242 CHAUCER. 



of Dante on this point is explicit,* and moreover not a 

 single romance of chivalry has come down to us in a 

 dialect of the pure Provencal. 



The Trouveres, on the other hand, are apt to have 

 something naive and vigorous about them, something 

 that smacks of race and soil. Their very coarseness 

 is almost better than the Troubadour delicacy, because 

 it was not an affectation. The difference between the 

 two schools is that between a culture pedantically trans- 

 mitted and one which grows and gathers strength from 

 natural causes. Indeed, it is to the North of France and 

 to the Trouveres that we are to look for the true origins 

 of our modern literature. I do not mean in their epi- 

 cal poetry, though there is something refreshing in the 

 mere fact of their choosing native heroes and legends as 

 the subjects of their song. It was in their Fabliaux and 

 Lais that, dealing with the realities of the life about 

 them, they became original and delightful in spite of 

 themselves. Their Chansons de Geste are fine specimens 

 of fighting Christianity, highly inspiring for men like 

 Peire de Bergerac, who sings 



" Bel m'es can aug lo resso 



Que fai 1'ausbercs ab 1'arso, 



Li bruit e il crit e il masan 



Que il corn e las trombas fan " ; 



but who after reading them even the best of them, 



* Allegat ergo pro se lingua Oil quod propter sui faciliorem et delec- 

 tabiliorem vulgaritatem, quicquid redactum sive inventum est ad vul- 

 gare prosaicum, suum est; videlicet biblia cum Trojanorum, Boman- 

 orumque gestibus compilata et Arturi regis ambages pulcherrimse et 

 quamplures aliae historise ac doctrine. That Dante by prosaicum did 

 not mean prose, but a more inartificial verse, numeros lege solutos, is 

 clear. Cf. Wolf, Ueber die Lais, pp. 92 seq. and notes. It has not, I 

 think, been remarked that Dante borrows his faciliorem et delectabilio- 

 rem from the plus diletable et comune of his master Brunette Latini. 

 t " My ears no sweeter music know 



Than hauberk's clank with saddlebow, 

 The noise, the cries, the tumult blown 

 From trumpet and from clarion." 



