The History of Chivalry Volume I Part 30

[314] The account of every tournament in our grave old chronicles warrants the sentence in the Romance of Perceforest, "Pris ne doit ne peult estre donne sans les _dames_; car pour elles sont toutes les prouesses fautes."

[315] This form of thanks prevailed also at the joust, as we learn from an account of one in the days of Edward IV. See Lansdowne MSS., British Museum, No. 285. art. 7.

[316] Ritterzeit und Ritterwesen, vol. i. p. 346.

[317] A tournament of this three-fold description took place at St. Denys, in the year 1389.

[318] The love of our ancestors for tournaments is evident in a curious pa.s.sage of an ancient satirical poem, which Strutt has thus rendered:

"If wealth, Sir Knight, perchance be thine, In tournaments you're bound to s.h.i.+ne; Refuse--and all the world will swear, You die not worth a rotten pear."

[319] Mr. Sharon Turner (History of England, vol. i. p. 144. 4to. edit.) says, that nothing could break the custom (of holding tournaments) but the increased civilisation of the age. This is a mistake, for tournaments increased in number as the world became more civilised. There were more tournaments in the fourteenth century than in the thirteenth, and even so late as the reign of Henry VIII. the whole of England seems to have been parcelled out into tilting grounds.

[320] "De his vero qui in torneamentis cadunt, nulla quaestio est, quin vadant ad inferos, si non fuerint adjuti beneficio contritionis." Du Cange on Joinville, Dissert. 6.

[321] Still more absurd is the story of Matthew Paris, that Roger de Toeny, a valiant knight, appeared after death to his brother Raoul, and thus addressed him: "Jam et paenas vidi malorum, et gaudio beatorum; nec non supplicia magna, quibus miser deputatus sum, oculis meis conspexi. Vae, vae mihi, quare unquam torneamenta exercui, et ea tanto studio dilexi?"

[322] Thus Lambert d'Ardres writes: "c.u.m omnino tunc temporis propter Dominici sepulchri peregrinationem in toto orbe, interdicta fuissent torneamenta." Du Cange, Diss. 6. on Joinville.

[323] Du Cange calls any combat between two knights preliminary to a general battle, a joust to the utterance. He might as well have called the battle itself a joust.

[324] The agreement was made in legal form, as we learn from Wyntown. Sir David de Lindsay had a safe-conduct for his purpose, and came to London with a retinue of twenty-eight persons,--

"Where he and all his company Was well arrayed, and daintily, And all purveyed at device.

There was his purpose to win prize: With the Lord of the Wellis he Thought til have done there a _journee_ (day's battle), For both they were by _certane taille_ Obliged to do there that deed, _sauf faillie_ (without fail)."

Macpherson says, that challenges of this sort were called tailles indentures, because they were bonds of which duplicates were made having indentures tailles answering to each other.

[325] Holingshed, History of Scotland, p. 252. ed. 1587. Wyntown's Cronykil of Scotland, book ix. c. 11. The Sir David de Lindsay, mentioned above is the knight of whom Sir Walter Scott tells an amusing story in his notes to Marmion, canto i. note 8.

[326] "Or verra l'on s'il y a nul d'entre vous Anglois, qui soit amoureux." Froissart, vol. ii. c. 55. Lyons's edit.

[327] Froissart, i. 345.

[328] Berners' Froissart, vol. i. c. 374.

[329] Froissart, vol. ii. c. 78.

[330] Some writers, confounding the joust with the duel, have said that bearded darts, poisoned needles, razors, and similar weapons, were lawful in the jousts. The instance to support this a.s.sertion is the challenge of the Duke of Orleans to Henry IV. of England, recorded by Monstrelet, vol.

i. c. 9., where the Duke declined to use them. But Orleans challenged Lancaster to a duel, and not to a chivalric joust.

[331] Segar, of Honor, lib. iii. c. 13.

