Volume I Part 12 (1/2)
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 ma.s.ses to be said for the success of his love, and when the fervour of pa.s.sion for his mistress was crossed by religious awe, he declared that the part of his heart which G.o.d 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.
[Sidenote: Chivalric love the foe to feudal distinctions.]
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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sion, 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sion of Guy, her father's steward, till an angel in a dream commanded her to love him.[245]
[Sidenote: But preserved religion.]
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 a.s.sailed 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 a.s.sayed!
My false G.o.ds I will forsake, And Christendom for thy love take.'
'On that covenant,' said Sir Bevis than, 'I will thee love, fair Josyan!'”[247]
[Sidenote: When attachments were formed.]
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 pa.s.sion insensibly succeeded childish amus.e.m.e.nts. 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sion 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.”
[Sidenote: Societies of knights for defence of ladies.]
[Sidenote: Knights of the Lady in the Green Field.]
The rude state of society, which it was the n.o.ble 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 a.s.sociations 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 s.h.i.+elds of a fair lady in a green field, and their letters of arms, circulated throughout France, promised that they would a.s.sist all ladies and gentlewomen who were injured in their honours or fortunes.[249]
[Sidenote: Custom in England.]
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 n.o.bles and gentles in the time of Edward III.
”For every knight that loved chivalry, And would his thanks have a pa.s.sant 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 l.u.s.ty 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 l.u.s.ty sight for to see!_”[250]
And thus it continued in every age of chivalric history. n.o.ble knights of prowess were ever perilling themselves in the cause of woman. So late as the year 1425, when the t.i.tle 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d of St.
Pol, and Andre de Humieres appeared at Hesden with silver rings on their right arms, proclaiming the superior t.i.tle of Jacquiline.[251]