PROVENÇAL LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

I. LANGUAGE.—Provençal is a name used to comprehend all the varieties of Romanic speech formerly spoken and written, and still generally used by country people, in the south of France. The geographical limits of this infinitely varied idiom cannot be defined with precision, because it is conterminous on the north, south, and east with idioms of the same family, with which almost at every point it blends by insensible gradations. Roughly speaking, it may be said to be contained between the Atlantic on the west, the Pyrenees and Mediterranean on the south, and the Alps on the east, and to be bounded on the north by a line pro-ceeding from the Gironde to the Alps, and passing through the departments of Gironde, Dordogne, Haute Vienne, Creuse, Allier, Loire, Rhone, Isère, and Savoie. These limits are to some extent conventional. True, they are fixed in accordance with the mean of linguistic characters ; but it is self-evident that according to the importance attached to one character or another they may be deter-mined differently.

1. Different Names.—Though the name Provençal is generally adopted to designate the Romanic idiom of this region, it must not be supposed that this name has been imposed by general consensus, or that it rests upon any very firm historical basis. In the southern part of Gaul, Eomanic developed itself, so to say, in the natural state of language. Contrary to what took place in other Romanic countries, no local variety here raised itself to the rank of the literary idiom par excellence. While in Italy the Florentine, in France the French dialect proper (that is to say, the dialect of the tie de France), succeeded little by little in monopolizing literary use, to the exclusion of the other dialects, we do not find that either the Mar-seillais or the Toulousain idiom was ever spoken or written outside of Marseilles or Toulouse. In consequence of this circumstance, no name originally designating the language of a town or of a small district came to be employed to designate the language of the whole of southern France ; and on the other hand the geographical region described above, having never had any special name, was not able to give one to the idiom.

In the Middle Ages the idiom was spoken of under various appellations : Romans or lenga Romana was that most generally used. It is notably that employed by the authors of the Leys d'Amors, a treatise on grammar, poetry, and rhetoric, composed at Toulouse in the 14th century. But this term, which is capable of being applied, and which, in fact, has been applied, to each of the Romanic languages individually, is too general to be retained. It is, however, that which was revived in the beginning of the present century by Raynouard, the author of the Lexique roman. It is now abandoned. In the 13th century a poet born in Catalonia, on the southern slope of the Pyrenees, Raimon Vidal of Besalu, introduced the name of Limousin language, probably on account of the great reputation of some Limousin troubadours, but he took care to define the expression, which he extended beyond its original meaning, by saying that in speaking of Limousin he must be understood to include Saintonge, Quercy, Auvergne, &c. (Rasos de trobar, ed. Stengel, p. 70). This expression found favour in Spain, and especially in Catalonia, where the little treatise of Raimon Vidal was extensively read. The most ancient lyric poetry of the Catalans (13th and 14th centuries), composed on the model of the poetry of the troubadours, was often styled in Spain poesia lemosina, and in the same country lengua lemosina long designated at once the Provencal and the old literary Catalan.

The name Provencal as applied to language is hardly met with in the Middle Ages, except in the restricted sense of the language of Provence proper, i.e., of the region lying south of Dauphine' on the eastern side of the Rhone. Raimon Feraut, who composed, about 1300,, a versified life of St Honorat, uses it, but he was himself a native of Provence. We can also cite the title of a grammar, the Donatz Proensals, by Hugh Faidit (about 1250); but this work was composed in north Italy, and we may con-ceive that the Italians living next to Provence employed the name Provencal somewhat vaguely without inquiring into the geographical limits of the idiom so called. In fact the name Provencal became traditional in Italy, and in the beginning of the 16th century Bembo could write, " Era per tutto il Ponente la favella Provenzale, ne tempi ne quali ella fiori, in prezzo et in istima molta, et tra tutti gli altri idiomi di quelle parti, di gran lunga primiera. Conciosiacosa che ciascuno, o Francese, o Fiamingo, o Guascone, o Borgognone, o altramente di quelle nationi che egli si fosse, il quale bene scrivere e specialmente verseggiar volesse, quantunque egli Provenzale non fosse, lo faceva Provenzalmente" (Prose, ed. 1529, fol. viii.).

This passage, in which the primacy of the Provencal tongue is manifestly exaggerated, is interesting as showing the name Provencal employed, though, with little pre-cision, in the sense in which we now apply it.

Another designation, which is supported by the great authority of Dante, is that of langue d'oc. In his treatise-De Vulgari Eloquio (bk i. chaps, viii. and ix.), the Floren-tine poet divides the languages of Latin origin into three idioms, which he characterizes by the affirmative par-ticles used in each, oc, oil, si; " nam alii oc, alii oil,. alii si affirmando loquuntur, ut puta Hispani, Franci, et Latini." As is seen, he attributes the affirmation oc to the Spaniards, which is of course erroneous, but there is no doubt that to the Spaniards he joined more correctly the inhabitants of southern France, for in the Vita nuova, chap, xxv., he speaks of the lingua d'oc as having been long-celebrated for its poets, which can apply only to the lan-guage of the troubadours. The name langue d'oc occurs .also as early as the end of the 13th century, in public acts, but with a different sense, that of the province of Languedoc, as constituted after the union of the county of Toulouse to the French king's dominion in 1271. In. the royal acts of the end of the 13th and of the 14th century partes lingux occitanx or pays de langue d'oc designates the union of the five seneschalates of Perigueux, Carcassone, Beaucaire, Toulouse, and Rhodez, that is to say, the province of Languedoc, such as it existed till 1790. Some scholars, following the example of Dante, still actually use the term langue d'oc in opposition to langue d'oui, but these names have the inconvenience that they take such a secondary fact as the form of the affirmative particle as an essential character. Moreover it can hardly help to dis-tinguish the other Romanic languages, as langue de si would cause a confusion between Italian and Spanish. Provencal, without being entirely satisfactory, since in principle it applies solely to the language of Provence, is, notwithstanding, the least objectionable name that can be adopted. In addition to its being in some sort conse-crated by the use made of it by the Italians, who were the first after the Renaissance to study the works of the troubadours, it must not be forgotten that, just as the Roman Provincia, in which the name originated, extended across the south of Gaul from the Alps to Toulouse and the Pyrenees, so still in the Middle Ages Provincia, Provinciates, were understood in a very wide sense to designate not only Provence strictly so called, i.e., the present departments of Alpes Maritimes, Basses Alpes, Var, Bouches du Rh6ne, but also a very considerable part of Languedoc and the adjacent countries. Thus in the 12th century the chronicler Albert of Aix-la-Chapelle (Albertus Aquensis) places the town of Puy (Haute Loire). in Provincia.

2. General Characters of the Language in its Ancient State.—The Provencal language, within the limits above indicated, cannot be said to have any general characters really peculiar to it. Such of its characters as are found in all the varieties of the language are met with also in neighbouring idioms ; such as are not found elsewhere are not general characters, that is to say, are manifested only in certain varieties of Provencal. In reality " Provencal language" does not designate, properly speaking, a linguistic unity; it is merely a geographical expression.

Tonic or Accented Vowels.—Latin a is preserved in an open, syllable a m a r e, amar, a m a t u m, ainat, as well as in a closed syllable carnem, earn. This character is common also to the Eomanic of Spain and Italy; but it is one of the best distinguish-ing marks between Provencal and French, for, to the north, this a, when in an open syllable, does not pass beyond a line which whether Frenchman Fleming, Gascon, Burgundian, or of what nation soever, who wished to write and versify well, although he was not a Provencal, did it in the Provencal language."

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would run approximately through Blaye, Coutras (Gironde), Eiberac, Nontron (Dordogne), Bellae (Haute Vienne), Boussac (Creuse), Montluçon, Gannat (Allier), Montbrison (Loire). Start-ing eastward from Lyons or thereabouts, there appears a notable linguistic fact which is observable in varied proportions in the departments of Ain, Isère, and Savoie, and in Romanic Switzer-land. This is, that accented Latin a in an open syllable, when preceded by a mouillure or palatalization (whatever the origin of this), becomes e ; on the contrary, when there is no mouillure, it remains a. Thus we find in the Meditations of Marguerite d'Oingt (Lyons, about 1300) ensennier, deleitier, as against _desirrar, recontar, regardar. Of these two endings, the former, -ier, is that which is found regularly in French, the second that which is regular in Pr. Pure Pr. would have -ar in both cases (ensenhar, deleitar, desirrar, &c); Fr. would have -ier (enseigiiier, delitier) and -er {désirer). Prof. Ascoli has given the name of Franco-provençal (franco-provenzale) to the varieties of Romanic in which we find this duality of treatment of Latin a, according as it was or was not preceded by a palatalized sound. Lat. ê, I become close e (Ital., e chiuso; Fr. é): habere aver, •crêdet ere, më(n)sem mes, fïdem fe, pïlum pel. This character is not only common to Italian and Spanish, but also extends over the French domain on its western side as far as Britanny. Certain exceptions noticed in French do not occur in Pr. : thus mercëdem, cëra, p r (eh) e (n) sum, venënum, which give in Fr. merci, cire, pris, venin, where we should have expected mercei, ceire, preis, venein, give regularly in Pr. merce, cera, près, vere. Lat e preserves, as in Italy, the sound of open e (Ital., eaperto): pëdem, pe, levât, leva, lëporem, lebre. In certain determinate cases, this e from about the 13th century onwards may diphthongize to ie : ë g o, eu, then ieu, hëri, er, ier, fërit, fer, fier. Lat. ï is preserved, as in all the Romanic languages : a m ï c u m, ami, r î p a, riba. Lat. ï is treated like î long when it precedes (with hiatus) another vowel : pïum, pi a, piu, pia, via, via, ligat, lia. Lat. a, it result in one and the same sound, that of Italian u, Fr. ou (Eng. oo). The same phenomenon takes place in the north of Italy, and in the Romanic of Switzerland. This sound, which is styled by the Donat Proensal the o estreit (close o), is usually symbolized in the «arly texts by simple o, and is thus confounded in spelling, though not in pronunciation, with the open o (o larc of the Donatz Proensals) which comes from Lat. S. Lat. û becomes u (i. e., Fr. tt), .as all over France, and also in North Italy and Catalonia : mûrum, mur ( = miir), dûrum, dur ( = diir). Lat. au is rigorously preserved over the whole extent of the Pr. domain : a u r u m, aur, a 1 a u d a, alauza, pauperem, paubre. At present the preservation of Lat. au does not extend much out-side the Prov. domain ; it is, however, found in certain parts of the Ladino zone in Switzerland (upper Rhine valley), and in Friuli, and it is to be supposed to have been once general over the whole of that zone. It is attested as late as the 16th century in the Vaudois valleys of Piedmont, and there are also examples of it in old Catalan. Elsewhere the diphthong has regularly become open o (a u r u m, It. and Sp. oro, Fr. or, &c. ).

