A knight thus slain for his love was duly honored by his lady and contemporaries. Thus we read in the history of Gyron le Courtois, that the chivalric king so named, with his royal cousin Melyadus, a knight, by way of equerry, and a maiden, went together in search of the body of a chevalier who had fallen pour les beaux yeux of that very lady. They found the body picturesquely disposed in a pool of blood, the unconscious hand still grasping the hilt of the sword that had been drawn in honor of the maiden. “Ah, beauteous friend!” exclaims the lady, “how dearly hast thou paid for my love! The good and the joy we have shared have only brought thee death. Beauteous friend, courteous and wise, valiant, heroic, good knight in every guise, since thou has lost thy youth for me in this manner, in this strait, and in this agony, as it clearly appears, what else remains for me to suffer for thy sake, unless that I should keep you company? Friend, friend, thy beauty has departed for the love of me, thy flesh lies here bloody. Friend, friend, we were both nourished together. I knew not what love was when I gave my heart to love thee,” &c., &c., &c. “Young friend,” continues the lady, “thou wert my joy and my consolation: for to see thee and to speak to thee alone were sufficient to inspire joy, &c., &c., &c. Friend, what I behold slays me, I feel that death is within my heart.” The lady then took up the bloody sword, and requested Melyadus to look after the honorable interment of the knight on that spot, and that he would see her own body deposited by her “friend’s” side, in the same grave. Melyadus expressed great astonishment at the latter part of the request, but as the lady insisted that her hour was at hand, he promised to fulfil all her wishes. Meanwhile the maiden knelt by the side of the dead knight, held his sword to her lips, and gently died upon his breast. Gyron said it was the wofullest sight that eye had ever beheld; but all courteous as Gyron was, and he was so to such a remarkable degree that he derived a surname from his courtesy, I say that in spite of his sympathy and gallantry, he appears to have had a quick eye toward making such profit as authors could make in those days, from ready writing upon subjects of interest. Before another word was said touching the interment of the two lovers, Gyron intimated that he would write a ballad upon them that should have a universal circulation, and be sung in all lands where there were gentle hearts and sweet voices. Gyron performed what he promised, and the ballad of “Absdlon and Cesala,” serves to show what very rough rhymes the courteous poet could employ to illustrate a romantic incident. Let it be added that, however the knights may sometimes have failed in their truth, this was very rarely the case with the ladies. When Jordano Bruno was received in his exile by Sir Philip Sidney, he requited the hospitality by dedicating a poem to the latter. In this dedication, he says: “With one solitary exception, all misfortunes that flesh is heir to have been visited on me. I have tasted every kind of calamity but one, that of finding false a woman’s love.”
It was not every knight that could make such an exception. Certainly not that pearl of knights, King Arthur himself. What a wife had that knight in the person of Guinever? Nay, he is said to have had three wives of that name, and that all of them were as faithless as ladies well could be. Some assert that the described deeds of these three are in fact but the evil-doings of one. However this may be, I may observe summarily here what I have said in reference to Guinever in another place. With regard to this triple-lady, the very small virtue of one third of the whole will not salubriously leaven the entire lump. If romance be true, and there is more about the history of Guinever than any other lady—she was a delicious, audacious, winning, seductive, irresistible, and heartless hussy; and a shameless! and a barefaced! Only read “Sir Lancelot du Lac!” Yes, it can not be doubted but that in the voluminous romances of the old day, there was a sprinkling of historical facts. Now, if a thousandth part of what is recorded of this heart-bewitching Guinever be true, she must have been such a lady as we can not now conceive of. True daughter of her mother Venus, when a son of Mars was not at hand, she could stoop to Mulciber. If the king was not at home, she could listen to a knight. If both were away, esquire or page might speak boldly without fear of being unheeded; and if all were absent, in the chase, or at the fray, there was always a good-looking groom in the saddle-room with whom Guinever could converse, without holding that so to do was anything derogatory. I know no more merry reading than that same ton-weight of romance which goes by the name of “Sir Lancelot du Lac.” But it is not of that sort which Mrs. Chapone would recommend to young ladies, or that Dr. Cumming would read aloud in the Duke of Argyll’s drawing-room. It is a book, however, which a grave man a little tired of his gravity, may look into between serious studies and solemn pursuits—a book for a lone winter evening by a library-fire, with wine and walnuts at hand; or for an old-fashioned summer’s evening, in a bower through whose foliage the sun pours his adieu, as gorgeously red as the Burgundy in your flask. Of a truth, a man must be “in a concatenation accordingly,” ere he may venture to address himself to the chronicle which tells of the “bamboches,” “fredaines,” and “bombances,” of Guinever the Frail, and of Lancelot du Lac.
We confess to having more regard for Arthur than for his triple-wife Guinever. As I have had occasion to say in other pages, “I do not like to give up Arthur!” I love the name, the hero, and his romantic deeds. I deem lightly of his light o’love bearing. Think of his provocation both ways! Whatever the privilege of chivalry may have been, it was the practice of too many knights to be faithless. They vowed fidelity, but they were a promise-breaking, word-despising crew. On this point I am more inclined to agree with Dr. Lingard than with Mr. Hallam. Honor was ever on their lips, but not always in their hearts, and it was little respected by them, when found in the possession of their neighbor’s wives. How does Scott consider them in this respect, when in describing a triad of knights, he says,
“There were two who loved their neighbor’s wives,
And one who loved his own.”
