"Stiward tac thou here,
My fundling for to lere
Of thine mestere,
Of wode and of ryvere,
Ant toggen o' the harpe,
With is nayles sharpe;
Ant tech him alle the listes
That thou ever wystes
Byfore me to kerven,

Ant of my coupe to serven ;
Ant his feren devyse

With ous other servise.
Horn, child, thou understand

Tech him of harpe and of song."$$

For only one more extract from the old romances, shall I claim the indulgence of my readers in the words of the minstrel,

"A clerk he toke

That taught the child upon the boke
Both to synge and to rede,

And after he taught him other dede.
Afterwards to serve in halle,

Both to great and to small.
Before the king meat to kerve
Hye and low feyre to serve.
Both of houndis and hawkis game,
After he taught him all and same,
In se, in field, and eke in river,
In wood to chase the wild deer;
And in the field to ride a steed,
That all men had joy of his deed."

The mystery of rivers and the mystery of woods were important parts of knightly education. The mystery of woods was hunting; the mystery of rivers was not fishing, but hawking, an expression which requires a few words of explanation. In hawking, the pursuit of waterfowls afforded most diversion. Chaucer says that he could

"Ryde on hawking by the river,

With grey gos hawk on hand."

The favourite bird of chase was the heron, whose peculiar flight is not horizontal, like that of field birds, but perpendicular. It is wont to rise to a great height on finding itself the object of pursuit, while its enemy, using equal efforts to out-tower it, at length gains the advantage, swoops upon the heron with prodigious force, and strikes it to the ground. The amusement of hawking, therefore, could be viewed without the spectators moving far from the river's side where the game was sprung; and from that circumstance it was called the mystery of rivers.*

But I shall attempt no further to describe in separate portions the subjects of knightly education, and to fill up the sketches of the old romances; for those sketches, though correct, present no complete outline, and the military exercises are altogether omitted. We had better trace the cavalier, through the gra dations of his course, in the castle of his lord.

The education of a knight generally commenced at the age of seven or eight years, for no true lover of chivalry

* Mr. Rose's note on the Romance of Partenopex of Blois, p. 51.

Caxton, Fayt of Armes and of Chyvalrye, c. 9. Mémoires du bon Messire Jean le Maingre,

66

wished his children to pass their time in idleness and indulgence. At a baronial feast, a lady in the full glow of maternal pride pointed to her offspring, and demanded of her husband whether he did not bless Heaven for having given him four such fine and promising boys. Dame," replied her lord, thinking her observation ill timed and foolish," so help me God and Saint Martin, nothing gives me greater sorrow and shame than to see four great sluggards, who do nothing but eat and drink and waste their time in idleness and folly." Like other children of gentle birth, therefore, the boys of this noble Duke Guerin of Montglaive, in spite of their mother's wishes, commenced their chivalric exercises.* An some places there were schools appointed by the nobles of the country, but most frequently their own castles served. Every feudal lord had his court, to which he drew the sons and daughters of the poorer gentry of his domains; and his castle was also frequented by the children of men of equal rank with himself, for (such was the modesty and courtesy of chivalry) each knight had generally some brother in arms, whom he thought better fitted than himself to grace his children with noble accomplishments.

The duties of the boy for the first seven years of his service were chiefly personal. If sometimes the harsh prin. ciples of feudal subordination gave rise to such service, it oftener proceeded from the friendly relations of life; and as in the latter case it was voluntary, there was no loss of honourable consideration in performing it. The dignity of obedience, that principle which blends the various shades of social life, and which had its origin in the patriarchal manners of early Europe, was now fostered in the castles of the feudal nobility. The light-footed youth attended the lord and his lady in the hall, and followed them in all their exercises of war and pleasure; and it was considered unknightly for a cavalier to wound a page in battle. He also acquired the rudiments of those incongruous subjects, religion, love, and war, so strangely blended in chivalry; dit Boucicaut, Maréchal de France, c. 5, 9, in the sixth volume of the large collection of French

Memoirs.

