History of Spanish Literature, vol. 1 (of 3)

by George Ticknor

Greatly favored in this comparative quiet, which, though sometimes broken by internal dissension, or by the ineffectual incursions of their new Arab neighbours, was nevertheless such as was hardly known elsewhere, and favored no less by a soil and climate almost without rivals in the world, the civilization and refinement of Provence advanced faster than those of any other portion of Europe. From the year 879, a large part of it was fortunately constituted into an independent government; and, what was very remarkable, it continued under the same family till 1092, two hundred and thirteen years.[488] During this second period, its territories were again much spared from the confusion that almost constantly pressed their borders and threatened their tranquillity; for the troubles that then shook the North of Italy did not cross the Alps and the Var; the Moorish power, so far from making new aggressions, maintained itself with difficulty in Catalonia; and the wars and convulsions in the North of France, from the time of the first successors of Charlemagne to that of Philip Augustus, flowed rather in the opposite direction, and furnished, at a safe distance, occupation for tempers too fierce to endure idleness.

In the course of these two centuries, a language sprang up in the South and along the Mediterranean, compounded, according to the proportions of their power and refinement, from that spoken by the Burgundians and from the degraded Latin of the country, and slowly and quietly took the place of both. With this new language appeared, as noiselessly, about the middle of the tenth century, a new literature, suited to the climate, the age, and the manners that produced it, and one which, for nearly three hundred years, seemed to be advancing towards a grace and refinement such as had not been known since the fall of the Romans.

Thus things continued under twelve princes of the Burgundian race, who make little show in the wars of their times, but who seem to have governed their states with a moderation and gentleness not to have been expected amidst the general disturbance of the world. This family became extinct, in the male branch, in 1092; and in 1113, the crown of Provence was transferred, by the marriage of its heir, to Raymond Berenger, the third Count of Barcelona.[489] The Provençal poets, many of whom were noble by birth, and all of whom, as a class, were attached to the court and its aristocracy, naturally followed their liege lady, in considerable numbers, from Arles to Barcelona, and willingly established themselves in her new capital, under a prince full of knightly accomplishments and yet not disinclined to the arts of peace.

Nor was the change for them a great one. The Pyrenees made then, as they make now, no very serious difference between the languages spoken on their opposite declivities; similarity of pursuits had long before induced a similarity of manners in the population of Barcelona and Marseilles; and if the Provençals had somewhat more of gentleness and culture, the Catalonians, from the share they had taken in the Moorish wars, possessed a more strongly marked character, and one developed in more manly proportions.[490] At the very commencement of the twelfth century, therefore, we may fairly consider a Provençal refinement to have been introduced into the northeastern corner of Spain; and it is worth notice, that this is just about the period when, as we have already seen, the ultimately national school of poetry began to show itself in quite the opposite corner of the Peninsula, amidst the mountains of Biscay and Asturias.[491]

Political causes, however, similar to those which first brought the spirit of Provence from Arles and Marseilles to Barcelona, soon carried it farther onward towards the centre of Spain. In 1137, the Counts of Barcelona obtained by marriage the kingdom of Aragon; and though they did not, at once, remove the seat of their government to Saragossa, they early spread through their new territories some of the refinement for which they were indebted to Provence. This remarkable family, whose power was now so fast stretching up to the North, possessed, at different times, during nearly three centuries, different portions of territory on both sides of the Pyrenees, generally maintaining a control over a large part of the Northeast of Spain and of the South of France. Between 1229 and 1253, the most distinguished of its members gave the widest extent to its empire by broad conquests from the Moors; but later the power of the kings of Aragon became gradually circumscribed, and their territory diminished, by marriages, successions, and military disasters. Under eleven princes, however, in the direct line, and three more in the indirect, they maintained their right to the kingdom, down to the year 1479, when, in the person of Ferdinand, it was united to Castile, and the solid foundations were laid on which the Spanish monarchy has ever since rested.

With this slight outline of the course of political power in the northeastern part of Spain, it will be easy to trace the origin and history of the literature that prevailed there from the beginning of the twelfth to the middle of the fifteenth century; a literature which was introduced from Provence, and retained the Provençal character, till it came in contact with that more vigorous spirit which, during the same period, had been advancing from the northwest, and afterwards succeeded in giving its tone to the literature of the consolidated monarchy.[492]

The character of the old Provençal poetry is the same on both sides of the Pyrenees. In general, it is graceful and devoted to love; but sometimes it becomes involved in the politics of the time, and sometimes it runs into a severe and unbecoming satire. In Catalonia, as well as in its native home, it belonged much to the court; and the highest in rank and power are the earliest and foremost on its lists. Thus, both the princes who first wore the united crowns of Barcelona and Provence, and who reigned from 1113 to 1162, are often set down as Limousin or Provençal poets, though with slight claims to the honor, since not a verse has been published that can be attributed to either of them.[493]

Alfonso the Second, however, who received the crown of Aragon in 1162, and wore it till 1196, is admitted by all to have been a Troubadour. Of him we still possess a few not inelegant coblas, or stanzas, addressed to his lady, which are curious from the circumstance that they constitute the oldest poem in the modern dialects of Spain, whose author is known to us; and one that is probably as old, or nearly as old, as any of the anonymous poetry of Castile and the North.[494] Like the other sovereigns of his age, who loved and practised the art of the gai saber, Alfonso collected poets about his person. Pierre Rogiers was at his court, and so were Pierre Raimond de Toulouse, and Aiméric de Péguilain, who mourned his patron’s death in verse,—all three famous Troubadours in their time, and all three honored and favored at Barcelona.[495] There can be no doubt, therefore, that a Provençal spirit was already established and spreading in that part of Spain before the end of the twelfth century.

In the beginning of the next century, external circumstances imparted a great impulse to this spirit in Aragon. From 1209 to 1229, the shameful war which gave birth to the Inquisition was carried on with extraordinary cruelty and fury against the Albigenses; a religious sect in Provence accused of heresy, but persecuted rather by an implacable political ambition. To this sect—which, in some points, opposed the pretensions of the See of Rome, and was at last exterminated by a crusade under the Papal authority—belonged nearly all the contemporary Troubadours, whose poetry is full of their sufferings and remonstrances.[496] In their great distress, the principal ally of the Albigenses and Troubadours was Peter the Second of Aragon, who, in 1213, perished nobly fighting in their cause at the disastrous battle of Muret. When, therefore, the Troubadours of Provence were compelled to escape from the burnt and bloody ruins of their homes, not a few of them hastened to the friendly court of Aragon, sure of finding themselves protected, and their art held in honor, by princes who were, at the same time, poets.

Among those who thus appeared in Spain in the time of Peter the Second were Hugues de Saint Cyr;[497] Azémar le Noir;[498] Pons Barba;[499] Raimond de Miraval, who joined in the cry urging the king to the defence of the Albigenses, in which he perished;[500] and Perdigon,[501] who, after being munificently entertained at his court, became, like Folquet de Marseille,[502] a traitor to the cause he had espoused, and openly exulted in the king’s untimely fate. But none of the poetical followers of Peter the Second did him such honor as the author of the curious and long poem of “The War of the Albigenses,” in which much of the king of Aragon’s life is recorded, and a minute account given of his disastrous death.[503] All, however, except Perdigon and Folquet, regarded him with gratitude, as their patron, and as a poet,[504] who, to use the language of one of them, made himself “their head and the head of their honors.”[505]