The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England / Including the Rural and Domestic Recreations, May Games, Mummeries, Shows, Processions, Pageants, and Pompous Spectacles from the Earliest Period to the Present Time

by Joseph Strutt

VII.—KNIGHTLY ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

The mere management of arms, though essentially requisite, was not sufficient of itself to form an accomplished knight in the times of chivalry; it was necessary for him to be endowed with beauty, as well as with strength and agility of body; he ought to be skilled in music, to dance gracefully, to run with swiftness, to excel in wrestling, to ride well, and to perform every other exercise befitting his situation. To these were to be added urbanity of manners, strict adherence to the truth, and invincible courage. Hunting and hawking skilfully were also acquirements that he was obliged to possess, and which were usually taught him as soon as he was able to endure the fatigue that they required. Hence it is said of sir Tristram, a fictitious character held forth as the mirror of chivalry in the romance entitled The Death of Arthur, that "he learned to be an harper, passing all other, that there was none such called in any countrey: and so in harping and on instruments of musike he applied himself in his youth for to learne, and after as he growed in might and strength he laboured ever in hunting and hawking, so that we read of no gentlemen who more, or so, used himself therein; and he began good measures of blowing blasts of venery, [16] and chase, and of all manner of vermains; [17] and all these terms have we yet of hunting and hawking; and therefore the book of venery, and of hawking and hunting, is called the Boke of Sir Tristram." In a succeeding part of the same romance, king Arthur thus addresses the knight: "For all manner of hunting thou bearest the prize; and of all measures of blowing thou art the beginner, and of all the termes of hunting and hawking thou art the beginner." [18] We are also informed, that sir Tristram had previously learned the language of France, knew all the principles of courtly behaviour, and was skilful in the various requisites of knighthood. Another ancient romance says of its hero, "He every day was provyd in dauncyng and in songs that the ladies coulde think were convenable for a nobleman to conne; [19] but in every thinge he passed all them that were there. The king, for to assaie him, made justes and turnies; and no man did so well as he, in runnyng, playing at the pame, [20] shotyng, and castyng of the barre, ne found he his maister." [21]