Atonic Vowels.—The atonic vowels (i.e., vowels of the unac-cented syllables) which precede the accented syllable present no very characteristic phenomenon ; but it is otherwise with those that follow the accented syllable, the post-tonic vowels. The Pr. is one of the Romanic idioms which, like the French, but unlike the Castilian and the dialects of central and northern Italy, admit of only one syllable after the accent. But the rules are not quite the same as in French. In French the only vowel which can stand after the accented syllable is "e feminine," otherwise called "emute." In Prov. a and e are the most frequent vowels in this position, but i and o also occur. In French the first of the two post-tonic vowels of a Lat. proparoxytone always disappears ; in Prov. it tends to be preserved, when followed by one of the consonants n, r, I, d: te'rminum, te'rmen, ho'minem, o'men, a-n gelum, a'ngel, se'calem, se'guel, cre'scere, crei'sser, te'pidum, te'bez. Finally, Prov. presents in certain words coming from Lat. pro-paroxytones the trace of forms which (like Ital.) admitted two atonic vowels after the accented syllable: thus we have porte'gue and po'rgue (po'rticum), Fabre'ga, a place name, and fia'rga (f a'brica), perte'ga and pe'rga (p e'rtica), feme'na and fie'mna (fe'mina). We have also lagre'ma (la'cryma), but a form accented like Fr. larme does not exist. There seems to be no doubt that these forms in which a displacement of the Latin accent is observed were at an earlier period pronounced as proparoxytones ( po ' rtegue, fa • brega, pe ' rtega, fe ' mena, la _ grema).

Consonants.—The boundary usually recognized between Prov. and French is founded upon linguistic characters furnished by the vowels, especially a; if it had been determined by characters furnished by the consonants, the line of demarcation would have to be drawn farther south, because the consonantal system wdiich is regarded as proper to French really extends in its main features over the northern zone of the Provençal region as defined above. As with the vowels, only a few of the salient facts can here be indicated. C initial, or second consonant of a group, before a (caballum, mereâtum), preserves its Lat. sound ( = k) in the greater part of the Prov. region. But in the northern zone it takes the sound of tch (Eng. eli in chin) as in 0. Fr., and this sound is still pretty well preserved, although there is here and there a tendency to the present sound of ch in Fr. ( = sh Eng.). The place names Castellimi, Castanêtum, Casale, give Chastel, Chastanet, Chazal, in Dordogne, Haute Vienne, Corrèze, Puy de Dôme, Cantal, Haute Loire, the north of Lozère, of Ardêche, of Drome, of Isère, and of Hautes Alpes, and Castel, Castanet, Gazai, farther to the south. Analogously, g initial, or second consonant of a group, followed by a, becomes j (i.e., (feft«=0. Fr. and Eng. j in jam) in the same zone; Garrïca is Jarrija, Jarria in Dordogne, Corrèze, Cantal, Haute Loire, Isère, and Garriga farther south. Between two vowels t becomes cl : edat, emperador, nodal, amada (se tate m, imperatóre m, natale, amata). This was also the case in 0. Fr. until the course of the 11th century (honurcie, empereiur, lavaiures, &c., in the Life of St Alexis). But in the northern zone this d representing a Lat. t fell away as early as in Fr. ; in an 11th-century text from the environs of Valence, we read muraor, coroaa (*muratôrem, corrogâta), Fr. corvée (P. Meyer, Recueil d'anciens textes, Provençal section, ISo. 40). In the south, d between two vowels was preserved almost everywhere until about the middle of the 12th century, when it became z (as in Fr. and Eng. zero) : cruzel, azorar, auzir, vezer (crudëlem, adorare, audire, vide re). In the 14th and 15th centuries this z, like every z or s soft of wdiatever origin, was liable to become r (lingual, not uvular) : aurir, veren (a u d i r e, v i d e n t e m). In Béarn and Gascony d remained ; but in the northern zone Lat. d, instead of changing into z, r, disappeared as in Fr. and quite as early. The poem of Boetius, of which the MS. is of the 11th century, shows in this respect great hesitation: e.g., d preserved in chaden, credei, tradar, veder (cadentem, *credë'dit, *t radar e, vide re); d fallen away in creessen, feeltat, traazo, veut, filar (*credess ent, fidelitâtem, *tra-datiônem, *vidûtum, p. pie. of vider e, fidare). One of the most general facts in Pr. is the habit of rejecting Lat. final t, of which examples to any number are presented by the verbs. In Fr. this t was formerly retained when it followed a vowel which remained, aimet, entret (a m at, intrat), and still remains (in writing at least) when, in Latin, it follows a consonant, aiment, fiait, rii(imant, f a c i t, *f a c t, v i v i t, * v i v t) ; but in Pr. the t is dropped in all cases, even in the most ancient texts : aman, fiai, viu. Yet in the northern zone we find the t retained in the 3d per. pi. of verbs, -ant, -ont (Lat. -ant, -tint). H has gone completely (or at least only appears through orthographic tradition, and very intermittently, (h)erba, (h)onor, (h)umil, &c. ), not only in words of Lat. origin, which is the case in 0. Fr., but even in Teutonic words (anta, ardit, arene, ausberc, elm, Fr. honte, hardi, hareng, haubert, heaume, with h aspirated). By this feature, the northern limits of wdiich are not yet well determined, the Pro-vençal attaches itself to the Romanie of the southern countries. N final, or standing in Lat. between two vowels of which the second is to be dropped, disappears in the whole central part of the Pr. domain : gran gra, ben be, en e, ven ve, fin fi, un u (g r a n u m, bene, in, veni t, finem, unum). The forms with n belong to the eastern part (left of the Rhone), the western part (Gascony, but not Béarn), and the region of the Pyrenees. It is possible that this loss of n went along with a lengthening of final vowel ; at least, in Béarnese when the n falls away the vowel is doubled : caperaa, besii, boo (c a p e 11 â n u m, v i c ï n u m, b o n u m), &c.

These are the most important characteristics of the consonants, in relation to the extent of space over which they prevail. Others, which appear only within a more limited area, are perhaps more curious on account of their strangeness. It will suffice to mention a few which belong to the district bounded on the west and south by the Atlantic, the Basque provinces, and the Pyrenees, and which extends northward and eastward towards the Garonne and its affluents, as far as the Gironde. (This includes Béarn, Bigorre, and Gascony. ) Here the sound v no longer exists, being replaced generally by b ; between two vowels, in Gascony, by u with the sound of Eng. w. Initial r assumes a prosthetic a : arram, arre, Arrobert (r â m u m, rem, R o b e r t u m). LI between two vowels becomes r: aperar, caperan, or (Béarn) caperaa, beva, era (apel-lare, capeilanum, bella, ella). On the contrary, at the end of words (viz., in Romanic) 11 becomes g or t, d ; the former change seems to belong rather to Hautes and Basses Pyrénées, Landes, the latter to Gironde, Lot et Garonne, Gers : eg, ed, et (ille), arrasteg, -ed, -et (r a s t e 11 u m), casteg, -ed, -et (c a s t e Ì1 u m), capdeg, -ed, -et (c a p i t e 11 u m), whence Fr. cadet (in 16th century capdet, originally a Gascon word). For further details upon the consonants in this region of south-west France, see Eomania, iii. 435-38, v. 368-69.

