The History of Chivalry Volume I Part 11

The true knight, he whose mind was formed in the best mould of chivalric principles, was a more perfect personification of love than poets and romancers have ever dreamed. The fair object of his pa.s.sion was truly and emphatically the mistress of his heart. She reigned there with absolute dominion. His love was,

"All adoration, duty, and observance."

Our old English poet, Gower, whose soul was filled with romantic tenderness and gallantry, says,

"In every place, in every stead, What so my lady hath me bid, With all my heart obedient, I have thereto been diligent."

And every gallant spirit of Gower's days, the reign of Edward III., said of his mistress,

"What thing she bid me do, I do, And where she bid me go, I go.

And when she likes to call, I come, I serve, I bow, I look, I lowte, My eye followeth her about.

What so she will, so will I, When she would set, I kneel by.

And when she stands then will I stand, And when she taketh her work in hand, Of wevying or of embroidrie, Then can I not but muse and prie, Upon her fingers long and small."

Gower, in describing the knight's mode of tendance on his mistress, has drawn a pleasing picture of the domestic life of chivalry.

"And if she list to riden out, On pilgrimage, or other stead, I come, though I be not bid, And take her in my arms aloft, And set her in her saddle soft, And so forth lead her by the bridle, For that I would not be idle.

And if she list to ride in chare, And that I may thereof beware, Anon, I shape me to ride, Right even by the chares side, And as I may, I speak among, And other while, I sing a song."[224]

These quotations show that the expression in ancient times of knights being servants of the ladies was not a mere figure of the imagination. The instances from Gower, however, which prove the propriety of the t.i.tle, may not be thought exclusively chivalric. A story in Froissart will fully supply the want. A Bourbon knight, named Sir John Bonnelance, a valiant soldier, gracious and amorous, was once at Montferrand, in Auvergne, sporting among the ladies and damsels of the town. While commending his chivalry, they urged him to undertake an enterprise against the English, and she who, as his lady-love, was ruler of his actions, told him that she would fain see an Englishman, for she had heard much of the valiancy of the knights of England. Bonnelance replied, "that if it should ever be his good fortune to take one, he would bring him into her presence." Soon afterwards he was able to perform his word. He took to Montferrand some English prisoners, and addressing her who fancied the wish of seeing an Englishman, he said "that for her love he had brought them to the town."

The ladies and damsels laughed, and turned the matter to a great sport.

They thanked him for his courtesy, and entertained him right sweetly during his three days abode at Montferrand.[225]

[Sidenote: Love inspired bravery.]

The knight, whose heart was warmed with the true light of chivalry, never wished that the dominion of his mistress should be less than absolute, and the confession of her perfect virtue, which this feeling implied, made him preserve his own faith pure and without a stain. Love was as marked a feature in the chivalric character as valour; and, in the phrase of the time, he who understood how to break a lance, and did not understand how to win a lady, was but half a man. He fought to gain her smiles, for love in brave and gentle knights kindled aspirations for high desert and honour. "Oh! that my lady saw me," was the exclamation of a knight in the pride of successful valour as he mounted the city's wall, and with his good sword was proving the worth of his chivalry.[226] He wore her colours, and the favour of his lady bright was the chief ornament of his harness. She judged the prize at the tournament, a.s.sisted him to arm, and was the first and the most joyous to hail his return from the perils of war.

"A damisel came unto me, The seemliest that ever I se, Luffumer[227] lifed never in land, Hendly she take me by the hand; And soon that gentle creature Al unlaced mine armure Into a chamber she me led, And with a mantle she me cled; It was of purpur fair and fine, And the pane of rich ermine; Al the folk war went us fra, And there was none than both we twa; She served me hendely to hend, Her manners might no man amend; Of tong she was true and renable, And of her semblant soft and stabile.

Fullfain I would, if that I might, Have woned[228] with that sweet wight: And when we sold go to sopere That lady with a lufforn chere, Led me down into the hall, That war we served wele at all."[229]

[Sidenote: Character of woman in the eyes of a knight.]

