Note OO.—[Page 113.]
“Lucy lies in the sea.”—Besides the heir of England, Prince William, there were lost in the White ship, Richard, Earl of Chester, with his bride, the young Lady Lucy, of Blois, daughter of Henry’s sister Adela, and the flower of the juvenile nobility, who are mentioned by the Saxon chronicle as a multitude of “incomparable folk.”—Queens of England, p. 131.
Note PP.—[Page 120.]
“Courts of Love.”—Eleanora was by hereditary right, chief reviewer and critic of the poets of Provence. At certain festivals held by her after the custom of her ancestors, called Courts of Love, all new sirventes and chansons were sung or recited before her by the troubadours. She then, assisted by a conclave of her ladies, sat in judgment and pronounced sentence on their literary merits.—Queens of England, p. 188.
Note QQ.—[Page 121.]
“Romance Walloon.”—The appellation of Walloon was derived from the word Waalchland, the name by which the Germans to this day designate Italy. William the Conqueror was so much attached to the Romance Walloon, that he encouraged its literature among his subjects, and forced it on the English by means of rigorous enactments, in place of the ancient Saxon, which closely resembled the Norse of his own ancestors.
Throughout the whole tract of country from Navarre to the dominions of the Dauphin of Auvergne, and from sea to sea, the Provençal language was spoken—a language which combined the best points of French and Italian, and presented peculiar facilities for poetical composition. It was called the langue d’oc, the tongue of “yes” and “no;” because, instead of “oui” and “non” of the rest of France, the affirmative and negative were “oc” and “no.” The ancestors of Eleanora were called par excellence—the Lords of “oc” and “no.”—Queens of England, pp. 60-186.
Note RR.—[Page 122.]
“In a Province fair.”—This ballad is from the early English Metrical Romances.
Note SS.—[Page 127.]