EUROPEAN LITERATURE IN 1100. LATE DISCOVERY OF THE
"CHANSONS." THEIR AGE AND HISTORY. THEIR DISTINGUISHING
CHARACTER. MISTAKES ABOUT THEM. THEIR ISOLATION AND ORIGIN.
THEIR METRICAL FORM. THEIR SCHEME OF MATTER. THE CHARACTER
OF CHARLEMAGNE. OTHER CHARACTERS AND CHARACTERISTICS.
REALIST QUALITY. VOLUME AND AGE OF THE "CHANSONS." TWELFTH
CENTURY. THIRTEENTH CENTURY. FOURTEENTH, AND LATER.
"CHANSONS" IN PRINT. LANGUAGE: "OC" AND "OIL." ITALIAN.
DIFFUSION OF THE "CHANSONS." THEIR AUTHORSHIP AND
PUBLICATION. THEIR PERFORMANCE. HEARING, NOT READING, THE
OBJECT. EFFECT ON PROSODY. THE "JONGLEURS." "JONGLERESSES,"
ETC. SINGULARITY OF THE "CHANSONS." THEIR CHARM. PECULIARITY
OF THE "GESTE" SYSTEM. INSTANCES. SUMMARY OF THE "GESTE" OF
WILLIAM OF ORANGE. AND FIRST OF THE "COURONNEMENT LOYS."
COMMENTS ON THE "COURONNEMENT." WILLIAM OF ORANGE. THE
EARLIER POEMS OF THE CYCLE. THE "CHARROI DE NIMES." THE
"PRISE D'ORANGE." THE STORY OF VIVIEN. "ALISCANS." THE END
OF THE STORY. RENOUART. SOME OTHER "CHANSONS." FINAL REMARKS
ON THEM.

[Sidenote: _European literature in 1100._]

When we turn from Latin and consider the condition of the vernacular
tongues in the year 1100, there is hardly more than one country in
Europe where we find them producing anything that can be called
literature. In England Anglo-Saxon, if not exactly dead, is dying, and
has for more than a century ceased to produce anything of distinctly
literary attraction; and English, even the earliest "middle" English,
is scarcely yet born, is certainly far from being in a condition for
literary use. The last echoes of the older and more original Icelandic
poetry are dying away, and the great product of Icelandic prose, the
Saga, still _volitat per ora virum_, without taking a concrete
literary form. It is in the highest degree uncertain whether anything
properly to be called Spanish or Italian exists at all--anything but
dialects of the _lingua rustica_ showing traces of what Spanish and
Italian are to be; though the originals of the great _Poema del Cid_
cannot be far off. German is in something the same trance between its
"Old" and its "Middle" state as is English. Only in France, and in
both the great divisions of French speech, is vernacular literature
active. The northern tongue, the _langue d'oil_, shows us--in actually
known existence, or by reasonable inference that it e