Some writers have severely censured the morals of the chivalric æra, and according to them every species of licentiousness was practised by its dames and damsels. This opinion is as erroneous as the one which it superseded, that in the times we speak of every knight was brave, and every woman was chaste; an assertion bearing more liberality than truth on its face, considering that it refers to a period of seven or eight centuries, and that the objects of the panegyric were the largest part of the European world. For my part, I shall not, like the knight of La Mancha, challenge to a joust à l’outrance any discourteous cavalier who has the audacity to declare that Queen Madasima was scandalously familiar with a barber-surgeon; but I think that our imaginations do not altogether deceive us in painting the days of chivalry as days of feminine virtue.
If we regard the times in reference only to their baronial and feudal features, the view is deeply dyed with turpitude, and the romances, whence the denunciations against the ladies of forepast ages have been drawn, are not sparing in their pictures of licentiousness. But chivalry was the golden thread that ran through the middle ages, the corrective of vice, the personification of virtue. That it did not altogether succeed in colouring with its brightness the surrounding gloom is sufficiently true, and the times warranted the assertion of a character in Amadis de Gaul, that our country yields, as others do, both good and bad. The romances present us with instances of the profligacy of women, and so they also do of the baseness of knights: but as no one will contend that chivalry did not in general inspire its professors with sentiments of honour, so its virtuous influence cannot in fairness be denied to the maidens of its age. Let us not, as Spenser says, blame the whole sex for the fault of one.
“Fair ladies that to love captived are
And chaste desires do nourish in your mind,
Let not her fault your sweet affections mar;
Ne blot the bounty of all womankind,
’Mongst thousands good, one wanton dame to find:
Amongst the roses grow some wicked weeds:
For this was not to love, but lust, inclin’d;
For love doth always bring forth bounteous deeds,
And in each gentle heart desire of honour breeds.”[255]
The romance writers were satirists, but they had more humour than malignity. Every one of them introduces a magical test of feminine virtue, a drinking cup, a mantle or a girdle. This is harmless; and their general censure of women is without point; for they were for the most part men of profligate habits, and judged the other sex by the standard of their own vices.
“Safe her, I never any woman found
That chastity did for itself embrace
But were for other causes firm and sound;
Either for want of handsome time and place,
Or else for fear of shame and foul disgrace.”[256]
This is the burthen of all their declamations against women; and Spenser has shewn how little credit he gave to it, for he does not let it proceed from the mouth of any of his preux chevaliers, but from a wretched profligate, misnamed the squire of dames.[257]
However highly some enthusiastic minds may have coloured the manners of the chivalric ages, still it is unquestionable that the love of the knight was not the mere impulse of passion, but that the feeling was raised and refined by respect. Now, as nature is ever true to herself, as certain causes have had certain operations in all ages and in all countries, so this purity of love must have been followed by a corresponding correctness of morals. Women had every reason to retain and support the virtues of their nature; for it was only in behalf of those of fair reputation and honour, that the knight was compelled by his principles to draw his sword; all others were without the pale of chivalry; and although many instances can be found in the romances of feminine indiscretion, yet the princess in the celebrated romance of Tirante the White accurately describes the general feeling when she submits to lose all her claims on the noble chevisance of knights, if she failed in observing a promise of marriage which she had given to a gallant cavalier that loved her.
The knights, though courteous to the highest polish of refinement, were rigid and inflexible censors; and in those days as well as in these, each sex formed the character of the other.[258] The cavalier in travelling would write on the door of a castle where a dame of tarnished reputation resided, some sentence of infamy; and on the contrary, he would pause at the door of a lady of pure honour and salute her courteously. Even on solemn and public occasions distinctions were made between women in matters of ceremony. If any lady of sullied fame took precedence of a dame of bright virtue, a cavalier would advance and reverse the order, saying to her who was displaced, “Lady, be not offended that this lady precedes you, for although she is not so rich or well allied as you are, yet her fame has never been impeached.”[259] Here, therefore, chivalry vindicated its purity, and showed itself as the moral guide of the world. Its tendencies were beneficent; for Christianity was deeply infused into all its institutions and principles, and it not only spread abroad order and grace, but strung the tone of morals to actions of virtue.
Chivalric heroines.
All ladies were not of the opinion of Amadis de Gaul, that their best weapons were sighs and tears. What they admired they imitated; and a high-spirited damsel would, in private, divest herself of her robe, gird round her a belt, and drawing its sword from the scabbard, fight with the air till she was wearied. The gallant youths of chivalry called a lady of this martial temperament—le bel cavalier. Were we to meet in romances with dames engaged in mortal combat, we should say that the writers had not faithfully represented the manners of the times; but such facts are recorded by sober chroniclers. Two ladies decided some fierce disputes by the sword. Each summoned to her aid a band of cavaliers, and the stoutest lances of Normandy felt no loss of dignity in being commanded by a woman. The lady Eloisa and the lady Isabella rode through their respective ranks with the address of experienced leaders, and their contest, like that of nations, was only terminated by burning and plundering each other’s states. In the crusades, parties of fair and noble women accompanied the chivalry of Europe to the Holy Land, charming the seas ‘to give them gentle pass,’ and binding up the wounds of husbands and brothers after a well foughten field with the bold Mussulman. Sometimes they wielded the flaming brand themselves, and the second crusade in particular was distinguished by a troop of ladies harnessed in armour of price, and mounted on goodly steeds. A lady often wore a sword even in times of peace, and every great landed proprietress sat gladio cincta among the justices at sessions and assizes.[260] In England, particularly, was this martial spirit recognised, for in the time of Edward the first a lady held a manor by sarjeanty to conduct the vanguard of the king’s army as often as he should march into Wales with one; and on its return it was her duty to array the rear-guard.[261]