e's German subjects, while in the
South the natives were called the Romans-Provencaux.

In the tenth century the Normans invaded France, and infused another
element in the language, which gradually became Norman-French; and from
the twelfth century the two dialects were known as Provencal and
French. The Provencal dialect, although much changed, is still spoken
in Provence, Languedoc, Catalonia, Valencia, Majorca, and Minorca,
while the French was brought, by gradual polish, to its present
perfection.

The Troubadours who flourished for three centuries, from 950 to 1250,
used the Romance language in their poems. The brilliance of this period
of literature, its sudden rise, and as sudden disappearance, is not
unlike the rise and fall of the Arabian literature.

Among the thousands of poets who flourished during this time, none ever
wrote anything of any special note. The love, romance and imagination
of these poems breathes that chivalry toward women, amounting almost to
veneration, which was a feature of this class of poetry. It is
therefore to be regretted that as actual tales, shorn of the poetical
and chivalric setting, there was something left to be desired. The
immorality of the incidents, and the coarseness of the language, makes
this "Gay Science," as the Troubadours called it, unfit to be classed
with the best literature. In 1092 the crown of Provence passing to the
Count of Barcelona brought a more refined taste into the Provencal
poetry; the arts and the sciences of the Arabians obtained a foothold
in the country; rhyme--the method used in Arabian poetry, was adopted
by the Troubadours, and from them has been handed down to the nations
of modern Europe.

This period has been described as "one that shone out at once over
Provence and all the south of Europe, like an electric flash in the
midst of profound darkness, illuminating all things with the splendor
of its flame."

During the Crusades many of the Troubadours departed for the Holy Land.
In the history of the world there is no event that fired the poetry and
imagination of the people like these holy wars, and religious
enthusiasm began to influence the poetry of the time. When the
Plantagenet kings of England assumed by right the sovereignty over
Languedoc (as Provence was called), a new impetus was given to the
Provencal poetry, as well as a wider scope, when it was introduced into
England. Chaucer, the father of English literature, found in the
Pr