The History of Chivalry Volume I Part 2

_Description in Romances of Knightly Education ... Hawking and Hunting ... Education commenced at the age of Seven ... Duties of the Page ...

Personal Service ... Love and Religion ... Martial Exercises ... The Squire ... His Duties of Personal Service ... Curious Story of a bold young Squire ... Various t.i.tles of Squires ... Duties of the Squire in Battle ... Gallantry ... Martial Exercises ... Horsemanship ...

Importance of Squires in the Battle Field ... Particularly at the Battle of Bovines ... Preparations for Knighthood ... The Anxiety of the Squire regarding the Character of the Knight from whom he was to receive the Accolade ... Knights made in the Battle Field ...

Inconveniences of this ... Knights of Mines ... General Ceremonies of Degradation ... Ceremonies in England._

[Sidenote: Description in Romances of knightly education.]

The romances of Chivalry, in their picturesque and expressive representation of manners, present us with many interesting glimpses of the education in knighthood of the feudal n.o.bility's children. The romance of Sir Tristrem sings thus;

"Now hath Rohant in ore[40], Tristrem, and is full blithe, The childe he set to lore, And lernd him al so swithe[41]; In bok while he was th.o.r.e He stodieth ever that st.i.the[42], Tho that bi him wore Of him weren ful blithe, That bold.

His craftes gan he kithe[43], Oyaines[44] hem when he wold.

"Fiftene yere he gan him fede, Sir Rohant the trewe; He taught him ich alede[45]

Of ich maner of glewe;[46]

And everich playing thede, Old lawes and newe.

On hunting oft he yede[47], To swich alawe he drewe, Al thus; More he couthe[48] of veneri Than couthe Manerious."

Very similar to this picture is the description of the education of Kyng Horn, in the romance which bears his name.

"Stiward tac thou here, My fundling for to lere Of thine mestere, Of wode and of ryvere, Ant toggen o' the harpe, With is nayles sharpe; Ant tech him alle the listes That thou ever wystes Byfore me to kerven, Ant of my coupe to serven; Ant his feren devyse With ous other servise.

Horn, child, thou understand Tech him of harpe and of song."[49]

For only one more extract from the old romances, shall I claim the indulgence of my readers in the words of the minstrel,

"Mekely, lordynges gentyll and fre, Lysten awhile and herken to me."

The life of Sir Ipomydon is a finished picture of knightly history. His foster-father, Sir Tholomew,

----"a clerk he toke That taught the child upon the boke Bothe to synge and to rede, And after he taught him other dede.

Afterwards to serve in halle, Both to grete and to small.

Before the king meat to kerve Hye and low feyre to serve.

Both of houndis and hawkis game, After he taught him all and same, In se, in field, and eke in river, In wood to chase the wild deer; And in the field to ride a steed, That all men had joy of his deed."

[Sidenote: Hunting and Hawking.]

The mystery of rivers and the mystery of woods were important parts of knightly education. The mystery of woods was hunting; the mystery of rivers was not fishing, but hawking, an expression which requires a few words of explanation. In hawking, the pursuit of water-fowls afforded most diversion. Chaucer says that he could

"ryde on hawking by the river, With grey gos hawk on hand."

The favourite bird of chase was the heron, whose peculiar flight is not horizontal, like that of field birds, but perpendicular. It is wont to rise to a great height on finding itself the object of pursuit, while its enemy, using equal efforts to out-tower it, at length gains the advantage, swoops upon the heron with prodigious force, and strikes it to the ground.

The amus.e.m.e.nt of hawking, therefore, could be viewed without the spectators moving far from the river's side where the game was sprung; and from that circ.u.mstance it was called the mystery of rivers.[50]

But I shall attempt no further to describe in separate portions the subjects of knightly education, and to fill up the sketches of the old romances; for those sketches, though correct, present no complete outline, and the military exercises are altogether omitted. We had better trace the cavalier, through the gradations of his course, in the castle of his lord.