[332] I do not know when exactly this truly chivalric circ.u.mstance occurred. The story is told in a ma.n.u.script, in the Lansdowne Collection, British Museum, No. 285. It is described as the challenge of an ancestor of the Earl of Warwick, and the MS. bears date in the days of Edward IV.

[333] Vous savez, et bien l'avez oui dire et recorder plusieurs fois, que les ebatemens des dames et damoiselles encouragent voulontiers les coeurs des jeunes gentils-hommes, et les elevent, en requerant et desirant tous honneur. Froissart, vol. iv. c. 6. ed. Lyons, 1560.

[334] "Ye may know well that Charles the French King was sore desirous to be at those jousts: he was young and light of spirit, and glad to see new things. It was shewed me that from the beginning to the ending he was there present, disguised as unknown, so that none knew him but the Lord of Garansyers, who came also with him as unknown, and every day returned to Marquise." Froissart, vol. i. c. 168.

[335] As the weather was bright, according to Froissart, I wonder he did not, in his fondness for detail, mention the number of barrels of water that were every evening poured on the dusty plain. On one occasion he says, "The knights complained of the dust, so that some of them said they lost their deeds by reason thereof. The King made provision for it: he ordained more than two hundred barrels of water that watered the place, whereby the ground was well amended, and yet the next day they had dust enough, and too much." vol. ii. p. 157.

[336] Du Cange (Dissertation 7. on Joinville) is incorrect in saying that a joust seldom terminated without some knights being slain, or very grievously wounded. The jousts at St. Ingilberte were on the most extensive scale, and nothing worse than a flesh-wound or a bruise from falling was felt, even by the most unskilful or unlucky knight. Froissart perpetually describes jousts of three courses with lances, three strokes with axes, three encounters both with swords and daggers; and generally concludes with saying, "And when all was done, there was none of them hurt." "You should have jousted more courteously," was the reproach of the spectators to a knight, when his lance had pierced the shoulder of the other jouster. Froissart, vol. ii. c. 161. Du Cange preserved no clear idea in his mind of the difference between the joust _a la plaisance_ and the joust _a l'outrance_, and most subsequent writers have only blindly followed him. I shall notice in this place another popular error on the subject of jousts. Mr. Strutt, (Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, book iii. c. 1.) and an hundred writers after him, a.s.sert that the authority of the ladies was more extensive in the joust than in the tournament. Mr. Strutt says, that "in the days of chivalry jousts were made in honor of the ladies, who presided as judges paramount over the sports." Now there are many jousts mentioned in Froissart and other chivalric historians that were held only in the presence of knights. But I can find no instance of a tournament being held without ladies. The joust was a martial exercise; but the tournament was connected with all the circ.u.mstances of domestic life.

[337] "Et si aimoit, par amour, jeune dame: dont en tous estats son affaire en valoit grandement mieux." Froissart, vol. iii. c. 12. edit.

Lyons, 1560.

[338] Froissart, vol. ii. c. 160. 162. 168. Memoires du Mareschal de Boucicaut, partie i. c. 17. The writer of those memoirs, a contemporary of Boucicaut's, in his zeal for his hero, gives all the honor to the French knights. Juvenal des Ursins (p. 83, &c.) is more modest, and he makes certain judges of the court compliment many of the knights for their valiancy.

[339] Most of these circ.u.mstances are unnoticed by our historians. I can pardon their unacquaintance with the Lansdowne ma.n.u.scripts, for those are but recently acquired national treasures: but every scholar is supposed to know the Biographia Britannica,--and in the article Caxton, some of the chivalric features of the joust in question are mentioned.

[340] A very amusing little volume might be made on the romance of flowers, on the tales which poetry and fancy have invented to a.s.sociate the affections and the mind with plants, thus adding the pleasures of the feelings and the imagination to those of the eye. The reader remembers the Love in Idleness, in Shakspeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. The Floure of Souvenance, the Forget-me-not, is an equally pleasing instance. The application of this name to the Myosotis Scorpioidis of botanists is of considerable antiquity: the story in the text proves that the plant with its romantic a.s.sociations was known in England as early as the days of our Edward IV. The following tale of the origin of the fanciful name has been communicated to me by my friend Anthony Todd Thomson, whose Lectures on the Elements of Botany, at once scientific and popular, profound and elegant, take a high place in the cla.s.s of our most valuable works.

