even Italy, the scene of the older civilisation, was destined to give birth to the new; maybe the memory of the antique, ante-Christian, period was too powerful here.  Its cradle stood on virgin ground, in Provence, a country wrested from Celts and Teutons by the Roman eagles, ploughed by the Roman spirit, preserving in some of its coast towns, notably in Marsilia, the rich remains of Greek settlements, something of Moorish influence in race and language, and fusing all these heterogeneous elements into a splendid whole.  But why this important spiritual centre should have been formed just here it is difficult to say.

For the first time the system of ecclesiastical values was confronted by something novel, which was not—­like the old Teutonic ideal of the perfect warrior—­tainted by barbarism, but may be described as the system of mundane court values.  This new ideal was not founded on an authority which had to be accepted in good faith; it had its direct origin in the passionate yearning of the human soul.  Man had re-discovered himself and become conscious of his personal creative force.  A very great thing had been accomplished; the seed which, slowly gathering strength, had lain in the soil for a thousand years, had at last burst its husk, and was rapidly growing into the magnificent tree of the European civilisation.  In silent opposition to the system of the accepted ecclesiastical values, the new ideal of pretz e valor e beutatz (worth and value and beauty), of cavalaria and cortezia (chivalry and courtesy), was upheld in Provence.  Four worldly virtues, wisdom, courtly manners, honesty and self-restraint, were contrasted with the ecclesiastical cardinal virtues.  The courts of the princes became centres of new life and art.  The new spiritual-aesthetic concept of feasting and enjoyment transformed the former orgies of eating and drinking.  Woman, who had heretofore been excluded from male society, was all at once transferred to the very centre of being; for her sake men controlled their brutal tempers and exerted themselves to please by good manners, taste and art.  She, whom the Church had done everything to depreciate, who had been denied a soul at the Council of Macon (in the sixth century), had become the very vessel of the soul; man looked up to her and bent his knee before the newly-created goddess.

The cultivation of the new courtly manner coincided with the nascent art of the troubadours.  There was no gradual growth and development in the latter; at the very outset it had reached perfection.  The first troubadour whose name has come down to us was Guillem of Poitiers, Duke of Aquitania (about 1100); great lords and barons gloried in the exercise of this new art.  Every court boasted its poets, hospitably received and loaded with presents; the great ones of the earth were beginning to exercise that patronage of art and letters which in the Renascence reached such extravagant proportions.  Every distinguished