AUDEFROI LE BATARD

audefroi le batard, french _trouvere_, flourished at the end of the 12th century and was born at arras. of his life nothing is known. the seigneur de nesles, to whom some of his songs are addressed, is probably the chatelain of bruges who joined the crusade of 1200. audefroi was the author of at least five lyric romances: _argentine, belle idoine, belle isabeau, belle emmelos_ and _beatrix_. these romances follow older _chansons_ in subject, but the smoothness of the verse and beauty of detail hardly compensate for the spontaneity of the shorter form. see a. jeanroy, _les origines de la poesie lyrique en france au moyen age_ (paris, 1889). audience (from lat. _audire_, to hear), the act or state of hearing, the term being therefore transferred to those who hear or listen, as in a theatre, at a concert or meeting. in a more technical sense, the term is applied to the right of access to the sovereign enjoyed by the peers of the realm individually and by the house of commons collectively. more particularly it means the ceremony of the admission of ambassadors, envoys or others to an interview with a sovereign or an important official for the purpose of presenting their credentials. in france, _audience_ is the term applied to the sitting of a law court for hearing actions. in spain, _audiencia_ is the name given to certain tribunals which try appeals from minor courts. the spanish judges were originally known as _oidores_, hearers, from the spanish _oir_, to hear; but they are now called _ministros_, or _magistrados togados_, robed judges, as the gown of the spanish judge is called a _toga_. the _audiencia pretorial_, i.e. of the praetor, was a court in spanish america from which there was no appeal to the viceroy, but only to the council of the indies in spain. it is not the custom in spain to speak of _audiencias reales_, royal courts, but of the _audiencias del reino_, courts of the kingdom. in england the _audience-court_ was an ecclesiastical court, held by the archbishops of canterbury and york, in which they once exercised a considerable part of their jurisdiction, dealing with such matters as they thought fit to reserve for their own hearing. it has been long disused and is now merged in the court of arches.