Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/633

 Books and Science in the Middle Ages 5 39 verses were called. These songs were always sung to an accom- paniment on some instrument, usually the lute. The troubadours traveled from court to court, not only in France, but north into Germany and south into Italy, carrying with them the southern French poetry and customs. We have few examples of Proven9al before the year iioo, but from that time on, for two centuries, countless songs were written, and many of the troubadours en- joyed an international reputation. The terrible Albigensian cru- sade brought misery and death into the sprightly circles which had gathered about the Count of Toulouse and other rulers who had treated the heretics too leniently. For the student of history, the chief interest of the long poems chivalry of northern France and the songs of the South lies in the in- sight that they give into the life and aspirations of this feudal period. These are usually summed up in the term chivalry^ or k?iighthood, of which a word may properly be said here, since we should know little of it were it not for the literature of which we have been speaking. The knights play the chief role in all the medieval romances ; and, since many of the troubadours belonged to the knightly class, they naturally have much to say of it in their songs. Chivalry was not a formal institution established at any par- ticular moment. Like feudalism, with which it was closely con- nected, it had no founder, but appeared spontaneously throughout western Europe to meet the needs and desires of the period. When the youth of good family had been carefully trained to ride his horse, use his sword, and manage his hawk in the hunt, he was made a kiiight by a ceremony in which the Church took part, although the knighthood was actually conferred by an older knight. The knight was a Christian soldier, and he and his fellows Nature of were supposed to form, in a way, a separate order, with high order"'^^*^^ ideals of the conduct befitting their class. Knighthood was not, however, membership in an association with officers and a definite constitution. It was an ideal, half-imaginary society