In that singular system of manners which we call chivalric, religion was a chief influential principle of action; but scarcely less consequence ought in truth to be given to another feeling apparently incompatible with it; and if Venus, in the Greek mythology, was called the universal cause, her empire seems not to have been less extensive in days of knighthood. A Latin poet, of no mean authority in such subjects, has described love as the sole employment of woman’s life, and of man’s only a part[221]; and Boccacio says, that he composed his tales for the solace of fair and noble ladies in love, who, confined within their melancholy chambers, had no other occupation, but perpetually to revolve in their minds the same consuming thoughts, rendered intolerable by shame and concealment: while man might hunt, hawk, fish, and had a thousand channels for his thoughts.

But the state of society at Rome was not similar to that in days of knighthood, and though Boccacio lived in those days, he describes the manners of commercial cities rather than of chivalric courts, of fair Florence and not of a frowning baronial castle. The ideas of God and of love were always blended in the heart of the true knight, and to be loving was as necessary as to be devout. Cervantes expresses the feelings of chivalry in the declaration of Don Quixote, that “a knight without a mistress was like a tree without either fruit or leaves, or a body without a soul.” A ship without a rudder, a horse without a bridle, were other illustrations of the prevailing sentiment, and more expressive of the characteristic of chivalric love, which assigned superiority to woman, which made her the directress of the thoughts, and inspirer of the courage of her chosen cavalier. “A knight may never be of prowess, but if he be a lover,” was the sentiment of Sir Tristram, a valiant peer of Arthur, and it was echoed by every gentle son of chivalry.[222] Not, indeed, that every knight felt this strength and purity of passion. Spenser has described four cavaliers, and each represents a large class.

“Druon’s delight was all for single life,
And unto ladie’s love would lend no leasure;
The more was Claribell engaged rife
With fervent flames, and loved out of measure:
So eke lov’d Blandamour, but yet at pleasure
Would change his liking, and new lemans prove:
But Paridell of love did make no threasure,
But lusted after all that did him move:
So diversely these four disposed were to love.”[223]

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 passion 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 title, 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]

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, assisted 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]

A soldier of chivalry would go to battle, proud of the title, 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 assistance. 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 sex, 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 noble meaning) was the choicest quality in the character of the preux chevalier.

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 nobleness of arms that she had heard reported of him; and her messengers often carried to him letters of love, whereby her noble 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.

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 passion 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 noble 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 noblest aspirations for fame in the breasts 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 noble 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]

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 space 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.

The troubadours, who were the teachers of the art of love, refined upon this respectful passion 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 circumstances, he was to reply that he was convinced of the verity of her assertions; but he really did believe he had witnessed such and such matters.[234]

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 pass, 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 surpassed all other ladies in beauty.[235] The knight Jehan de Saintré (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 noble 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 asserted 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 noble 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?”

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]

The knight was as zealous in the gentle as in the more solemn affections of the soul. He believed that both God and love hated hard and hypocritical hearts. In a bolder strain of irreverence he thought that both God 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! (Gruélan 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]

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 goddess, 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 assured that it was not the mere capriciousness of passion 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 passion 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 casement, 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 assured her that Aristotle was mad for her love, she stole underneath the casement, 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 passion and vanity drove away these faint remonstrances, and Aristotle was a sage no more. The damsel carelessly passed his window, and in the delirium of his love he caught the floating folds of her robe. She affected anger, and he avowed his passion. 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 passionately 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 attitude. 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]

It is singular to observe that in the north and in the south, in Germany and in Languedoc, the love of the cavalier bore the same character, the same blending of tender and devotional feelings. The troubadour burned tapers, and caused masses to be said for the success of his love, and when the fervour of passion for his mistress was crossed by religious awe, he declared that the part of his heart which God held was still under the superior dominion of his lady-love. The German knight wrote poems to the honour of the Virgin Mary and the damsel of his heart, and it is not always easy to distinguish to which of these persons his vows are addressed.[240] He adored the shadow, nay, the very neighbourhood of his mistress, and declared that nothing could induce him to violate his vow of fidelity. Here, however, the resemblance ceases, for the knights of France, England, and Spain were not more highly distinguished for chivalric courtesy, than the Germans were remarkable for ferocity and savageness.[241] Once, and once only, were there courts of love in Germany. They were established by Frederic Barbarossa, and they did not long survive their founder.

