And if she list to ride in chare,
And that I may thereof beware,
Anon I shape me to ride,
Right even by the chare’s side,
And as I may, I speak among,
And other while I sing a song.”
These gentle services were the least arduous that a knight was pledged to perform. The most desperate battles were fought to restore a lady’s rights, to avenge a lady’s wrongs, or even to gain a lady’s smile. It was a common maxim of that period that he who knew how to break a lance, and did not understand how to win a lady, was but half a man. A knight without a lady-love was compared to a ship without a rudder, or a horse without a bridle. “Oh that my lady saw me!” was the eager exclamation of a gallant knight, as he mounted the wall of a besieged city, in the pride of successful courage.
A cavalier, called the Knight of the Swan, reinstated a lady in the possessions of which the duke of Saxony had deprived her. During the reign of Charles the Sixth of France, the gentlewomen of the country laid before the monarch grievous complaints of their sufferings and losses from the aggressions of powerful lords; and lamented that chivalry had so much degenerated that no knights and squires had armed in their defence. This appeal roused the valiant Boucicaut, who gathered a band of chevaliers around him, and formed a fraternity for the protection of all dames and damsels of noble lineage. The device on their shields was a lady in a green field, and their motto promised redress to all gentlewomen injured in honor or fortune. The gallant Boucicaut carried the principle of veneration a little farther than was, perhaps, pleasing to the sovereign ladies of that romantic period; for he would not permit one of the knights of his banner to look a second time at a window where a handsome woman was seated.
In the Spanish order of the Scarf, duties to women were more insisted on than in any other order. If one of those knights instituted an action against the daughter of a brother-knight, no woman would consent to be his lady-love, or wife. If he happened to meet a lady when riding, it was his duty to alight from his horse, and tender his service, upon pain of losing a month’s wages, and the favor of all dames and damsels; and he who hesitated to perform any behest from a woman was branded with the title of The Discourteous Knight.
Combats often took place for no other purpose but to do credit to the chosen object of a knight’s affections. This sentiment was frequently a cause of national rivalry. During a cessation of hostilities, a cavalier would sally forth, and demand whether any knight in the opposite host were disposed to do a deed of arms for the sake of his lady bright. “Now let us see if there be any amorous among you,” was the usual conclusion of such a challenge, as the cavalier curbed his impetuous steed, and laid his lance in rest. Such an invitation was seldom refused; but if it chanced to be so, the bold knight was suffered to return in safety; for it was deemed unchivalric to capture or molest an enemy, who thus voluntarily placed himself in the power of his opponents. When two parties of French and English met accidentally near Cherbourg, Sir Launcelot of Lorrys demanded a course of jousting with the English knights for his lady’s sake. The offer was eagerly accepted, and at the very first onset Sir John Copeland wounded the French cavalier to death. The chronicler says: “Every one lamented his fate, for he was a hardy knight, young, jolly, and right amorous.”