Nihil possum scribere nisi sumpto cibo;
Nihil valet penitus quod ieiunus scribo,—
Nasonem post calices carmine praeibo!
So it came about that while some of the clergy denounced all minstrels as 'ministers of Satan', others made a truce with the more honest among them, and helped them to add to their repertories the lives of saints. Officially 'trifles and trotevales' were still censured: but it seemed good to mould the chansons de geste to pious uses,[1] and to purify the court of King Arthur, which popularity had led into dissolute ways, by introducing the quest of the Graal. And if Rolle preached sound doctrine when he ranked among the Sins of the Mouth 'to syng seculere sanges and lufe þam', their style and music were not despised as baits to catch the ears of the frivolous: when a singer began
Ase y me rod þis ender dai
By grene wode to seche play,
Mid herte y þohte al on a may,
Suetest of alle þinge,—
the lover of secular songs would be tempted to listen; but he would stay to hear a song of the Joys of the Virgin, to whose cult the period owes its best devotional poetry.
[1] For illustrations from Old French, see Les Légendes Épiques by Professor Joseph Bédier, 4 vols., Paris 1907-, a book that maintains the easy pre-eminence of the French school in the appreciation of mediaeval literature.