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340 340 On Oc and Oyl. popular poetry Dante's naming the Spaniards as the peo- pie who spoke the oc language, is explained by a subsequent passage (lib. ii. cap. 12), where he goes through the various metres, and fixes on the hendecasyllabic as the loftiest, or as he terms it, the tragic one: ^^Hoc (endecasyllabo) etiam Hispani usi sunt ; et dico Hispanos qui poetati sunt in vulgari Oc r and then he quotes Hamericus de Belemi. We see, as has been already shown, that those whom he calls Spaniards, are the same whom others call Provencals, or Limosins, or Catalans. (Aimeri de Belemi, or Belennai, or Belenoi, was born in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux, and only died in Catalonia. Millot. ii. 331.) We have already traced the wide range of the Oc^ or Provencal language, in France and Spain : but beside this all the early poets of the south of Europe were in point of language Provencals : and the first chapter of every history of poetry among the Italians, Sici- lians, Spaniards, Portuguese, and French of the south, must begin with these oc poets, let them be named after whatever country they will. They themselves, and their language, belonged to various countries : there is no general denomi- nation for them, that would not be liable to like objections as that of Spaniards which Dante uses. Finally, however singular it may seem, that the name of a language, a people, or a country, should have been derived from a word^ the fact is confirmed by the other name, formed in complete analogy to Languedoc, and con- trasted with it : la langue d'^oui. It is true that this appel- lation has not been in use for centuries, nor, ought it to be observed, was it ever so common as is often asserted and generally believed. Many old documents and ancient au- thors contrast la langue d'^oc and la L Franfaise. For France was the name given to the dominions of the kings, in contradistinction to the territories of the great vassals, as here in the south of the powerful counts of Provence. Still, so far as books are concerned, Froissart alone is evidence suflficient: he wrote about 1400, and uses the term as a com- mon one. He inquires of a knight with whom he is tra- velling, about the causes of the dissentions of the great men; his companion answers (Liv. jii. ch. 7. Paris 1574. Johne's Transl. in. ch. 30. p. 118) that after the death of Charles V.,