A soldier of chivalry would go to battle, proud of the t.i.tle, a pursuivant of love[230], and in the contests of chivalric skill, which, like the battles of Homer's heroes, gave brilliancy and splendour to war, a knight challenged another to joust with a lance for love of the ladies; and he commended himself to the mistress of his heart for protection and a.s.sistance. In his mind woman was a being of mystic power; in the forests of Germany her voice had been listened to like that of the spirit of the woods, melodious, solemn, and oracular; and when chivalry was formed into a system, the same idea of something supernaturally powerful in her character threw a shadowy and serious interest over softer feelings, and she was revered as well as loved. While this devotedness of soul to woman's charms appeared in his general intercourse with the s.e.x, in a demeanor of homage, in a grave and stately politeness, his lady-love he regarded with religious constancy. Fickleness would have been a species of impiety, for she was not a toy that he played with, but a divinity whom he worshipped. This adoration of her sustained him through all the perils that lay before his reaching his heart's desire; and loyalty (a word that has lost its pristine and n.o.ble meaning) was the choicest quality in the character of the preux chevalier.

[Sidenote: Peculiar nature of his love.]

It was supported, too, by the state of the world he lived in. He fought the battles of his country and his church, and he travelled to foreign lands as a pilgrim, or a crusader, for such were the calls of his chivalry. To be the first in the charge and the last in the retreat was the counsel which one knight gave to another, on being asked the surest means of winning a lady fair. Love was the crowning grace, the guerdon of his toils, and its gentle influence aided him in discharging the duties of his gallant and solemn profession. The lady Isabella, daughter of the Earl of Jullyers, loved the lord Eustace Damberticourt for the great n.o.bleness of arms that she had heard reported of him; and her messengers often carried to him letters of love, whereby her n.o.ble paramour was the more hardy in his deeds of arms.[231] "I should have loved him better dead than alive," another damsel exclaimed, on hearing that her knight had survived his honour.

[Sidenote: Qualities in knights admired by women.]

[Sidenote: A tale of chivalric love.]

No wonder that in those ages of violence bravery was the manly quality, dear, above all others, in woman's eyes. Its possession atoned for want of every personal grace; and the damsel who, on being reproached for loving an ugly man, replied, "he is so valiant I have never looked in his face,"

apologised for her pa.s.sion in a manner that every woman of her time could sympathise with. As proficiency in chivalric exercises was the only distinction of the age, it would have been contrary to its spirit and laws for a gentle maiden to have loved any other than a knight who had achieved high deeds of arms. The advancement of his fame was, therefore, among the dearest wishes of her heart, and she fanned his love of n.o.ble enterprise in order to speed the hour of their union. The poets and romance-writers of the days of chivalry bear ample testimony to the existence of this state of feeling, and to the perils which brave men underwent to gain fair ladies' smiles; but all their tales must yield in pathos to the following simple historical fact:--When the Scots were endeavouring to throw off the yoke which Edward I. had imposed on them, the recovery of the castle of Douglas was the unceasing effort of the good Lord James. It was often lost and won; for if the vigilance of the English garrison relaxed for a moment, the Scots, who lived in the neighbourhood, and were ever on the watch, aided their feudal lord in regaining the fortress, which, however, he could not maintain long against the numerous chivalry of England. The possession of this castle seemed to be held by so perilous a tenure, that it excited the n.o.blest aspirations for fame in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the English; and a fair maiden, perplexed by the number of knights who were in suit of her, vowed she would bestow her hand upon him who preserved the adventurous or hazardous castle of Douglas for a year and a day. Sir John Walton boldly and gladly undertook the emprise, and right gallantly he held possession of the fortress for some months. At length he was slain in a sally which Douglas provoked him to make. On his person was found a letter which he had lately received from his lady-love, commending his n.o.ble chevisance, declaring that her heart was now his, and praying him to return to her forthwith, without exposing himself to further peril. The good Lord James of Douglas grieved when he read this letter, and it was generous and gallant of him to lament that a brother knight should be slain when his fairest hopes of happiness seemed on the point of being realised.[232]

[Sidenote: Constancy.]

The loves of chivalric times must often have been shaded with gloom, and so convulsed was the state of Europe, so distant were its parts often thrown from each other, that the course of true love seldom ran smoothly, and affianced knights and damsels more frequently breathed the wish of annihilating time and s.p.a.ce than is necessary in the happier monotony of modern times. In almost every case of attachment absence was unavoidable, and constancy, therefore, became a necessary virtue of love in chivalry.

"Young knight whatever, that dost arms profess, And through long labours huntest after fame, Beware of fraud, beware of fickleness, In choice, and change, of thy dear loved dame; Least thou of her believe too lightly blame, And rash misweening do thy heart remove; For unto knight there is no greater shame Than lightness and inconstancy in love."[233]

His mistress was ever present to his imagination, and he felt there would be a witness to his disloyalty. Even if he could dismiss her picture from his mind, his own sense of honour preserved his virtue, and the reply of a knight to a beautiful temptress, that though his sovereign-lady might never know of his conduct, yet his heart, which was constantly near her, could not be ignorant, was conceived in the purest spirit of chivalry.

