Lewis Freeman Mott

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“Even in the exhortations to the Crusades, love is often more prominent than duty toward God and the Church. Usually it was only at the close of life that the other world cast its shadow upon their thoughts. Many of them, atoning for lighter days by fasting and penance, ended their careers in the cloister.”

“Again and again we find the same ideas expressed in the same language. In the Provençal lyric formalism crushed and annihilated all freshness and life.”

“In the ancient land of vintage and dance and sun-burnt mirth, there resounded during the Middle Ages a sweet chorus of song, which was the delight, not only of the native lords and ladies, but of cultivated society in all neighboring countries. Spreading to France, Spain, Germany and Italy, its underlying ideas and fancies furnished the basis of much that is greatest in medieval literature. Its sudden appearance, its rapid development, its brief glory, and its untimely extinction, invest this lyric outburst with a special, almost tragic, interest.”