Chivalric love took delight in reconciling and joining the opposites of the world.[242] It was no cold and calculating principle; it abrogated the distinctions of wealth and rank, and many a knight, whose whole fortune lay in his prowess, gained the hand of high-born beauty. “How can I hope,” observed a young candidate for chivalry to a lady of high estate, “how can I hope to find a damsel of noble birth, who will return the affection of a knight that, ungraced by rank, has only his good sword to trust to?”—“And why should you not find her?” replied the lady; “are you not gently born? are you not a handsome youth? have you not eyes to gaze on her, ears to hear her, feet to move at her will, body and heart to accomplish loyally her commands? and, possessed of these qualities, can you doubt to adventure yourself in the service of a lady, however exalted her rank?”[243]

A squire of low degree often aspired to the hand of a king’s daughter:

“And I have seen that many a page
Have become men by marriage.”

The intenseness of passion, and the generousness of soul implied in this state of manners, were sternly opposed by feudal pride and tyranny; but chivalry could not always beat down the absurd distinctions of society. When the Countess of Vergy returned the passion of Sir Agolane, she was obliged to love in secret, lest the dignity of the court of Burgundy should be offended.[244] The maidens themselves sometimes sanctioned the prejudices of feudalism, in opposition to the generous feelings of chivalry and nature. Felice, daughter of Rahand, Earl of Warwick, disdained to return the passion of Guy, her father’s steward, till an angel in a dream commanded her to love him.[245]

Agreement in religious opinions was as necessary as sympathy of souls in the loves of chivalry; and many a story is related of a knight reposing in a lady’s chamber, where, instead of adoring the divinity of the place, he assailed her with a fierce invective against her religious creed.[246] On such occasions he forgot even his courtesy, and shamed his knighthood by calling her a heathen hound:

“I will not go one foot on ground
For to speak with an heathen hound;
Unchristen hounds I rede ye flee,
Or I your heart’s blood will see.”

But

“‘Mercy,’ she cried, ‘my lemman sweet!’—
(She fell down and ’gan to weep)—
‘Forgive me that I have mis-said,
I will that ye be well assayed!
My false gods I will forsake,
And Christendom for thy love take.’
‘On that covenant,’ said Sir Bevis than,
‘I will thee love, fair Josyan!’”[247]

The occasions which kindled the flame of love in the heart of the knight and the maiden of chivalry were various, and many of them well calculated to give rise to romantic and enthusiastic attachments. Sometimes the parties had been educated in the same castle, and passion insensibly succeeded childish amusements. The masque and the ball were often the theatre of love; but, above all other scenes, it spread its light over the brilliant tournament. Performed in honour and in view of the ladies, it was there that love exerted its mightiest power. She who gave the prize bestowed almost universally her heart upon the brave and skilful vanquisher, and many were the tears she shed, if she found that the knight had been proving his puissance only to win the heart of some other fair one. It often happened that the circumstances of life carried a young cavalier to a baronial castle, where he found more peril in the daughter’s fair looks than in the frowning battlements of her father. At the feast which welcomed the stranger, eyes mingled in love, and the suddenness of passion was always considered as the strongest proof of its purity and strength. The damsel might then avow her affection without any violation of maidenly shame; for generous, confiding love, reading another’s heart in its own, dreaded no petty triumphs of vanity from confessing its fondness. It often occurred that a knight, weary and wounded, was confided to the ministrations of woman’s tenderness; and Spenser, who had read the history as well as the romance of chivalry, tells us,

“O foolish physick, and unfruitful pain,
That heals up one, and makes another wound.”