Yet how is it that knights are so invariably mentioned with long-winded laudation by Romish writers—always excepting Lingard—when they desire to illustrate the devoted spirit of olden times? Is it that the knights were truthful, devout, chaste, God-fearing? not a jot! Is it because the cavaliers cared but for one thing, in the sense of having fear but for one thing, and that the devil? To escape from being finally triumphed over by the Father of Evil, they paid largely, reverenced outwardly, confessed unreservedly, and were absolved plenarily. That is the reason why chivalry was patted on the back by Rome. At the same time we must not condemn a system, the principles of which were calculated to work such extensive ameliorations in society as chivalry. Christianity itself might be condemned were we to judge of it by the shortcomings of its followers.
But even Mr. Hallam is compelled at last, reluctantly, to confess that the morals of chivalry were not pure. After all his praise of the system, he looks at its literature, and with his eye resting on the tales and romances written for the delight and instruction of chivalric ladies and gentlemen, he remarks that the “violation of marriage vows passes in them for an incontestable privilege of the brave and the fair; and an accomplished knight seems to have enjoyed as undoubted prerogatives, by general consent of opinion, as were claimed by the brilliant courtiers of Louis XV.” There was an especial reason for this, the courtiers of Louis XV. might be anything they chose, provided that with gallantry they were loyal, courteous, and munificent. Now loyalty, courtesy, and that prodigality which goes by the name of munificence, were exactly the virtues that were deemed most essential to chivalry. But these were construed by the old knights as they were by the more modern courtiers. The first took advantages in combat that would now be deemed disloyal by any but a Muscovite. The second would cheat at cards in the gaming saloons of Versailles, while they would run the men through who spoke lightly of their descent. So with regard to courtesy, the knight was full of honeyed phrases to his equals and superiors, but was as coarsely arrogant as Menschikoff to an inferior. In the same way, Louis XIV., who would never pass one of his own scullery-maids without raising his plumed beaver, could address terms to the ladies of his court, which, but for the sacred majesty which was supposed to environ his person, might have purchased for him a severe castigation. Then consider the case of that “first gentleman in Europe,” George, Prince of Wales: he really forfeited his right to the throne by marrying a Catholic lady, Mrs. Fitzherbert, and he freed himself unscrupulously from the scrape by uttering a lie. And so again with munificence; the greater part of these knights and courtiers were entirely thoughtless of the value of money. At the Field of the Cloth of Gold, for instance, whole estates were mortgaged or sold, in order that the owners might outshine all competitors in the brilliancy and quality of their dress. This sort of extravagance makes one man look glad and all his relatives rueful. The fact is that when men thus erred, it was for want of observance of a Christian principle; and if men neglect that observance, it is as little in the power of chivalry as of masonry to mend him. There was “a perfect idea” of chivalry, indeed, but if any knight ever realized it in his own person, he was, simply, nearly a perfect Christian, and would have been still nearer to perfection in the latter character if he had studied the few simple rules of the system of religion rather than the stilted and unsteady ones of romance. The study of the latter, at all events, did not prevent, but in many instances caused a dissoluteness of manners, a fondness for war rather than peace, and a wide distinction between classes, making aristocrats of the few, and villains of the many.
Let me add here, as I have been speaking of the romance of “Lancelot du Lac,” that I quite agree with Montluc, who after completing his chronicle of the History of France, observed that it would be found more profitable reading than either Lancelot or Amadis. La Noue especially condemns the latter as corrupting the manners of the age. Southey, again, observes that these chivalric romances acquired their poison in France or in Italy. The Spanish and Portuguese romances he describes as free from all taint. In the Amadis the very well-being of the world is made to rest upon chivalry. “What would become of the world,” it is asked in the twenty-second book of the Amadis, “if God did not provide for the defence of the weak and helpless against unjust usurpers? And how could provision be made, if good knights were satisfied to do nothing else but sit in chamber with the ladies? What would then the world become, but a vast community of brigands?”
Lamotte Levayer was of a different opinion. “Les armes,” he says, when commenting upon chivalry and arms generally; “Les armes detruisent tous les arts excepté ceux qui favorisent la gloire.” In Germany, too, where chivalry was often turned to the oppression of the weak rather than employed for their protection, the popular contempt and dread of “knightly principles” were early illustrated in the proverb, “Er will Ritter an mir werden,” He wants to play the knight over me. In which proverb, knight stands for oppressor or insulter. In our own country the order came to be little cared for, but on different grounds.
Dr. Nares in his “Heraldic Anomalies,” deplores the fact that mere knighthood has fallen into contempt. He dates this from the period when James I. placed baronets above knights. The hereditary title became a thing to be coveted, but knights who were always held to be knights bachelors, could not of course bequeath a title to child or children who were not supposed in heraldry to exist. The Doctor quotes Sir John Ferne, to show that Olibion, the son of Asteriel, of the line of Japhet, was the first knight ever created. The personage in question was sent forth to battle, after his sire had smitten him lightly nine times with Japhet’s falchion, forged before the flood. There is little doubt but that originally a knight was simply Knecht, servant of the king. Dr. Nares says that the Thanes were so in the north, and that these, although of gentle blood, exercised the offices even of cooks and barbers to the royal person. But may not these offices have been performed by the “unter Thans,” or deputies? I shall have occasion to observe, subsequently, on the law which deprived a knight’s descendants of his arms, if they turned merchants; but in Saxon times it is worthy of observation, that if a merchant made three voyages in one of his own ships, he was thenceforward the Thane’s right-worthy, or equal.