All these guests, however, expect to receive presents—bliauts, mantles, goblets, and other things, each suitable to the recipient. It is well that Conon has saved many livres in his strong box. The presenting of the gifts by the host is quite a ceremony; each article has to be accompanied by a well-turned speech. By the time this reception to the bride and groom is over the trumpets sound furiously. They tell that the feast is ready in the fragrant garden under the trees. There is a fine tent of blue silk for the bridal party and the more exalted guests. All the others must sit on long tables open to the glad sunshine.
The Marriage Feast
What Messire Conon's guests have to eat and drink is so serious a topic that we must tell thereof separately. We speak here merely concerning the festivities of the wedding. Olivier and Alienor are served by two barons as squires of state. The groom drinks from a great goblet, then sends it to his wife, who ceremoniously finishes the draught. In the bridal tent there is a reasonable amount of decorum, but elsewhere (Blessed martyrs!) what noise and tumult! All the villeins appear to be there, and burghers have even wandered up from Pontdebois. It will never do to have men say, "The bride was charming, but her brother stinted his hospitality." Enough food and drink is gorged and guzzled to stave off a famine next winter. The jongleurs keep quiet during the first part of the feast; later they earn their dinner by singing of the loves of Jourdain and Orabel or of Berte, who was the faithful wife of Girard of Roussillon through all of her lord's adversity. At many of the tables the jesting and horseplay become unspeakably ribald. After the wine circulates two petty nobles quarrel; one strikes the other with a drinking cup, but the sergeants pull them apart before they can whip out swords.
After three hours of this some guests are sleeping stertorously under the trees; but those nobles who have kept their wits go to another large tent, and, despite their heavy meal, dance with vigor. The bride and groom are expected to dance together, and everybody is prepared to admire the beauty of one and the grace and strength of the other. As evening advances a priest appears. He solemnly blesses the nuptial couch strewn with roses, while the new couple piously kneel. The couch is then "censed" like an altar, and the women guests join in the bizarre usages of "putting the bride to bed."
The morning after the marriage the newly wedded pair attend mass in the castle chapel. Here they are expected to make privately all kinds of vows of good conduct, and Alienor especially promises always to obey her husband, and call him dutifully "mon sire" and "mon baron."
The festivities will last two weeks longer, and conclude with the dubbing of knights and the tournament, whereof more presently. After that Olivier and his wife will depart for their Burgundian castle without anything like a honeymoon to strange parts....
So they celebrate the wedding at St. Aliquis. Very far is it from being a love match of a later day; yet there is a decent hope of happiness for the two most deeply interested. A new spirit in the relations of men and women has been creeping into the world since Greek and Roman days, and if this spirit too often manifests itself in illicit romances it is something if romantic love can exist at all, and if, also, in many an instance (as the jongleurs already like to tell us), their story can run that "thus the twain were wedded, and forevermore lived together happily."
It was as early as about 1160 that the South Country troubador, Bernart de Ventadoun, sang about the great motive which was coming to add beauty to the world:
"For indeed I know
Of no more subtle passion under heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid;
Not only to keep down the base within a man,
But teach high thought and amiable words,
And courtliness and the desire of fame
And love of truth, and all that makes a man!"