and Italian, and is spoken, with local modifications, in Provence, in the county of Languedoc, and in Catalonia. The Auvergnat dialect is somewhat peculiar, with a strong Celtic element, and stands half outside the group. North of the Loire, the Burgundian of Sens, the "franc Champenois," the inhabitant of the king's domain, and the Tourangeau of the middle provinces, all spoke a language which, to all intents and purposes, is the French of to-day. Knowing the circumstances under which such a dialect as the Romance was formed, it is no difficult problem to establish a priori the changes undergone by the mother tongue, or Latin, in its transformation into what was at first little better than a barbarous jargon, although developed subsequently into regular and beautiful dialects. The language of ancient Rome, a highly inflected and complicated tongue, naturally lost nearly all its inflections and complexity. Thus the Latin substantive and adjective lost all those terminations which in the original language expressed relation, like the various cases of the different declensions; and these were indicated from that time forward by the simpler expedient of prepositions. This is the transition from a synthetic to an analytic language. Latin still existed as the monastic and learned language. Brought face to face with the Romance dialects, it lost its classic stateliness, but gained in humanity and nervous power of expression. Medieval Latin, with all its occasional solecisms and barbarisms, was not a dead, but a very living language, the vehicle of the highest emotions. In their influence upon the human heart, their knowledge of man, and their power of saying precisely what they wanted without circumlocution, St. Bernard of Clairvaux and the author of the Imitatio Christi were greater by far than Cicero and Seneca. Medieval Latin. Romance dialects and English literature. § 7. The literary models which the Norman invasion introduced into England were no less important than the linguistic changes consequent upon the admixture of the Romance dialect with the Saxon speech. Together with their feudal institutions the Normans brought with them the poetry of feudalism, that is, the poetry of chivalry. Lais and Romances, Fabliaux and chivalrous legends, soon began to modify the rude poetical sagas and the tedious Lives of saints and hermits which had formed the bulk of Saxon literature in England. Few subjects are so dear to the learned amateur as the origin and specific character of the Romance literature. In particular, the distinction between the compositions of the Norman Trouvères and the Provençal Troubadours has given rise to many elaborate dissertations and contending theories. Nevertheless, it may be easily concluded that Trouvère and Trouvères Troubadour are obviously two forms of the same badours. word, the first belonging to the Langue d'Oil, the second to the Langue d'Oc. The natural and picturesque and Trou 66 definition of a poet as a "finder or "inventor," which these words convey, bears some analogy with the Scandinavian term Skald, or "polisher" of language, with the Greek Tonτns, and with the Anglo-Saxon name of the Scop or "shaper"; and the beautiful qualification of the poetic art as the gay science" (el gay saber, la gaie science) no less faithfully corresponds to the idea expressed in the word "gleeman," which was applied in Saxon to the singer or bard, the gleemaker of the banquet. Now we find, looking at the distinction between Northern and Southern peoples, that in the Northman imagination, sentiment, and memory receive most development, while the Southerner is more remarkable for the vivacity of his passions and the intensity-which also implies the transitory duration of his emotional feeling. Naturally, then, among a Northern nation an imaginative or poetical literature will have a natural tendency to take a narrative form, while a Southern people will express itself more naturally in the spasmodic form of lyrics. And, comparing the Trouvères' literary type with that of the Troubadours, this is what we actually find. It is evident, further, that the composition of long narrative recitals dealing with real or imaginary events would, at this period, require a certain degree of literary culture, united with a considerable amount of leisure. Many, therefore, of the interminable romances of the Trouvères were the work of ecclesiastics, chiefly monks; while, on the other hand, the bulk of the Troubadour literature, consisting of shorter and more lively lyric and satiric pieces, was in a large measure due to princes, knights, and ladies. Verse-making was, in those days, a virtue necessary in the accomplished gentleman, as, for instance, Chaucer tells us of his squire Chivalric romance. "He coude songes make and wel endyte." The source from which the Romance poets, both of the Northern and Southern dialects, drew the materials for their