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language of the troubadours, often breaking the strict rules of rime correspondence and of grammar, but refusing to use their native dialect. Religious poems of popular and native origin appear to have existed, but even the growth of a native prose was unable to overcome the preference for Provencal in the [122] composition of lyrics. Guiraut de Cabreira is remembered for the 213 lines which he wrote to instruct his _joglar_ Cabra; Guiraut upbraids this performer for his ignorance, and details a long series of legends and poems which a competent _joglar_ ought to know. Guiraut de Calanso wrote an imitation of this diatribe. The best known of the Catalonian troubadours is Raimon Vidal of Besadun, both for his _novelas_ and also for his work on Provencal grammar and metre, _Las rasos de trobar_,[33] which was written for the benefit of his compatriots who desired to avoid solecisms or mistakes when composing. "For as much as I, Raimon Vidal, have seen and known that few men know or have known the right manner of composing poetry (trobar) I desire to make this book that men may know and understand which of the troubadours have composed best and given the best instruction to those who wish to learn how they should follow the right manner of composing.... All Christian people, Jews, Saracens, emperors, princes, kings, dukes, counts, viscounts, vavassors and all other nobles with clergy, citizens and villeins, small and great, daily give their minds to composing and singing.... In this science of composing the troubadours are gone astray and I will tell you wherefore. The hearers who do not understand anything when they hear a fine poem will pretend that they understand perfectly... because they [123] think that men would consider it a fault in them if they said that they did not understand.... And if when they hear a bad troubadour, they do understand, they will praise his singing because they understand it; or if they will not praise, at least they will not blame him; and thus the troubadours are deceived and the hearers are to blame for it." Raimon Vidal proceeds to say that the pure language is that of Provence or of Limousin or of Saintonge or Auvergne or Quercy: "wherefore I tell you, that when I use the term Limousin, I mean all those lands and those which border them or are between them." He was apparently the first to use the term Limousin to describe classical Provencal, and when it became applied to liter
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