Heroines of the Crusades Part 40

"_Adela's Letter from Stephen._"--Alexius expressed a wish that one of the sons of Stephen might be educated at the Byzantine court, and said a thousand other fine things, which Stephen reported to his wife as holy truths.--_Mill's Crusades_, p. 49.

NOTE LL.--PAGE 105.

"_Of English laws and an English Queen._"--Matilda is the only princess of Scotland who ever shared the throne of a king of England. It is, however, from her maternal ancestry that she derives her great interest as connected with the annals of this country. Her mother, Margaret Atheling, was the grandaughter of Edmund Ironside, and the daughter of Edward Atheling, surnamed the Outlaw, by Agatha, daughter of the Emperor Henry II. of Germany.--_Queens of England_, p. 91.

NOTE MM.--PAGE 110.

"_We fought in the Plains of Ramula._"--The small phalanx was overwhelmed by the Egyptians! Stephen, Earl of Chartres, was taken prisoner and murdered by his enemy; he was the hero who ran away in the Crusade. His wife was Adela, a daughter of King William I. of England, and this spirited lady vowed she would give her husband no rest till he recovered his fame in Palestine. He went thither, and died in the manner above related.--_Mill's Crusades_, p. 95.

NOTE NN.--PAGE 111.

"_The daughter of Earl Waltheoff, Matilda_," was the wife of David, afterwards King of Scotland, and the mother of the first Earl of Huntingdon.--_Dr. Lingard._

NOTE OO.--PAGE 113.

"_Lucy lies in the sea._"--Besides the heir of England, Prince William, there were lost in the White ship, Richard, Earl of Chester, with his bride, the young Lady Lucy, of Blois, daughter of Henry's sister Adela, and the flower of the juvenile n.o.bility, who are mentioned by the Saxon chronicle as a mult.i.tude of "incomparable folk."--_Queens of England_, p.

131.

NOTE PP.--PAGE 120.

"_Courts of Love._"--Eleanora was by hereditary right, chief reviewer and critic of the poets of Provence. At certain festivals held by her after the custom of her ancestors, called Courts of Love, all new _sirventes_ and _chansons_ were sung or recited before her by the troubadours. She then, a.s.sisted by a conclave of her ladies, sat in judgment and p.r.o.nounced sentence on their literary merits.--_Queens of England_, p. 188.

NOTE QQ.--PAGE 121.

"_Romance Walloon._"--The appellation of Walloon was derived from the word Waalchland, the name by which the Germans to this day designate Italy.

William the Conqueror was so much attached to the Romance Walloon, that he encouraged its literature among his subjects, and forced it on the English by means of rigorous enactments, in place of the ancient Saxon, which closely resembled the Norse of his own ancestors.

Throughout the whole tract of country from Navarre to the dominions of the Dauphin of Auvergne, and from sea to sea, the Provencal language was spoken--a language which combined the best points of French and Italian, and presented peculiar facilities for poetical composition. It was called the langue _d'oc_, the tongue of "yes" and "no;" because, instead of "_oui_" and "_non_" of the rest of France, the affirmative and negative were "_oc_" and "_no_." The ancestors of Eleanora were called _par excellence_--the Lords of "_oc_" and "_no_."--_Queens of England_, pp.

60-186.

NOTE RR.--PAGE 122.

"_In a Province fair._"--This ballad is from the early English Metrical Romances.

NOTE SS.--PAGE 127.

"_The Lady Petronilla._"--The sister of the queen, the young Petronilla, whose beauty equalled that of her sister, and whose levity far surpa.s.sed it, could find no single man in all France to bewitch with the spell of her fascinations, but chose to seduce Rodolph, Count of Vermandois, from his wife.--_Queens of England_, p. 189.

NOTE TT.--PAGE 130.

"_Abelard._"--Abelard, Peter, originally Abailard, a monk of the order of St. Benedict, equally famous for his learning and for his unfortunate love for Heloise, was born in 1079, near Nantes, in the little village of Palais, which was the property of his father, Berenger.--_Encyclopedia._

NOTE UU.--PAGE 132.

