[307] The reader may wonder at this form of expression; but it proceeded from the very noble principle of teaching young knights to emulate the glories of their ancestors, and from the peculiar refinement and delicacy of chivalry which argued that there was no knight so perfect, but who might commit a fault, and so great a one as to efface the merit of all his former good deeds. Heralds, therefore, observes Monstrelet, do not at jousts and battles cry out, “Honour to the brave!” but they exclaim, “Honour to the sons of the brave!” No knight can be deemed perfect, until death has removed the possibility of his committing an offence against his knighthood. “Il n’est nul si bon chevalier au monde qu’il ne puisse bien faire une faute, voire si grande que tous les biens qu’il aura faits devant seront adnihillez; et pour ce on ne crie aux joustes ne aux batailles, aux preux, mais on crie bien aux fils des preux après la mort de leur pere car nul chevalier ne peut estre jugé preux se ce n’est après le trépassement.” Monstrelet, vol. i. p. 29.
[308] “To break across,” the phrase for bad chivalry, did not die with the lance. It was used by the writers of the Elizabethan age to express any failure of wit or argument. To the same purpose, Celia, in “As You Like it,” says of Orlando, tauntingly, “O that’s a brave man. He writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover, as a puny tilter, that spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose.”
[309] The old English ordinances, fortunately, have been preserved, and are exceedingly curious.
The ordinances, statutes, and rules, made and enacted by John Earl of Worcester, constable of England, by the kinge’s commandement, at Windsor, the 14th day of May, in the seventh year of his noble reign (Edward IV.), to be observed and kept in all manner of justes of peace royal, within this realm of England, before his highness or lieutenant, by his commandment or licence, had from this time forth, reserving always to the queen’s highness and to the ladies there present, the attribution and gift of the price, after the manner and form accustomed, the merits and demerits attribute according to the articles following:—
First, whoso breaketh most spears, as they ought to be broken, shall have the price.
Item, whoso hitteth three times in the helm shall have the price.
Item, whoso meteth two times coronel to coronel, shall have the price.
Item, whoso beareth a man down with stroke of spear shall have the price.
How the Price should be lost.
First, whoso striketh a horse shall have no price.