The education of a knight generally commenced at the age of seven or eight years[51], for no true lover of chivalry wished his children to pa.s.s their time in idleness and indulgence. At a baronial feast, a lady in the full glow of maternal pride pointed to her offspring, and demanded of her husband whether he did not bless Heaven for having given him four such fine and promising boys. "Dame," replied her lord, thinking her observation ill timed and foolish, "so help me G.o.d and Saint Martin, nothing gives me greater sorrow and shame than to see four great sluggards who do nothing but eat, and drink, and waste their time in idleness and folly." Like other children of gentle birth, therefore, the boys of this n.o.ble Duke Guerin of Montglaive, in spite of their mother's wishes, commenced their chivalric exercises.[52] In some places there were schools appointed by the n.o.bles of the country, but most frequently their own castles served. Every feudal lord had his court, to which he drew the sons and daughters of the poorer gentry of his domains; and his castle was also frequented by the children of men of equal rank with himself, for (such was the modesty and courtesy of chivalry) each knight had generally some brother in arms, whom he thought better fitted than himself to grace his children with n.o.ble accomplishments.

[Sidenote: Duties of the Page.]

[Sidenote: Personal Service.]

The duties of the boy for the first seven years of his service were chiefly personal. If sometimes the harsh principles of feudal subordination gave rise to such service, it oftener proceeded from the friendly relations of life; and as in the latter case it was voluntary, there was no loss of honourable consideration in performing it. The dignity of obedience, that principle which blends the various shades of social life, and which had its origin in the patriarchal manners of early Europe, was now fostered in the castles of the feudal n.o.bility. The light-footed youth attended the lord and his lady in the hall, and followed them in all their exercises of war and pleasure; and it was considered unknightly for a cavalier to wound a page in battle. He also acquired the rudiments of those incongruous subjects, religion, love, and war, so strangely blended in chivalry; and generally the intellectual and moral education of the boy was given by the ladies of the court.

[Sidenote: Love and Religion.]

From the lips of the ladies the gentle page learned both his catechism and the art of love, and as the religion of the day was full of symbols, and addressed to the senses, so the other feature of his devotion was not to be nourished by abstract contemplation alone. He was directed to regard some one lady of the court as the type of his heart's future mistress; she was the centre of all his hopes and wishes; to her he was obedient, faithful, and courteous.

While the young Jean de Saintre was a page of honour at the court of the French king, the Dame des Belles Cousines enquired of him the name of the mistress of his heart's affections. The simple youth replied, that he loved his lady mother, and next to her, his sister Jacqueline was dear to him. "Young man," rejoined the lady, "I am not speaking of the affection due to your mother and sister; but I wish to know the name of the lady to whom you are attached _par amours_." The poor boy was still more confused, and he could only reply, that he loved no one _par amours_. The Dame des Belles Cousines charged him with being a traitor to the laws of chivalry, and declared that his craven spirit was evinced by such an avowal.

"Whence," she enquired, "sprang the valiancy and knightly feats of Launcelot, Gawain, Tristram, Giron the courteous, and other ornaments of the round table; of Ponthus, and of those knights and squires of this country whom I could enumerate: whence the grandeur of many whom I have known to arise to renown, except from the n.o.ble desire of maintaining themselves in the grace and esteem of the ladies; without which spirit-stirring sentiment they must have ever remained in the shades of obscurity? And do you, coward valet, presume to declare that you possess no sovereign lady, and desire to have none?"

Jean underwent a long scene of persecution on account of his confession of the want of proper chivalric sentiment, but he was at length restored to favour by the intercession of the ladies of the court. He then named as his mistress Matheline de Coucy, a child only ten years old. "Matheline is indeed a pretty girl," replied the Dame des Belles Cousines, "but what profit, what honour, what comfort, what aid, what council for advancing you in chivalrous fame can you derive from such a choice? You should elect a lady of n.o.ble blood, who has the ability to advise, and the power to a.s.sist you; and you should serve her so truly, and love her so loyally, as to compel her to acknowledge the honourable affection which you entertain for her. For, be a.s.sured, that there is no lady, however cruel and haughty she may be, but through long service, will be induced to acknowledge and reward loyal affection with some portion of mercy. By such a course you will gain the praise of worthy knighthood, and till then I would not give an apple for you or your achievements: but he who loyally serves his lady will not only be blessed to the height of man's felicity in this life, but will never fall into those sins which will prevent his happiness hereafter. Pride will be entirely effaced from the heart of him who endeavours by humility and courtesy to win the grace of a lady. The true faith of a lover will defend him from the other deadly sins of anger, envy, sloth, and gluttony; and his devotion to his mistress renders the thought impossible of his conduct ever being stained with the vice of incontinence."[53]

[Sidenote: Martial exercises.]

