In the works of Fauriel and St. Polaye, and many others, may be found accounts of the origin of the Provencal literature, including, of course, a description of the troubadours.  It is generally admitted that Provencal poetry has no connection with Latin, the origin of this new poetry being very plausibly ascribed to a gypsy-like class of people mentioned by the Latin chroniclers of the Middle Ages as joculares or joculatores.  They were called joglars in Provencal, jouglers or jougleors in French, and our word “juggler” comes from the same source.  What that source originally was may be inferred from the fact that they brought many of the Arab forms of dance and poetry into Christian Europe.  For instance, two forms of Provencal poetry are the counterpart of the Arabian cosidas or long poem, all on one rhyme; and the maouchahs or short poem, also rhymed.  The saraband, or Saracen dance, and later the morris dance (Moresco or Fandango) or Moorish dance, seem to point to the same origin.  In order to make it clearer I will quote an Arabian song from a manuscript in the British Museum, and place beside it one by the troubadour Capdeuil.

    Arabian Melody [Figure 39]

    Pons de Capdeuil [Figure 40]

The troubadours must not be confounded with the jougleurs (more commonly written jongleurs).  The latter, wandering, mendicant musicians, ready to play the lute, sing, dance, or “juggle,” were welcomed as merry-makers at all rich houses, and it soon became a custom for rich nobles to have a number of them at their courts.  The troubadour was a very different person, generally a noble who wrote poems, set them to music, and employed jongleurs to sing and play them.  In the South these songs were generally of an amorous nature, while in the North they took the form of chansons de geste, long poems recounting the feats in the life and battles of some hero, such as Roland (whose song was chanted by the troops of William the Conqueror), or Charles Martel.

And so the foundations for many forms of modern music were laid by the troubadours, for the chanson or song was always a narrative.  If it were an evening song it was a sera or serenade, or if it were a night song, nocturne; a dance, a ballada; a round dance, a rounde or rondo; a country love song, a pastorella.  Even the words descant and treble go back to their time; for the jongleurs, singing their masters’ songs, would not all follow the same melody; one of them would seek to embellish it and sing something quite different that still would fit well with the original melody, just as nowadays, in small amateur bands we often hear a flute player adding embellishing notes to his part.  Soon, more than one singer added to his part, and the new voice was called the triple, third, or treble voice.  This extemporizing