outhern France during the early middle ages had far
outstripped the Northern provinces in art, learning, and the refinements
of civilisation. Roman culture had made its way into Southern Gaul at an
early date and had been readily accepted by the inhabitants, while
Marseilles and Narbonne had also known something of Greek civilisation.
Bordeaux, Toulouse, Arles, Lyons and other towns were flourishing and
brilliant centres of civilisation at a time when Northern France was
struggling with foreign invaders. It was in Southern Gaul, again, that
Christianity first obtained a footing; here the barbarian invasions of
the fifth and sixth centuries proved less destructive to civilisation
than in Northern France, and the Visigoths seem to have been more
amenable to the influences of culture than the Northern Franks. Thus the
towns of Southern Gaul apparently remained centres in which artistic and
literary traditions were preserved more or less successfully until the
revival of classical studies during the age of Charlemagne. The climate,
again, of Southern France is milder and warmer than that of the North,
and these influences produced a difference which may almost be termed
racial. It is a difference visible even to-day and is well expressed by [6]
the chronicler Raoul de Caen, who speaks of the Provencal Crusaders,
saying that the French were prouder in bearing and more war-like in
action than the Provencals, who especially contrasted with them by their
skill in procuring food in times of famine: "inde est, quod adhuc
puerorum decantat naenia, Franci ad bella, Provinciales ad victualia".[3]
Only a century and a half later than Charlemagne appeared the first
poetical productions in Provencal which are known to us, a fragment of a
commentary upon the De Consolatione of Boethius[4] and a poem upon St
Foy of Agen. The first troubadour, William, Count of Poitiers, belongs
to the close of the eleventh century.

Though the Count of Poitiers is the first troubadour known to us, the
relatively high excellence of his technique, as regards stanza
construction and rime, and the capacity of his language for expressing
lofty and refined ideas in poetical form (in spite of his occasional
lapses into coarseness), entirely preclude the supposition that he was
the first troubadour in point of time. The artistic conventions apparent
in his poetry and his obviously careful respect for fixed rules oblige
us to regard his poetry as the outcome of