"_St. Bernard._"--St. Bernard, born at Fontaines, in Burgundy, 1091, was of n.o.ble family, and one of the most influential ecclesiastics of the middle ages. He was named the _honeyed teacher_, and his writings were styled _a stream from Paradise_.

He princ.i.p.ally promoted the crusade in 1146, and quieted the fermentation caused at that time by a party of monks, against the Jews in Germany.--_Encyclopedia._

NOTE VV.--PAGE 135.

"_Valley of Laodicea._"--The freaks of Queen Eleanora and her female warriors were the cause of all the misfortunes that befel King Louis and his army, especially in the defeat at Laodicea. The king had sent forward the queen and her ladies, escorted by his choicest troops, under the guard of Count Maurienne. He charged them to choose for their camp the arid, but commanding ground which gave them a view over the defiles of the valley of Laodicea. Queen Eleanora insisted upon halting in a lovely romantic valley, full of verdant gra.s.s and gushing fountains.--_Queens of England_, p. 190.

NOTE WW.--PAGE 140.

"_Series of Coquetries._"--Some say that she was smitten with Raymond, of Antioch; others with a handsome Saracen slave; and it was, moreover, rumored that she received presents from the Sultan.--_Michelet_, p. 233.

NOTE XX.--PAGE 141.

"_Twenty days._"--The "Queens of France" record that he learned the Provencal tongue in twenty days.

NOTE YY.--PAGE 143.

"_Knights of the Temple._"--A celebrated order of knights, which, like the order of St. John and the Teutonic order, had its origin in the crusades.

It was established in 1119, for the protection of the pilgrims on the roads in Palestine. Subsequently, its object became the defence of the Christian faith, and of the Holy Sepulchre against the Saracens.

Uniting the privileges of a religious order with great military power, and always prepared for service by sea and land, it could use its possessions to more advantage than other corporations, and also make conquests on its own account; in addition to which it received rich donations and bequests from the superst.i.tion of the age.

The princ.i.p.al part of the possessions of the order were in France: most of the knights were also French, and the grand-master was usually of that nation. In 1244, the order possessed nine thousand considerable bailiwicks, commanderies, priories and preceptories, independent of the jurisdiction of the countries in which they were situated.

The order was destroyed in France by Philip the Fair, about the beginning of the fourteenth century.--_Encyclopedia._

NOTE ZZ.--PAGE 144.

"_Hospitallers._"--The Knights of St. John, or Hospitallers of St. John, afterwards called Knights of Rhodes, and finally Knights of Malta, were a celebrated order of military religious, established at the commencement of the crusades to the Holy Land. It was the duty of the monks, who were called brothers of St. John or hospitallers, to take care of the poor and sick, and in general, to a.s.sist pilgrims. This order obtained important possessions, and maintained itself against the arms of the Turks and Saracens by union and courage.

In 1309 the knights established themselves on the island of Rhodes, where they remained upwards of two hundred years. In 1530, Charles Fifth granted them the island of Malta, on conditions of perpetual war against the infidels and pirates. From this period, they were commonly called _Knights of Malta_.--_Encyclopedia._

NOTE AAA.--PAGE 146.

"_On her way Southward._"--Eleanora stayed some time at Blois, the count of which province was Thibaut, elder brother to King Stephen, one of the handsomest and bravest men of his time. Thibaut offered his hand to his fair guest. He met with a refusal, which by no means turned him from his purpose, as he resolved to detain the lady prisoner in his fortress till she complied with his proposal. Eleanora suspected his design, and departed by night for Tours. Young Geoffrey Plantagenet, the next brother to the man she intended to marry, had likewise a great inclination to be sovereign of the south. He placed himself in ambush at a part of the Loire called the Port of Piles, with the intention of seizing the d.u.c.h.ess and carrying her off and marrying her. But she, pre-warned by her good angel, turned down a branch of the stream toward her own country.--_Queens of England_, p. 114.

NOTE BBB.--PAGE 151.