Flexion.—Old Provençal has, like Old French, a declension con-sisting of two cases for each number, derived from the Latin nominative and accusative. In certain respects this declension is more in conformity with etymology in Provençal than in Old French, having been less influenced by analogy. The following are the types of this declension, taking them in the order of the Lat. declensions. 1. Words in -a coming from Lat. 1st deck, increased by certain words coming from Lat. neuter plurals treated in Prov. as feminine singulars ; one form only for each number : sing, causa, pl. causas. 2. Words of the Lat. 2d deck, with a few from the 4th ; two forms for each number : sing, subject cavals (cab all us), object caval (caballum); pi. sub-ject caval (c a b a 11 i), object cavals (c a b a 11 o s). 3. Words of Lat. 3d decl. Here there are three Lat. types to be considered. The first type presents the same theme and the same accentuation in all the cases, e.g., oanis. The second presents the same accentuation in the nominative singular and in the other cases, but the theme differs: co'mes, co'mitem. In the third type the accentuation changes : pecca'tor, peccato'rem. The first type is naturally confounded with nouns of the 2d decl. : sing., subj. cans or cas, obj. can or ca. The second and third types are sometimes followed in their original variety; thus corns answers to co'mes, and eo'mte to co'mitem. But it has often happened that already in vulgar Latin the theme of the nominative singular had been refashioned after the theme of the oblique cases. They said in the nom. sing, h er edis, parentis, principis, for h er e s, parens, p r i n c e p s. Consequently the difference both of theme and of accentuation which existed in Lat. between nominative and accu-sative has disappeared in Pr. This reconstruction of the nomina-tive singular after the theme of the other cases takes place in all Lat. words in -as (except abbas), in those in -io, in the greater part of those in -or, at least in all those which have an abstract meaning. Thus we obtain bontatz (bonitatis for bonitas) and bontat (bonitatem), ciutatz (civitatis for civitas) and ciutat (c i v i t a t e m), amors (a m o r i s for amor) and amor (a m o r e m). AH present participles in the subject case singular are formed in this way upon refashioned Latin nominatives : amans (a m a n t i s for amans) amant (am ant em). It is to be remarked that in regard to feminine nouns Pr. is more etymological than Fr. In the latter feminine nouns have generally only one form for each number; bonté for the subj. as well as for the obj. case, and not bontés and bonté; in Pr. on the contrary bontatz and bontat. Still, in a large number of nouns the original difference of accentuation between the nominative singular and the other cases has been maintained, whence there result two very distinct forms for the subj. and obj. cases. Of these words it is impossible to give A full list here ; we confine ourselves to the exhibition of a few types, remarking that these words are above all such as designate persons: a'bas aba't, pa'strepasto'r, sor soro'r, cantavre cantado'r (cantâtor, -5rem), emperai'rc emperado'r, bar baro', compa'nil companho; lai're lairo' (latro, -onem). To this class belong various proper names : È'ble Eblo', Gui Guio', Uc Vgo: A few have even come from the 2d deck, thus Pei're Peiro; Pons Ponso; Ca'rle Carlo', as if the Latin types had been Petro, -onem, Ponso, -ônem, Carlo, -onem. We may mention also geogra-phical adjectives, such as Bret Breto', Bergo'nhz Bergonho', Gasc Gasco', &c. The plural of the 3d decl. is like that of the second: subj. aba't, soro'r, cantado'r, emperado'r, baro', companlw, lain", obj. aba'tz, soro'rs, cantado'rs, emperado'rs, baws, companho's, lairo's, as if the Lat. nominative pi. had been abbâti, sorori, cantate) ri, &c. It is barely possible that such forms actually existed in vulgar Latin ; no trace of them, however, is found in the texts, save in the glosses of Cassel (8th c), sapienti for sapientes, and in a great many ancient charters p a r e n t o r u m, which implies a nominative p a r e n t i. The words of the 4th and 5th declensions present no points requiring mention here.

This declension of two cases is a notable character of the whole Romanic of Gaul, north as well as south, i.e., French as well as Provençal. It must be noted, however, that in the south-west it existed only in a very restricted fashion. In the old texts of Gascony it is no longer general in the 13th century. In Beam it appears to have been completely unknown, the nouns and adjs. having only one form, usually that of the obj. case. In Catalan poetry its application is often laid down in the 13th century, but as the charters and documents free from literary influence show no trace of it, its introduction into the poetry of this country may be assumed to be an artificial fact. In the region where it is best observed, i.e., in the centre and north of the Provençal territory, it tends to disappear from ordinary use already in the 13th century. The poet grammarian Raimon Vidal of Besalù, who flourished about the middle of the century, points out in various troubadours transgressions of the rules of declension, and recognizes that in conversation they are no longer observed. The general tendency was to retain only a single form, that of the obj. case. For certain words, however, it was the subj. form which survived. Thus in modern Pr. the words in the ending -ai're (answering to Lat. -a t o r) are as frequent as those in -adou _ (repr. -a 15 r e m). But there is a slight difference of meaning between these two suffixes.

Adjectives, generally speaking, agree in flexion with the nouns. But there is one fact particular to adjectives and past participles which is observed with more or less regularity in certain 12th and 13th century texts. There is a tendency to mark more clearly than in the substantives the flexion of the subj. pi., chiefly when the adj. or participle is employed predicatively. This is marked by the addi-tion of an i, placed, according to the district, either after the final consonant, or else after the last vowel so as to form a diphthong with it. The following are examples from an ancient translation of the New Testament (MS. in library of the Palais Saint-Pierre, Lyons, end of 13th century):—"Die a vos que no siatz consirosi" (ne solliciti sitis, Mat. vi. 25); "que siatz visti d' els" (ut videamini ab eis, Mat. vi. 1); " e davant los reis els princeps seretz menadi " (et ad prasides et ad reges ducemini, Mat. x. 18). In charters of the 12th and 13th centuries we find in the subj. case pi., and. especially in this predicative use, pagaig, cerlifiaili, acossailhaihr representing pagati, certificate adconsiliati.

It is in the verbs that the individuality of the different Romania idioms manifests itself most distinctly. At a very early date the etymological data were crossed, iu various directions and divers manners according to the country, by analogical tendencies. The local varieties became little by little so numerous in the Romanic conjugation that it is not easy to discover any very characteristic features observed over a territory so vast as that of which the limits have been indicated at the commencement of this article. The following are, however, a few.
The infinitives are in -ar, -ir, -re, -ir, corresponding to the Lat. -are, -ere, -ere, -ire, respectively: as in the whole Romanic domain, the conjugation in -ar is the most numerous. The table of verbs, which forms part of the Pr. grammar called the Donatz Proensals (13th century) contains 473 verbs in -ar, 101 in -er and •re, 115 in -ir. In the -ar conjugation we remark one verb from another conjugation: far (cf. It. fare) from facer e. The con-jugations in -er and -re encroach each upon the territory of the other. The three Lat. verbs cadere, cape re, sapere have become -er verbs (caze'r, cabe'r, sabe'r) as in Fr. cheoir, -cevoir, savoir ; and several other verbs waver between the two : crede'r, creir, and ci'ei 're (c r e • d e r e), quere 'r and que 'rre (q u se r e r e). This fluctuation is most frequent in the ease of verbs which belonged originally to the -ere conjugation: arde'r and a'rdre,plaze'r and. plai're, taze'r and tai're (ardere, placere, tacere). Next to the -ar conjugation, that in -ir is the one which has preserved most formative power. As in the other Romanic languages, it has welcomed a large number of German verbs, and has attracted several verbs which etymologically ought to have belonged to the conjugations in -er and -re : emplir (i m p 1 e r e), jauzir (g a u d e r e), cosir (consuere), erebir (e rip ere), fugir (fug ere), sequir (* seq u er e = sequi).

Except in the -ar conjugation, the ending of the infinitive does not determine in a regular manner the mode of forming the different tenses. The present participles are divided into two-series : those in -an (obj. sing.) for the first conj., those in -en for the others. In this the Pr. distinguishes itself very clearly from the French, in which all present participles have -ant. There is also-in Pr. a participial form or verbal adjective which is not met with in auy other Komanic language, except Romanian, where more-over it is employed in a different sense; this is a form in -do'r,. _cloi'ra, which supposes a Lat. type -törius, or-tiirius; the sense is that of a future participle, active for the intransitive verbs, passive for the transitive : endevenido 'r, -doi 'ra, " that is to-happen"; fazedo'r, -doi'ra, " that is to be done"; punido'r, -cloi'ra, "to be punished." In conjugation properly so called, we may remark the almost complete disappearance of the Lat. preterite in -ävi, of which traces are found only in texts written in the-neighbourhood of the French-speaking region, and in Beam. In return, a preterite which seems to have been suggested by the Latin dedi, has increased and become the type of the tense almost everywhere in the -ar conjugation, and in many verbs in -ir and -re : amei', ame 'st, ame't, ame'm, ame 'tz, ame 'ron. In Fr. there is a form like this, or at least having the same origin, only in a small number of verbs, none of which belong to the first con-jugation, and in these only in the 3rd. pers. sing, and pi. (perdie, perdierent; entendie, entendicrent, &c.) It is well known that re-duplicated preterites had greatly multiplied in vulgar Latin : there have been recovered such forms asascendiderat, ostended.it, pandiderunt, adtendedit, incendiderat, &c. (se& Schuchardt, Vokalismus des Vulgärlateins, i. 35, iii. 10; cf. Romania, ii. 477). But, in order to explain the Pr. form -ei, -est,, -et (with open e), we must suppose a termination not in - Id i or -edi, but in -e 'di. In the western region the 3d pers. sing. is> generally in -ec, probably by analogy with preterites like bee, crec, dee, sec, formed after the Lat. type in -ui. Another notable peculi-arity, of which Old Fr. shows only rare traces, in texts of a very remote period, is the preservation of a preterite in -ara or -era, de-rived from the Lat. pluperfect, ama'ra or ame'ra, "I loved." The former comes directly from Lat. am äram, the latter has been in-fluenced by the ordinary preterite in -ei. This preterite is used with the sense of a simple past, not of a pluperfect, and conse-quently is an exact doublet of the ordinary preterite, which explains how it was at length eliminated almost everywhere by the latter, of which it was a mere synonym. But it remained in general use with the sense of a past conditional: ama'ra or amc'ra, " I should have loved,"/ora, " I should have been."





