80 



only means, which could raise men of low birth* to the 

 highest ranks in society. The troubadours and minsti'els 

 were almost as numerous as the castles of the great; and 

 they Avere welcome guests, at the courts of every prince 

 and baron. At this time, as an appendage of the system 

 of chivalry, arose courts and parliaments of love. They 

 were composed of a number of persons of both sexes, 

 with a preference to the fair-sex. They decided questions 

 of gallantry and love. Alice, third Av^e of Lewis the 

 Young, held a court of love at Troyes, in the latter end 

 of the twelfth century, on a question, aheady determined 

 by the Countess of Champagne, daughter of the same 

 Lewis, by a former wife, which was referred to her, by 

 way of appeal. 



The French have a claim to priority, over all the na- 

 tions of Europe, in the gallant institutions of chivalry, in 

 the invention of romances, and in the production of all 

 the various species and denominations of works of imagi- 

 nation. The Paladines, or peers of France, the puissant 

 knights of Charlemagne, filled all Europe Avith their fame, 

 and found a legendary historian of their fabulous exploits, 

 in the supposed archbishop Turpin, Avhose Avork is a co- 

 pious treasury of romantic subjects, and the parent source 

 of romantic Avritings. From the peers of France, originated 



the 



* Peter Vidal, a famous minstrel, Avas the son of an obscure tradesman. 

 His fame, as a troubadour, gained him the favour of the highest characters, 

 ::ach as Richard I. 



