Lyric Poetry.—­The only extant songs of any importance are the seventy-one Ballads of Gower (Stengel, Gower’s Minnesang, 1886).  The remaining songs are mostly of a religious character.  Most of them have been discovered and published by Paul Meyer (Bulletin de la Soc.  Anc.  Textes, 1889; Not. et Extr. xxxiv; Rom. xiii. 518, t. xiv. 370; xv. p. 254, &c.).  Although so few have come down to us such songs must have been numerous at one time, owing to the constant intercourse between English, French and Provencals of all classes.  An interesting passage in Piers Plowman furnishes us with a proof of the extent to which these songs penetrated into England.  We read of: 

  “... dykers and deluers that doth here dedes ille,
  And dryuen forth the longe day with ’Deu, vous saue,
  Dame Emme!’” (Prologue, 223 f.)

One of the finest productions of Anglo-Norman lyric poetry written in the end of the 13th century, is the Plainte d’amour (Vising, Goeteborg, 1905; Romania xiii. 507, xv. 292 and xxix. 4), and we may mention, merely as literary curiosities, various works of a lyrical character written in two languages, Latin and French, or English and French, or even in three languages, Latin, English and French.  In Early English Lyrics (Oxford, 1907) we have a poem in which a lover sends to his mistress a love-greeting composed in three languages, and his learned friend replies in the same style (De amico ad amicam, Responcio, viii and ix).

Satire.—­The popularity enjoyed by the Roman de Renart and the Anglo-Norman version of the Riote du Monde (Z.f. rom.  Phil. viii. 275-289) in England is proof enough that the French spirit of satire was keenly appreciated.  The clergy and the fair sex presented the most attractive target for the shots of the satirists.  However, an Englishman raised his voice in favour of the ladies in a poem entitled La Bonte des dames (Meyer, Rom. xv. 315-339), and Nicole Bozon, after having represented “Pride” as a feminine being whom he supposes to be the daughter of Lucifer, and after having fiercely attacked the women of his day in the Char d’Orgueil (Rom. xiii. 516), also composed a Bounte des femmes (P.  Meyer, op. cit. 33) in which he covers them with praise, commending their courtesy, their humility, their openness and the care with which they bring up their children.  A few pieces of political satire show us French and English exchanging amenities on their mutual shortcomings.  The Roman des Francais, by Andre de Coutances, was written on the continent, and cannot be quoted as Anglo-Norman although it was composed before 1204 (cf.  Gaston Paris:  Trois versions rimees de l’evangile de Nicodeme, Soc.  Anc.  Textes, 1885), it is a very spirited reply to French authors who had attacked the English.