chivalric fiction is debatable ground. The various theories broached in connection with this curious subject may be reduced to three hypotheses: the first referring them to an Oriental, the second to a Celtic, and the third to a Teutonic source. The Teutonic hypothesis assumes either a generally German, or an exclusively Scandinavian nationality. In spite of the ingenious defence of each of these theories, conducted with remarkable power and learning, they are all open to the reproach of being too exclusive. Chivalric romance existed, with well-marked general features, long before the European nations acquired, through the Crusades, any acquaintance with the imagery and scenery of the East; so that the first hypothesis becomes altogether untenable. Secondly, considering the barbarism into which the Celtic tribes were generally fallen at the time when the chivalric literature began to prevail, and the very small knowledge of Arthurian Gaulish language and historic legend possessed by the Romance populations of Europe, the Celtic theory is not free from suspicion. It is true that the Trouvères almost invariably pretend to have discovered the subjects of their narratives in the traditions or among the chronicles of the "olde gentil Bretons," just as Marie of France refers her readers to the Celtic or Armorican authorities. However, this literary artifice has been practised in all ages-witness in our own day such books as Mr. Andrew Lang's Monk of Fife-and the parade of fictitious authorities has been the diversion of many men of letters. The Celtic origin of these fictions is certainly probable from the importance given in them to Arthur and his Origin of the knights; for, if such a person as Arthur ever ex- cycle. isted, he must have been a British prince. But the Middle Ages played strange tricks with dead men's memories, and the appearance of Alexander, Hector, and Hercules as the preux chevaliers of medieval legends does not confirm, but rather contradicts any intimate acquaintance on their author's part with the Homeric and classical poems. If tried by this standard, the Arthurian cycle does not show any necessarily Celtic origin; for, in the traditional poems of the ancient Britons, Arthur was a comparatively insignificant figure, and was by no means the centre of a feudal society, seeing that such a state of things had no existence in these lays. The conclusion is that the Troubadour or Trouvère simply borrowed striking names from dead literatures, and used them in his own way, without any necessary acquaintance with their real character or the spirit of the books from which he had taken them. At the same time, the theory which supposes the Britons, in their flight from the Saxon invasion, to have carried the Arthurian traditions to Armorica and to have given them back to England in the compositions of the Trouvères, is undeniably fascinating, and a great deal more probable than any theory of Arab influence from Spain or the East. § 8. For two centuries after the Norman Conquest the AngloSaxon and Norman-French continued to be spoken in the island, as two distinct languages having little inter- Transition mixture with one another. The most important from Anglochange, which converted the Anglo-Saxon into Old Saxon to English and consists chiefly in the substitution of English. the vowel e for the different inflections, was not due in any considerable degree to the Norman Conquest, although it was probably hastened by that event. It had begun even before, and was produced by the same causes which led to similar changes in the kindred German dialects. The large introduction of French words into English dates from the time when the Normans began to speak the language of the conquered race. It is, however, an error to represent the English language as springing from a mixture of Anglo-Saxon and French, since a mixed language, in the strict sense of the term, may be ENG. LIT. 66 definition of a poet as a "finder" or "inventor," which these words convey, bears some analogy with the Scandinavian term Skald, or "polisher" of language, with the Greek moinτýs, and with the Anglo-Saxon name of the Scop or "shaper "; and the beautiful qualification of the poetic art as the gay science" (el gay saber, la gaie science) no less faithfully corresponds to the idea expressed in the word "gleeman," which was applied in Saxon to the singer or bard, the gleemaker of the banquet. Now we find, looking at the distinction between Northern and Southern peoples, that in the Northman imagination, sentiment, and memory receive most development, while the Southerner is more remarkable for the vivacity of his passions and the intensity-which also implies the transitory duration of his emotional feeling. Naturally, then, among a Northern nation an imaginative or poetical literature will have a natural tendency to take a narrative form, while a Southern people will express