The rude state of society, which it was the noble object of chivalry to soften, presented many occasions for the display of generous affections, and love was the grateful return of protection. A cavalier called the Knight of the Swan reinstated a lady in the possessions of which the Duke of Saxony had deprived her. Indignant that the throne, and not chivalry, should be regarded as the fountain of justice, knights sometimes formed themselves into associations for the express object of defending the rights of all ladies that required their aid. At one period (during the reign of Charles VI.) of great violence in France, the ladies and gentlewomen of the country laid before the king grievous complaints of their sufferings from powerful lords, and lamented that gallantry was so much degenerated, that no knights and squires had attempted to defend them. They appealed, therefore, to the king, as the fountain of justice, to afford them protection. This appeal roused the dormant chivalry of France; and the valiant knight and marshal, Boucicaut[248], whose skill as a jouster will be described anon, gathered round him twelve preux chevaliers, and the fraternity avowed themselves champions of oppressed dames and damsels. The gallantry of their object was proclaimed to the world by the device on their shields of a fair lady in a green field, and their letters of arms, circulated throughout France, promised that they would assist all ladies and gentlewomen who were injured in their honours or fortunes.[249]

The same generous feeling warmed the hearts of the English chivalry. We become acquainted with this feature of our ancient national character, not in dry monkish chronicles, but in the living page of one of our earliest and greatest poets. Chaucer makes all the persons of his dramatic tale speak agreeably to their rank and station in the world; and he puts into the mouth of his very perfect and gentle knight the following spirited description of the gallant feelings of English nobles and gentles in the time of Edward III.

“For every knight that loved chivalry,
And would his thanks have a passant name,
Hath prayed that he might be of that game,
And well was him that thereto chosen was!
For if there to-morrow such a case,
Ye knowen well that every lusty knight
That loveth par amour, and hath his might,
Were it in Engleland, or elsewhere,
They would, hir thanks, willen to be there.
To fight for a lady, a! benedicite,
It were a lusty sight for to see!”[250]

And thus it continued in every age of chivalric history. Noble knights of prowess were ever perilling themselves in the cause of woman. So late as the year 1425, when the title to certain territories in Hainault was contested between the English Duke of Gloucester and John of Brabant on behalf of the lady Jacquiline, those gallant cavaliers, the bastard of St. Pol, and André de Humieres appeared at Hesden with silver rings on their right arms, proclaiming the superior title of Jacquiline.[251]

These are a few of the historical facts, which shew that the ancient romancers did not paint from their imagination when they described gallant cavaliers wandering over the gloomy waste of feudal Europe, in order to redress wrongs and injuries, to relieve widows, and defend the honor of damsels. Sometimes a knight rode alone, and like the valorous Don Quixote left it to his horse’s discretion to go which way he pleased. In other cases they went in parties of three or four in quest of adventures. That they might surprise the enemy they sought for, they changed or disguised their armorial distinctions. A year and a day was the general term for enterprises of this nature; and at the conclusion they rendered to their sovereign mistresses an account of their adventures, and ingenuously confessed their faults and misfortunes.—But I find myself stepping into the regions of romance, which are not the province of this work. I return therefore, to the realities of chivalry, which are no less pleasing than its fictions.

The protection of widows and orphans, and all ladies of virtuous repute, was indeed the serious duty ever present to the imagination of a preux chevalier. The praiseworthy soldier was he who chose to fight for dames and damsels in preference to contending in vain-glorious frays, and with equal spirit it was thought that death was too slight a punishment for the man who could offer scathe or dishonour to, or deceive or wrong a gentle lady. From this generous consideration for woman proceeded the honorable maxim in chivalry, of its not being just or courteous to take ladies in war.[252] When a town was captured, the heralds of the conqueror proclaimed his will, that no violence nor displeasure should be done to any lady or gentlewoman. In the reign of Edward III. Caen fell into the hands of the English, and Sir Thomas Holland preserved many ladies, damsels, and nuns, from outrage worse than death. About the same time the castle of Poys was taken by the English, and two noble knights (one was the renowned Sir John Chandos) saved from violation two fair damsels, daughters of the Lord of Poys. The ladies were conducted into the presence of Edward, who, for his honor, made them good cheer, and caused them to be carried in safety to a town friendly to their family.[253] And the generous feelings of cavaliers for ladies were nobly requited. In the wars of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, the Emperor Conrad, as an offended sovereign, had refused all terms of capitulation to the garrison of Winnisberg; but as a courteous knight, he permitted the women to depart with such of their precious effects as they themselves could transport. The gates of the town were thrown open, and a long procession of matrons, each bearing a husband, or a father, or brother, on her shoulders, passed in safety through the applauding camp.[254]

