France and of the tongue which is now the French language. In the
twelfth century the bloom of this romance-poetry was earlier and
stronger in England, at the court of our Anglo-Norman kings, than in
France itself. But it was a bloom of French poetry; and as our native
poetry formed itself, it formed itself out of this. The romance-poems
which took possession of the heart and imagination of Europe in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries are French; "they are," as Southey
justly says, "the pride of French literature, nor have we anything which
can be placed in competition with them." Themes were supplied from all
quarters: but the romance-setting which was common to them all, and
which gained the ear of Europe, was French. This constituted for the
French poetry, literature, and language, at the height of the Middle
Age, an unchallenged predominance. The Italian Brunetto Latini,[89] the
master of Dante, wrote his _Treasure_ in French because, he says, "la
parleure en est plus délitable et plus commune à toutes gens." In the
same century, the thirteenth, the French romance-writer, Christian of
Troyes,[90] formulates the claims, in chivalry and letters, of France,
his native country, as follows:--

"Or vous ert par ce livre apris,
Que Gresse ot de chevalerie
Le premier los et de clergie;
Puis vint chevalerie à Rome,
Et de la clergie la some,
Qui ore est en France venue.
Diex doinst qu'ele i soit retenue
Et que li lius li abelisse
Tant que de France n'isse
L'onor qui s'i est arestee!"