3. Existing State of the Provencal.—In consequence of political circumstances (see notice of Provencal Literature below), the Provencal ceased to be used for administrative as well as literary purposes about the 15th century, in some places a little sooner, in others later (notably in B^arn, where it continued to be written as the language of ordinary use till the 17th century). The poems in local dialect composed and printed in the 16th century and on to our own day have no link with the literature of the preceding period. Reduced to the condition of a patois, or popular dialect simply, the idiom experienced somewhat rapid modifications. Any one who should compare the poems of Goudelin of Toulouse (1579-1649) with those of a Toulousain troubadour of the 13th century would be astonished at the changes which the language has under-gone. Yet this impression would probably be exaggerated. In order to make a rigorously accurate comparison of the language at the two epochs, it would have to be written in the two cases with the same orthographic system, which it is not. The first writers of Provencal, about the 10th or 11th century, applied to the language the Latin ortho-graphy, preserving to each letter, as far as possible, the value given to it in the contemporary pronunciation of Latin. To express certain sounds which did not exist in Latin, or which were not there clearly enough noted, there were introduced little by little, and without regular system, various conventional symbolizations such as Ih and nk to symbolize the sound of I and n mouillee. From this method of proceeding there resulted an orthographic system somewhat wanting in fixity, but which from its very instability lent itself fairly well to the variations which the pronunciation underwent in time and locality. But, the tradition having been 'interrupted about the 15th century, those who afterwards by way of pastime attempted composition in the patois formed, each for himself apart, an orthography of which many elements were borrowed from French usage. It is evident that differences already considerable must be exaggerated by the use of two very distinct orthographical systems. Nevertheless, even if we get quit of the illusion which makes us at first sight suppose differences of sound where there are merely different ways of spelling the same sound, we find that between the 14th and 16 th century the language under-went everywhere, Beam (for reasons already given) excepted, great modifications both in vocabulary and grammar. The Provencal literature having gradually died out during the 14th century, the vocabulary lost immedi-ately the greater part of the terms expressing general ideas or abstract conceptions. To supply the place of these, the authors who have written in the patois of the south during the last few centuries have been obliged to borrow from French, modifying at the same time their form, a multitude of vocables which naturally have remained for the most part unintelligible to people who know only the patois. In this case the adoption of foreign words was excusable ; but it did not stop here. Little by little, as primary instruction (now compulsory) was diffused, and introduced first in the towns and afterwards in the villages a certain knowledge of French, words purely French have been introduced into use in place of the corresponding dialect words. Thus, one hears constantly in Provence pe'ro, me'ro, fre'ro, forms adapted from French, instead of paire, maire, fraire; cacha (catsha' = Fr. cacher) instead of escoundre, &c.

In the phonology, the modifications are of the natural order, and so have nothing revolutionary. The language has developed locally tendencies which certainly already existed during the flourishing period, although the ancient orthography did not recognize them.

Of the vowels, a tonic is generally preserved ; an in an open syllable becomes ò (open) in part of the departments of Aveyron, Lot, Dordogne, Corrèze, Cantal, and south of Haute Loire: gro (g r a n u m), mo (m a n u m), yo(panem). This nasalized a must have had a particular sound already in Old Pr., for it is qualified in the Donatz Proensals (ed. Stengel, p. 49) as a estreit ( = close or narrow a). A feature almost general is the passage of post-tonic a into o : terrò, amavo, amado (terra, a m a b a t, amata). In Var and the Maritime Alps examples of this change occur as early as the end of the 15th century. But even yet there are a few cantons, notably Montpellier and its neighbourhood, where the ancient post-tonic a is preserved. It is remarkable that the Latin diphthong au, which had become simple o in almost all Romanic lands at the date of the most ancient texts, is to this day-preserved with a very distinct diphthongal sound everywhere in the south of France.

In the morphology,the leading feature of modern Provençal is the ever greater simplification of grammatical forms. Not only have the two forms (nominative and objective) in each number, in nouns and adjectives, been reduced to one—this reduction manifested itself in ordinary use already in the 14th century—but in many places there no longer remains any distinction between the singular and the plural. In a great part of the south ieu (ego) does duty as an objective, me or mi having disappeared. In part of Drôme it is the other way, mi being substituted in the nomin-ative for ieu, which it has completely displaced. It is perhaps in conjugation that the greatest changes from the older form of the language are seen. Analogy, basing itself upon one or another much used form, has acted with immense force, tending to make general in the whole conjugation, without any regard to the original classes to which the various verbs belonged, certain terminations, chiefly those which- were accented, and thus appeared to the popular instinct to have more significance. The result, if the tendency were carried the full length, would be the reduction of all the three conjugations to one. Perhaps before this point is reached the patois of the south will themselves have disappeared. As the endless modifications which the language undergoes, in vocabulary and grammar alike, develop themselves in different directions, and each over an area differently circumscribed, the general aspect of the language becomes more and more confused, without the possibility of grouping the endless varieties within dialectal divisions, there being no case in which a certain number of phonetic or morphological facts present themselves within the same geographical limits. The custom has been adopted of roughly designating these varieties by the name of the ancient provinces in which they appear. Limousin (divided into High and Low Limousin), Marchese, Auvergncse, Gascon, Béarnese, Bouergat, Languedocian, Provençal, &c. ; but these divisions, though con-venient in use, correspond to no actualities. Nîmes and Mont-pellier are in Languedoc, and Aries and Tarascon are in Provence ; nevertheless the dialect of Nîmes resembles that of Aries and Tarascon more than that of Montpellier.

Texts.— For the history of the Provençal in all its varieties there are many more materials than for any other Romanic language, not excepting even Italian or French. The literary texts go back to the 10th or 11th century (see below). For phonetic purposes many of these texts are of secondary value, because the MSS. in which they have reached us, and several of which, especially for the poetry of the troubadours, are of Italian origin, have altered the original forms to an extent which it is not easy to determine ; butwe possess a countless number of charters, coutumes, regulations, accounts, registers of taxation, which are worthy of absolute confidence,—first, because these documents are in most cases origin-als, and, secondly, because, none of the dialectal varieties having raised itself to the rank of the literary language, as happened in Fiance with the central (Parisian) variety and in Italy with the Florentine, writers never had the tempta-tion to abandon their own idiom for another. It is proper to add that Provençal possesses two ancient grammars of the 13th century (the earliest compiled for any Romanic idiom)—the Donatz Proensals and Razos de trobar (see p. 876). Although very short, especially the second, whicli is a collection of detached ob-servations, they furnish valuable data. The 14th-century Leys d'Amors (see p. 876) presents the language in rather an artificial state—the language which ought to be written rather than the language actually existing.

Bibliography.—1. Ancient Condition.—There does not exist any comprehensive work upon the Provençal whence to obtain* a precise idea of the history of the language at its different epochs. Diez's Grammatik der romanischen Sprachen is still the groundwork. It gives, especially in the 3d ed. (1869-72), the last re-vised by the author, the results of extensive researches conveniently arranged. But Biez had only a slender knowledge of the language in its present state, and in his time phonology had made little progress. The French translation of MM. G. Paiis, A. Brachet, and Morel-Fatio (Paris, 1873-76) was to be com-pleted by a supplementary volume, which was announced at vol. ix. p. 636 of the present work, but this expedient has had to be abandoned, it having been recognized that what was wanted was not a supplement but a general recast. The 11 Recherches philologiques sur la langue romane," and "Résumé delà grammaire romane," published by Raynouard at the beginning of vol. i. of his Lexique roman (1838), are entirely out of date. The "Tableau sommaire des flexions provençales," published by M. Bartsch, in the Chrestomathie provençale (4th ed., 1880), is incomplete and often erroneous. The actual state of our know-ledge of ancient Provençal must be sought in a great number of scattered dissertations or monographs, which will be found especially in the Mémoires of the Société de Linguistique de Paris, 1868 (Phonétique provençale, O, pp. 145-61), in the Romania (1872-85), and in the Revue de la Société pour l'étude des langues romanes, to which may be added some doctoral dissertations published in Ger-many, and the special studies upon the language of particular texts prefaced to. editions of these. As to dictionaries, the Lexique roman, ou Dictionnaire de la langue des Troubadours, by Raynouard (Paris, 6 vols. 8vo, 1836-44), can always be used with advantage, but the numerous special vocabularies appended by editors to texts published by them cannot be neglected. These yield a considerable

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Form.—The most useful grammatical works (all done with insufficient knowledge of phonology, and under the preconceived idea that there exist dialects with definite circumscription) are J. B. Andrews, Essai de grammaire du dialecte mentonais [Mentone] (Nice, 1878), see also his " Phonétique mentonaise," in Romania, xii. 394 ; Cantagrel, Notes sur l'orthographie et la prononciation langue-dociennes, prefixed to La Cansón de la Lauseto, by A. Mir*(Montpellier, 1876); Chabancau, Grammaire limousine (Paris, 1876), referring especially to the variety of Nontron, in the north of Périgord (Dordogne) ; Constans, Essai sur V histoire du sous-dialecte du Rouergue (Montpellier and Paris, 1880) ; Lespy, Grammaire béarnaise (2d éd., Paris, 1880) ; A. Luchaire, Études sur les idiomes pyrénéens de la region française (Paris, 1879); Moutier, Grammaire dauphinoise, Dialecte de la vallée de la Drôme (Montelimar, 1882); Ruben, "Etude sur le patois du Haut Limousin," prefixed to Poems by J. Foucaud, in the Limousin patois (Limoges, 1866). As to dictionaries we may mention, among others, Andrews, Vocabulaire français-mentonais (Nice, 1877) ; Azais, Dictionnaire des idiomes romans du midi de la France (Montpellier, 1877, 3 vols. 8vo), taking for its basis the dialect of Béziers; Chabrand and De Rochas d'Aiglun, Patois des Alpes Cottiennes et en particulier du Queyras (Grenoble and Paris, 1877); Couzinié, Dictionnaire de la langue romano-castraise (Castres, 1850); Garcin, Nouveau dictionnaire provençal-français (Draguignan, 1841, 2 vols.); Honnorat, Dictionnaire provençal-français (Digne, 1846-7, 2 vols. 4to) ; De Sauvages, Dictionnaire languedocien-français (new éd., Alais, 1820, 2 vols.); Vayssier, Dictionnaire patois-français du départe-ment de VAveyron (Rodez, 1879). From 1880 the Dictionnaire provençal-français of Fr. Mistral, in 2 vols. 4to, has been in progress ; more than the half has ap-peared. This dictionary takes as its basis the variety of Maillane (in the north of Bouches-du-Rhône), the author's native district, and gives in as complete a manner as possible all the forms used in the south of France. It is by far the best of all the dictionaries of the southern dialects which have yet been published, and when finished it will almost enable the student to dispense with all the others.

