For the castles of the Barons were, as I said, the courts of these little sovereigns, as well as their fortresses; and the resort of their vassals thither in honour of their chiefs, and for their own proper security, would make that civility and politeness, which is seen in courts and insensibly prevails there, a predominant part in the character of these assemblies.
This is the poet’s own account of
——court and royal citadel,
The great school-maistresse of all Courtesy.
B. III. C. vi. s. 1.
And again, more largely in B. VI. C. i. s. 1.
Of Court it seems men Courtesie do call,
For that it there most useth to abound;
And well beseemeth that in Princes hall
That Virtue should be plentifully found,
Which of all goodly manners is the ground
And root of civil conversation:
Right so in faery court it did resound,
Where courteous knights and ladies most did won
Of all on earth, and made a matchless paragon.
For Faery Court means the reign of Chivalry; which, it seems, had undergone a fatal revolution before the age of Milton, who tells us that Courtesy
——is sooner found in lonely sheds
With smoaky rafters, than in tap’stry halls
And courts of princes, where it first was nam’d,
And yet is most pretended.
Mask.
Further, the free commerce of the ladies, in those knots and circles of the great, would operate so far on the sturdiest knights, as to give birth to the attentions of gallantry. But this gallantry would take a refined turn, not only from the necessity there was of maintaining the strict form of decorum, amidst a promiscuous conversation under the eye of the Prince and in his own family; but also from the inflamed sense they must needs have of the frequent outrages committed, by their neighbouring clans of adversaries, on the honour of the sex, when by chance of war they had fallen into their hands. Violations of chastity being the most atrocious crimes they had to charge on their enemies, they would pride themselves in the merit of being its protectors: and as this virtue was, of all others, the fairest and strongest claim of the sex itself to such protection, it is no wonder that the notions of it were, in time, carried to so platonic an elevation.
Thus, again, the great master of Chivalry himself, on this subject,
It hath been thro’ all ages ever seen,
That, with the praise of arms and chivalry,
The prize of beauty still hath joined been;
And that for reason’s special privity:
For either doth on other much rely;
For He mee seems most fit the fair to serve,
That can her best defend from villainy;
And She most fit his service doth deserve,
That fairest is, and from her faith will never swerve.
Spenser, B. IV. C. v.