IV.—THE NORMANS.
The popular sports and pastimes, prevalent at the close of the Saxon era, do not appear to have been subjected to any material change by the coming of the Normans: it is true, indeed, that the elder William and his immediate successors restricted the privileges of the chase, and imposed great penalties on those who presumed to destroy the game in the royal forests, without a proper licence. [9] By these restrictions the general practice of hunting was much confined, but by no means prohibited in certain districts, and especially to persons of opulence who possessed extensive territories of their own.
V.—TOURNAMENTS AND JUSTS.
Among the pastimes introduced by the Norman nobility, none engaged the general attention more than the tournaments and the justs. The tournament, in its original institution, was a martial conflict, in which the combatants engaged without any animosity, merely to exhibit their strength and dexterity; but, at the same time, engaged in great numbers to represent a battle. The just was when two knights, and no more, were opposed to each other at one time. These amusements, in the middle ages, which may properly enough be denominated the ages of chivalry, were in high repute among the nobility of Europe, and produced in reality much of the pomp and gallantry that we find recorded with poetical exaggeration in the legends of knight-errantry. I met with a passage in a satirical poem among the Harleian MSS. of the thirteenth century, [10] which strongly marks the prevalence of this taste in the times alluded to. It may be thus rendered in English:
If wealth, sir knight, perchance be thine,
In tournaments you're bound to shine
Refuse—and all the world will swear
You are not worth a rotten pear. [11]
VI.—OTHER SPORTS OF THE NOBILITY, AND THE CITIZENS AND YEOMEN.
While the principles of chivalry continued in fashion, the education of a nobleman was confined to those principles, and every regulation necessary to produce an accomplished knight was put into practice. In order fully to investigate these particulars, we may refer to the romances of the middle ages; and, generally speaking, dependence may be placed upon their information. The authors of these fictitious histories never looked beyond the customs of their own country; and whenever the subject called for a representation of remote magnificence, they depicted such scenes of splendour as were familiar to them: hence it is, that Alexander the Great, in his legendary life, receives the education of a Norman baron, and becomes expert in hawking, hunting, and other amusements coincident with the time in which the writer lived. Our early poets have fallen into the same kind of anachronism; and Chaucer himself, in the Knight's Tale, speaking of the rich array and furniture of the palace of Theseus, forgets that he was a Grecian prince of great antiquity, and describes the large hall belonging to an English nobleman, with the guests seated at table, probably as he had frequently seen them, entertained with singing, dancing, and other acts of minstrelsy, their hawks being placed upon perches over their heads, and their hounds lying round about upon the pavement below. The two last lines of the poem just referred to are peculiarly applicable to the manners of the time in which the poet lived, when no man of consequence travelled abroad without his hawk and his hounds. In the early delineations, the nobility are frequently represented seated at table, with their hawks upon their heads. Chaucer says,