the
performer than about the author. In the cases where they were
identical, the author would evidently be merged in the actor; in cases
where they were not, the actor would take care of himself.
Accordingly, though we know if possible even less of the names of the
_jongleurs_ than of those of the _trouveres_, we know a good deal
about their methods. Very rarely does an author like Nicolas of Padua
(_v. supra_) tell us so much as his motive for composing the poems.
But the patient study of critics, eked out it may be by a little
imagination here and there, has succeeded in elaborating a fairly
complete account of the ways and fortunes of the _jongleur_, who also
not improbably, even where he was not the author, adjusted to the
_chansons_ which were his copyright, extempore _codas_, episodes,
tags, and gags of different kinds. Immense pains have been spent upon
the _jongleur_. It has been asserted, and it is not improbable, that
during the palmiest days--say the eleventh and twelfth centuries--of
the _chansons_ a special order of the _jongleur_ or minstrel hierarchy
concerned itself with them,--it is at least certain that the phrase
_chanter de geste_ occurs several times in a manner, and with a
context, which seem to justify its being regarded as a special term of
art. And the authors at least present their heroes as deliberately
expecting that they will be sung about, and fearing the chance of a
dishonourable mention; a fact which, though we must not base any
calculations upon it as to the actu