personal attacks, whilst others are directed against the crimes and impositions of various classes of men.

The germ of the Reformation may be traced in the violent satires which, even at this early period, were directed against the depravity, the cupidity, and the selfishness of the monks, and which deprive the early Italian writers of the honour of having been the first and most severe opponents of the abuses of the infallible faith. The capital of the Christian world was mentioned by them in terms of the most virulent abuse and contempt. May the Holy Spirit, which was once incarnated, hear my prayer, and break thy beak, O Rome!" is the devout supplication of Guillaume Figuiera-" for thou hast burst from those boundaries which God has given thee;-thou hast absolved crimes for gold, and hast charged thyself with a burthen too weighty for thee to bear. May the Deity destroy thee, Rome! thou faithless and immoral city!"

Sometimes, also, their bold and free satires were aimed against the general corruption and tyranny of the age. Thus, Folquet de Lunel says, "The Emperor tyrannizes over the Kings,

VOL. II.

C

the Kings tyrannize over their Counts, the Counts over the Barons, and the Barons over their vassals and their peasantry. *** The physi

cians kill instead of curing; and merchants and mechanics are all of them liars and thieves." This is, certainly, an amiable description of the times in which the poet lived; but we must make all due allowances for the spleen and licence of his profession. One of these sirventes is directed against our Henry II. In another, the poet ridicules the rouge and the cosmetics, which the ladies of that day were in the habit of using. The latter was the production of a monk, who, in his unhallowed satires, spared neither his fellow-monks, nor fair ladies, nor noble poets.

COURTS OF LOVE.

THE Courts of Love were instituted soon after the introduction of the Gay Science, and as early as the time of the Count of Poitiers, one of the first and noblest of the Troubadours. These courts were generally held under the authority of some lady distinguished by rank and beauty, who associated to herself a competent number of other judges, sometimes

amounting to sixteen or twenty. André, the Chaplain, mentions, amongst others, the Courts of the Ladies of Gascony,-of Ermengarde, Viscountess of Narbonne,-of the Queen Eleanore, of the Countess of Champagne,-and of the Countess of Flanders. This Queen Eleanore was married to Louis VII. of France, called the Young, and afterwards to our Henry II.

Before these awful and lovely tribunals, the rival poets used to appear in person, and plead their cause; and the proceedings were, no doubt, assimilated very nearly to those of the courts of justice of that day, where all the pleadings were ore tenus, or conducted in open court, without the intervention of writing. These compositions were called Tensons, as it is supposed from the Latin conTENSionem, or jeux-partis; and the judgments of the court were called les arrêts d'amour. André, the Chaplain, has given us a collection of the principal rules by which these judicatures were guided, and which is said by him to have been revealed to a Breton knight in the following manner. The champion, wandering through a thick forest in hopes of encountering the great Arthur, was met by a fair lady, who thus ad

dressed him :- I know whom you seek; but your search is vain without my aid. You have sought the love of a Breton lady, and she requires you to procure for her the celebrated falcon which reposes on a perch in the court of Arthur. To obtain this bird, you must prove, in combat, the superior charms of the lady of your heart over those of the mistress of every knight in the court of Arthur." A number of romantic adventures follow. At last, the knight finds the falcon on a perch: a paper is suspended to the perch by a golden chain; this paper contained the code of love, which it was necessary for the knight to promulgate ere he might venture to bear away the falcon as a prize.

This code of erotic laws was presented to a tribunal composed of many brilliant and beautiful judges. It was adopted by them, and ordered to be observed by all the suitors of their court, under the heaviest penalties. The code contained thirty-one articles, of which we shall give a few.* They are all mentioned by André, the Chaplain.

* Some of these enactments are not very unlike the

1. Marriage is no

attachment.

excuse against another

2. He who knows not how to conceal, knows not how to love.

3. No one can love two persons at one time. 4. Love must always increase or diminish. 16. At the sudden appearance of his mistress, the heart of a true lover trembles. 23. A true lover must eat and sleep sparingly. 28. A moderate presumption is sufficient to produce suspicion in the mind of a lover.

30. The image of his mistress is present, without intermission, to the mind of the true lover.

It does not clearly appear by what process the courts of love enforced obedience to their decrees. M. Raynouard, however, seems to consider these tribunals as possessed of the power of ensuring obedience, not, indeed, by the exertion of force, but by the stronger

laws of Chaucer's "Court of Love," which were twenty in number, but which are more free and more humorous than any contained in this code.