The History of Chivalry Volume I Part 9

"Ne is there hawk which mantleth her on perch, Whether high towering or accosting low, But I the measure of her flight do search, And all her prey and all her diet know."

These amus.e.m.e.nts of every-day life were always mingling themselves with the humanities of war. Edward III., when in France, in the year 1359, was attended by sixty couple of dogs, and by thirty falconers, on horseback, carrying birds. Various barons in the army had their dogs and birds with them, like the king. During the reign of Richard II., when the Duke of Lancaster was in France and Spain, many ladies accompanied the army, for the objects of the expedition were not altogether military; pleasure was as much the occupation as affairs of moment, and for the s.p.a.ce of a month or more the Duke lay at Cologne, and removed not, except it were hunting or hawking; for the Duke and other lords of England had brought with them hawks and hounds for their own sport, and sparrow-hawks for the ladies.[182]

[Sidenote: Chess-playing.]

To play the game of chess, to hear the minstrel's lays, and read romances, were the princ.i.p.al amus.e.m.e.nts of the knight when the season and the weather did not permit hawking and hunting. A true knight was a chess-player, and the game was played in every country of chivalry; for as the chivalric states of midland Europe obtained a knowledge of it from the Scandinavians, so the southern states acquired it from the Arabs.

"When they had dined, as I you say, Lords and ladies went to play; Some to tables, and some to chess, With other games more and less."[183]

[Sidenote: Story of knights' love of chess.]

The fondness of our ancestors for the game of chess appears by the frequent mention of the amus.e.m.e.nt in the ancient romances. Sometimes a lover procured admittance to the place where his mistress was confined, by permitting the jailor to win from him a game at chess. Again, the minstrels in the baronial hall, spread over their subject all the riches of their imagination. They were wont to fancy the enchanted castle of a beautiful fairy, who challenged a n.o.ble knight to play with her at chess.

Flags of white and black marble formed the chequer, and the pieces consisted of ma.s.sive statues of gold and silver, which moved at the touch of a magic wand held by the player. Such fables show the state of manners: but a curious story remains on historical record, which displays the practical consequences of chess-playing. During part of the reign of our Edward III. the town and castle of Evreux were French. A n.o.ble knight of the neighbourhood, named Sir William Graville, who was secretly attached to the English side, thought he could win the place, and he formed his scheme on his knowledge of the governor's character. He first gained some friends among the burgesses, who were not very strongly attached to the French cause. As he had not declared himself the friend of either party, he was permitted to walk in whatever quarters of the city he chose, and one day he loitered before the gate of the castle till he attracted the attention of the governor. They saluted each other, and conversed awhile on the topics of the season. Sir William found his auditor credulous to every tale, till, when he had told one of wondrous improbability, the governor demanded his authority. "Sir," replied the knight of Graville, "a cavalier of Flanders wrote this to me on the pledge of his honour, and sent with the letter the goodliest chess-men I ever saw."

The governor dropped all care for the story at the mention of chess-men, and he anxiously desired to see them.

"I will send for them," said Sir William, "on condition that you will play a game with me for the wine."

The governor a.s.sented, and Sir William desired his squire to fetch the chess-men and bring them to the gate.

The two knights then pa.s.sed through two wickets into the castle yard; and while the stranger was viewing the edifice, his faithful squire ran at speed to the burgesses' houses, and summoned them to arms. They soon donned their harness and repaired with him to the castle gate, where, agreeably to a concerted scheme, he sounded a horn.

When Sir William heard it, he said to the governor, "Let us go out of the second gate, for the chess-men are arrived." Sir William pa.s.sed the wicket, and remained without. In following him the governor stooped and put out his head. Sir William drew a small battle-axe from under his cloak, and therewith smote to death his defenceless foe. He then opened the first gate, the burgesses entered in numerous and gallant array, and incontinently the castle was taken.[184]

[Sidenote: Minstrelsy.]

