aime, with whom we have never
broken faith, had kept the agreement which is said to have been made [118]
between him and us, the French would certainly have had cause to grieve
and lament." Bernard de Rovenhac shows greater bitterness: "the king of
Aragon is undoubtedly well named Jacme (jac from jazer, to lie down) for
he is too fond of lying down and when anyone despoils him of his land,
he is so feeble that he does not offer the least opposition." Bernard
Sicart de Marvejols voices the grief of his class at the failure of the
rising: "In the day I am full of wrath and in the night I sigh betwixt
sleeping and waking; wherever I turn, I hear the courteous people crying
humbly 'Sire' to the French." These outbursts do not seem to have roused
Jaime to any great animosity against the troubadour class. Aimeric de
Belenoi belauds him, Peire Cardenal is said to have enjoyed his favour,
and other minor troubadours refer to him in flattering terms.

The greatest Spanish patron of the troubadours was undoubtedly Alfonso
X. of Castile (1254-1284). El Sabio earned his title by reason of his
enlightened interest in matters intellectual; he was himself a poet,
procured the translation of many scientific books and provided Castile
with a famous code of laws. The Italian troubadours Bonifaci Calvo and
Bartolomeo Zorzi were welcomed to his court, to which many others came
from Provence. One of his favourites was the troubadour who was the last [119]
representative of the old school, Guiraut Riquier of Narbonne. He was
born between 1230 and 1235, when the Albigeois crusade was practically
over and when troubadour poetry was dying, as much from its own inherent
lack of vitality as from the change of social and political environment
which the upheaval of the previous twenty years had produced. Guiraut
Riquier applied to a Northern patron for protection, a proceeding
unexampled in troubadour history and the patron he selected was the King
of France himself. Neither Saint Louis nor his wife were in the least
likely to provide a market for Guiraut's wares and the Paris of that day
was by no means a centre of literary culture. The troubadour, therefore,
tried his fortune with Alfonso X. whose liberality had become almost
proverbial. There he seems to have remained for some years and to have
been well content, in spite of occasional friction with other suitors
for the king's favour. His description of Catalonia is interesting.

Pus