[Sidenote: Absence of jealousy.]

The troubadours, who were the teachers of the art of love, refined upon this respectful pa.s.sion of the knight in a very amusing manner. They were wont to affirm, that though a knight saw cause for jealousy, yet if his lady-love were to deny the circ.u.mstances, he was to reply that he was convinced of the verity of her a.s.sertions; but he really did believe he had witnessed such and such matters.[234]

[Sidenote: Knights a.s.serted by arms their mistress' beauty.]

Chivalric love had, indeed, its absurdities as well as its impieties. It was a pleasing caricature of chivalry, when the knight of La Mancha stationed himself in the middle of a high road, and calling to the merchants of Toledo, who were bound to the silk fairs at Murcia, forbad them to pa.s.s, unless they acknowledged that there was not in the universe a more beautiful damsel than the empress of La Mancha, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso. For the knights of chivalry were not satisfied to fight in defence of the ladies, and to joust in their honour, but from the extravagancy of their love, each knight maintained at the point of his lance, that his mistress surpa.s.sed all other ladies in beauty.[235] The knight Jehan de Saintre (whose education in chivalry has been already described by me) vowed to wear a helmet of a particular shape, and to visit, during three years, the courts of Europe, maintaining against all their chivalry the beauty of his mistress. Four knights and five squires, who had made a similar vow, were his companions. At a tournament held by the Emperor of Germany, the n.o.ble undertaking was held to be accomplished, and the emblems of the emprise were unchained from the left shoulder of the gallant knights and squires.[236] Indeed, wherever a knight went, to court or to camp, he a.s.serted the superiority of his lady and his love, but he hurled his defiances not against simple merchants, as our right worshipful knight Don Quixote did, but against persons of his own rank, who were in amours as well as himself. Instances of this chivalric disposition occur frequently in chivalric history: but Cervantes caricatured the romances, and not the sober chronicles of chivalry, when, in reply to the natural enquiry of one of the merchants regarding the beauty of the lady, he made his hero exclaim, "Had I once shown you that beauty, what wonder would it be to acknowledge so notorious a truth? the importance of the thing lies in obliging you to believe it, confess it, affirm it, swear it, and maintain it, without seeing her." But the display of chivalric bravery in avowal of woman's beauty proceeded from so n.o.ble a feeling, that it must not be censured or satirised too severely, for

"Who is the owner of a treasure Above all value, but, without offence, May glory in the glad possession of it?"

[Sidenote: Penitents of love.]

As history, however, should be a record, and not a panegyric, I proceed to observe, that the most marked display of the extravagancies of our knights took place in the courts of love; but as I have dilated on that topic in another work, I am precluded of treating the subject here, and it is the tritest of all the subjects of chivalry. Equally ridiculous among the amatory phrenzies of the middle ages was the society of the penitents of love, formed by some ladies and gentlemen in Poictou, at the beginning of the fourteenth century. They opposed themselves to nature in every thing, on the principle that love can effect the strangest metamorphoses. During the hottest months of summer, they covered themselves with mantles lined with fur, and in their houses they sat before large fires. When winter came they affected to be burning with the fires of love, and a dress of the slightest texture wrapt their limbs. This society did not endure long, nor was its example pernicious. A few enthusiasts perished, and reason then resumed her empire.[237]

[Sidenote: Other peculiarities of chivalric love.]

The knight was as zealous in the gentle as in the more solemn affections of the soul. He believed that both G.o.d and love hated hard and hypocritical hearts. In a bolder strain of irreverence he thought that both G.o.d and love could be softened by prayer, and that he who served both with fidelity would secure to himself happiness in this life and the joys of Paradise hereafter. On other occasions the gallant spirit of chivalry spoke more rationally. Love, according to one renowned knight, is the chaste union of two hearts, which, attached by virtue, live for the promotion of happiness, having only one soul and one will in common.

"Liege lady mine! (Gruelan thus return'd,) With love's bright fires this bosom ne'er hath burn'd.

Love's sovereign lore, mysterious and refined, Is the pure confluence of immortal mind; Chaste union of two hearts by virtue wrought, Where each seems either in word, deed, and thought, Each singly to itself no more remains, But one will guides, one common soul sustains."[238]

[Sidenote: The pa.s.sion universal.]

[Sidenote: Story of Aristotle.]

