love.  The prince of caricatures, however, was the German knight and minnesinger, Ulrich of Lichtenstein.  He is responsible for a novel in prose, entitled The Service of Woman, which is faintly reminiscent of Goethe’s Werther.  As a page he commenced his glorious career by drinking the water in which his lady had washed her hands; later on he caused his upper lip to be amputated because it displeased his mistress, for “whatever she dislikes in me, I, too, hate.”  On another occasion he cut off one of his fingers and used it, set in gold, as a clasp for a volume of his poems which he sent to her.  One of his most famous exploits was a journey through nearly the whole of Austria, disguised as Venus, jousting, dressed in women’s clothes, with every knight he met.  But in spite of his eccentricities, the tendency of his mind was not at all metaphysical; he craved very obvious favours, but as a rule contented himself with a kind, or even an unkind word.  Incidentally, we learn that he was married; but he devoted his whole life to “deeds of heroism” in honour of his lady.  Not the great book of Cervantes, as is commonly believed, held up mediaeval court life to ridicule and destroyed it as an ideal, but the life and exploits of this knight and minnesinger.  The same spirit animated Guilhem of Balaun.  At the command of his lady he had a finger-nail extracted and sent to her, after which he was re-admitted to her favour.

Spiritual love was discovered by the Provencals, but the greater and profounder Italian poets developed it and brought it to perfection.  What had been a naive sentiment with the troubadours, became in Dante’s circle a system of the universe and a religion.  The Italian poet, Sordello, who wrote in Provencal, may be regarded as the connecting link, and the forerunner of the great Italians.  He died in the year of grace 1270, and Dante, who was almost a contemporary, immortalised his name in the Divine Comedy.  The doctrine on which the dolce stil nuovo was based pointed to the love of a noble heart as the source of all perfection in heaven and earth.  Purely spiritual woman-worship was regarded as an absolute virtue.  The words of the last of the Provencal troubadours, Guirot Riquier, “Love is the doctrine of all sublime things”—­was developed into a philosophy.  I will quote a few characteristic verses, omitting Dante for the present.  One of the finest lyric poems of all tongues and ages, written by Guido Guinicelli, begins as follows: 

     Within the gentle heart love shelters him,
     As birds within the green shades of the grove;
     Before the gentle heart in nature’s scheme
     Love was not, or the gentle heart ere love.

(Transl. by D.G.  ROSSETTI.)

Cino da Pistoia says in epigrammatic brevity: 

     You want to know the inmost core of love? 
     ’Tis art and guerdon of a noble heart.

A wonderful canzone by Guinicelli contains the following verses: