Taylor, Edgar [Hrsg.]; Austin, Sarah [Hrsg.]: Lays of the minnesingers or German troubadours of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: Illustr. by specimens of the contemporary lyric poetry of Provence and other parts of Europe ; With histor. and crit. notes, and engravings from the ms. of the minnesingers in the king's library at Paris, and from other sources (London, 1825)

FRANCE. 75

and which, by the popularity of the subjects, have
raised them in general estimation above their Southern
rivals. Yet if their poetic excellence is to be tried by
the standard of these compositions, it will, with few
exceptions, stand rather low; for certainly tamer or
more prosaic performances are scarcely to be met
with than the generality of their tales ; and in point
of talent and poetic feeling, there is no comparison
between the powers of these tellers of stories and of
the Provencaux, after giving the latter their full
share of blame for their follies and conceits.

But, though little known (having hitherto been left
to slumber in MS.), there is almost as prolific a school
of lyric poetry among the Northern as the Southern
French poets. Indeed, it would be singular if there
were not a great community of subjects when the
poets of the two dialects were brought together at
such courts as those of Henry II. and Eleanor of
Guienne, and of their son Richard Cceur de Lion, who
was himself a poet in both tongues, had dominions in
each country, and was moreover allied, like most of
the monarchs of his day, to a lady of one of the
courts of the South—the daughter of the king of
Navarre;

" Her name was Bcrengerc, faire woman of age,
Was tlicr non hir Pere of no heiere parage."

(Langtoft's Chrok.)

Accident has prevented our perusing the MS.