Women of the Romance Countries (Illustrated). Effinger John Robert
France, the statement was repeated that courts of love had been organized in gay Provence, which were described as assemblies of beautiful women, sitting in judgment on guilty lovers and deciding amorous questions, but the relentless search of the modern scholar has proved beyond a doubt that no such courts ever existed. A certain code of love there was most certainly, of which the troubadours sang, and whose regulations were matters of general conduct as inspired by the spirit of courtesy and gallantry which was current at the time, and very often were questions relating to the tender passion discussed in extenso by the fairest ladies of the south, but more than that cannot be said with truth. The fiction is a pretty one, and among those who are said to have presided at these amorous tribunals are Queen Eleanor, the Countess of Narbonne, and the Countess of Champagne, and Richard Coeur de Lion has even been mentioned in this capacity. The courts were held at Pierrefeu, Digne, and Avignon according to tradition, women alone could act as judges, and appeals might be made from one court to another. This tradition but goes to show that after the decay of the Provençal civilization, its various ideas and ideals were drawn up into formal documents, that the spirit of the age might be preserved, and they in turn were taken by following generations in good faith as coexistent with the things which they describe.
It was but natural that in a state of society like the one mentioned, women should long to show themselves possessed of poetic gifts as well as men. It must not be supposed that the wife of a great baron occupied an easy position, however, and had many leisure hours, as her wifely duties took no little time and energy, and it was her place to hold in check the rude speech and manners of the warlike nobles who thronged the castle halls, as well as to put some limit to the bold words and glances of the troubadours, who were often hard to repress. Her previous education had been bestowed with care, however, the advantages of a formal and punctilious etiquette had been preached more than once, and she was even advised that the enemy of all her friends should find her civil-spoken; so, my lady managed her difficult affairs with tact and skill, and contrived in many cases to acquire such fame for her moderation and her wisdom that many poets sang her praises. It was her pleasure also to harbor these troubadours who sang her praises, and learn from them the secrets of their art; and in this pleasant intercourse it often chanced that she was inspired by the god of song, and vied with them in poesy. The names of eighteen such women have come down to us, and fragments from most of them are extant, though the Countess of Dia seems the most important of them all, as five of her short poems are now known to exist. The Lady Castelloza must be named soon after, for her wit and her accomplishments. She once reminded a thoughtless lover that if he should allow her to pine away and die for love of him, he would be committing a monstrous crime "before God and men." Clara of Anduse must not be forgotten in this list, and she it was who conquered the cold indifference of the brilliant troubadour Uc de Saint-Cyr; still, however numerous her contributions to poetry may have been, but one song remains to us, and that is contained in a manuscript of the fourteenth century. It should be said that the reason for the small amount of poetry which these women have left behind them is easily explained. Talents they may have possessed and poetical ability in abundance, but there was no great incentive to work, inasmuch as poetry offered them no career such as it opened up to the men. A troubadour sang at the command of his noble patron, but with the women poetry was not an employment, but a necessity for self-expression. It is altogether probable that their efforts were for the most part the result of a sudden inspiration, their mirth or their grief was poured forth, and then they relapsed into silence. Other than in this way the voice of the woman was rarely heard in song, unless she took part in the tenso, or song of contention, and then her words were uttered as they came, without premeditation, and were lost as soon as sung.
The city of Toulouse was a centre for much of the literary life of the time, and it was during the reign of Count Raimon VI., who was a poet of no small merit, that the art of the troubadours reached its culmination. For half a generation, it is said, his court was crowded with these poets, and he dwelt with them and they with him in brotherly affection. With the terrible Albigensian Crusade, the voice of the singer was no longer heard in the land, and the poetic fire, which had burned with so fierce a blaze at times, smouldered for long years, until in the beginning of the fourteenth century the flames burst forth anew. At that time a company of poets, and they were of bourgeois origin and not of the nobility, determined to take vigorous measures to restore the art of the troubadour to its former high position, and to this end they founded the Collège du Gay Sçavoir, which was to support and maintain annually in Toulouse a poetic tournament called Les Jeux Floraux, wherein the prizes were to consist of flowers of gold and silver. With the definite establishment of these Floral Games the name of a woman has been intertwined in most curious fashion; and although many facts are recorded of her life and deeds, there are those who deny that she ever lived. This remarkable woman was called Clémence Isaure, and the story has grown up that some years after the founding of the Jeux Floraux she left a sum of money in trust which was to serve as a permanent endowment for this most illustrious institution of her native city. Then it was that the Collège du Gay Sçavoir became a thing of permanence, and brilliant were the fêtes which were celebrated under its auspices. First, a golden violet was bestowed upon the victor in these poetic contests, and the winner was decreed a Bachelor of Poetry; then, two other flowers were added, the eglantine and the marigold, and he who won two prizes was given the degree of Master; while he who won all three became forthwith a Doctor.
To prove that Clémence Isaure really did exist in Toulouse a tomb was shown which seemed to bear her name; and so strongly rooted is this belief, that her statue is held in reverence, and every year in May, even to this day, when the date for the Jeux Floraux arrives, the first thing on the programme for that solemn occasion is a formal eulogy in honor of this distinguished patroness. More than that, in the garden of the Luxembourg Palace in Paris, in that semicircle of twenty marble statues grouped about the parterre and representing some of the most illustrious women of France, Clémence Isaure has an honored place, and her counterfeit presentment by the sculptor Préault is considered one of the finest of the number.
In support of the claim that such a woman never existed, and in explanation of the tradition itself, the learned ones inform us that with the definite establishment of these Floral Games the good citizens of Toulouse thought it best to follow in the footsteps of their bold and plain-spoken troubadour ancestors in a somewhat timid manner, and the poems which were then written were not addressed to some fair lady in real life, but to the Holy Virgin, who was frequently addressed as Clemenza [pity], and from this word the story took its rise. After a certain lapse of time, Clemenza, personified so often in their impassioned strains, became a real person to their southern imaginations, and a tomb was conveniently found which seemed to settle the matter without question. It is even asserted that the city of Toulouse is enjoying to-day other bequests which were made to it by Clémence Isaure, and that there is no more reason for doubting her existence than for doubting the existence of any other historical character of long ago. In any event, the Floral Games are still held yearly, the seven poets have become forty in number, and they compose a dignified Academy, which has some ten thousand francs a year to bestow in prizes. And the number of the prizes has been increased, as now five different flowers of gold and five of silver are bestowed each for poetry of a certain kind, and in addition there is a gold jasmine which is awarded to the most excellent prose article, and a silver pink which is a sort of prize at large, and which may be given for a composition of any character.
This belief in the actual existence of Clémence Isaure is still held by many, and, in fact, the legend seems stronger than the facts adduced against it; but whatever the truth may be, the story symbolizes in a most beautiful and fitting way the part which woman has played in this Provençal country in the encouragement given to song and poetry. It was the women who gave the real encouragement to the troubadours and inspired them to their greatest efforts, and it seems but poetic justice, at least, that in Toulouse the only existing institution representative of those old troubadour days should claim a woman as its greatest patron.
CHAPTER V
INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN EARLY LITERATURE
"Nine times now since my birth, the heaven of light had turned almost to the same point in its own gyration, when the glorious Lady of my mind-who was called Beatrice by many who knew not what to call her-first appeared before my eyes. She had already been in this life so long, that in its course the starry