f didactic poem known as _ensenhamen_, an
"instruction" containing observations upon the manners and customs of
his age, with precepts for the observance of morality and right conduct
such as should be practised by the ideal character. Arnaut, after a
lengthy and would-be learned introduction, explains that each of the
three estates, the knights, the clergy and the citizens, have their
special and appropriate virtues. The emphasis with which he describes
the good qualities of the citizen class, a compliment unusual in the
aristocratic poetry of the troubadours, may be taken as confirmation of
the statement concerning his own parentage which we find in his
biography.

[53]

CHAPTER V

THE CLASSICAL PERIOD

We now reach a group of three troubadours whom Dante[21] selected as
typical of certain characteristics: "Bertran de Born sung of arms,
Arnaut Daniel of love, and Guiraut de Bornelh of uprightness, honour and
virtue." The last named, who was a contemporary (1175-1220 _circa_) and
compatriot of Arnaut de Marueil, is said in his biography to have
enjoyed so great a reputation that he was known as the "Master of the
Troubadours." This title is not awarded to him by any other troubadour;
the jealousy constantly prevailing between the troubadours is enough to
account for their silence on this point. But his reputation is fairly
attested by the number of his poems which have survived and by the
numerous MSS. in which they are preserved; when troubadours were studied
as classics in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Guiraut's poems
were so far in harmony with the moralising tendency of that age that his
posthumous reputation was certainly as great as any that he enjoyed in
his life-time.

Practically nothing is known of his life; allusions in his poems lead us [54]
to suppose that he spent some time in Spain at the courts of Navarre,
Castile and Aragon. The real interests of his work are literary and
ethical. To his share in the controversy concerning the _trobar clus_,
the obscure and difficult style of composition, we have already alluded.
Though in the _tenso_ with Linhaure, Guiraut expresses his preference
for the simple and intelligible style, it must be said that the majority
of his poems are far from attaining this ideal. Their obscurity,
however, is often due rather to the difficulty of the subject matter
than to any intentional a