By the middle of the 15th century troubadour verse was effectively dead, replaced by a limper form of court poetry, represented in the "Cancioneiro Geral" compiled in the 16th century by poet and humanist Garcia de Resende. Meanwhile, the people were elaborating a ballad poetry of their own, the body of which is known as the "Romanceiro". It consists of lyrico-narrative poems treating of war, chivalry, adventure, religious legends, and the sea, many of which have great beauty and contain traces of the varied civilizations which have existed in the peninsula. When the Court poets had exhausted the artifices of Provençal lyricism, they imitated the poetry of the people, giving it a certain vogue which lasted until the Classical Renaissance. It was then thrust into the background, and though cultivated by a few, it remained unknown to men of letters until the nineteenth century, when Almeida Garrett began his literary revival and collected folk poems from the mouths of the peasantry.