TROUBADOURS', poets who flourished in Provence from the 10th to the 130, century. They wrote poems on love and gallantry, on the illustrious characters and retnarkable events of the times, ,te., which they set to music and sling : they were accordingly general favorites in different courts, diffused a taste for their language and poetry over Europe, and essentially contributed towards the res toration of letters and a love for the Arts. The royal eourt in Provence, at Aries, was, from the times of Bose L, for nearly two centuries, the theatre of the finest chivalry, the centre of a romantic life. The assembly of knights and Troubadours, with their Moorish story-tellers and buf foons, and ladies acting as judges or par ties in matters of courtesy, exhibit glittering picture of a mirthful, soft, and luxurious life. The knight of Provence devoted himself to the service of his la dy-love in true poetic earnest, and made the dance and the sport of the tilt-yard the great business of his life. Each baron, a- sovereign in his own territory, invited the neighboring knights to his castle to take parts in tournaments and to contend in song, at a time when the knights of Germany and Northern Franca were challenging each other to deadly combat. There the gallant knight broke
his lance on the shield of his manly an tagonist; there the princess sat in the circle of Indies, listening seriously to the songs of the knights. contending in rhymes respecting the laws of love, and at the close of the contest, pronouncing her sentenee (u-rret d'amour.) Thus the life of the Provenells was lyrical in the highest degree ; but it was necessarily superficial, and would lose its chief value if unaccompanied by music. In the 11th and 12th centuries it had attained its highest bloom : it had spread into Spain and Lombardy, and even German empe rors (Frederic Parbarossa,) and English kings (Richard Coeur de Lion,) composed songs in the Provençal dialect. But the poetry of the Troubadours, as in the course of time it became more common, became degraded into mere ballad-singing ; and the few specimens of it that have been preserved, consist of short war-songs and lyrics of pastoral life and love.