[14] J. B. de Lacurne de Sainte Palaye, Mémoires sur l’Ancienne Chevalerie, i. 363, 364 (ed. 1781).
[15] Du Cange, Dissertation sur Joinville, xxi.; Sainte Palaye, Mémoires, i. 272; G. F. Beltz, Memorials of the Order of the Garter (1841,) p. xxvii.
[16] Du Cange, Dissertation, xxi., and Lancelot du Lac, among other romances.
[17] Anstis, Register of the Order of the Garter, i. 63.
[18] Grose, Military Antiq. i. 207 seq.; Stubbs, Const. Hist. ii. 276 seq., and iii. 278 seq.
[19] Grose’s Military Antiquities, ii. 256.
[20] Sainte Palaye, Mémoires, i. 36; Froissart, bk. iii. ch. 9.
[21] Sainte Palaye, Mémoires, pt. i. and Mills, History of Chivalry, vol. i. ch. 2.
[22] See the long sermon in the romance of Petit Jehan de Saintré, pt. i. ch. v., and compare the theory there set forth with the actual behaviour of the chief personages. Even Gautier, while he contends that chivalry did much to refine morality, is compelled to admit the prevailing immorality to which medieval romances testify, and the extraordinary free behaviour of the unmarried ladies. No doubt these romances, taken alone, might give as unfair an idea as modern French novels give of Parisian morals, but we have abundant other evidence for placing the moral standard of the age of chivalry definitely below that of educated society in the present day.
[23] Sainte Palaye, Mémoires, i. 11 seq.: “C’est peut-être à cette cérémonie et non à celles de la chevalerie qu’on doit rapporter ce qui se lit dans nos historiens de la première et de la seconde race au sujet des premières armes que les Rois et les Princes remettoient avec solemnité au ieunes Princes leurs enfans.”