The minstrel's lay, the poetry of the troubadour, the romance of the learned clerk, all spoke of war and love, of the duties and sports of chivalry. Every baronial knight had his gay troop of minstrels that accompanied him to the field, and afterwards chaunted in his hall, whether in their own or another's verse, the martial deeds which had renowned his house. A branch of the minstrelsy art consisted of reciting tales; and such persons as practised it were called jesters.

"I warn you first at the beginning, That I will make no vain carping Of deeds of arms nor of amours As do minstrelles and jestours, That make carping in many a place Of Octoviane and Isembrase, And of many other jestes, And namely when they come to festes; Nor of the life of Bevis of Hampton, That was a knight of great renown; Nor of Sir Guy of Warwick, All if it might some men like."[185]

Minstrels played on various musical instruments during dinner, and chaunted or recited their verses and tales afterwards both in the hall, and in the chamber to which the barons and knights retired for amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Before the king he set him down, And took his harp of merry soun, And, as he full well can, Many merry notes he began.

The king beheld, and sat full still, To hear his harping he had good will.

When he left off his harping, To him said that rich king, Minstrel, me liketh well thy glee, What thing that thou ask of me Largely I will thee pay; Therefore ask now and asay."[186]

A minstrel's lay generally accompanied the wine and spices which concluded the entertainment.[187] Kings and queens had their trains of songsters, and partly from humour and partly from contempt, the head of the band was called king of the minstrels.[188] But men of the first quality, particularly the younger sons and brothers of great houses, followed the profession of minstrelsy, and no wonder, if it be true that they gained the guerdon without having encountered the dangers of war; for many a doughty knight complained that the smiles for which he had perilled himself in the battle field were bestowed upon some idle son of peace at home. The person of a minstrel was sacred, and base and barbarian the man would have been accounted, who did not venerate him that sang the heroic and the tender lay, the magic strains of chivalry, and could shed a romantic l.u.s.tre over fierce wars and faithful loves.

"In days of yore how fortunately fared The minstrel! wandering on from hall to hall, Baronial court or royal; cheered with gifts Munificent, and love, and ladies' praise: Now meeting on his road an armed knight, Now resting with a pilgrim by the side Of a clear brook: beneath an abbey's roof One evening sumptuously lodg'd; the next Humbly, in a religious hospital; Or with some merry outlaws of the wood; Or haply shrouded in a hermit's cell.

Him, sleeping or awake, the robber spared; He walk'd--protected from the sword of war By virtue of that sacred instrument His harp, suspended at the traveller's side; His dear companion wheresoe'er he went, Opening from land to land an easy way By melody, and by the charm of verse."[189]

Every page of early European history attests the sacred consideration of the minstrel, and the romances are full of stories, which at least our imagination can credit, of many a knight telling his soft tale in the dress of a love-singing poet. That dress had another claim to respect, for it was fashioned like a sacerdotal robe, as we learn from the story of two itinerant priests gaining admittance to a monastery, on the supposition of their being minstrels; but as soon as the fraud was discovered the poor ecclesiastics were beaten and driven from the monastery by their happier brethren.[190] The minstrel also was often arrayed in a dress of splendour, given to him by a baron in a moment of joyous generosity. The Earl of Foix, after a great festival, gave to heralds and minstrels the sum of five hundred franks; and he gave to the minstrels of his guest, the Duke of Tourrain, gowns of cloth of gold, furred with ermine, valued at two hundred franks.[191]

[Sidenote: Romances.]

There were other cla.s.ses of poets in days of chivalry, who, under the names of troubadours, trouveurs, and minnesingers, were spread over all chivalric countries, and sang the qualities by which a knight could render himself agreeable to his mistress. The board of a baron was sometimes enlivened by a tenson, or dialogue in verse, on the comparative merits of love and war; and the argument was often supported by warmer feelings than those which could influence a hireling rhymer, for the harp of the troubadour was borne by kings, and lords, and knights. The romances, or poems longer than the minstrels' or troubadour lay, were also faithful ministers of chivalry. All their heroes were advocates of the church, and enemies of the Saracens and pagans. The perilous adventures of the Gothic knights, their high honor, tender gallantry, and solemn superst.i.tion were all recorded in romances[192], and there was not a bay window in a baronial hall without its chivalric volume, with which knights and squires drove away the lazy hours of peace.

