Fig. 122.—The Count of Artois, who has come from Arras to take part in the tournament at Boulogne, presents himself at the Castle of the Count of Boulogne, and is received by the Countess and her daughter.—Fac-simile of a Miniature in the “Livre du très-chevalereux Comte d’Artois et de sa Femme,” Barrois Manuscript (Fifteenth Century).
Fig. 123.—Knight setting out for the War.—“Il prist le dur congié de sa bonne et belle femme, en si grans pleurs et gemissemens qu’elle demoura toute pasmée” (“He said farewell to his good and beautiful wife with such tears and groans that she was ready to swoon”).—Fac-simile of a Miniature in the “Livre du très-chevalereux Comte d’Artois et de sa Femme,” Barrois Manuscript (Fifteenth Century).
And while the most perfect respect and courtesy to ladies were the first duties instilled into each youthful aspirant, it must be owned that the education received by the former was one calculated to make them in every way worthy of such homage. To fit ladies for the queenly part they were destined to play in the world of chivalry, they were taught from their childhood to practise every virtue, to cherish every noble feeling, and generally to emulate the dignity demanded by the social privileges of their rank. They were profuse in their acts of kindness and civility to the knights, whether friends or strangers, who entered the gates of their castles (Figs. 122 and 123); on a knight’s return from tournament or battle, they unbuckled his armour with their own hands, they prepared perfumes and spotless linen for his wear, they clothed him in gala dress, in mantle and scarf that they had themselves embroidered, they prepared his bath, and waited on him at table. Destined to become the wives of these same knights who frequented their homes, they did their utmost to bring themselves under their notice by their modest demeanour, and to make themselves beloved by the courtesy and the attentions which they lavished upon them. It was theirs to respond, with admiration and tenderness, to the boldness and to the bravery of the knights, who sought glory only to lay it at their mistresses’ feet, and who asked for nothing better than to be subject to the gentle sway of beauty, grace, and virtue.
It was thus, for instance, that in Provence, from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, the most powerful nobles humbly obeyed, in everything that concerned the heart, the decrees issued by the courts or tribunals of love, a kind of feminine areopagus which was held with great ceremony on certain days, and at which the ladies most distinguished by birth, beauty, intelligence, and knowledge, met to deliberate, publicly or with closed doors, with proper gravity and solemnity, on delicate questions of gallantry, which in those days were considered highly important. These courts of love, which appear to have been regular and permanent institutions in the twelfth century, had a special code, in accordance with which the sentences pronounced were more or less rigorously in conformity; but this code has not been handed down to our day, and we only possess its outline conveyed in the commentaries of the legal writers of the fifteenth century. Causes in these courts were sometimes decided on written evidence, sometimes the parties themselves were allowed to appear in person. Among the celebrated women who at different epochs and in different places presided over these romantic assizes, may be cited the beautiful Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France, and afterwards of England; Sibyl of Anjou, who married Thierry, Count of Flanders; the Countess of Die, surnamed the Sappho of France; and the famous Laura or Lauretta of Sade, whom Petrarch, who chose her for the lady of his love, has immortalised in his verse.
But to return to the esquire, who was left undergoing his laborious novitiate. When he had at last performed all its numerous requirements, the investiture of knighthood was conferred upon him, a symbolical ceremony, as indeed were all that went to make up a chivalric ordination, but one of a more serious and solemn character than the rest.
We have already said that this word ordination (ordène) implies that the arming of a knight was a kind of sacred ceremony. A very curious poem entitled “L’Ordène de Chevalerie” is still in existence. Its author, Hugues de Tabarie or de Tibériade, undertook the task of explaining all the forms of the investiture. In order to make his explanations more intelligible, Hugues de Tibériade supposes himself before an aspirant entirely ignorant of all the usages of chivalry: he pretends that the Sultan Saladin, whose prisoner he is, has forced him to confer upon him the order of knighthood. The first thing Hugues does is to order him to comb his hair and beard, and to carefully wash his face:—
Text.
Caviaus et barbe, et li viaire
Li fist appareiller moult bel;