Some writers have severely censured the morals of the chivalric æra, and according to them every species of licentiousness was practised by its dames and damsels. This opinion is as erroneous as the one which it superseded, that in the times we speak of every knight was brave, and every woman was chaste; an assertion bearing more liberality than truth on its face, considering that it refers to a period of seven or eight centuries, and that the objects of the panegyric were the largest part of the European world. For my part, I shall not, like the knight of La Mancha, challenge to a joust à l’outrance any discourteous cavalier who has the audacity to declare that Queen Madasima was scandalously familiar with a barber-surgeon; but I think that our imaginations do not altogether deceive us in painting the days of chivalry as days of feminine virtue.

If we regard the times in reference only to their baronial and feudal features, the view is deeply dyed with turpitude, and the romances, whence the denunciations against the ladies of forepast ages have been drawn, are not sparing in their pictures of licentiousness. But chivalry was the golden thread that ran through the middle ages, the corrective of vice, the personification of virtue. That it did not altogether succeed in colouring with its brightness the surrounding gloom is sufficiently true, and the times warranted the assertion of a character in Amadis de Gaul, that our country yields, as others do, both good and bad. The romances present us with instances of the profligacy of women, and so they also do of the baseness of knights: but as no one will contend that chivalry did not in general inspire its professors with sentiments of honour, so its virtuous influence cannot in fairness be denied to the maidens of its age. Let us not, as Spenser says, blame the whole sex for the fault of one.

“Fair ladies that to love captived are
And chaste desires do nourish in your mind,
Let not her fault your sweet affections mar;
Ne blot the bounty of all womankind,
’Mongst thousands good, one wanton dame to find:
Amongst the roses grow some wicked weeds:
For this was not to love, but lust, inclin’d;
For love doth always bring forth bounteous deeds,
And in each gentle heart desire of honour breeds.”[255]

The romance writers were satirists, but they had more humour than malignity. Every one of them introduces a magical test of feminine virtue, a drinking cup, a mantle or a girdle. This is harmless; and their general censure of women is without point; for they were for the most part men of profligate habits, and judged the other sex by the standard of their own vices.

“Safe her, I never any woman found
That chastity did for itself embrace
But were for other causes firm and sound;
Either for want of handsome time and place,
Or else for fear of shame and foul disgrace.”[256]

This is the burthen of all their declamations against women; and Spenser has shewn how little credit he gave to it, for he does not let it proceed from the mouth of any of his preux chevaliers, but from a wretched profligate, misnamed the squire of dames.[257]

However highly some enthusiastic minds may have coloured the manners of the chivalric ages, still it is unquestionable that the love of the knight was not the mere impulse of passion, but that the feeling was raised and refined by respect. Now, as nature is ever true to herself, as certain causes have had certain operations in all ages and in all countries, so this purity of love must have been followed by a corresponding correctness of morals. Women had every reason to retain and support the virtues of their nature; for it was only in behalf of those of fair reputation and honour, that the knight was compelled by his principles to draw his sword; all others were without the pale of chivalry; and although many instances can be found in the romances of feminine indiscretion, yet the princess in the celebrated romance of Tirante the White accurately describes the general feeling when she submits to lose all her claims on the noble chevisance of knights, if she failed in observing a promise of marriage which she had given to a gallant cavalier that loved her.

The knights, though courteous to the highest polish of refinement, were rigid and inflexible censors; and in those days as well as in these, each sex formed the character of the other.[258] The cavalier in travelling would write on the door of a castle where a dame of tarnished reputation resided, some sentence of infamy; and on the contrary, he would pause at the door of a lady of pure honour and salute her courteously. Even on solemn and public occasions distinctions were made between women in matters of ceremony. If any lady of sullied fame took precedence of a dame of bright virtue, a cavalier would advance and reverse the order, saying to her who was displaced, “Lady, be not offended that this lady precedes you, for although she is not so rich or well allied as you are, yet her fame has never been impeached.”[259] Here, therefore, chivalry vindicated its purity, and showed itself as the moral guide of the world. Its tendencies were beneficent; for Christianity was deeply infused into all its institutions and principles, and it not only spread abroad order and grace, but strung the tone of morals to actions of virtue.