The fict.i.tious tales of Arthur and Charlemagne were the study and amus.e.m.e.nt of the warrior in his moments of ease, and even the few relics of cla.s.sical literature, which, after the Gothic storm, were cast on the sh.o.r.es of modern Europe, were fashioned anew by chivalry. The heroes of Troy were converted into knights, and Troilus and Cressida moved like a warrior and damsel of chivalric times. Indeed, as the tale of Troy Divine was occasioned by a lady, it blended very readily with the established fictions of the times. And the romancers, like the minstrels and troubadours, were highly favoured by the great, who knew that their actions, unless recorded by _clerc_, could have no duration, and therefore they often made handsome presents to authors in order to have their names recorded in never-dying histories.[193]

[Sidenote: Conversation.]

The conversation of knights, like their lives and literature, related only to love and war.

"Then were the tables taken all away, And every knight, and every gentle squire, Gan choose his dame with _basciomani_[194] gay, With whom he meant to make his sport and play,

Some fell to dance; some fell to hazardry; Some to make love; some to make merriment."

Every knight was welcome at another knight's castle, if it were only for the intelligence he could communicate regarding the deeds of arms that had been done in the countries which he had visited; and the great charm of the castle of the Earl of Foix, to the imagination of Froissart, was the goodly company of knights and squires of honor, pages and damsels, that he met in the hall, chamber, and court, going up and down, and talking of arms and amours.[195]

"After meat they went to play, All the people, as I you say; Some to chamber, and some to bower, And some to the high tower, And some in the hall stode, And spake what them thought G.o.de; Men that were of that cyte, Enquired of men of other contre."[196]

[Sidenote: Nature and forms of chivalric entertainments.]

Knights were wont, at these entertainments, to repose on couches, or sit on benches. The guests were placed two by two, and only one plate was allotted to each pair; for to eat on the same trencher or plate with any one was considered the strongest mark of friendship or love.[197] Peac.o.c.ks and pheasants were the peculiar food of knights on great and festival occasions; they were said to be the nutriment of lovers, and the viand of worthies. The peac.o.c.k was as much esteemed in chivalric as in cla.s.sic times; and as Jupiter clothed himself with a robe made of that bird's feathers, so Pope Paul, sending to King Pepin a sword, in sign of true regard, accompanied it with a mantle ornamented with a peac.o.c.k's plumes.

The highest honours were conferred on these birds; for knights a.s.sociated them with all their ideas of fame, and vowed by the peac.o.c.k, as well as by the ladies, to perform their highest enterprises. A graceful splendour often characterised the circ.u.mstances in which the vow of the pheasant or peac.o.c.k was made.

On a day of public festival, and between the courses of the repast, a troop of ladies brought into the a.s.sembly a peac.o.c.k, or a pheasant, roasted in its feathers, in a golden or silver dish.[198] The hall was adorned with scenes, and wooden or other semblances of men, animals, or nature, all being expressive of the object for which the vow of the peac.o.c.k was to be taken. If the promotion of religious wars was in view, a matron, clad in habiliments of woe, entered the room, and, approaching the dais, or lofty seat, which the chief lords and knights surrounded, she recited a long complaint, in verse, on the evils she suffered under the yoke of infidels, and complained of the tardiness of Europe in attempting her deliverance. Some knights then advanced, to the sound of solemn minstrelsy, to the lord of the castle, and presented two ladies, who bore between them the n.o.ble bird, in its splendid dish. In a brief speech the ladies recommended themselves to his protection. The lord promised to make war upon the infidels, and sanctioned his resolution by appealing to G.o.d and the Virgin Mary, the ladies and the peac.o.c.k. All the knights who were in the hall drew their swords and repeated the vow; and, while bright falchions and ladies' eyes illumined the scene, each knight, inflamed by thoughts of war and love, added some new difficulty to the enterprise, or bound himself, by grievous penalties, to achieve it. Sometimes a knight vowed that he would be the first to enter the enemy's territory. Others vowed that they would not sleep in beds, nor eat off a cloth, nor drink wine, till they had been delivered of their emprise. The dish was then placed upon the table, and the lord of the festival deputed some renowned knight to carve it in such a manner that every guest might taste the bird.

