[216] Pp. 8, 18, 33, 36, 156, 207, 217, 218, and passim.
[217] “Most of the girls in our ‘Chansons de Geste’ are represented by our poets as horrible little monsters, ... shameless, worse than impudent, caring little whether the whole world watches them, and obeying at all hazards the mere brutality of their instincts. Their forwardness is not only beyond all conception, but contrary to all probability and all sincere observation of human nature.” Gautier, l. c., p. 378.
[218] There is a very interesting essay on “Chaucer’s Love Poetry” in the Cornhill, vol. xxxv., p. 280. It is, however, a good deal spoiled by the author’s inclusion of many works once attributed to the poet, but now known to be spurious.
[219] Bk. IV., ll. 152, 158, 367, 519, 554, 564.
[220] “Paston Letters” (ed. Gairdner, 1900), ii., 364; iv., ccxc.
[221] Few tales illustrate more clearly the woman’s duty of accepting any knight who made himself sufficiently miserable about her, than that of Boccaccio, which Dryden has so finely versified under the name of Theodore and Honoria. Equally significant is one of the “Gesta Romanorum” (ed. Swan., No. XXVIII.).
[222] Quoted by S. Luce, “Bertrand du Guesclin,” 1882, p. 124.
[223] The essentially compulsory foundation of Edward III.’s armies, for at least a great part of his reign, seems to have been overlooked even by Prof. Oman in his valuable “Art of War in the Middle Ages.”
[224] Froissart, ed. Luce, i., 401. It was at this time that Edward also proclaimed the duty of teaching French for military purposes, as noted in Chap. I. of this book.
[225] “Norwich Militia in the 14th Century” (Norfolk and Norwich Arch. Soc.), vol. xiv., p. 263.