Part 12 (2/2)

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 trouvere, 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 t.i.tle, _Perceval le Gallois_ or _Li Contes del Graal_.

COMTE DE CHAMPAGNE.--See Thibaut.

ARNAUD DANIEL, a Provencal 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 Provencal 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 ent.i.tled _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 trouvere 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 STRa.s.sBURG, a German poet who flourished at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century. His great work was the epic ent.i.tled _Tristan und Isolde_, continued by others after his death. This took place somewhere between 1210 and 1220. Gottfried wrote also many lyric poems.

GUILLAUME DE BALAUN (or BALAZUN), a Provencal poet of the twelfth century. He was the lover of the lady of Joviac, in the Gevaudan.

Alienation having sprung up between them upon account of his a.s.sumed or real indifference, his mistress would not restore him to favor unless he should agree to extract the nail of the longest finger of his right hand, and should come and present it to her with a poem composed expressly for the occasion. The condition was fulfilled.

JOHANN HADLAUB, a German poet, who flourished at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century. His life was spent mainly in Zurich. His compositions were princ.i.p.ally love-songs and popular songs dealing with the pleasures of autumn and harvest. A statue was erected to him in Zurich in 1885.

HARTMANN VON AUE, a Middle High German, belonging by birth to a n.o.ble Swabian family, was born about 1170, and died between 1210 and 1220. He wrote _Erec and Enide_, basing it upon the French poem with the same t.i.tle of Chrestien de Troyes. Another poem of his belonging also to the Arthurian cycle is _Iwein_. The most popular of his works with modern students is _Der arme Heinrich_. The details of its story have been made known to English readers by Longfellow's _Golden Legend_, which is founded upon it. Another work of his is ent.i.tled _Gregorius vom Stein_.

HEINRICH VON MORUNGEN, a German minnesinger, a knight of Thuringia, who flourished at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century. His last years were spent at the court of Meissen. He wrote many love-songs, many of which owe their existence to those of the troubadours.

HEINRICH VON VELDEKE, a German poet of the twelfth century, who was of a n.o.ble family settled near Maastricht, on the lower Rhine. Besides the love-songs and other pieces he wrote, he was the composer of the epic of the _Eneide_, the first poem of the Middle High German epic poetry, which reached its highest development in the writings of Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Gottfried von Stra.s.sburg.

HUGO VON TRIMBERG, a German poet, who flourished at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century. From 1260 to 1309 he was rector of the collegiate school in the Theuerstadt, a suburb of Bamberg. He is known as the composer of the _Renner_, a didactic poem, in which the manners and customs of the time are largely depicted, and the prevailing vices severely censured.

JACOPO DA TODI, or JACOPONE, an Italian poet, born about the middle of the thirteenth century at Todi, in the duchy of Spoleto. He belonged to the n.o.ble family of the Benedetti, began life as an advocate, but, on account of the sudden accidental death of his wife, devoted himself to a religious life and entered the order of Franciscans. He wrote many religious poems in Italian, and also in Latin. To him in particular is ascribed the composition of the famous _Stabat Mater Dolorosa_.

NEIDHART VON REUENTHAL, a German lyric poet of the thirteenth century.

He was of a n.o.ble Bavarian family, but spent part of his life in Austria. His poems were written between 1210 and 1240, and are of special interest for the descriptions they give of the customs of the times.

THIBAUT, COUNT OF CHAMPAGNE AND KING OF NAVARRE. He was born at Troyes in 1201, and died in 1253. He is one of the most noted of the early French poets.

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