official, wrote the first "Chronicle of the Cid," the oldest source of
the oft-repeated biography, thus furnishing material to subsequent
Spanish poets and historians. Valentin Barruchius (Baruch), of Toledo,
composed, probably in the twelfth century, in pure, choice Latin, the
romance _Comte Lyonnais, Palanus_, which spread all over Europe,
affording modern poets subject-matter for great tragedies, and forming
the groundwork for one of the classics of Spanish literature. A little
later, Petrus Alphonsus (Moses Sephardi) wrote his _Disciplina
Clericalis_, the first collection of tales in the Oriental manner, the
model of all future collections of the kind.

Three of the most important works of Spanish literature, then, are
products of Jewish authorship. This fact prepares the student to find a
Jew among the Castilian troubadours of the fourteenth century, the
period of greatest literary activity. The Jewish spirit was by no means
antagonistic to the poetry of the Provencal troubadours. In his didactic
poem, _Chotham Tochnith_ ("The Seal of Perfection," together with "The
Flaming Sword"), Abraham Bedersi, that is, of Beziers (1305), challenges
his co-religionists to a poetic combat. He details the rules of the
tournament, and it is evident that he is well acquainted with all the
minutiae of the _jeu parti_ and the _tenso_ (song of dispute) of the
Provencal singers, and would willingly imitate their _sirventes_ (moral
and political song). His plaint over the decadence of poetry among the
Jews is characteristic: "Where now are the marvels of Hebrew poetry?
Mayhap thou'lt find them in the Provencal or Romance. Aye, in Folquet's
verses is manna, and from the lips of Cardinal is wafted the perfume of
crocus and nard"--Folquet de Lunel and Peire Cardinal being the last
great representatives of Provencal troubadour poetry. Later on,
neo-Hebraic poets again show acquaintance with the regulations governing
song-combats and courts of love. Pious Bible exegetes, like Samuel ben
Meir, do not disdain to speak of the _partimens_ of the troubadours, "in
which lovers talk to each other, and by turns take up the discourse."
One of his school, a _Tossafist_, goes so far as to press into service
the day's fashion in explaining the meaning of a verse in the "Song of
Songs": "To this day lovers treasure their mistress' locks as
love-tokens." It seems, too, that Provencal romances were heard, and
their great poets welcomed, in the houses of Je