VIDAL, Pierre, a Langue d'oc trouba dour who flourished during the latter part of the 12th and the first part of the 13th century He was one of the foremost poets of his time, the ideal lover, adventurer, singer and song maker, in which his age delighted. His poetic passion was frequently allied to madness and he himself finally died insane. Good living, good fortune, adventure were his constant aim in life and his themes in song. Endowed with a fine poetic talent and a magnificent singing voice, he was welcomed everywhere through out the Provencal lands as a troubadour sec ond to none in grace, courtliness and lyrical gifts. The most powerful princes and nobles and the most brilliant and high-born ladies were his patrons, paying homage to his charm of manners and his uncommon talent. During his adventurous life he went with Richard Cceur de Lion to Palestine. It was during this period that he seems to have gone gradually mad. His later poems show this change in the once gay singer of love ballads. In these he imagines himself a great hero, feared by the Saracens. Thus he sings aMy enemies tremble at my name, lilce the quail before the hawk, so well do they lmow my redoubtable valor. I have all the graces of chivalry; I know all the ways and practices of love. When I put on my shining armour and girt about me my sword, the earth trembles beneath my feet. Armed and mounted on my good steed, I bear down all before me. Single handed I have taken prisoner a hundred knights; and a hundred others have I dis armed.° His companions, playing upon his in
firmity, had him married to a Greek woman, representing to him that she was the niece of the emPeror of the East. Believing himself heir to a great Icingdom he cotnposed songs celebrating his high estate. On his return to France, after the failure of the Crusade, he committed other insane acts which gained him the title of the mad poet. Yet, with all his madness, there is a real wealth of imagery and imagination in his poems which makes them readable to-day; for he was master of his art. He ventured into poetic forms little or not at all used by his fellow-craftsmen, and success fully made very difficult poetical departures from the usages of his times. A very consider able number of his manuscripts of poems have been collected, and they all tend to confirm the high estimation as a poet in which he was held by his contemporaries. In addition to love poems, his surviving work contains three in teresting poetical compositions on the Crusades, a tenson composed for a troubadour poetical contest and a historical poem. All of these ex hibit the same strange erratic talent coupled with eccentricities of metre, rhythm and rhyme that fitted in well with the abnormal life of the author himself. Consult Ginguene, 'Histoire litteraire de la France); Soulie, F., 'Viscomte de Beziers); and also the works of Nostrada mus, Raynouard, Rochegude, Sainte-Palaye.