The chests were kept in the chambers, as being the most retired and secure part of the house, and, from the terms in which the breaking open of the chambers is spoken of in the foregoing extracts, we are led to suppose that the chambers themselves were usually locked. The ordinary place for the chests or hutches, or, at least, of the principal chest, was by the side, or more usually at the foot, of the bed. We have just seen that this was the place in which Constant Duhamel kept his huche. Under these circumstances it was very commonly used for a seat, and is often introduced as such, both in the literature of the middle ages, and in the illuminations of the manuscripts. In the romance of “Garin” (tom. i. p. 214), the king’s messenger finds the count of Flanders, Fromont, in a tent, according to one manuscript, seated on a coffer (sor un coffre où se sist). So, also, in the “Roman de la Violette,” p. 25, the heroine and her treacherous guest are represented as seated upon “a coffer banded with copper” (sor j. coffre bendé de coivre). Our cut [No. 191], taken from one of the engravings in the great work of Willemin, represents a scribe thus seated on a coffer or huche, and engaged apparently in writing a letter. Our next cut ([No. 192]), taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 15 E. vi.), represents a lady and gentleman, seated on apparently a coffer, the former of whom is presenting a ring to the other.
This latter object, the ring, acts also a very frequent and very important part in the social history of the middle ages. A ring was often given as a token of affection between lovers, as may perhaps be intended by the subject of our last cut, or between relatives or friends. In the romance of “Widukind,” tom. ii. p. 20, the queen gives her ring to her lover in a secret interview in her tent. So, in the romance of “Horn,” the lady Rigmel gave her lover, Horn, a ring as a token. It was often, moreover, given not merely as a token of remembrance, but as a means of recognition. In the well-known early English romance of “Sir Tristram,” the mother of the hero, dying in childbirth of him after his father had been slain, gives a ring to the knight to whose care she entrusted the infant, as a token by which his parentage should be known when he grew up:— A ring of riche hewe
Than hadde that levedi (lady) fre;
Sche toke (gave) it Rouhand trewe,
Hir sone schie bad it be;
Mi brother wele it knewe,
Mi fader yaf it me.
This ring leads subsequently to the recognition of Tristram by his uncle, king Mark. In the romance of “Ipomydon” (Weber’s “Metrical Romances,” vol. ii. p. 355), the hero similarly receives from his mother a ring, which was to be a token of recognition to his illegitimate brother. So, in the romance, Horn makes himself known in the sequel to Rigmel, by dropping the ring she had given him into the drinking-horn which she was serving round at a feast. Rings were often given to messengers as credentials, or were used for the same purpose as letters of introduction. In the romance of “Floire and Blanceflor” (p. 55), the young hero, on his way to Babylon, arrives at a bridge, the keeper of which has a brother in the great city, to whose hospitality he wishes to recommend Floire, and for that purpose he gives him his ring. “Take this ring to him,” he says, “and tell him from me to receive you in his best manner.” The message was attended with complete success. In our cut [No. 193], taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), the messenger arrives with the letter of which he is the bearer, and at the same time exhibits a ring in the place of credentials.
No. 192. The Token of the Ring.
No. 193. The Delivery of the Ring.
There was another circumstance which gave value and importance to rings in the middle ages. Not only might rings be charmed by the power of the magician, but it was an article of general belief that the engraved stones of the ancients, which were found commonly enough on old sites, and even the precious stones in general, without any engraving, possessed extraordinary virtues, the benefit of which was imparted to those who carried them on their persons. In the romance of “Melusine” (p. 357), the heroine, when about to leave the house of her husband, gives him two rings, and says, “My sweet love, you see here two rings of gold, which have both the same virtue; and know well for truth, that so long as you possess them, or one of them, you shall never be overcome in pleading nor in battle, if your cause be rightful: and neither you nor others who may possess them, shall ever die by any weapons.” In a story among the collection of the “Gesta Romanorum,” edited by sir Frederic Madden for the Roxburghe Club (p. 150), a father is made, on his deathbed, to give to his son a ring, “the virtue of which was, that whosoever should bear it upon him, should have the love of all men.” The ring given by the princess Rigmel to Horn possessed virtues of an equally remarkable description—“Whoever bore it upon him could not perish; he need not fear to die either in fire or water, or in field of battle, or in the contention of the tournament.” So, in the romance of “Floire and Blanceflor” (p. 42), the queen gives her son a ring which would protect him against all danger, and assure to him the eventual attainment of every object of his wishes. Nor was the ring of sir Perceval of Galles (Thornton Romances, p. 71) at all less remarkable in its properties, of which the rhymer says—
Siche a vertue es in the stane,
In alle this werlde wote I nane
Siche stone in a rynge;
A mane that had it in were (war)
One his body for to bere,
There scholde no dyntys (blows) hym dere (injure),
Ne to dethe brynge.
The consideration of the house and its parts and furniture, and of the outward forms of domestic life, leads us naturally to that of the constitution of the family. It was the chief pride of the aristocratic class to live very extravagantly, and to support a great household, with an immense number of personal attendants of different classes. In the first place the old system of fostering, which was kept up to a comparatively late period, added to the number of the lord’s or knight’s family. As might was literally right in the middle ages, each man of worth sought to strengthen himself by the alliances which were formed by finding powerful foster-fathers for his sons, and the personal attachment and fidelity between the chief of the family and his foster-child was often greater even than that between the father and his own son. In addition to the foster children, gentlemen sent their sons to take an honourable kind of service in the families of men of higher rank or greater wealth, where the manners and accomplishments of gentlemen were to be learnt in greater perfection than at home; and the younger sons of great families sought similar service with a view to their advancement in the world. These two classes were the young squires, who served at table, and performed a great number of what we should now call menial offices to the lord and ladies of the household, in all the amusements and recreations of which they took part, and at the same time were instructed in gentlemanly manners and exercises—it was a sort of apprenticeship introductory to knighthood. In the same manner the knightly families sent their daughters to serve under the ladies of the greater or lesser feudal chieftains, and they formed that class who, in the French romances and fabliaux, are called the chambrières, or chamber attendants, and in the English texts, simply the maidens, of the establishment. The ladies of rank prided themselves upon having a very great number of these chambrières, or maidens, for they were not only a means of ostentation, but they were profitable, inasmuch as besides attending on the personal wants of their mistresses, they were constantly employed in spinning, weaving, and the various processes of producing cloth, in millinery and dress-making, in embroidery, and in a great number of similar labours, which were not only required for furnishing the large number of persons who depended upon their lord for their liveries, &c., but which were sometimes sold to obtain money, which was always a scarce thing in the country. The beauty of the pucelles, as they are often termed in the French text, or maidens, is also spoken of as a subject of pride. In a metrical story printed by Meon (ii. 38), a great lady receiving a female stranger into her household, became so much attached to her, “that she made more of her than of all her maidens, of whom,” it is added, “there were handsome ones in her chambers”— De li la dame fet grant feste,
Plus que de totes ses puceles,
Dont en ses chambres a de beles.
And so, in the romance of “Blonde of Oxford” (p. 30), when the countess went with her maidens to visit John, the remark is made that among them there were plenty of beauties:—
Et la contesse et ses puceles,
Dont ele avoit assés de beles.