‘For all my words here and every part I speak them all under correction Of you that feeling have in love’s art, And put it all in your discretion.’”
History interrupts: “Among my humoresques, I happen to have a literal account of one of those old Courts of Love. It was convened by the Countess of Champagne; she had fifteen more women on the bench with her, all decked out in green and gold. Monkey-fashion, those scented ladies (precieuses ridicules) of old had the proceedings of their toy court solemnly recorded. André, their scribe, adds that the perfumes on the fair judges kept him sneezing continually while he was taking testimony. At that time chivalry had most absurdly exalted ‘my ladye,’ also the ‘beautiful unseen,’ styled the ‘beautiful unknown,’ and see the things men were expected to do!”
“Yes, and what is more, they did them,” retorted Romance, “and at the bidding of woman without other coercion, and the spirit of her law still rules.”
“I am confining myself to documentary evidence,” says History tartly. “This Chief Justice of Love, Maria of Champagne, was the daughter of that Queen Eleanor of France, who would go on the Second Crusade. Had she only behaved herself in the East, she might have figured as the first New Woman. However, that was not to be. Formal action was brought before the Court of the Chief Justice of Love in the Province of Beauty by plaintiff, a servitor of love, against defendant, a Fair Lady—likewise a married one. Plaintiff had agreed to walk twice a week past defendant’s door, for which service defendant agreed to throw him a bunch of violets. As the weather was cold and the road muddy, plaintiff tired of the job and claimed in legal phraseology, as he did not always get his violets, that breach of contract should release him from further obligation.
“Defendant pleads ecstasy of love and anguish of mind. She said that because of Danger (Court term for husband) she could not always perform her contract, since she frequently had to profess that she was asleep, although she was awake; that it was highly ungallant in defendant to complain of snow and mire. Love should render him invulnerable. She also added that the man had the best of it, for he might repeat his hours and orisons while he was walking up and down before her door; also, he had the privilege of kissing her latch as he passed, whereas (feminine economy) she was obliged to purchase thread to tie up his violets.
Head of Justice, from Fiore’s Group.
This Old Venetian Figure of Justice Still Presides
Over the Gallery of Early Painters at Venice.
Technically she is in advance
of the Madonnas of Her Period.
“Judgment in favor of the lady.
“Among the celebrated cases recorded in this court are two every-day disagreements between man and woman. A gentleman complains of the refusal of a lady to dance with him, which rendered him ridiculous. The court commanded the lady to dance with him.