II. PROVENÇAL LITERATURE.—Provençal literature is much more easily defined than the language in which it is expressed. Starting in the 11th and 12th centuries in several centres, it thence gradually spread out, first over the greater portion, though not the whole, of southern France, and then into the north of Italy and Spain. It nowhere merged in the neighbouring literatures. At the time of its highest development (12th century) the art of composing in the vulgar tongue did not exist, or was only beginning to exist, to the south of the Alps and the Pyrenees. In the north, in the country of French speech, vernacular poetry was in full bloom ; but between the districts in which it had developed—Champagne, île de France, Picardy, and Normandy—and the region in which Provençal literature had sprung up, there seems to have been an intermediate zone formed by Burgundy, Bourbon-nais, Berry, Touraine, and Anjou which, far on in the Middle Ages, appears to have remained barren of vernacular literature. In its rise Provençal literature stands completely by itself, and in its development it long continued to be absolutely original. It presents at several points genuine analogies with the sister-literature of northern France ; but these analogies are due principally to certain primary elements common to both and only in a slight degree to mutual reaction.

It must be inquired, however, what amount of origin-ality could belong to any, even the most original, Bomanic literature in the Middle Ages. In all Romanic countries compositions in the vernacular began to appear while the custom of writing in Latin was still preserved by unin-terrupted tradition. Even during the most barbarous periods, when intellectual life was at its lowest, it was in Latin that sermons, lives of saints more or less apocryphal, accounts of miracles designed to attract pilgrims to certain shrines, monastic annals, legal documents, and contracts of all kinds were composed. When learning began to re-vive, as was the case in northern and central France under the influence of Charlemagne and later in the 11th century, it was Latin literature which naturally received increased attention, and the Latin language was more than ever employed in writing. Slowly and gradually the Romanic languages, especially those of France, came to occupy part of the ground formerly occupied by Latin, but even after the Middle Ages had passed away the parent tongue retained no small portions of its original empire. Conse-quently Romanic literatures in general (and this is especi-ally true of Provençal as it does not extend beyond the mediaeval period) afford only an incomplete representation of the intellectual development of each country. Those literatures even which are most truly national, as having been subjected to no external influence, are only to a limited extent capable of teaching us what the nation was. They were, in short, created in the interests of the illiterate part of the people, and to a considerable degree by those who were themselves illiterate. But that does not make them less interesting.

Origin.—It was in the 11th century, and at several places in the extensive territory whose limits have been described in the foregoing account of the Provencal language, that Provengal literature first made its appearance. It took poetic form ; and its oldest monuments show a relative perfection and a variety from which it may be concluded that poetry had already received a considerable develop-ment. The oldest poetic text, if the date and origin be correctly determined, is said to be a Provengal refrain attached to a Latin poem recently published (Zeitschrift fur deutsche Philologie, 1881, p. 335) from a Vatican MS., written, it is asserted, in the 10th century. But it is use-less to linger over these few words, the text of which seems corrupt, or at least has not yet been satisfactorily interpreted. The honour of being the oldest literary monument of the Provengal language must be assigned to a fragment of two hundred and fifty-seven decasyllabic verses preserved in an Orleans MS. and frequently edited and annotated since it was first printed by Raynouard in 1817 in his Choix des poesies originates des Troubadours. The writing of the MS. is,of the first half of the 11th century. The peculiarities of the language point to the north of the Provengal region, probably Limousin or Marche. It is the beginning of a poem in which the unknown author, taking Boetius's treatise De Consolatione Philosophise as the groundwork of his composition, adopts and develops its ideas and gives them a Christian cast of which there is no trace in the original. Thus from some verses in which Boetius contrasts his happy youth with his afflicted old age he draws a lengthy homily on the necessity of laying up from early years a treasure of good works. The poem is consequently a didactic piece com-posed by a " clerk," knowing Latin. He doubtless preferred the poetic form to prose because his illiterate contempor-aries were accustomed to poetry in the vulgar tongue, and because this form was better adapted to recitation; and thus his work, while a product of erudition in as far as it was an adaptation of a Latin treatise, shows that at the time when it was composed a vernacular poetry was in existence. A little later, at the close of the same century, we have the poems of William IX., count of Poitiers, duke of Guienne. They consist of eleven very diverse strophic pieces, and were consequently meant to be sung. Several are love songs; one relates a bonne fortune in very gross terms ; and the most important of all—the only one which can be approximately dated, being composed at the time when William was setting out for Spain to fight the Saracens—expresses in touching and often noble, words the writer's regret for the frivolity of his past life and the apprehensions which oppressed him as he bade farewell, perhaps for ever, to his country and his young son. We also know from Ordericus Vitalis that William IX. had composed various poems on the incidents of his ill-fated expedition to the Holy Land in 1101. And it must further be mentioned that in one of his pieces (Ben voil que sapchon li plusor) he makes a very clear allusion to a kind of poetry which we know only by specimens of later date, the partimen, or, as it is called in France, the jeu parti. William IX. was born in 1071 and died in 1127. There is no doubt that the most prolific period of his literary activity was his youth. On the other hand there is no reason to believe that he created the type of poetry of which he is to us the oldest representative. It is easy to understand how his high social rank saved some of his productions from oblivion whilst the poems of his predecessors and contemporaries disappeared with the genera-tions who heard and sang them; and in the contrast in form and subject between the Boetius poem and the stanzas of William IX. we find evidence that by the 11th century Provencal poetry was being rapidly developed in various directions. Whence came this poetry 1 How and by whose work was it formed 1 That it has no connexion whatever vvith Latin poetry is generally admitted. There is absolutely nothing in common either in form or ideas between the last productions of classical Latinity, as they appear in Sidonius Apollinaris or Fortunatus, and the first poetic compositions in Bomanic. The view which seems to meet with general acceptance, though it has not been distinctly formulated by any one, is that Bomanic poetry sprang out of a popular poetry quietly holding its place from the Boman times, no specimen of which has survived,—just as the Romanic languages are only con-tinuations with local modifications of vulgar Latin. There are both truth and error in this opinion. The question is really a very complex one. First as to the form: Romanic versification, as it appears in the Boetius poem and the verses of William IX., and a little farther north in the poem of the Passion and the Life of St Leger (10th or 11th century), has with all its variety some general and permanent characteristics : it is rhymed, and it is composed of a definite number of syllables certain of which have the syllabic accent. This form has evident affinity with the rhythmic Latin versification, of which specimens exist from the close of the Roman empire in ecclesiastical poetry. The exact type of Romanic verse is not found, however, in this ecclesiastical Latin poetry; the latter was not popular, and it may be assumed that there was a popular variety of rhythmic poetry from which Romanic verse is derived.

Again, as regards the substance, the poetic material, we find nothing in the earliest Provencal which is strictly popular. The extremely personal compositions of William IX. have nothing in common with folklore. They are subjective poetry addressed to a very limited and probably rather aristocratic audience. The same may be said of the Boetius poem, though it belongs to the quite different species of edifying literature; at any rate it is not popular poetry. Vernacular compositions seem to have been at first produced for the amusement, or in the case of religious poetry for the edification, of that part of lay society which tad leisure and lands, and reckoned intellectual pastime among the good things of life. Gradually this class, intelligent, but with no Latin education, enlarged the circle of its ideas. In the 12th century and still more in the 13th, historical works and popular treatises on contemporary science were composed for its use in the only language it understood; and vernacular literature continued gradually to develop partly on original lines and partly by borrow-ing from the literature of the " clerks." But in the 11 th century vernacular poetry was still rather limited, and has hardly any higher object than the amusement and edification of the upper classes. An aristocratic poetry like the oldest Provencal cannot be the production of shepherds and husbandmen; and there is no probability that it was invented or even very notably improved by William IX.





From what class of persons then did it proceed 1 Latin chroniclers of the Middle Ages mention as joculares, jocula-tores, men of a class not very highly esteemed whose pro-fession consisted in amusing their audience either by what we still call jugglers' tricks, by exhibiting performing animals, or by recitation and song. They are called joglars in Provencal, jouglers or jougleors in French. A certain Barnaldus, styled joglarius, appears as witness in 1058 to a charter of the chartulary of Saint Victor at Marseilles. In 1106 the act of foundation of a salva terra in Rouergue specifies that neither knight nor man-at-arms nor joculator is to reside in the village about to be created. These individuals—successors of the mimi and the thymelici of antiquity, who were professional amusers of the public— were the first authors of poetry in the vernacular both in the south and in the north of France. To the upper classes who welcomed them to their castles they supplied that sort of entertainment now sought at the theatre or in books of light literature. There were certain of them who, leaving buffoonery to the ruder and less intelligent members of the profession, devoted themselves to the composition of pieces intended for singing and conse-quently in verse. In the north, where manners were not so refined and where the taste for warlike adventure pre-vailed, the jongleurs produced chansons de geste full of tales of battle and combat. In the courts of the southern nobles, where wealth was more abundant and a life of ease and pleasure was consequently indulged in, they produced love songs. There is probably a large amount of truth in the remark made by' Dante in chapter xxv. of his Vita Nuova, that the first to compose in the vulgar tongue did so because he wished to be understood by a lady who would have found it difficult to follow Latin verses. And in fact there are love songs among the pieces by William of Poitiers; and the same type preponderates among the compositions of the troubadours who came immediately after him. But it is worthy of note that in all this vast body of love poetry there is no epithalamium nor any address to a marriageable lady. The social conditions oi the south of France in the feudal period explain in great measure the powerful development of this kind of poetry, and also its peculiar characteristics—the profound respect, the extreme deference of the poet towards the lady whom he addresses. Rich heiresses were married young, often when hardly out of their girlhood, and most frequently without their fancy being consulted. But they seem after marriage to have enjoyed great liberty. Eager for plea-sure and greedy of praise, the fair ladies of the castle became the natural patronesses of the mesnie or household of men-at-arms and jongleurs whom their husbands main-tained in their castles. Songs of love addressed to them soon became an accepted and almost conventional form of literature; and, as in social position the authors were generally far below those to whom they directed their amorous plaints, this kind of poetry was always distin-guished by great reserve and an essentially respectful style. From the beginning the sentiments, real or assumed, of the poets are expressed in such a refined and guarded style that some historians, overestimating the virtue of the ladies of that time, have been misled to the belief that the love of the troubadour for the mistress of his thoughts was generally platonic and conventional.