itself more naturally in the spasmodic form of lyrics. And, comparing the Trouvères' literary type with that of the Troubadours, this is what we actually find. It is evident, further, that the composition of long narrative recitals dealing with real or imaginary events would, at this period, require a certain degree of literary culture, united with a considerable amount of leisure. Many, therefore, of the interminable romances of the Trouvères were the work of ecclesiastics, chiefly monks; while, on the other hand, the bulk of the Troubadour literature, consisting of shorter and more lively lyric and satiric pieces, was in a large measure due to princes, knights, and ladies. Verse-making was, in those days, a virtue necessary in the accomplished gentleman, as, for instance, Chaucer tells us of his squire "He coude songes make and wel endyte." The source from which the Romance poets, both of the Northern and Southern dialects, drew the materials for their chivalric fiction is debatable ground. The various theories broached in connection with this curious Chivalric romance. subject may be reduced to three hypotheses: the first referring them to an Oriental, the second to a Celtic, and the third to a Teutonic source. The Teutonic hypothesis assumes either a generally German, or an exclusively Scandinavian nationality. In spite of the ingenious defence of each of these theories, conducted with remarkable power and learning, they are all open to the reproach of being too exclusive. Chivalric romance existed, with well-marked general features, long before the European nations acquired, through the Crusades, any acquaintance with the imagery and scenery of the East; so that the first hypothesis becomes altogether untenable. Secondly, considering the barbarism into which the Celtic tribes were generally fallen at the time when the chivalric literature began to prevail, and the very small knowledge of Arthurian Gaulish language and historic legend possessed by the Romance populations of Europe, the Celtic theory is not free from suspicion. It is true that the Trouvères almost invariably pretend to have discovered the subjects of their narratives in the traditions or among the chronicles of the "olde gentil Bretons," just as Marie of France refers her readers to the Celtic or Armorican authorities. However, this literary artifice has been practised in all ages-witness in our own day such books as Mr. Andrew Lang's Monk of Fife-and the parade of fictitious authorities has been the diversion of many men of letters. The Celtic origin of these fictions is certainly probable from the importance given in them to Arthur and his Origin of the knights; for, if such a person as Arthur ever ex- cycle. isted, he must have been a British prince. But the Middle Ages played strange tricks with dead men's memories, and the appearance of Alexander, Hector, and Hercules as the preux chevaliers of medieval legends does not confirm, but rather contradicts any intimate acquaintance on their author's part with the Homeric and classical poems. If tried by this standard, the Arthurian cycle does not show any necessarily Celtic origin; for, in the traditional poems of the ancient Britons, Arthur was a comparatively insignificant figure, and was by no means the centre of a feudal society, seeing that such a state of things had no existence in these lays. The conclusion is that the Troubadour or Trouvère simply borrowed striking names from dead literatures, and used them in his own way, without any necessary acquaintance with their real character or the spirit of the books from which he had taken them. At the same time, the theory which supposes the Britons, in their flight from the Saxon invasion, to have carried the Arthurian traditions to Armorica and to have given them back to England in the compositions of the Trouvères, is undeniably fascinating, and a great deal more probable than any theory of Arab influence from Spain or the East. § 8. For two centuries after the Norman Conquest the AngloSaxon and Norman-French continued to be spoken in the island, as two distinct languages having little inter- Transition mixture with one another. The most important from Anglochange, which converted the Anglo-Saxon into Old Saxon to English and consists chiefly in the substitution of English. the vowel e for the different inflections, was not due in any considerable degree to the Norman Conquest, although it was probably hastened by that event. It had begun even before, and was produced by the same causes which led to similar changes in the kindred German dialects. The large introduction of French words into English dates from the time when the Normans began to speak the language of the conquered race. It is, however, an error to represent the English language as springing from a mixture of Anglo-Saxon and French, since a mixed language, in the strict sense of the term, may be ENG. LIT. C |