Skill rather than strength was needful in tilting. The spear, as in pig-sticking in India, was thrust rather by the weight of the horse than by the weight of the arm. Strength of back and arm were necessary to avoid being bent backwards or driven over the crupper; but extreme skill was requisite to hit one’s slippery foe with anything like force. When both knights hit their mark so that fire flew from their helmets, without either falling, it was reckoned a ‘handsome course.’
A word about the allans, as big as bullocks, which went leaping around Lycurgus’ car. They were undoubtedly a kind of mastiff, large and powerful; they wore gold collars filled with torettz. This word is variously explained. Torete, ring-turret (Morris), ring or terret (Bell). ‘Toret, a small wimble (or auger, big gimblet). Touret, a drill, &c.’ (Cotgrave). ‘Gros clou dont la tête arrondie est arrêtée dans une branche d’un mors’ (Suppl. to Fr. Acad. Dict.).
I have ventured on translating ‘toret’ spike, after vainly seeking for authority for a collar filled with rings; though a single ring often hung beneath the throat. Contemporary illustrations of dogs’ collars filled with long spikes are common enough—e.g. the fine fourteenth century tapestry now in the museum at Chartres, &c.
In India dogs are furnished with spiked collars in tiger and boar hunting: the allans were clearly hunting dogs, and such spiked collars would thus be almost indispensable.
John of Gaunt, Royal Coll. 20 B. 6. (See [page 7].)—This portrait has an air of truth about it; in the MS. it is very carefully and delicately worked. The gown is of a reddish murrey colour, with ermine or miniver lining to skirt and sleeves, the under sleeves being blue. His hose are red, and he wears a golden circlet, necklace, and belt. One can trace some resemblance to Edward III., his father, in the long, narrow, but not unpleasing face. Other portraits of John of Gaunt have the same features. The hair and beard are grey. He appears to be respectfully lecturing the young King Richard, who is seated on his throne, receiving a book presented by a monk, in the presence of his three royal uncles.
Ship. (See [page 8].)—How such ships could sail is a mystery, but this is the most usual anatomy for a man-of-war, or for a ‘subtlety’ at dinner in the form of a ship. I copied the present example from a MS. in the British Museum: it is one of a royal fleet. There is a Nef introduced in the famous ‘Nancy’ tapestry (fifteenth century) of precisely the same construction.
Stylus. (See [page 10].)—The stylus was used for writing on waxen tablets. No doubt wax was cheaper and more easily procured than parchment or paper; paper made from rags being then quite a recent invention, and probably what was made was not white but brown, and imported from abroad. Wax could be dissolved and used again. Hence we find, in the romance of ‘Flor and Blanchflor,’ the king putting children to school, where they learned to write
Letres et vers d’amors en cire,
Lor greffes sont d’or et d’argent.
Letters and verses of love on the wax.
Their styles are of gold and silver.
The Yeoman. (See [page 21].)—The term ‘not-head’ used by Chaucer may mean that he had his hair closely cropped—a head like a nut—as suggested by Tyrwhitt, &c.; but I think, on the contrary, it refers to his hood having the liripipe knotted around it, as there are numerous instances of such hoods worn by foresters, hunters, and others, to whom a long tail would be a nuisance, if not actually dangerous. The woodcut of a knotted hood, on p. 2, is that of a forester, in the Book of Gaston Phœbus, fourteenth century, in the National Library of Paris. Chaucer says the miller wore his ‘typet ybounde about his heed’ (‘Reeve’s Tale,’ line 33).
The Prioress. (See [page 22].)—Her costume (same as in Frontispiece) is borrowed from an Abbess or Prioress in a MS. of the History of the Emperors (Lib. of the Arsenal), fifteenth century.