The conditions under which Romanic poetry arose in the south of France being thus determined as accurately as the scarcity of documents allows, we now proceed to give a survey of the various forms of Provengal literature, chronological order being followed in each instance. By this arrangement the wealth of each form will be better displayed; and, as it is rare in the south of France for the same person to distinguish himself in more than one of them, there will be generally no occasion to introduce the same author in different sections.

Poetry of the Troubadours.—Though he was certainly not the creator of the lyric poetry of southern France, William, count of Poitiers, by personally cultivating it gave it a position of honour, and indirectly contributed in a very powerful degree to insure its development and preservation. Shortly after him centres of poetic activity make their appearance in various places—first in Limousin and Gascony. In the former province lived a viscount of Ventadour, Eble, who during the second part of William of Poitiers's life seems to have been brought into relation with him, and according to a contemporary historian, Geffrei, prior of Vigeois, erat valde gratiosm in cantilenis. We possess none of his compositions; but under his influ-ence Bernart of Ventadour was trained to poetry, who, though only the son of one of the serving-men of the castle, managed to gain the love of the lady of Venta-dour, and, when on the discovery of their amour he had to depart elsewhere, received a gracious welcome from Eleanor of Guienne, consort (from 1152) of Henry II. of England. Of Bernart's compositions we possess about fifty songs of elegant simplicity, some of which may be taken as the most perfect specimens of love poetry Pro-vencal literature has ever produced. Bernart must therefore have been in repute before the middle of the 12th century ; and his poetic career extended well on towards its close. At the same period, or probably a little earlier, flourished Cercamon, a poet certainly inferior to Bernart, to judge by the few pieces he has left us, but nevertheless of genuine importance among the troubadours both because of his early date and because definite information regard-ing him has been preserved. He was a Gascon, and composed, says his old biographer, " pastorals" according to the ancient custom (pastorelas a la uzansa antiga). This is the record of the appearance in the south of France of a poetic form which ultimately acquired large develop-ment. The period at which Cercamon lived is determined by a piece where he alludes very clearly to the approaching marriage of the king of France, Louis VII., with Eleanor of Guienne (1137). Among the earliest troubadours may also be reckoned Marcabrun, a pupil of Cercamon's, from whose pen we have about forty pieces, those with dates ranging from 1135 to 1148 or thereabout. This poet has great originality of thought and style. His songs, several of which are historical, are free from the commonplaces of their class, and contain curious strictures on the corrup-tions of the time.

We cannot here do more than enumerate the leading troubadours and briefly indicate in what conditions their poetry was developed and through what circumstances it fell into decay and finally disappeared :—Peter of Auvergne (Peire dAlvernha), who in certain respects must be classed with Marcabrun; Arnaut Daniel, remarkable for his com-plicated versification, the inventor of the sestina, a poetic form for which Dante and Petrarch express an admiration difficult for us to understand; Arnolt of Mareuil (Arnaut de Maroill), who, while less famous than Arnaut Daniel, certainly surpasses him in elegant simplicity of form and delicacy of sentiment; Bertran de Born, now the most generally known of all the troubadours on account of the part he played both by his sword and his sirventescs in the struggle between Henry II. of England and his rebel sons; Peire Vidal of Toulouse, a poet of varied inspiration, who grew rich with gifts bestowed on him by the greatest nobles of his time; Guiraut de Borneil, lo maestre dels trohadors, and at any rate master in the art of the so-called " close" style (trobar elm), though he has also left us poems of charming simplicity; Gaucelm Faidit, from whom we have a touching lament (planli) on the death of Richard Cceur de Lion; Folquet of Marseilles, the most powerful thinker among the poets of the south, who from being a troubadour became first a monk, then an abbot, and finally bishop of Toulouse.

It is not without interest to discover from what class of society the troubadours came. Many of them, there is no doubt, had a very humble origin. Bernart of Ventadour's father was a servant, Peire Vidal's a maker of furred garments, Perdigon's a fisher. Others belonged to the bourgeoisie: Peire d'Alvernha, for example, Peire Raimon of Toulouse, Elias Fonsalada. More rarely we see traders' sons becoming troubadours ; this was the case with Folquet of Marseilles and Aimeric de Pegulhan. A great many were clerics, or at least studied for the church,—for instance, Arnaut of Mareuil, Hugh of Saint Circq (Uc de Saint Circ), Aimeric de Belenoi, Hugh Brunet, Peire Cardinal ; some had even taken orders'—the monk of Montaudon, the monk Gaubert of Puicibot. Ecclesiastical authority did not always tolerate this breach of discipline. Gui d'TJissel, canon and troubadour, was obliged by the injunction of the pontifical legate to give up his song-making. One point is particularly striking—the number of nobles (usually poor knights whose incomes were in-sufficient to support their rank) who became troubadours, or even, by a greater descent, jongleurs—Raimon de Miraval, Pons de Capdoill, Guillem Azemar, Cadenet, Peirol, Raimbaut de Vacqueiras, and many more. There is no doubt they betook themselves to poetry not merely for their own pleasure, but for the sake of the gifts to be obtained from the nobles whose courts they frequented. A very different position was occupied by such important persons as William of Poitiers, Raimbaut of Orange, the viscount of Saint Antonin, William of Berga, and Blacatz, who made poetry for their own amusement, but contributed not a little, by thus becoming troubadours, to raise the profession.

The profession itself was entirely dependent on the existence and prosperity of the feudal courts. The troubadours could hardly expect to obtain a livelihood from any other quarter than the generosity of the great. It will conse-quently be well to mention the more important at least of those princes who are known to have been patrons and some of them practisers of the poetic art. They are arranged approximately in geographical order, and after each are inserted the names of those troubadours with whom they were connected.

France.—ELEANOR OF GUIENNE, Bernart of Ventadour ( Venta -dorn) ; HENRY CURTMANTLE, son of Henry II. of England, Bertran de Born ; RICHARD CŒUR DE LION, Arnaut Daniel, Peire Vidal, Eolquet of Marseilles, Gaucelm Faidit ; ERMENGAKDE OF NARBONNE (1143-1192), Bernart of Ventadour, Peire Rogier, Peire dAlvernha ; RAIMON V., count of Toulouse (1143-1194), Bernart of Ventadour, Peire Rogier, Peire Raimon, Hugh Brunet, Peire Vidal, Folquet of Marseilles, Bernart of Durfort ; RAIMON VI., count of Toulouse (1194-1222), Raimon de Miraval, Aimeric de Pegulhan, Aimeric de Belenoi, Ademarlo Nègre; ALPHONSE IL, count of Provence (1185-1209), Elias de Barjols ; RAIMON BERENGER IV., count of Provence (1209-1245), Sordel ; BARRAL, viscount of Marseilles (died c. 1192), Peire Vidal, Folquet of Marseilles ; WILLIAM VIII., lord of Mont-pellier (1172-1204), Peire Raimon, Arnaut de Mareuil, Folquet of Marseilles, Guiraut de Calanson, AirnericdeSarlat; ROBERT, dauphin of Auvergne (1169-1234), Peirol, Perdigón, Pierre de Maensae, Gaucelm Faidit ; GUILLAUME DU BAUS, prince of Orange (1182-1218), Raimbaut de Vacqueiras, Perdigón ; SA VARIO DE MAULEON (1200-1230), Gaucelm de Puicibot, Hugh of Saint Circq; BLACATZ, a Provençal noble (1200 ?-1236), Cadenet, Jean d'Aubusson, Sordel, Guillem Figueira; HENRY I., count of Rodez (1208-1222?), Hugh of Saint Circq ; perhaps HUGH IV., count of Rodez (1222 ?-1274), and HENRY IL, count of Rodez (1274-1302), Guiraut Riquier, Folquet de Lunel, Serveri de Girone, Bertran Cartonel ; NUNYO SANCHEZ, count of Roussillon (died in 1241), Aimeric de Belenoi ; BERNARD IV., count of Astarac (1249-1291), Guiraut Riquier, Amanieu de Seseas.

Spain.—ALPHONSE IL, kingof Aragon (1162-1196), Peire Rogier, Peire Raimon, Peire Vidal, Cadenet, Guiraut de Cabreira, Elias de Barjols, the monk of Montaudon, Hugh Brunet ; PETER II., king of Aragon (1196-1213), Raimon de Miraval, Aimeric de Pegulhan, Perdigón, Ademar lo Ñegre, Hugh of Saint Circq ; JAMES I., king of Aragon (1213-1276), Peire Cardinal, Bernart Sicart de Maruejols, Guiraut Riquier, At de Mons ; PETER III., king of Aragon (1276-1285), Paulet of Marseilles, Guiraut Eiquier, Serveri de Girone; ALPHONSO IX., king of Leon (1138-1214), Peire Rogier, Guiraut de Bomeil, Aimeric de Pegulhan, Hugh of Saint Circq ; ALPHONSO X., king of Castile (1252-1284), Bertran de Lamanon, Bonifaci Calvo, Guiraut Riquier, Folquet de Lunel, Arnaut Plages, Bertrán Carbonel.

