country. The exploits of chivalric knights were told from camp to
camp and taken back home to be told again in the castles.

4. Another institution of feudalism that helped to make this
common subject and spirit of mediaeval literature was the
minstrel, who was attached to every well-appointed castle. This
picturesque poet--gleeman, trouvere or troubadour sang heroic
stories and romances of love in the halls of castles and in the
market places of towns. He borrowed from and copied others and
helped to make the common method and traditions of mediaeval
song.

5. Other elements in this result were the extensions of commerce
and the growth of traveling as a pleasure.

6. Finally, the itinerant students and teachers of mediaeval
universities assisted in the making of this common fund of ideas
and material for literature.

(7) Behind and within all the separate national literatures lay
the common Christian-Latin literature of the early Middle Ages,
undoubtedly the cause of the rather startling perfection of form
shown by much of the work of the period we are studying.[1]

[1] See Ebert "Allgemeine Geschichte der Literatur des
Mittelalters". Vol. I., p. 11.


The result of all these unifying tendencies is to give a strong
family likeness to the productions of the various European