Song-Story Of The Twelfth Century

AUCASSIN AND NICOLETTE Song-Story of the Twelfth Century If "Old Antif" of Hainault was, as the best authorities now incline to think, the author of "Aucassin and Nicolette," Belgium may claim to have produced the finest poet of the ages of chivalry. He was probably a contemporary of the English minstrel king, Richard the Lion-hearted. But nothing is known of him save what can be gathered from the exquisite story of love which he composed in his old age. Perhaps he, too, was, in his younger days, a Crusader as well as a minstrel, and fought in the Holy Land against the Saracens. His "song-story" is certainly Arabian both in form and substance. Even his hero, Aucassin, the young Christian lord of Beaucaire, bears an Arabian name--Alcazin. There is nothing in Mohammedan literature equal to "Aucassin and Nicolette."