It is little important which of the two tongues of France first boasted a national poet, and equally unimportant which gave birth to the most excellent poetry. The _langue d'oc_ was the most mellifluous; the _langue d'oil_ was the most forcible; but neither brought forth any thing but the tales, the songs, the satires, the ballads of Chivalry.
It is more than probable that some musical ear in Provence first applied to his own language the melody of regularly arranged syllables, and the jingle of rhyme. No sooner was this done than the passion spread to all classes. Chivalrous love and chivalrous warfare furnished subjects in plenty; and the _gai savoir_, the _biau parler_, became the favourite relaxation of those very men who wielded the lance and sword in the battle-field. The Troubadours were multiplied to infinity; the language lent itself almost spontaneously to versification; and kings, warriors, and ladies, as well as the professed poets, occasionally practised the new and captivating art, which at once increased chivalrous enthusiasm, by spreading and perpetuating the fame of noble deeds, and softened the manners of the age, by the influence of sweet sounds and intellectual exercises. The songs themselves soon became as various as those who composed them, and were divided into _Sirventes_, _Tensons_, _Pastourelles_, and _Nouvelles_, or _Contes_.[606] The Conte, or tale in verse, needs no description, and the nature of the Pastourelle also is self-evident. The _Sirvente_ deserves more particular notice. It was in fact a satire, of the most biting and lively character; in which wit and poetry were not used to cover or to temper the reprobation of either individual or general vice, but rather, on the contrary, to give point and energy to invective. The keen bitterness of the Troubadours spared neither rank nor caste; kings, and nobles, and priests, all equally underwent the lash of their wit; and it is from these very sirventes that we gain a clear insight into many of the customs and manners of that day, as well as into many, too many, scenes of grossness and immorality, from which we would fain believe that Chivalry was free. The Tensons, or _Jeux partis_, were dialogues between two persons on some subject of love or chivalry, and in general show far more subtilty than poetical feeling. To these were added occasional epistles in verse; and _Plaintes_, or lamentations, in which the death or misfortune of a friend was mourned with a touching simplicity that has since been too often imitated with very ineffective art. Other compositions, such as the _Aubade_ and the _Serenade_, were in use, the difference of which from the common _lay_ consisted merely in their metrical construction: the word _alba_ being always repeated at the end of each stanza of the aubade, and the word _ser_ continually terminating each division of the serenade.[607] Such was the poesy of the _Langue d'oc_ and the Troubadours. The _Langue d'oil_ had also its poets, the Trouveres, and its poesy, which differed totally from that of the _Langue d'oc_. The art was here more ambitious than with the Provençals; and we find, among the first productions of the Trouveres, long and complex poems, which would fain deserve the name of Epics. The first of these, both in date and importance, is the Norman romance of Rou, which bears a considerable resemblance, in its object and manner, to the fragments of old Scandinavian poetry which have come down to us, but has a continuous and uniform subject, and strong attempts at unity of design. The romance of the Rose also, commenced by Guillaume de Lorris,[608] and concluded by Jean de Meung, is one of the most extraordinary compositions that the world ever produced, and stands perfectly alone--an allegory in twenty-two thousand verses! Various subjects, quite irrelevant to the object of the song, are introduced in its course; and the poet mingles his tale with satire and sarcasm, which were fully as often misdirected as deserved. Besides these were all the famous romances of Chivalry which probably originated in the fabulous but interesting story of Charlemagne's visit to the Holy Land, falsely attributed to the archbishop Turpin. This work bears internal evidence of having been written after the first crusade, and, we have reason to suppose, was translated into French,[609] from the Latin manuscript of some monkish author.