420 POPULAR SONGS. 



dreamy and pensive, or light and airy, but of the heroic songs, such as the 

 chansons de geste written in Eomanic. Nothing, too, answers more closely to 

 the best definition which has been given of popular song. M. Damas-Hinard, 

 the translator of the " Cid," says, " Romances are not only the true history 

 of the Middle Ages in Spain, they are also its poetry. The Spanish people, 

 the poets of the Romances, composed with enthusiasm these songs, of which 

 they themselves are the subject and the heroes. For many centuries, and in 

 each generation, the greatest writers set themselves to improve and to embellish 

 them." The most important part of the Spanish Romancero consists of the 

 romances of the "Cid," which date, according to the critics, from the eleventh 

 or the thirteenth century, but long before this Spain possessed popular songs 

 which must date from the reign of King Roderick in the eighth century. A 

 collection of the Spanish popular songs, from the conquest of Granada, by 

 Gonzalvo of Cordova, in 1492, to the end of the sixteenth century, would be 

 a very onerous task, but if not undertaken the world will ultimately lose the 

 beautiful historical romances which the muleteers of Andalusia used to sing 

 to the accompaniment of the mandolin. 



Fig. 330. French Trouveur. After a Drawing from the Poems of Guillaume de Machaut. 

 Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century. In the National Library, Paria. 



