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The Gascon troubadour Cercamon is said to have composed pastorals in "the old style." But in general, between troubadour poetry and the popular poetry of folk-lore, a great gulf is fixed, the gulf of artificiality. The very name "troubadour" points to this characteristic. Trobador is the oblique case of the nominative trobaire, a substantive from the verb trobar, in modern French trouver.

The best known of the Catalonian troubadours is Raimon Vidal of Besadun, both for his novelas and also for his work on Provençal grammar and metre, Las rasos de trobar, which was written for the benefit of his compatriots who desired to avoid solecisms or mistakes when composing.

Practically nothing is known of his life; allusions in his poems lead us to suppose that he spent some time in Spain at the courts of Navarre, Castile and Aragon. The real interests of his work are literary and ethical. To his share in the controversy concerning the trobar clus, the obscure and difficult style of composition, we have already alluded.

Dean Gaisford's reputed address to his divinity lecture illustrates the attitude of those troubadours who affected the trobar clus: "Gentlemen, a knowledge of Greek will enable you to read the oracles of God in the original and to look down from the heights of scholarship upon the vulgar herd."

Many of his poems are extremely obscure; he was one of the first to affect the trobar clus. He was also the author of violent invectives against the passion of love Que anc non amet neguna Ni d'autra no fon amatz "Who never loved any woman nor was loved of any." This aversion to the main theme of troubadour poetry is Marcabrun's most striking characteristic.

The inevitable reaction occurred, and a movement in the opposite direction was begun; of this movement the most distinguished supporter was the troubadour, Guiraut de Bornelh. He had been one of the most successful exponents of the trobar clus, and afterwards supported the cause of the trobar clar. I should like to know, G. de Bornelh, why, and for what reason, you keep blaming the obscure style.