"Song and playing were cultivated by peasants, and even by freedmen
and serfs. At beer-feasts the harp went from hand to hand. Herein
lies the essential difference between that age and our own. The
result of poetical activity was not the property and was not the
production of a single person, but of the community. The work of the
individual endured only as long as its delivery lasted. He gained
personal distinction only as a virtuoso. The permanent elements of
what he presented, the material, the ideas, even the style and metre,
already existed. 'The work of the singer was only a ripple in the
stream of national poetry. Who can say how much the individual
contributed to it, or where in his poetical recitation memory ceased
and creative impulse began! In any case the work of the individual
lived on only as the ideal possession of the aggregate body of the
people, and it soon lost the stamp of originality. In view of such
a development of poetry, we must assume a time when the collective
consciousness of a people or race is paramount in its unity; when
the intellectual life of each is nourished from the same treasury of
views and associations, of myths and sagas; when similar interests
stir each breast; and the ethical judgment of all applies itself to
the same standard. In such an age the form of poetical expression
will also be common to all, necessarily solemn, earnest, and simple."

When the conditions which produced the popular ballads become clear
to the imagination, their depth of rootage, not only in the community
life but in the community love, becomes also clear. We under stand
the charm which these old songs have for us of a later age, and the
spell which they cast upon men and women who knew the secret of
their birth; we understand why the minstrels of the lime, when
popular poetry was in its best estate, were held in such honour, why
Taillefer sang the song of Roland at the head of the advancing