The earliest prose works in Catalan are later than the poems of the oldest Catalan troubadours of the Provençal school. Though the oldest Catalan document dates from between 1095 and III° (the text of an oath imposed on certain barons by a bishop of Urgell), and the Homilies d'Or ganyd are believed to date from the I I th century, literary prose dates no further back than the close of the 13th century. It has the advantage of being entirely original. The language is the very language of the soil which we see appearing in charters from about the time of the accession of James I. (1213). Its chronicles are the best ornament of mediaeval Catalan prose. Two of them— that of James I., apparently reduced to writing a little after his death (1276) with the help of memoirs dictated by himself during his lifetime; and that of Ramon Muntaner (1265-1336), relating at length the expedition of the Catalan company to the Morea and the conquest of Sardinia by James II., are distinguished alike by the artistic skill of their narration and by the quality of their language; it would not be too much to liken these Catalan chronic lers, and Muntaner especially, to Villehardouin, Joinville and Froissart. The Doctor Illuminatus, Raymond Lully, who, though he knew Arabic, had a poor acquaintance with Latin—his philo sophical works were done into that language by his disciples— wrote in a somewhat Provencalized Catalan various moral and propagandist works—the romance Blanquerna, the Libre de les maravelles, into which is introduced a "bestiary" taken by the author from Kalilah and Dimnah, and the Libre del orde de cavalleria, a manual of the perfect knight, besides a variety of other treatises and opuscula of minor importance. The majority of the writings of Lully exist in two versions—one in the ver nacular, which is his own, the other in Latin, originating with his disciples, who desired to give currency throughout Christendom to their master's teachings. Recent research has proved that Lully's peculiar method of exposition and many of his ideas were taken from Muslim Spanish mystics and siifis. Lully—who was very popular in the lay world, although the clergy had a low opinion of him, and in the 15th century even set themselves to obtain a condemnation of his works by the Inquisition—had a rival in the person of Francesch Eximenic (1340-1409). His Crestia (printed in 1483) is a vast encyclopaedia of theology, morals and politics for the use of the laity. The Libre de les dones, which is at once a book of devotion and a manual of domestic economy, contains a number of curious details as to a Catalan woman's manner of life and the luxury of the period.
In the 15th century, Bernat Metge, himself well versed in Italian literature, presents some of its great masters to his country men by translating Boccaccio's story of Griselde from the Latin version made by Petrarch, and also by composing Lo Sompni ("The Dream"), in which the influence of the Italy of the r3th and 14th centuries is very perceptible. The chivalrous romance, Tirant lo blanch (finished in 146o and printed in 5490), one of the few books saved from the library of Don Quixote, was mainly the work of Johanot Martorell of Valencia. Curial y Guelfa is an anony mous romance of the end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th century. The beginnings of the drama in Catalan are represented by The Mystery of Elche, a 15th century Assumption play based on an earlier Representacio. It is still performed every year at Elche, on Aug. 14 and 15, and is sung throughout to traditional
music.
With the loss of political was bound to coincide that of literary independence in the Catalonian coun tries. Catalan fell to the rank of a patois. The 16th century, in fact, furnishes literary history with hardly more than a single poet at all worthy of the name—Pere Serafi, some of whose pieces, in the style of Auzias March, but less obscure, are grace ful enough and deserve to live ; his poems were printed at Bar celona in 1565. Prose is somewhat better represented, but schol ars alone persisted in writing in Catalan—antiquaries and histor ians like Miguel Carbonell (d. 1517), compiler of the Chroniques de Esfranya (printed in 1547), Francesch Tarafa, author of the Cronica de cavallers catalans, Anton Beuter and some others not so well known. In the 17th and 18th centuries the decadence became still more marked. Catalan had become the medium of familiar conversation, the language of folk-songs and ballads, printed in the Romancerillo cataldn of Mila y Fontanals; but in these it lived on until the re-awakening at the beginning of the 19th century.
Revival of Catalan Language and Literature.—In 1814 appeared the Gramdtica y apologia de la llengua cathalana of Joseph Pau Ballot y Torres. The pioneers of reform, however, soon realized that ancient Catalan had fallen out of touch with their spiritual needs. They were living in an atmosphere of romantic mediaevalism, yet they found that a mediaeval literary language was inadequate for their purpose. Again, the popularity of the satirical poems and farces of Jose Robrelio (178o-1838) was a serious obstacle, owing to the corruption of the language in which they were written, while Federico Soler (1839-95) openly advocated Catald qu'ara es parla ("Catalan as she is spoke") in opposition to the literary language. The development of modern Catalan, however, has been steadily in the direction of a refined means of expression for contemporary thought. Aribau's patri otic Ode (1833), the poems of Victor Balaguer (1823-1901) led to the imagination and mysticism of Jacinte Verdaguer
1902), whose epic woven round the figure of Columbus (L'At ldntida) is a noble conception and a great poem. The Majorcan poems of Torna Aguilo, with their vague, fantastic charm, were followed by those of Miguel Costai Llabera ; while a strong formal sense was brought in by Juan Alcover (d. 1926) and Gabriel Alomar. Catalonia found its first modern poet of real greatness in Joan Maragall (1860-1911). Contemporary poets have still further refined the language, so that it has become an exquisite instrument for the expression of poetry. The chief names are Josep Carner (1884- ), J. M. Lopez-Pica (1886- ), and J. M. de Sagarra (1894- ).
The foundations of modern Catalan prose were laid by Joaquin Rubio y Ors (1818-99), by Jose Torres i Bages, archbishop of Vich and author of La tradicio catalana (1892). Francisco Pi i Margall, president of the Spanish republic of 1873, showed com plete mastery over both Catalan and Castilian. Fiction was in augurated by Narciso 011er with Papallona (1880). One of the best prose-writers of the Catalan movement was Eugeni d'Ors ("Xenius"), part of whose Glosdri (1906-17), was translated into Castilian before the author abandoned Barcelona for Madrid and began himself to write in Castilian. His exquisite philosophical tale, La Ben Plantada, is one of the most notable achievements of the Catalan mind and the Catalan language.