Italy.—BONIFACE II., marquis of Montferrat (1192-1207), Peire Vidal, Raimbaut de Vacqueiras, Elias Cairel, Gaueelm Faidit(?) ; FREDERICK II., emperor (1215-1250), Jean d'Aubusson, Aimerie de Pegulhan, Guiílem Figueira; Azzo VI., marquis of Este (1196-1212), Aimerie de Pegulhan, Rambertin de Buvalel; Azzo VIII., marquis of Este (1215-1264), Aimerie de Pegulhan.

The first thing that strikes one in this list is that, while the troubadours find protectors in Spain and Italy, they do not seem to have been welcomed in French-speaking countries. This, however, must not be taken too abso-lutely. Provencal poetry was appreciated in the north of France. There is reason to believe that when Constance, daughter of one of the counts of Aries, was married in 998 to Eobert, king of France, she brought along with her Provencal jongleurs. Poems by troubadours are quoted in the French romances of the beginning of the 13th century; some of them are transcribed in the old collections of French songs, and the preacher Eobert de Sorbon informs us in a curious passage that one day a jongleur sang a poem by Folquet of Marseilles at the court of the king of France. But in any case it is easy to understand that, the countries of the langue d'oui having a full developed literature of their own suited to the taste of the people, the troubadours generally preferred to go to regions where they had less to fear in the way of competition.

The decline and fall of troubadour poetry was mainly due to political causes. When about the beginning of the 13th century the Albigensian war had ruined a large number of the nobles and reduced to lasting poverty a part of the south of France, the profession of troubadour ceased to be lucrative. It was then that many of those poets went to spend their last days in the north of Spain and Italy, where Provencal poetry had for more than one generation been highly esteemed. Following their example, other poets who were not natives of the south of France began to compose in Provencal, and this fashion continued till, about the middle of the 13th century, they gradually abandoned the foreign tongue in northern Italy, and somewhat later in Catalonia, and took to singing the same airs in the local dialects. About the same time in the Provencal region the flame of poetry had died out save in a few places— Narbonne, Bodez, Foix, and Astarac—where it kept burn-ing feebly for a little longer. In the 14th century com-position in the language of the country was still practised; but the productions of this period are mainly works for instruction and edification, translations from Latin or some-times even from French, with an occasional romance. As for the poetry of the troubadours, it was dead for ever.

Form.—Originally the poems of the troubadours were intended to be sung. The poet usually composed the music as well as the words ; and in several cases he owed his fame more to his musical than to his literary ability. Two manuscripts preserve specimens of the music of the troubadours ; but, as the subject has not as yet been investigated, we are still ignorant of one of the elements of their success. The following are the principal poetic forms which they employed. The oldest and most usual generic term is vers, by which is understood any composition intended to be sung, no matter what the subject. At the close of the 12th century it became customary to call all verse treating of love canso,—the name vers being then more generally reserved for poems on other themes. The sirventesc differs from the vers and the canso only by its subject, being for the most part devoted to moral and political topics. Peire Cardinal is celebrated for the sirventescs he composed against the clergy of his time. The political poems of Bertrán de Born are sirventescs. There is reason to believe that originally this word meant simply a poem composed by a sirvent (Lat. serviens) or man-at-arms. The sirventesc is very frequently composed in the form, sometimes even with the rhymes, of a popu-lar song, so that it might be sung to the same air. The tensón is a debate between two interlocutors, each of whom has a stanza in turn. The pa,rtimen (Fr. jeu parti) is also a poetic debate, but it differs from the tensón in so far that the range of debate is limited. In the first stanza one of the partners proposes two alternatives ; the other partner chooses one of them and defends it, and the opposite side remains to be defended by the original pro-pounder. Often in a final couplet a judge or arbiter is appointed to decide between the parties. This poetic game is mentioned by "William, count of Poitiers, at the end of the 11th century. The pastoreta, afterwards pastorela, is in general an account of the love adventures of a knight with a shepherdess. All these classes have one form capable of endless variations, five or more stanzas and one or two envois. The olansa and balada, intended to mark the time in dancing, are pieces with a refrain. The alia, which has also a refrain, is, as the name indicates, a waking or morning song at the dawning of the day. All those classes are in stanzas. The descort is not thus divided, and consequently it must be set to music right through. Its name is derived from the fact that, its component parts not being equal, there is a kind of " discord " between them. It is generally reserved for themes of love. Other kinds of lyric poems, sometimes with nothing new about them except the name, were developed in the south of France; but those here mentioned are the more important.

Narrative Poetry.—Although the strictly lyric poetry of the troubadours forms the most original part of Provencal literature, it must not be supposed that the remainder is of trifling import-ance. Narrative poetry, especially, received in the south of France a great development, and, thanks to recent discoveries, a consider-able body of it has already become known. Several classes must be distinguished :—the chanson de geste legendary or historic, the romance of adventure, and the novel. Northern France remains emphatically the native country of the chanson de geste ; but, although in the south different social conditions, a more delicate taste, and a higher state of civilization prevented a similar pro-fusion of tales of war and heroic deeds, Provencal literature has some highly important specimens of this class. The first place belongs to Girart de Roussillon, a poem of ten thousand verses, which relates the struggles of Charles Martel with his powerful vassal the Burgundian Gerard of Roussillon. It is a literary production of rare excellence and of exceptional interest for the history of civiliza-tion in the 11th and 12th centuries. Gerard of lioussillon belongs only within certain limits to the literature of southern. France. The recension which we possess appears to have been made on the borders of Limousin and Poitou ; but it is clearly no more than a recast of an older poem no longer extant, probably either of French or at least Burgundian origin. To Limousin also seems to belong the poem of Aigar and Maurin (12th century), of which we have unfortunately only a fragment so short that the subject cannot be clearly made out. Of less heroic character is the poem of Daurel and Beton (end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century), con-nected with the cycle of Charlemagne, but by the romantic character of the events more like a regular romance of adventure. "We can-not, however, form a complete judgment in regard to it, as the only MS. in which it has been preserved is defective at the close, and that to an amount there is no means of ascertaining. Midway between legend and history may be classified the Provencal Chanson of Antioch, a fragment of which, 700 verses in extent, has been recently recovered in Madrid and published in Archives de V Orient Latin, vol. ii. To history proper belongs the chanson of the crusade against the Albigensians, which, in its present state, is composed of two poems one tacked to the other : the first, contain-ing the events from the beginning of the crusade till 1213, is the work of a certain William of Tudela, a moderate supporter of the crusaders; the second, from 1213 to 1218, is by a vehement opponent of the enterprise. The language and style of the two parts are no less different than the opinions. Finally, about 1280 a native of Toulouse named Guillaume Anelier composed, in the chanson de geste form, a poem on the war carried on in Navarre by the French in 1276 and 1277. It is an historical work of little literary merit. All these poems are, as chansons de geste ought to be, in stanzas of indefinite length, with a single rhyme. Gerard of Roussillon, Aigar and Maurin, and Daurel and Beton are in verses of ten, the others in verses of twelve syllables. The peculiarity of the versi-fication in Gerard is that the pause in the line occurs after the sixth syllable, and not, as is usual, after the fourth. Like the chanson de geste, the romance of adventure is but slightly represented in the south ; but it is to be borne in mind that many works of this class must have perished, as is rendered evident by the mere fact that, with few exceptions, the narrative poems which have come down to us are each known by a single manuscript only. We possess but three Provencal romances of adventure :—Javfre (composed in the middle of the 13th century and dedicated to a king of Aragon, possibly James I.), Blandin of Cornwall, and Guillem de la Barra. The first two are connected with the Arthurian cycle: Javfri is an elegant and ingenious work ; Blandin of Cornwall the dullest and most insipid one can well imagine. The romance of Guillem de la Barra tells an unlikely story also found in Boccaccio's Decameron (2d Day, viii.). It is rather a poor poem; but as a contribution to literary history it has the advantage of being dated, It was completed in 1318, and is dedicated to a noble of Languedoc called Sicart de Montaut. Connected with the romance of adven-ture is the novel (in Provencal novas, always in the plural), which is originally an account of an event "newly" happened. The novel must have been at first in the south what, as we see by the Decameron, it was in Italy, a society pastime,—the wits in turn relating anecdotes, true or imaginary, which they think likely to amuse their auditors. But before long this kind of production was treated in verse, the form adopted being that of the romances of adventure—octosyllabic verses rhyming in pairs. Some of those novels which have come down to us may be ranked with the most graceful works in Provencal literature ; two are from the pen of the Catalan author Raimon Vidal de Besalu. One, the Castia-gilos (the Chastisement of the Jealous Man), is a treatment, not easily matched for elegance, of a frequently-handled theme—the story of the husband who, in order to entrap his wife, takes the disguise of the lover whom she is expecting and receives with satisfaction blows intended, as he thinks, for him whose part he is playing ; the other, The Judgment of Love, is the recital of a question of the law of love, departing considerably from the subjects usually treated in the novels. Mention may also be made of the novel of The Parrot by Arnaut de Carcassonne, in which the principal character is a parrot of great eloquence and ability, who succeeds marvellously in securing the success of the amorous enterprises of his master. Novels came to be extended to the proportions of a long romance. Flamenca, which belongs to the novel type, has still over eight thousand verses, though the only MS. of it has lost some leaves both at the beginning and at the end. This poem, composed in all probability in 1234, is the story of a lady who by very ingenious devices, not unlike those employed in the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus, succeeds in eluding the vigilance of her jealous husband. No analysis can be given here of a work the action of which is so highly complicated ; suffice it to remark that there is no book in mediaeval literature which betokens so much quickness of intellect and is so instructive in regard to the manners and usages of polite society in the 13th century. We know that novels were in great favour in the south of France, although the specimens preserved are not very numerous. Statements made by Francesco de Barberino (early part of 14th century), and recently brought to light, give us a glimpse of several works of this class which have been lost. From the south of France the novel spread into Catalonia, where we find in the 14th century a number of novels in verse very similar to the Provencal ones, and into Italy, where in general the prose form has been adopted.

