astres no m'es donatz
Que de mi dons bes m'eschaia,
Ni nulho nos plazers no.l platz,
Ni ay poder que.m n'estraia,
Ops m'es qu'ieu sia fondatz
En via d'amor veraia,
E puesc n'apenre assatz

En Cataluenha la gaia, [120]
Entrels Catalas valens
E las donas avinens.

Quar dompneys, pretz e valors,
Joys e gratz e cortesia,
Sens e sabers et honors,
Bels parlars, bella paria,
E largueza et amors,
Conoyssensa e cundia,
Troban manten e socors

En Cataluenha a tria,
Entrels, etc.

"Since my star has not granted me that from my lady happiness should
fall to me, since no pleasure that I can give pleases her and I have no
power to forget her, I must needs enter upon the road of true love and I
can learn it well enough in gay Catalonia among the Catalonians, men of
worth, and their kindly ladies. For courtesy, worth, joy, gratitude and
gallantry, sense, knowledge, honour, fair speech, fair company,
liberality and love, learning and grace find maintenance and support in
Catalonia entirely."

Between thirty and forty poets of Spanish extraction are known to have
written Provencal poetry. Guillem de Tudela of Navarre wrote the first
part of the _Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise_; Serveri de Gerona wrote
didactic and devotional poetry, showing at least ingenuity of technique;
Amanieu des Escas has left love letters and didactic works for the [121]
instruction of young people in the rules of polite behaviour. But the
influence of Provencal upon the native poetry of Spain proper was but
small, in spite of the welcome which the troubadours found at the courts
of Castile, Aragon, Leon and Navarre. Troubadour poetry required a
peaceful and an aristocratic environment, and the former at least of
these conditions was not provided by the later years of Alfonso X.
Northern French influence was also strong: numerous French immigrants
were able to settle in towns newly founded or taken from the Moors. The
warlike and adventurous spirit of Northern and Central Spain preferred
epic to lyric poetry: and the outcome was the _cantar de gesta_ and the
_romance_, the lyrico-narrative or ballad poem.

This was not the course of development followed either in the Eastern or
Western coasts of the peninsula. Catalonia was as much a part of the
Provencal district as of Spain. To the end of the thirteenth century
Catalonian poets continued to write in the