There were other classes of poets in days of chivalry, who, under the names of troubadours, trouveurs, and minnesingers, were spread over all chivalric countries, and sang the qualities by which a knight could render himself agreeable to his mistress. The board of a baron was sometimes enlivened by a tenson, or dialogue in verse, on the comparative merits of love and war; and the argument was often supported by warmer feelings than those which could influence a hireling rhymer, for the harp of the troubadour was borne by kings, and lords, and knights. The romances, or poems longer than the minstrels’ or troubadour lay, were also faithful ministers of chivalry. All their heroes were advocates of the church, and enemies of the Saracens and pagans. The perilous adventures of the Gothic knights, their high honor, tender gallantry, and solemn superstition were all recorded in romances[192], and there was not a bay window in a baronial hall without its chivalric volume, with which knights and squires drove away the lazy hours of peace.
The fictitious tales of Arthur and Charlemagne were the study and amusement of the warrior in his moments of ease, and even the few relics of classical literature, which, after the Gothic storm, were cast on the shores of modern Europe, were fashioned anew by chivalry. The heroes of Troy were converted into knights, and Troilus and Cressida moved like a warrior and damsel of chivalric times. Indeed, as the tale of Troy Divine was occasioned by a lady, it blended very readily with the established fictions of the times. And the romancers, like the minstrels and troubadours, were highly favoured by the great, who knew that their actions, unless recorded by clerc, could have no duration, and therefore they often made handsome presents to authors in order to have their names recorded in never-dying histories.[193]
Conversation.
The conversation of knights, like their lives and literature, related only to love and war.
“Then were the tables taken all away,
And every knight, and every gentle squire,
Gan choose his dame with basciomani[194] gay,
With whom he meant to make his sport and play,
******
Some fell to dance; some fell to hazardry;
Some to make love; some to make merriment.”
Every knight was welcome at another knight’s castle, if it were only for the intelligence he could communicate regarding the deeds of arms that had been done in the countries which he had visited; and the great charm of the castle of the Earl of Foix, to the imagination of Froissart, was the goodly company of knights and squires of honor, pages and damsels, that he met in the hall, chamber, and court, going up and down, and talking of arms and amours.[195]
“After meat they went to play,
All the people, as I you say;
Some to chamber, and some to bower,
And some to the high tower,
And some in the hall stode,
And spake what them thought gode;
Men that were of that cytè,
Enquired of men of other contrè.”[196]
Nature and forms of chivalric entertainments.
Knights were wont, at these entertainments, to repose on couches, or sit on benches. The guests were placed two by two, and only one plate was allotted to each pair; for to eat on the same trencher or plate with any one was considered the strongest mark of friendship or love.[197] Peacocks and pheasants were the peculiar food of knights on great and festival occasions; they were said to be the nutriment of lovers, and the viand of worthies. The peacock was as much esteemed in chivalric as in classic times; and as Jupiter clothed himself with a robe made of that bird’s feathers, so Pope Paul, sending to King Pepin a sword, in sign of true regard, accompanied it with a mantle ornamented with a peacock’s plumes. The highest honours were conferred on these birds; for knights associated them with all their ideas of fame, and vowed by the peacock, as well as by the ladies, to perform their highest enterprises. A graceful splendour often characterised the circumstances in which the vow of the pheasant or peacock was made.
On a day of public festival, and between the courses of the repast, a troop of ladies brought into the assembly a peacock, or a pheasant, roasted in its feathers, in a golden or silver dish.[198] The hall was adorned with scenes, and wooden or other semblances of men, animals, or nature, all being expressive of the object for which the vow of the peacock was to be taken. If the promotion of religious wars was in view, a matron, clad in habiliments of woe, entered the room, and, approaching the dais, or lofty seat, which the chief lords and knights surrounded, she recited a long complaint, in verse, on the evils she suffered under the yoke of infidels, and complained of the tardiness of Europe in attempting her deliverance. Some knights then advanced, to the sound of solemn minstrelsy, to the lord of the castle, and presented two ladies, who bore between them the noble bird, in its splendid dish. In a brief speech the ladies recommended themselves to his protection. The lord promised to make war upon the infidels, and sanctioned his resolution by appealing to God and the Virgin Mary, the ladies and the peacock. All the knights who were in the hall drew their swords and repeated the vow; and, while bright falchions and ladies’ eyes illumined the scene, each knight, inflamed by thoughts of war and love, added some new difficulty to the enterprise, or bound himself, by grievous penalties, to achieve it. Sometimes a knight vowed that he would be the first to enter the enemy’s territory. Others vowed that they would not sleep in beds, nor eat off a cloth, nor drink wine, till they had been delivered of their emprise. The dish was then placed upon the table, and the lord of the festival deputed some renowned knight to carve it in such a manner that every guest might taste the bird. While he was exercising his talents of carving and subdivision, a lady, dressed in white, came to thank the assembly, presenting twelve damsels, each conducted by a cavalier. These twelve represented, by emblematical dresses, Faith, Charity, Justice, Reason, Prudence, Temperance, Strength, Generosity, Mercy, Diligence, Hope, and Courage. This bevy of bright damsels trooped round the hall, amidst the applauses of the assembly, and then the repast proceeded.[199]