“And I have seen that many a page
Have become men by marriage.”
The intenseness of passion, and the generousness of soul implied in this state of manners, were sternly opposed by feudal pride and tyranny; but chivalry could not always beat down the absurd distinctions of society. When the Countess of Vergy returned the passion of Sir Agolane, she was obliged to love in secret, lest the dignity of the court of Burgundy should be offended.[244] The maidens themselves sometimes sanctioned the prejudices of feudalism, in opposition to the generous feelings of chivalry and nature. Felice, daughter of Rahand, Earl of Warwick, disdained to return the passion of Guy, her father’s steward, till an angel in a dream commanded her to love him.[245]
But preserved religion.
Agreement in religious opinions was as necessary as sympathy of souls in the loves of chivalry; and many a story is related of a knight reposing in a lady’s chamber, where, instead of adoring the divinity of the place, he assailed her with a fierce invective against her religious creed.[246] On such occasions he forgot even his courtesy, and shamed his knighthood by calling her a heathen hound:
“I will not go one foot on ground
For to speak with an heathen hound;
Unchristen hounds I rede ye flee,
Or I your heart’s blood will see.”
But
“‘Mercy,’ she cried, ‘my lemman sweet!’—
(She fell down and ’gan to weep)—
‘Forgive me that I have mis-said,
I will that ye be well assayed!
My false gods I will forsake,
And Christendom for thy love take.’
‘On that covenant,’ said Sir Bevis than,
‘I will thee love, fair Josyan!’”[247]
When attachments were formed.
The occasions which kindled the flame of love in the heart of the knight and the maiden of chivalry were various, and many of them well calculated to give rise to romantic and enthusiastic attachments. Sometimes the parties had been educated in the same castle, and passion insensibly succeeded childish amusements. The masque and the ball were often the theatre of love; but, above all other scenes, it spread its light over the brilliant tournament. Performed in honour and in view of the ladies, it was there that love exerted its mightiest power. She who gave the prize bestowed almost universally her heart upon the brave and skilful vanquisher, and many were the tears she shed, if she found that the knight had been proving his puissance only to win the heart of some other fair one. It often happened that the circumstances of life carried a young cavalier to a baronial castle, where he found more peril in the daughter’s fair looks than in the frowning battlements of her father. At the feast which welcomed the stranger, eyes mingled in love, and the suddenness of passion was always considered as the strongest proof of its purity and strength. The damsel might then avow her affection without any violation of maidenly shame; for generous, confiding love, reading another’s heart in its own, dreaded no petty triumphs of vanity from confessing its fondness. It often occurred that a knight, weary and wounded, was confided to the ministrations of woman’s tenderness; and Spenser, who had read the history as well as the romance of chivalry, tells us,
“O foolish physick, and unfruitful pain,
That heals up one, and makes another wound.”