The people of Acquitaine seem to have been leaders in the revolt against the Frankish dominion; their country had been left by Charlemagne as an independent kingdom, but on his death they at once went to war with the Franks and led the way to the dismemberment of the Carlovingian Empire. There is an ancient poem whose name and hero is Walter of Acquitaine—related to the Nibelingen and Scandinavian sagas—which seems to represent the national and anti-Frankish spirit of the Acquitanians and of all the Gallo-Roman epoch.
It was in Limousin, as we have seen, that all these movements of popular literature finally arrived at a sort of culmination, and we find ourselves suddenly in a brilliant world of gaiety and song.
Count Ebles III. of Ventadour was then composing his verses of "alacrity and joy," and the Châteaux of Limousin were enthusiastically cultivating the new poetry; and a little later William IX. of Poictiers, the "first troubadour," was born, the gay, courteous teller of stories and singer of songs, of whom the already quoted saying was abroad that "he went about the world to impose on the ladies."
He had the audacity to refuse to join the Crusade, perhaps because he was a "free-thinker"—a rare being indeed in those days—denying the existence of God.
But when Jerusalem fell and the Christians were forming a kingdom there, he went out with a multitude of knights to join them, though apparently with a heavy heart.
On the eve of departure he composed a lyric to his native land.
"Adieu, now diversions and sports!
Adieu now furred robes of vair and of grey,
Adieu ye fine vestments of silk,
I shall depart into exile...."[29]