from the Arabic, as did their _serenas_ or
serenades (evening songs), _planhs_ (complaints), and _coblas_
(couplets). The troubadours themselves were so called from
_trobar_, meaning to invent.

In the works of Fauriel and St. Polaye, and many others, may
be found accounts of the origin of the Provencal literature,
including, of course, a description of the troubadours.
It is generally admitted that Provencal poetry has no
connection with Latin, the origin of this new poetry being very
plausibly ascribed to a gypsy-like class of people mentioned
by the Latin chroniclers of the Middle Ages as _joculares_
or _joculatores_. They were called _joglars_ in Provencal,
_jouglers_ or _jougleors_ in French, and our word "juggler"
comes from the same source. What that source originally was
may be inferred from the fact that they brought many of the
Arab forms of dance and poetry into Christian Europe. For
instance, two forms of Provencal poetry are the counterpart
of the Arabian _cosidas_ or long poem, all on one rhyme; and
the _maouchahs_ or short poem, also rhymed. The _saraband_,
or Saracen dance, and later the morris dance (_Moresco_
or _Fandango_) or Moorish dance, seem to point to the same
origin. In order to make it clearer I will quote an Arabian
song from a manuscript in the British Museum, and place beside
it one by the troubadour Capdeuil.

Arabian Melody [Figure 39]

Pons de Capdeuil [Figure 40]

The troubadours must not be confounded with the _jougleurs_
(more commonly written _jongleurs_). The latter, wandering,
mendicant musicians, ready to play the lute, sing, dance, or
"juggle," were welcomed as merry-makers at all rich houses,
and it soon became a custom for rich nobles to have a number
of them at their courts. The troubadour was a very different
person, generally a noble who wrote poems, set them to music,
and employed _jongleurs_ to sing and play them. In the South
these songs were generally of an amorous nature, while in the
North they took the form of _chansons de geste_, long poems
recounting the feats in the life and battles of some hero,
such as Roland (whose song was chanted by the troops of William
the Conqueror), or Charles Martel.

And so the foundations for many forms of modern music were
laid by the troubadours, for the _chanson_ or song was always
a narrative. If it were an evening song it was a _sera_ or
serenade, or if it were a night song, _nocturne_; a dance,
a _ballada_; a r