116 
and 
qf Caricature 
Grotejgzze 
writers, confident in their ilrong hold upon public favour, fornetimes turn 
round and burlefque the literature of other claffes, efpecially the long 
heavy monotony of ftyle of the great romances of chivalry and the 
extravagant adventures they contained, as though confcions that they 
were gradually undermining the popularity of the romance writers. 
One of thele poems, entitled " De Audigier," and printed in Barbazan 
(iv. 217), is a parody on the romance writers and on their ftyle, not 
at all wanting in fpirit or wit, but the fatire is coarfe and vulgar. 
Another printed in Barbazan (iv. 287), under the title " De Berengier," 
is a fatire upon a fort of knight-errantry which had found its way into 
mediaeval chivalry. Berengier was a knight of Lombardy, much given to 
boalting, who had a beautiful lady for his wife. He ufed to leave her 
alone in his cattle, under pretext of fallying forth in fearch of chivalrous 
adventures, and, after a while, having well hacked his fword and fhield, 
he returned to vaunt the defperate exploits he had performed. But the 
lady was {hrewd as well as handfome, and, having fome fufpicions of his 
truthfulnefs as well as of his courage, the determined to make trial of 
both. One morning, when her hufband rode forth as ufual, {he haftily 
difguifed herfelf in a fuit of armour, mounted a good freed, and hurrying 
round by a different way, met the boattful knight in the middle of a 
wood, where he no fooner faw that he had to encounter a real affailant, 
than he difplayed the-moft abject cowardice, and his opponent exaoted 
from him an ignolminious condition as the price of his efcape. On his 
return home at night, boalling as ufual of his fuccefs, he found his lady 
taking her revenge upon him in a {till lefs refpectful manner, but he was 
filenced by her ridicule. 
The trouveres, or poets, who wrote the fabliaux-I need hardly 
remark that trouvare is the fame Word as trolmdor, but in the northern 
dialeel of the French language-appear to have Houriihed chiefly from 
the clofe of the twelfth century to the earlier part of the fourteenth. 
They all compofed in, French, which was a language then common to 
England and France, but fome of their compofitions bear internal 
evidence of having been compofed in England, and others are found in 
contemporary manufcripts written in this ifland. The fcene of a fabliau, 
printed