[299] ornamented dresses.
[300] rubbing.
[301] straps.
[302] brazen drums.
[303] Chaucer, The Knight’s Tale, line 2498, &c. Chaucer must have had in his imagination one of the splendid tournaments of the days of Edward III. when he wrote these spirited lines; for there is much more circumstance in his description than could have belonged to a simple joust between the two knights, Palamon and Arcite.
[304] Du Cange (Diss. 6. on Joinville) on the authority of an ancient MS. regarding tournaments; and Ritterzeit und Ritterwesen, vol. i. p. 325.
[305] Harleian MSS. No. 69.
[306] Hist. de Charles VI. vol. ii. p. 120. fol. 1663. As every thing regarding the ladies of chivalric as well as of other times is interesting, no apology will be required for my hazarding a conjecture, that the colour of the ribbon mentioned in the text was blue, the emblem of constancy.
“Lo, yonder folk, quoth she, that kneel in blue!
They wear the colour ay and ever shall,
In sign they were and ever will be true,
Withouten change.”
Chaucer’s Court of Love, l. 248, &c.
The author of the Romance of Perceforest has made a strange exaggeration of the custom of ladies sending favours to knights during the heat of a tournament. He says, that at the end of one of those martial games, “Les dames étoient si dénues de leur atours, que la plus grande partie étoit en pur chef (mie tête) car elles s’en alloient les cheveux sur leurs epaules gisans, plus jaunes que fin or, en plus leurs cottes sans manches, car tous avoient donné aux chevaliers pour eux parer et guimples et chaperons, manteaux et camises, manches et habits: mais quand elles se virent à tel point, elles en furent ainsi comme toutes honteuses; mais sitost qu’elles veirent que chacune étoit en tel point, elles se prirent toutes a rire de leur adventure, car elles avoient donné leurs joyaux et leurs habits de si grand cœur aux chevaliers, qu’elles ne s’appercevoient de leur dénuement et devestemens.”