Books › The violin and its music, 1881 › scan 73
Scan 73
The violin and its music, 1881
11 lines. Read by computer on 8 September 2026. Printed page 53. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE VIOL IN FRANCE.
3Henceforth, in the musical language of Thackeray, "their melody overflows into the air richly, like the honey of Hybla; it wafts down in lazy gusts like the scent of the thyme from that hill."*
5I have hitherto used the term Troubadour in its broadest sense in reference to the poet minstrels of Provence; they were, however, divided into distinct orders, and named Troubadours, Trouvères, and Jongleurs: the first were the true Romance poets, the next were the poets of Northern France, and the last the wandering minstrels who sang at the courts and at the houses of the nobility, the heroic achievements of their ancestors, and accompanied themselves on instruments. These Jongleurs have been described by Crescimbeni,† as men of a merry nature, full of jests and arch sayings, and adopted a kind of fool's costume for the purpose of entertaining in a burlesque manner their patrons, for which reason they were called Jongleurs, quasi Joculatores.
7To the Jongleurs and Trouvères may be traced the old rhymed romances of Charlemagne and his twelve peers, and those of Arthur and the roundtable, and it is interesting to follow M. Paulin Paris in relation to these and other early romance poems. He tells us—"After an attentive examination of our ancient literature, it is impossible to doubt for a moment that the old monorhyme romances were set to music
9* "An Essay without end."
10† Translation of Nostradamus' "Lives of the Provençal Poets noticed by Hawkins.
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