So prevailing was amatory enthusiasm, that not only did poets fancy themselves inspired by love, but learned clerks were its subjects, and in spite of its supposed divinity some natural satire fell upon the scholar who yielded to its fascination. In Gower's Confessio Amantis, the omnipotence of love is strikingly displayed; for besides those whom we might expect to see at the feet of the G.o.ddess, we are presented with Plato and Socrates, and even him who was the object of veneration bordering on idolatry in the ages which we in courtesy to ourselves call dark. Gower, the moral Gower, says with some humour,

"I saw there Aristotle also, Whom that the queen of Greece also Hath bridled, that in thilke time She made him such a syllogisme That he forgot all his logike."

The story whereon this sentence was founded was among the most popular of the times. The delights of love had made Alexander pause in the career of ambition. His host of knights and barons were discontented at the change, and Aristotle, as the tutor and guardian of his youthful course, endeavoured to rouse anew the spirit of the hero. The prince attempted no lengthened reply to this appeal to his chivalry;

"Sighing, alone he cried, as inly mov'd, Alas! these men, meseems, have never lov'd."

The grave saws of the sage took root, however, in Alexander's heart, and he absented himself from his mistress. She wailed her fate for some time in solitude, but at length a.s.sured that it was not the mere capriciousness of pa.s.sion which kept him from her, she forced herself into the presence of her lord. Her beauty smiled away all dreams of glory from his mind, and in the fondness of his love he accused Aristotle of breaking in upon his joy. But the dominion of his pa.s.sion was only momentary, and recovering the martial tone of his soul, he declared the sad necessity of their parting. She then requested a brief delay, promising to convince the king that his tutor's counsel derived no additional recommendation from his practice, for that he stood in need of as much instruction as Alexander himself. Accordingly, with the first appearance of the next morning, the damsel repaired to the lawn before the chamber where Aristotle lay. As she approached the cas.e.m.e.nt, she broke the stillness of the air by chanting a love ditty, and the sweetness of her wild notes charmed the philosopher from his studious page. He softly stole to the window, and beheld a form far fairer than any image of truth which his fancy had just previously been conceiving. Her face was not shrouded by vail or wimple, her long flaxen tresses strayed negligently down her neck, and her dress, like drapery on an antient statue, displayed the beauty of a well-turned limb.

She loitered about the place on pretence of gathering a branch of a myrtle-tree, and winding it round her forehead. When her confidence in her beauty a.s.sured her that Aristotle was mad for her love, she stole underneath the cas.e.m.e.nt, and, in a voice checked by sighs, she sang that love detained her there. Aristotle drank the delicious sounds, and gazing again, her charms appeared more resplendent than before. Reason faintly whispered that he was not born to be loved, and that his hair was now white with age, his forehead wrinkled with study; but pa.s.sion and vanity drove away these faint remonstrances, and Aristotle was a sage no more.

The damsel carelessly pa.s.sed his window, and in the delirium of his love he caught the floating folds of her robe. She affected anger, and he avowed his pa.s.sion. She listened to his confession with a surprize of manner that fanned his flame, and she answered him by complaining of the late coldness of Alexander. The greybeard, not caring for a return of love, so that she accepted his suit, promised to bring his pupil to her feet, if she would but confer some sign of favour upon himself. She feigned an intention of compliance, but declared that, before she yielded, she must be indulged in a foolish whim which long had distracted her fancy. Aristotle then renewed his professions of devoted love, and she in sentences, broken by exclamations of apparent shame at her folly, vowed that she was dying to mount and ride upon the back of a wise man. He was now so pa.s.sionately in love, that the fancies of his mistress appeared divinest wisdom to his mind, and he immediately threw himself along the ground in a crawling att.i.tude. She seated herself in a gorgeous saddle which she placed on his back, and, throwing a rein round his neck, she urged him to proceed. In a few moments they reached the terrace under the royal apartments, and the king beheld the singular spectacle. A peal of laughter from the windows awoke the philosopher to a sense of his state, and when he saw his pupil he owned that youth might well yield to love, as it had power to break even the frost of age.

Such was the lay of Aristotle which the wandering minstrel chanted in the baronial hall, and the damsel in her lady's bower, and the pleasing moral of the fable was not more sincerely echoed by the shouts of the gallant knights and squires than by the broken sighs of beauty.

"Mark ye, who hear me, that no blameful shade Be thrown henceforth on gallant or on maid.

For here, by grave example taught, we find That mighty love is master of mankind.

Love conquers all, and love shall conquer still, Last the round world how long soe'er it will."[239]