While he was exercising his talents of carving and subdivision, a lady, dressed in white, came to thank the a.s.sembly, presenting twelve damsels, each conducted by a cavalier. These twelve represented, by emblematical dresses, Faith, Charity, Justice, Reason, Prudence, Temperance, Strength, Generosity, Mercy, Diligence, Hope, and Courage. This bevy of bright damsels trooped round the hall, amidst the applauses of the a.s.sembly, and then the repast proceeded.[199]

These were the military, the religious, and the social qualities of a preux chevalier. The gentler feelings of his heart will be best delineated in the next chapter; and, as we have seen him adventurous and imaginative, so we shall find him amorous and true.[200]

CHAP. V.

DAMES AND DAMSELS, AND LADY-LOVE.

_Courtesy ... Education ... Music ... Graver Sciences ... Dress ...

Knowledge of Medicine ... Every-day Life of the Maiden ... Chivalric Love ... The Idolatry of the Knight's Pa.s.sion ... Bravery inspired by Love ... Character of Woman in the Eyes of a Knight ... Peculiar Nature of his Love ... Qualities of Knights admired by Women ... A Tale of chivalric Love ... Constancy ... Absence of Jealousy ...

Knights a.s.serted by Arms their Mistress's Beauty ... Penitents of Love ... Other Peculiarities of chivalric Love ... The Pa.s.sion universal ... Story of Aristotle ... Chivalric Love the Foe to feudal Distinctions ... But preserved Religion ... When Attachments were formed ... Societies of Knights for the Defence of Ladies ... Knights of the Lady in the Green Field ... Customs in England ... Unchivalric to take Women Prisoners ... Morals of chivalric Times ... Heroines of Chivalry ... Queen Philippa ... The Countess of March ... Tales of Jane of Mountfort and of Marzia degl' Ubaldini ... n.o.bleness of the chivalric Female Character._

[Sidenote: Courtesy.]

If we fancy the knight of chivalry as valiant, n.o.ble-minded, and gentle, our imagination pictures to our minds the lady of his love in colours equally fair and pleasing. But we must not lose her individuality in general expressions of admiration, for she had a distinct and peculiar character, which from the circ.u.mstances of her life can be accurately traced. The maiden of gentle birth was, like her brother, educated in the castle of some knight or baron, her father's friend, and many of her duties were those of personal attendance. As the young candidate for chivalric honours carved at table, handed the wines, and made the beds of his lord, so his sister's care was to dress her lady, to contribute by music and conversation to her amus.e.m.e.nt, and to form a part of her state retinue[201]: and while there was no loss of dignity in this description of service, the practice being universal and of immemorial antiquity, feelings of humility insensibly entered the mind, and a kind consideration for those of harder fortunes softened the severity of feudal pride. Thus a condescending deportment to inferiors was a duty which their moral instructors enforced. It was represented to them by the pleasing image of the sparrow-hawk, which, when called in gentle accents, would come and settle on her hand, but if, instead of being courteous, she were rude and cruel, he would remain on the rock's pinnacle heedless of her calls.

Courtesy from persons of superior consideration was the fair right of people of gentle birth though of small estate, for gentility was always to be respected, and to the poor man or woman it ought to be shown, because it gives pleasure to them, and reflects honour on those who bestowed it. A lady once in company of knights and ladies took off her hood and humbled herself courteously unto a mechanic. One of her friends exclaimed in astonishment, "Why, n.o.ble dame, you have taken off your hood to a tailor."--"Yes," she replied, "and I would rather have doffed it to him than to a gentleman:" and her courteous friends reputed that she had done right well.[202]

[Sidenote: Education.]

[Sidenote: Music.]