of Thibaut de Champagne,
and of Adam de la Halle, something personal to the writer may be
discerned; but in general the poetry is that of a doctrine and of
a school.

In some instances the reputation of the lyrical trouvere was founded
rather on his music than his verse. The metrical forms were various,
and were gradually reduced to rule; the _ballette_, of Provencal
origin, was a more elaborate _rondet_, consisting of stanzas and
refrain; the _estampie_ (_stampon_, to beat the ground with the foot)
was a dancing-song; the lyric _lai_, virtually identical with the
_descort_, consisted of stanzas which varied in structure; the
_motet_, a name originally applied to pieces of church music, was
freer in versification, and occasionally dealt with popular themes.
Among forms which cannot be included under the general title of
chansons, are those in dialogue derived from the Provencal
literature; in the _tenson_ or _debat_ the two interlocutors put forth
their opinions on what theme they may please; in the _jeu parti_ one
of the imagined disputants proposes two contrary solutions of some
poetical or amorous question, and defends whichever solution his
associate refuses to accept; the earliest _jeu parti_, attributed
to Gace Brule and Count Geoffroi of Brittany, belongs to the second
half of the twelfth century. The _serventois_ were historical poems,
and among them songs of the crusades, or moral, or religious, or
satirical pieces, directed against woman and the worship of woman.
To these various species we should add the songs in honour of the
saints, the sorrows of the Virgin uttered at the foot of the cross,
and other devout lyrics which lie outside the _poesie courtoise_.
With the close of the thirteenth century this fashion of artificial
love-lyric ceased: a change passed over the modes of thought and
feeling in aristocratic society, and other forms took the place of
those found in the _poesie courtoise_.

II
FABLES, AND RENARD THE FOX

The desire of ecclesiastical writers in the Middle Ages to give
prominence to that part of classical literature which seemed best
suited to the purpose of edification caused the fables of Phaedrus
and Avianus to be regarded with special honour. Various renderings
from the thirteenth century onwards were made under the title of
_Isopets_,[1] a name appropriated to collections of fables whether
derived from AEsop or from other sources. The twelfth-century fables
in verse of Marie de