The tabards or surcoats which knights wore over their armour was the article of dress in which they most delighted to display their magnificence. They varied in form, but were mostly made of rich silk, or of cloth of gold or silver, lined or trimmed with choice and expensive furs, and usually, also, having the armorial bearings of the family richly embroidered. Thus were women even the heralds of those times. Besides the acknowledged armorial bearings, devices were often wrought symbolical of some circumstance in the life of the wearer. Thus we are told in Amadis that the Emperor of Rome, on his black surcoat, had a golden chain-work woven, which device he swore never to lay aside till he had Amadis in chains. The same romance gives the following incident regarding a surcoat.
“Then Amadis cried to Florestan and Agrayes, weeping as he spake, good kinsman, I fear we have lost Don Galaor, let us seek for him. They went to the spot where Amadis had smitten down King Cildadan, and seen his brother last on foot; but so many were the dead who lay there that they saw him not, till as they moved away the bodies, Florestan knew him by the sleeve of his surcoat, which was of azure, worked with silver flowers, and then they made great moan over him.”
The shape of them, as we have remarked, varied considerably; besides minor alterations they were at one time worn very short, at another so long as to trail on the ground. But this luxurious style was occasionally attended with direful effects. Froissart names a surcoat in which Sir John Chandos was attired, which was embroidered with his arms in white sarsnet, argent a field gules, one on his back and another on his breast. It was a long robe which swept the ground, and this circumstance, most probably, caused the untimely death of one of the most esteemed knights of chivalry.
Sir John Chandos was one of the brightest of that chivalrous circle which sparkled in the reign of Edward the Third. He was gentle as well as valiant; he was in the van with the Black Prince at the battle of Cressy; and at the battle of Poictiers he never left his side. His death was unlooked for and sudden. Some disappointments had depressed his spirits, and his attendants in vain endeavoured to cheer them.
“And so he stode in a kechyn, warmyng him by the fyre, and his servantes jangled with hym, to thētent to bring him out of his melancholy; his servantes had prepared for hym a place to rest hym: than he demanded if it were nere day, and therewt there cāe a man into the house, and came before hym, and sayd,
‘Sir, I have brought you tidynges.’
‘What be they, tell me?’
‘Sir, surely the frēchmen be rydinge abrode.’
‘How knowest thou that?’
‘Sir,’ sayd he, ‘I departed fro saynt Saluyn with them.’