Whatever opinion may be formed of chivalry, it is impossible to deny the influence which this institution exercised on private life in the Middle Ages. It considerably modified custom, by bringing the stronger sex to respect and defend the weaker. These warriors, who were both simple and externally rough and coarse, required association and intercourse with women to soften them ([Fig. 47]). In taking women and helpless widows under their protection, they were necessarily more and more thrown in contact with them. A deep feeling of veneration for woman, inspired by Christianity, and, above all, by the worship of the Virgin Mary, ran throughout the songs of the troubadours, and produced a sort of sentimental reverence for the gentle sex, which culminated in the authority which women had in the courts of love ([Fig. 48]).

We have now reached the reign of Philip Augustus, that is to say, the end of the twelfth century. This epoch is remarkable, not only for its political history, but also for its effect on civilisation. Christianity had then considerably influenced the world; arts, sciences, and letters, animated by its influence, again began to appear, and to add charms to the leisure of private life. The castles were naturally the first to be affected by this poetical and intellectual regeneration, although it has been too much the custom to exaggerate the ignorance of those who inhabited them. We are too apt to consider the warriors of the Middle Ages as totally devoid of knowledge, and as hardly able to sign their names, as far as the kings and princes are concerned. This is quite an error; for many of the knights composed poems which exhibit evidence of their high literary culture.

It was, in fact, the epoch of troubadours, who might be called professional poets and actors, who went from country to country, and from castle to castle, relating stories of good King Artus of Brittany and of the Knights of the Round Table; repeating historical poems of the great Emperor Charlemagne and his followers. These minstrels were always accompanied by jugglers and instrumentalists, who formed a travelling troop ([Fig. 49]), having no other mission than to amuse and instruct their feudal hosts. After singing a few fragments of epics, or after the lively recital of some ancient fable, the jugglers would display their art or skill in gymnastic feats or conjuring, which were the more appreciated by the spectators, in that the latter were more or less able to compete with them. These wandering troops acted small comedies, taken from incidents of the times. Sometimes, too, the instrumentalists formed an orchestra, and dancing commenced. It may be here remarked that dancing at this epoch consisted of a number of persons forming large circles, and turning to the time of the music or the rhythm of the song. At least the dances of the nobles are thus represented in the MSS. of the Middle Ages. To these amusements were added games of calculation and chance, the fashion for which had much increased, and particularly such games as backgammon, draughts, and chess, to which certain knights devoted all their leisure.

From the reign of Philip Augustus, a remarkable change seems to have taken place in the private life of kings, princes, and nobles. Although his domains and revenues had always been on the increase, this monarch never displayed, in ordinary circumstances at least, much magnificence. The accounts of his private expenses for the years 1202 and 1203 have been preserved, which enable us to discover some curious details bearing witness to the extreme simplicity of the court at that period. The household of the King or royal family was still very small: one chancellor, one chaplain, a squire, a butler, a few Knights of the Temple, and some sergeants-at-arms were the only officers of the palace. The king and princes of his household only changed apparel three times during the year.

[Fig. 49.]--King David playing on the Lyre, surrounded by four Musicians.--Costumes of the Thirteenth Century (from a Miniature in a Manuscript Psalter in the Imperial Library, Paris).

The children of the King slept in sheets of serge, and their nurses were dressed in gowns of dark-coloured woollen stuff, called brunette. The royal cloak, which was of scarlet, was jewelled, but the King only wore it on great ceremonies. At the same time enormous expenses were incurred for implements of war, arrows, helmets with visors, chariots, and for the men-at-arms whom the King kept in his pay.

Louis IX. personally kept up almost similar habits. The Sire de Joinville tells us in his "Chronicles," that the holy King on his return from his first crusade, in order to repair the damage done to his treasury by the failure of this expedition, would no longer wear costly furs nor robes of scarlet, and contented himself with common stuffs trimmed with hare-skin. He nevertheless did not diminish the officers of his household, which had already become numerous; and being no doubt convinced that royalty required magnificence, he surrounded himself with as much pomp as the times permitted.

Under the two Philips, his successors, this magnificence increased, and descended to the great vassals, who were soon imitated by the knights "bannerets." There seemed to be a danger of luxury becoming so great, and so general in all classes of feudal society, that in 1294 an order of the King was issued, regulating in the minutest details the expenses of each person according to his rank in the State, or the fortune which he could prove. But this law had the fate of all such enactments, and was either easily evaded, or was only partially enforced, and that with great difficulty. Another futile attempt to put it in practice was made in 1306, when the splendour of dress, of equipages, and of table had become still greater and more ruinous, and had descended progressively to the bourgeois and merchants.

It must be stated in praise of Philip le Bel ([Fig. 50]) that, notwithstanding the failure of his attempts to arrest the progress of luxury, he was not satisfied with making laws against the extravagances of his subjects, for we find that he studied a strict economy in his own household, which recalled the austere times of Philip Augustus. Thus, in the curious regulations relating to the domestic arrangements of the palace, the Queen, Jeanne de Navarre, was only allowed two ladies and three maids of honour in her suite, and she is said to have had only two four-horse carriages, one for herself and the other for these ladies. In another place these regulations require that a butler, specially appointed, "should buy all the cloth and furs for the king, take charge of the key of the cupboards where these are kept, know the quantity given to the tailors to make clothes, and check the accounts when the tailors send in their claims for the price of their work."

[Fig. 50.]--King Philip le Bel in War-dress, on the Occasion of his entering Paris in 1304, after having conquered the Communes of Flanders.--Equestrian Statue placed in Notre Dame, Paris, and destroyed in 1772.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut from Thevet's "Cosmographie Universelle," 1575.