Studies in Mediæval Life and Literature

by Edward T. McLaughlin

At the suggestion of the publishers the following brief notices of some of the works and authors mentioned in these essays are added for convenience of reference.

Æthiopica, the oldest and most famous of the Greek romances. It narrates the loves of Theagenes and Charicleia, and was written in his youth by Heliodorus of Emesa, who flourished about the end of the fourth century, and died as Bishop of Tricca in Thessaly.

Alexander, or as he is termed in some MSS. the Wild Alexander. A South-German poet of the thirteenth century. Of his life scarcely anything is known.

Chrestien de Troyes, a French trouvère, who flourished in the second half of the twelfth century. He may be regarded as the popularizer in the French form of the cycle of tales that centre about the Round Table. The most important of his poems is the one bearing the title, Perceval le Gallois or Li Contes del Graal.

Comte de Champagne.—See Thibaut.

Arnaud Daniel, a Provençal poet, who died about 1189. He was distinguished for the complicated character of his versification, and in particular was the inventor of the verse called the sestine. He lived for some time at the court of Richard I. of England. Dante in the twenty-sixth canto of the Purgatory puts him at the head of all the Provençal poets. He was also highly praised by Petrarch.

Daphnis and Chloe, a Greek pastoral romance, the prototype of all the pastoral romances which have been written in various languages. Its composition is usually ascribed to a certain Longus, a Greek sophist, who flourished about the beginning of the fifth century.

Freidank, the composer of a Middle High German didactic poem, which belongs to the first half of the thirteenth century. The name has been considered by some to be merely allegorical. His work, which was entitled Bescheidenheit, consists of over four thousand verses and discusses religious, political and social questions. It was an exceedingly popular work during the Middle Ages.

Gaces Brulles, a French trouvère of the early part of the thirteenth century. He was born in Champagne, but spent a portion of his life in Brittany. About seventy of his chansons are extant.

Gottfried von Strassburg, a German poet who flourished at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century. His great work was the epic entitled Tristan und Isolde, continued by others after his death. This took place somewhere between 1210 and 1220. Gottfried wrote also many lyric poems.