Apart from such ballad-cycles as those dealing with the two Valdemars, the King mostly appears merely as a power in the background—a deus (or, more frequently, a diabolus) ex machinâ. Of devoted loyalty, of patriotism identified with the royal person, we find traces only in the most ancient historical Ballads—with an occasional after-echo such as the Page’s words in the “King-Slaying in Finderup” (No. 6). His courtiers and “captains” are derided by the country-bred minstrel: “So long have they served in the royal court they can bear nor heat nor smoke!”
The Church, too, is only seen afar off—affects the Knight chiefly through the convent school, where young ladies are educated. The Burgher is an unknown quantity. Only in a late (fifteenth-century) Ballad do we hear of the rich merchants, with houses in “Randers street,” whose gilded vanes gleam over the walls, shaming the castles of envious Knights.
The Yeoman (Bonde) class was that with which this lesser nobility was most intimately connected—the class whence it sprang, wherein it was merged after the Peasant Revolt of 1584. Well-born youths are described as “noble yeomen’s sons” (ædelige Bøndersønner), and a yeoman’s wife makes occasional appearance as heroine of a Ballad. The Knight defends the yeoman against pillage and oppression. The two classes, however, are distinct, and keep their distance. The Knight may farm his own land—may even be found holding the plough—but he is, none the less, the yeoman’s social superior. His daughter, if she weds a yeoman, must “doff the scarlet fine, and don the wadmal grey.”
The Knight was served by his Squires (svende)—sometimes of yeoman extraction, but more frequently landless nobles, or younger sons—his lady by her Maidens. The former received wages, and a training in chivalry; the latter learnt polite deportment, household duties, and needle-craft. Thus in our own “Fause Foodrage”:
“And ye sall teach my gay goss-hawk
To wield baith bow and brand,
And I sall teach your turtle-doo
To lay gowd wi’ her hand.”
The Knight’s existence, then, much resembled the Viking’s—was passed in warfare, with intervals of agriculture, of sport, or even of commerce. That it was lived chiefly “on the land” is shown by a thousand touches and images racy of the soil. The arrows stick “thick as hay” in Knight Stig’s mantle; young Engelbret hews down his foes “as the peasant cuts down corn.” The Knight’s absences from home are frequently mentioned—absences on foray, on trading journeys, or at the Thing—the Yeomen’s Thing or District Council, distinct from the great national Land’s Thing. There the local notabilities met to settle local affairs, conclude bargains, and dispose of their children’s hands in marriage (see “Lovel and John,” No. 28).
As this Knight was to some extent a country squire, so his dwelling rather resembled a fortified farm than a feudal castle. Its garth (gaard), surrounded by a palisade, contained a collection of separate buildings, mostly built of wood, and thatched with straw or reed. The linden tree which shaded the garth, and the castle gate which afforded a glimpse of the outer world, figure largely in the Ballads.