lines of variable length. There were also numerous monkish
narrative poems _(mester de clereçia)_ in stanzas of four
Alexandrine lines each, all riming _(cuaderna vía)_.]

If one were to enumerate _ab origine_ the lyric
productions of the Iberian Peninsula he might begin
with the vague references of Strabo to the songs of its
primitive inhabitants, and then pass on to Latin page xii
poets of Spanish birth, such as Seneca, Lucan and Martial.
The later Spaniards who wrote Christian poetry in Latin,
as Juvencus and Prudentius, might then be considered. But
in order not to embrace many diverse subjects foreign
to the contents of this collection, we must confine our
inquiry to lyric production in the language of Castile,
which became the dominating tongue of the Kingdom of
Spain.

Such a restriction excludes, of course, the Arabic lyric,
a highly artificial poetry produced abundantly by the
Moors during their occupation of the south of Spain; it
excludes also the philosophical and religious poetry of
the Spanish Jews, by no means despicable in thought or
form. Catalan poetry, once written in the Provençal manner
and of late happily revived, also lies outside our field.

Even the Galician poetry, which flourished so freely under
the external stimulus of the Provençal troubadours, can be
included only with regard to its influence upon Castilian.
The Galician dialect, spoken in the northwest corner of
the Peninsula, developed earlier than the Castilian of the