"Two lovers were loitering on the margin of a lake, on a fine summer's evening, when the maiden espied some of the flowers of Myosotis growing on the water, close to the bank of an island, at some distance from the sh.o.r.e. She expressed a desire to possess them, when her knight, in the true spirit of chivalry, plunged into the water, and, swimming to the spot, cropped the wished-for plant, but his strength was unable to fulfil the object of his achievement, and feeling that he could not regain the sh.o.r.e, although very near it, he threw the flowers upon the bank, and casting a last affectionate look upon his lady-love, he cried, 'Forget-me-not,' and was buried in the waters."

"There are three varieties of the plant," Mr. Thomson adds; "the one to which the tradition of the name is attached is perennial, and grows in marshes and on the margins of lakes."

[341] The Lord Scales was a right good knight of wors.h.i.+p, in spite of the reflections on his courage which Edward IV. once threw out against him.

"The kyng hathe sayd of hym that even wyr he hathe most to do, then the Lord Scalys wyll soonest axe leve to depart, and the kyng weenyth that it is mist because of kowardyese." Paston Letters, vol. iv. p. 116.

[342] Rymer, Foedera, tom. ii. p. 573.

[343] Besides Holingshed, Stow, and other chroniclers, I have consulted for this very interesting joust a curious collection of contemporary doc.u.ments, among the Lansdowne ma.n.u.scripts (No. 285.) in the British Museum. The Chevalier de la Marche accompanied the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Burgundy to England, and his Memoirs furnish a few particulars not noticed by English writers. His account of the joust itself differs from that of our chroniclers, (whom I have followed,) for he makes all the advantage lie with his own knight. It is neither possible nor important to discover the truth. The spirit of the age which gave birth to the challenge and the general interest excited by the joust are the points that deserve to be marked. There is also much confusion regarding the dates of most of the circ.u.mstances, and I hold my readers in too much respect to enter into any arguments touching such trifling matters. Such few dates as are undoubted I have mentioned. Let me add Hawkins's conjecture (Origin of the English Drama, vol. iii. p. 91.), that the word _Burgullian_ or Burgonian meaning a bully, a braggadochio, was derived from this joust. This is by no means unlikely, observes Mr. Gifford, (note on Every Man in his Humour, act iv.

sc. 2.) for our ancestors, who were not over delicate, nor, generally speaking, much overburdened with respect for the feelings of foreigners, had a number of vituperative appellations derived from their real or supposed ill qualities, of many of which the precise import cannot now be ascertained.

[344] Prendergast mistook Orris for a French knight. Orris afterwards refused the honor intended him, expressing, however, very high compliments to the chivalry of France, and merely stating his Arragonese descent, on the ground, that no honest man ought to deny his country.

[345] "Si prie au dieu d'amour qu'ainsi comme vous desirez l'amour de ma dame la vostre, il ne vous l'ait de vostre dicte venue." Monstrelet, vol.

i. p. 3. ed. 1573.

[346] Lest it should be thought that I am drawing from a romance, I subjoin part of the original letter from the grave old chronicler Monstrelet. "Je ne scay se le dieu d'amours qui vous enhorta et meit en couraige de vosdictes, lettres quand les envoyes, ait en aucune chose este si despleu: parquoy il ait change ses conditions anciennes, qui souloient estre telles que pour esbaudir armes et a cognoistre chevalerie. Il tenoit les n.o.bles de sa court en si royalle gouvernance, que pour accroiss.e.m.e.nt de leur honneur, apres ce qu'ils avoient fait leur dicte emprise, jusques a tant que fin en fut faicte: ne aussi ne faisoient leurs compagnons frayer, travailler, ne despendre leurs biens en vain. Non pourtant que n'y voudroye pas qu'il trouvast celle deffaute en moy, si qu'il eut cause de moy bannir de sa court. Je vueil encores demourer par deca jusques au huictiesme jour de ce present mois de May preste a l'ayde de Dieu, de St.