Didactic and Religious Poetry.—Compositions intended for instruction, correction, and edification were very numerous in the south of France as well as elsewhere, and, in spite of the enormous losses sustained by Provencal literature, much of this kind still remains. But it is seldom that such works have much originality or literary value. Originality was naturally absent, as the aim of the writers was mainly to bring the teachings contained in Latin works within the reach of lay hearers or readers. Literary value was not of course excluded by the lack of originality, but by an unfortunate chance the greater part of those who sought to instruct or edify, and attempted to substitute moral works for secular pro-ductions in favour with the people, were persons of limited ability. It is needless to enumerate all the lives of saints, all the treatises of popular theology and morals, all the books of devotion, all the pious canticles, composed in Provencal during the Middle Ages. Enough to recall the Boetius poem (unfortunately a mere fragment) already mentioned as one of the oldest documents of the language, and really a remarkable work. From the multitude of saints' lives we may single out that of St Honorat of Lerins by Raimon Feraud (about 1300), which is distinguished by variety and elegance of versification, but is almost entirely a translation from Latin. Among poems strictly didactic one stands out by reason of its great extent (nearly thirty-five thousand verses) and the somewhat original conception of its scheme—the Breviari d'amor, a vast encyclopaedia, on a theological basis, composed by the Minorite friar Matfre Ermengaut of Beziers between 1288 and 1300 or thereabout.

Drama.—Twenty years ago it might have been questioned whether dramatic representation was known in the south of France, but within that time several short dramatic pieces have been pub-lished or described ; and a considerable number of actual theatrical representations have been found mentioned in the local records. Everything of this kind that we know of belongs to the religious drama, the oldest form in every medieval literature. The period at which a purely secular theatre takes its rise in most quarters is the 15th century ; and by that time there was hardly any Provencal literature left. We possess in Provencal mysteries of Saint Agnes, of the Passion, of the Marriage of the Virgin, all belonging to the close of the 13th century or the first half of the 14th. In the 15th century there is a fragment of a mystery of St James. Provence properly so-called, especially the eastern portion of it, seems to nave been particularly fond of representations of this sort, to judge by the entries in the local records; At the close of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century many mysteries were played in that part of Dauphine which corresponds to the present depart-ment of Hautes-Alpes. Five mysteries of this district, composed and played somewhere about 1500 (the mysteries of St Eustace, of St Andrew, of St Pons, of Sts Peter and Paul, and of St Anthony of Vienne), have come down to us, and are now (1885) being edited. The influence of the contemporary French sacred drama may to some extent be traced in them.

Prose—Prose composition in the south of France belongs to a comparatively late stage of literary development ; and the same remark applies to the other Romanic countries, particularly to northern France, where prose hardly comes into fashion till the 13th century, the prose of the preceding century being little else than translations of the books of the Bible (especially the Psalter).

As early as the 12th century we find in the south sermons, whose importance is more linguistic than literary. To the 13th century belong certain lives of the troubadours intended to be prefixed to, and to explain, their poems. They were written before 1250, when the first anthologies of troubadour poetry were com-piled ; and some of them are the work of the troubadour Hugh of Saint Circq. To the same period must be assigned Las Razos de trdbar of the troubadour Raimon Vidal de Besalù (an elegant little treatise touching on various points of grammar and the poetic art), and also the Donatz Proensals of Hugh Faidit, a writer otherwise unknown, who drew up his purely grammatical work at the request of two natives of northern Italy. Of about the same date are two translations of the New Testament, one of which, preserved in MS. at Lyons, seems to have been made for Albigensians. A remark-able work, both in style and thought, is the Life of St Douceline, who lived at the close of the 13th century near Marseilles, and founded an order of Beguines. In the 14th century compositions in prose grew more numerous. Some rare local chronicles may be mentioned, the most interesting being that of Mascaro, which contains the annals of the town of Béziers from 1338 to 1390. Theological treatises and pious legends translated from Latin and French also increase in number. The leading prose work of this period is the treatise on grammar, poetry, and rhetoric known by the name of Leys à"Amors. It was composed in Toulouse, shortly before 1350, by a group of scholars, and was intended to fix the rules of the language with a view to the promotion of a poetical renaissance. For this purpose an academy was founded which awarded prizes in the shape of flowers to the best compositions in verse. We still possess the collection of the pieces crowned by this academy during the 14th century, and a large part of the 15th (Flors del gay saber). Unfortunately they are rather academic than poetic. The Leys d'Amors, which was to be the starting point and rule of the new poetry, is the best production of this abortive renaissance. The decay of Provençal literature arrived too soon to allow of a full development of prose. The 14th and 15th centuries were in no respect a prosperous period for literature in the south of France. In the 15th century people began to write French both in verse and prose ; and from that time Provençal literature became a thing of the past.

Bibliography.—Fauriel, Histoire de la poésie provençale (Paris, 1816, 3 vols. 8vo), is quite antiquated. Not only are three-fourths of the works in Provençal poetry ignored, but the very idea of the book is vitiated by the author's system (now abandoned), based on the supposition that in the south of France there was an immense epic literature. The articles on the troubadours in the Histoire littéraire de la France, by Ginguené, E. David, &c, must be consulted with extreme caution. F. Diez's Die Poesie der Troubadours (Zwickau, 1827, 8vo; new ed. by Bartsch, 1883) and his Leben und Werke der Troubadours (Zwickau, 1829, 8vo; new ed. by Bartsch, 1882) are of great excellence for the time at which they appeared. For the history of Provençal literature in Spain, see Mila y Fontanals, De los trovadores en Espana (Barcelona, 1861, 8vo) ; for Italy, Cavedoni, Ricerche storiette intorno ai trovatori provenzali (Modena, 1844, 8vo) ; A. Thomas, Francesco Barberino et la littérature provençale en Italie (Paris, 1883, 8vo); O. Schultz, "Die Lebensverhältnisse der italienischen Trobadors," mZeits. für romanische Philologie (1883). For the bibliography consult especially Bartsch, Qrundriss zur Geschichte der provenzalischen Literatur (Elberfeld, 1872, 8vo). For texts the reader may be referred to Kaynouard, Choix de poésies originales des Troubadours (1816-21, 6 vols. 8vo), and Lexique roman, ou diet, de la langue des troubadours, of which vol. i. (1838) is entirely taken up with texts ; and Rocltegude, Parnasse occitanien (Toulouse, 1819, 8vo). All the pieces published by Raynouard and Rochegude have been reprinted without amendment by Mahn, Die Werke der Troubadours in provenz. Sprache (Berlin, 8vo, vol. i. 1846, ii. 1855-64, id. 1880, iv., containing an edition of the troubadour Guiraut Riquier, 1884). The same editor's Gedichte der Troubadours (Berlin, 1856-73) is a collection conspicuous for its want of order and of accuracy (see Romania, iii. 303). Among editions of individual troubadours may be mentioned—Peire VidaVs Lieder, by Karl Bartsch Berlin, 1857, 12mo); Les derniers troubadours de la Provence, by Paul Meyer Paris, 1871, 8vo); Der Troubadour Jaufre Rudel, sein Leben und seine Werke, by A. Summing (Kiel, 1873, 8vo); Bertran de Born, sein Leben und seine Werke, by A. Summing (Halle, 1879, 8vo) ; Guilhem Figueira, ein provenzalischer Troubadour, by E. Levy (Berlin, 1880, 8vo); Das Leben und die Lieder des Troubadours Peire Rogier, by Carl Appel (Berlin, 18S2, Svo) ; La vita e le opère del trovatore Arnaldo Danielle, by U. A. Canelio (Halle, 1883, 8vo). Among editions of Provençal works of a miscellaneous kind are—Bartsch, Denkmäler der provenzalischen Literatur (Stuttgart, 1856, 8vo) ; II. Suchier, Denkmäler der pro-venz. Literatur und Sprache (Halle, 1883-85, 2.vols. 8vo); Fr. Armitage, Sermons du XII siècle en vieux provençal (Heilbronn, 1884, 12mo); Paul Meyer, La Chanson de la Croisade contre les Albigeois, (Paris, 1875-79, 2 vols. 8vo); Id., Dauriel et Beton, Chanson de geste provençale (Paris, 1880, 8vo); Id., Le Roman de Flamenca (Paris, 1865, 8vo); E. Stengel, Die beiden ältesten provenzal. Gram-matiken, lo Donatz proensals und las Razos de trobar (Marburg, 1878, Svo); Bartsch, Sancta Agnes, provenz. geistliches Schauspiel (Berlin, 1867, 8vo); Le Breviari d'amor de Matfre Ermengaud, published by the Archaeological Society of Béziers (Béziers, 1862-80, 2 vols. 8vo); A. L. Sardou, La Vida de Sant Honoral, légende en vers provençaux par Raymond Feraud (Nice [1875], 8vo). Documents and dissertations on various points of Provençal literature will be found in almost all the volumes of Romania (Paris, in progress since 1872, 8vo), and the Revue des Langues romanes (Montpellier, in progress since 1870,8vo). See also the other jour-nals devoted in Germany and Italy to the Romanic languages, passim. (P. M.)



The above article was written by: Prof. Paul Meyer.