The military exercises of the page were not many, and they were only important, inasmuch as they were the earliest ideas of his life, and that consequently the habits of his character were formed on them. He was taught to leap over trenches, to launch or cast spears and darts, to sustain the shield, and in his walk to imitate the measured tread of the soldier. He fought with light staves against stakes raised for the nonce, as if they had been his mortal enemies, or met in encounters equally perilous his youthful companions of the castle.[54] During the seven years of these instructions he was called a valet, a damoiseau, or a page. The first t.i.tle was of the most ancient usage, and was thoroughly chivalric; the second is of nearly equal authority[55], but the word page was not much used till so late a period as the days of Philip de Comines.[56]

Before that time it was most frequently applied to the children of the vulgar.

[Sidenote: The squire.]

[Sidenote: His duties of personal service.]

The next t.i.tles of the candidate for chivalry were armiger, scutifer or escuyer: but though these words denoted personal military attendance, yet his personal domestic service continued for some time. He prepared the refection in the morning, and then betook himself to his chivalric exercises. At dinner he, as well as the pages, furnished forth and attended at the table, and presented to his lord and the guests the water wherewith they washed their hands before and after the repast. The knight and the squire never sat before the same table, nor was even the relation of father and son allowed to destroy this principle of chivalric subordination. We learn from Paulus Warnefridus, the historian of the Lombards in Italy, that among that nation the son of a king did not dine with his father, unless he had been knighted by a foreign sovereign.[57]

Such too was the practice among nations whose chivalry wore a brighter polish than it shone with among the Italian Lombards. In Arragon, no son of a knight sat at the table of a knight till he had been admitted into the order.[58] The young English squire in the time of Edward III. carved before his fader at the table; and again, in the Merchant's Tale, it is said,--

"All but a squire that hight Damian, That carft before the knight many a day."

[Sidenote: Curious story of a squire.]

And about the same time the sewers and cup-bearers of the Earl of Foix were his sons.[59] The squire cup-bearer was often as fine and spirited a character as his knight. Once, when Edward the Black Prince was sojourning in Bourdeaux, he entertained in his chamber many of his English lords. A squire brought wine into the room, and the prince, after he had drank, sent the cup to Sir John Chandos, selecting him as the first in honour, because he was constable of Acquitain. The knight drank, and by his command the squire bore the cup to the Earl of Oxenford, a vain, weak man, who, unworthy of greatness, was ever seeking for those poor trifles which n.o.ble knights overlooked and scorned. Feeling his dignity offended that he had not been treated according to his rank, he refused the cup, and with mocking gesture desired the squire to carry it to his master, Sir John Chandos. "Why so?" replied the youth, "he hath drank already, therefore drink you, since he hath offered it to you. If you will not drink, by Saint George, I will cast the wine in your face." The Earl, judging from the stern and dogged manner of the squire that this was no idle threat, quietly set the cup to his mouth.[60]

After dinner the squires prepared the chess tables or arranged the hall for minstrelsy and dancing. They partic.i.p.ated in all these amus.e.m.e.nts; and herein the difference between the squire and the mere domestic servant was shown. In strictness of propriety the squire's dress ought to have been brown, or any of those dark colours which our ancestors used to call '_sad_.' But the gay spirit of youth was loth to observe this rule.

"Embroudered was he, as it were a mede, Alle ful of freshe floures, white and rede."

His dress was never of the fine texture, nor so highly ornamented as that of the knight. The squires often made the beds of their lords, and the service of the day was concluded by their presenting them with the vin du coucher.

"Les lis firent le Escuier, Si coucha chacun son seignor."

[Sidenote: Various t.i.tles of squires.]

Personal service was considered so much the duty of a squire that his t.i.tle was always applied to some particular part of it. The squires of a lord had each his respective duties--one was the squire of the chamber, or the chamberlain; and another the carving squire. Every branch of the domestic arrangements of the castle was, under the charge of an aspirant to chivalry. Spenser, who has opened to us so many interesting views of chivalric manners, has admirably painted the domestic squire discharging some of his duties:--

"There fairly them receives a gentle squire, Of mild demeanour and rare courtesy, Right cleanly clad in comely sad attire; In word and deed that show'd great modesty, And knew his good to all of each degree, Hight reverence. He them with speeches meet, Does faire entreat, no courting nicety, But simple, true, and eke unfained sweet, As might become a squire so great persons to greet."[61]

[Sidenote: His duties in battle.]