George, et de St. Anthoine a vous deliverir, ainsi que ma dame et la vostre le puissent scavoir que pour reverence d'icelles j'ai voulente de vous aiser de vostre griefue: qui par long temps vous a desaisie comme vosdictes lettres contiennent: pourquoy aussi vous avez cause de desirer vostre allegeance. Apres le quel temps se venir ne voulez, je pense au plaisir de Dieu de m'enretourner en Angleterre par devers nos dames: ausquelles j'ai espai en Dieu que sera tesgmoigne par chevaliers et escuyers que je n'ai en riens mesprins envers le dit dieu d'amours: le quel vueille avoir lesdits madame et la vostre pour recommandees, sans avoir desplaisir envers elles pour quelque course qui soit advenue."

[347] Monstrelet, vol. i. c. 1.

[348] The phrase, the pa.s.sage of arms, is used in the romance of Ivanhoe as a general expression for chivalric games. But this is incorrect; for the defence of a particular spot was the essential and distinguis.h.i.+ng quality of the exercise in question. Now there was no such circ.u.mstance in the affair near Ashby-de-la-Zouche. Five knights challengers undertook to answer all comers, but it was not expected that those comers should attempt to pa.s.s any particular place. The encounters which were the consequences of the challenges were simple jousts, and const.i.tuted the first day's sport, on the second day there was a general tourney or melee of knights, and as in chivalric times the tournament was always regarded as the chief military exercise, the amus.e.m.e.nts at Ashby-de-la-Zouch were a tournament, and by that name, indeed, the author of Ivanhoe has sometimes called them.

[349] The challenge of the Lord of Chargny is contained in Monstrelet, vol. viii. c. 60, 61. The description of the pa.s.sage of arms is given by Olivier de la Marche in his Memoires, c. 9. There are many other pa.s.sages of arms recorded in the histories of the middle ages, but there is only one of them of interest, and it will find a place in my description of the progress of chivalry in Spain.

[350] Nicetas, Hist. Byzant. 1. iii. c. 3. Johannes Cantacuzenus, 1. i. c.

42.

[351] Wordsworth.

[352] I may observe, however, that the ancient Templars were so dreadfully afraid of their virtue, that they forbad themselves the pleasure of looking in a fair woman's face; at least the statutes attempted to put down this instinct of nature. No brother of the Temple was permitted to kiss maid, wife, or widow, his sister, mother, or any relation whatever.

The statute gravely adds, that it behoves the knights of Jesus Christ to avoid the kisses of women, in order that they may always walk with a pure conscience before the Lord. I shall transcribe the statute in the original Latin, and I hope that it will not be perused with that levity which an allusion to it during Rebecca's trial at Temple-stowe excited in the younger members of the valiant and venerable order of the Temple. The t.i.tle is sufficiently ascetic,--Ut omnium mulierum oscula fugiantur. It proceeds thus:--"Periculosum esse credimus omni religioni, vultum mulierum nimis attendere, et ideo nec viduam, nec virginem, nec matrem, nec sororem, nec amitam, nec ullam aliam foeminam aliquis frater osculari praesumat. Fugiat ergo foeminea oscula Christi Militia, per quae solent homines saepe peric.l.i.tari, ut pura conscientia, et secura vita, in conspectu Domini perenniter valeat conversare." Cap. 72.

[353] Statutes, c. 51. 55.

[354] "I was a Scotsman ere I was a Templar," is the a.s.sertion of Vipont in the dramatic sketch of Halidon Hill,--a sentiment confessedly borrowed from the story of the Venetian General, who, observing that his soldiers testified some unwillingness to fight against those of the Pope whom they regarded as father of the church, addressed them in terms of similar encouragement:--"Fight on--we were Venetians before we were Christians."