Duties of the Page.
Personal Service.
The duties of the boy for the first seven years of his service were chiefly personal. If sometimes the harsh principles of feudal subordination gave rise to such service, it oftener proceeded from the friendly relations of life; and as in the latter case it was voluntary, there was no loss of honourable consideration in performing it. The dignity of obedience, that principle which blends the various shades of social life, and which had its origin in the patriarchal manners of early Europe, was now fostered in the castles of the feudal nobility. The light-footed youth attended the lord and his lady in the hall, and followed them in all their exercises of war and pleasure; and it was considered unknightly for a cavalier to wound a page in battle. He also acquired the rudiments of those incongruous subjects, religion, love, and war, so strangely blended in chivalry; and generally the intellectual and moral education of the boy was given by the ladies of the court.
Love and Religion.
From the lips of the ladies the gentle page learned both his catechism and the art of love, and as the religion of the day was full of symbols, and addressed to the senses, so the other feature of his devotion was not to be nourished by abstract contemplation alone. He was directed to regard some one lady of the court as the type of his heart’s future mistress; she was the centre of all his hopes and wishes; to her he was obedient, faithful, and courteous.
While the young Jean de Saintré was a page of honour at the court of the French king, the Dame des Belles Cousines enquired of him the name of the mistress of his heart’s affections. The simple youth replied, that he loved his lady mother, and next to her, his sister Jacqueline was dear to him. “Young man,” rejoined the lady, “I am not speaking of the affection due to your mother and sister; but I wish to know the name of the lady to whom you are attached par amours.” The poor boy was still more confused, and he could only reply, that he loved no one par amours. The Dame des Belles Cousines charged him with being a traitor to the laws of chivalry, and declared that his craven spirit was evinced by such an avowal. “Whence,” she enquired, “sprang the valiancy and knightly feats of Launcelot, Gawain, Tristram, Giron the courteous, and other ornaments of the round table; of Ponthus, and of those knights and squires of this country whom I could enumerate: whence the grandeur of many whom I have known to arise to renown, except from the noble desire of maintaining themselves in the grace and esteem of the ladies; without which spirit-stirring sentiment they must have ever remained in the shades of obscurity? And do you, coward valet, presume to declare that you possess no sovereign lady, and desire to have none?”
Jean underwent a long scene of persecution on account of his confession of the want of proper chivalric sentiment, but he was at length restored to favour by the intercession of the ladies of the court. He then named as his mistress Matheline de Coucy, a child only ten years old. “Matheline is indeed a pretty girl,” replied the Dame des Belles Cousines, “but what profit, what honour, what comfort, what aid, what council for advancing you in chivalrous fame can you derive from such a choice? You should elect a lady of noble blood, who has the ability to advise, and the power to assist you; and you should serve her so truly, and love her so loyally, as to compel her to acknowledge the honourable affection which you entertain for her. For, be assured, that there is no lady, however cruel and haughty she may be, but through long service, will be induced to acknowledge and reward loyal affection with some portion of mercy. By such a course you will gain the praise of worthy knighthood, and till then I would not give an apple for you or your achievements: but he who loyally serves his lady will not only be blessed to the height of man’s felicity in this life, but will never fall into those sins which will prevent his happiness hereafter. Pride will be entirely effaced from the heart of him who endeavours by humility and courtesy to win the grace of a lady. The true faith of a lover will defend him from the other deadly sins of anger, envy, sloth, and gluttony; and his devotion to his mistress renders the thought impossible of his conduct ever being stained with the vice of incontinence.”[53]
Martial exercises.
The military exercises of the page were not many, and they were only important, inasmuch as they were the earliest ideas of his life, and that consequently the habits of his character were formed on them. He was taught to leap over trenches, to launch or cast spears and darts, to sustain the shield, and in his walk to imitate the measured tread of the soldier. He fought with light staves against stakes raised for the nonce, as if they had been his mortal enemies, or met in encounters equally perilous his youthful companions of the castle.[54] During the seven years of these instructions he was called a valet, a damoiseau, or a page. The first title was of the most ancient usage, and was thoroughly chivalric; the second is of nearly equal authority[55], but the word page was not much used till so late a period as the days of Philip de Comines.[56] Before that time it was most frequently applied to the children of the vulgar.
The squire.
His duties of personal service.
The next titles of the candidate for chivalry were armiger, scutifer or escuyer: but though these words denoted personal military attendance, yet his personal domestic service continued for some time. He prepared the refection in the morning, and then betook himself to his chivalric exercises. At dinner he, as well as the pages, furnished forth and attended at the table, and presented to his lord and the guests the water wherewith they washed their hands before and after the repast. The knight and the squire never sat before the same table, nor was even the relation of father and son allowed to destroy this principle of chivalric subordination. We learn from Paulus Warnefridus, the historian of the Lombards in Italy, that among that nation the son of a king did not dine with his father, unless he had been knighted by a foreign sovereign.[57] Such too was the practice among nations whose chivalry wore a brighter polish than it shone with among the Italian Lombards. In Arragon, no son of a knight sat at the table of a knight till he had been admitted into the order.[58] The young English squire in the time of Edward III. carved before his fader at the table; and again, in the Merchant’s Tale, it is said,—