* L'Histoire de Guerin de Montglaive.

and generally the intellectual and moral education of the boy was given by the ladies of the court.

From the lips of the ladies the gentle page learned both his catechism and the art of love, and as the religion of the day was full of symbols, and addressed to the senses, so the other feature of his devotion was not to be nourished by ab-+ stract contemplation alone. He was directed to regard some one lady of the court as the type of his heart's future mistress; she was the centre of all his hopes and wishes; to her he was obedient, faithful, and courteous.

66

While the young Jean de Saintre was a page of honour at the court of the French king, the Dame des Belles Cousines inquired of him the name of the mistress of his heart's affections. The simple youth replied, that he loved his lady mother, and next to her, his sister Jacqueline was dear to him. Young man," rejoined the lady, "I am not speaking of the affection due to your mother and sister; but I wish to know the name of the lady to whom you are attached par amours." The poor boy was still more confused, and he could only reply, that he loved no one par amours. The Dame des Belles Cousines charged him with being a traitor to the laws of chivalry, and declared that his craven spirit was evinced by such an avowal. "Whence," she required, "sprang the valiancy and knightly feats of Launcelot, Gawain, Tristram, Giron the courteous, and other ornaments of the round table; of Ponthus, and of those knights and squires of this country whom I could enumerate: whence the grandeur of many whom I have known to arise to renown, except from the noble desire of maintaining themselves in the grace and esteem of the ladies; without which spirit-stirring sentiment they must have ever remained in the shades of obscurity? And do you, coward valet, presume to declare that you possess no sovereign lady, and desire to have none ?"

Jean underwent a long scene of persecution on account of his confession of the want of proper chivalric sentiment, but he was at length restored to favour by the intercession of the ladies of the court. He then named as his mistress

and cup-bearers of the Earl of Foix were his sons. * The squire cup-bearer was often as fine and spirited a character as his knight. Once, when Edward the Black prince was sojourning in Bordeaux, he entertained in his chamber many of his English lords. A squire brought wine into the room, and the prince, after he had drank, sent the cup to Sir John Chandos, selecting him as the first in honour, because he was constable of Aquitain. The knight drank, and by his command the squire bore the cup to the Earl of Oxenford, a vain, weak man, who, unworthy of greatness, was ever seeking for those poor trifles which noble knights overlooked and scorned. Feeling his dignity of

fended that he had not been treated ac

cording to his rank, he refused the cup and with mocking gesture desired the squire to carry it to his master, Sir John Chandos. "Why so?" replied the youth, "he hath drank already, therefore drink you, since he hath offered it to you. If you will not drink, by St. George, I will cast the wine in your face." The Earl, judging from the stern and dogged manner of the squire, that this was no idle threat, quietly set the cup his mouth.t

*Froissart, vol. 2, c. 31.

to

+ Froissart, vol. 2, c. 92. The Earl of Oxenford had reason to repent of his arrogance. Sir John Chandos, observes Froissart, marked well all the matter between his squire and the earl, and remained quiet till the prince was gone from

them, and then coming to the earl, he said, "Sir Thomas, are you displeased that I drank before you, I am constable of this country; I may well drink before you, since my lord the prince, and other lords here, are content therewith. It is of truth that you were at the battle of Poictiers; but all who were there do not know so well as I what

you did. I shall declare it. When my lord the prince had made his voyage in Languedock and Carcassone to Narbonne, and was returned hither to his town of Bordeaux, you chose to go to England. What the king said to you on your arrival I know right well, though I was not present. He demanded of you whether you had finished your voyage, and what you had done with his son the prince. You answered, that you had left him in good health at Bordeaux. Then the king said, How durst you be so bold as to return without him? I commanded you and all others when ye departed, that you should not return without him, and you thus presume to come again to England. I straightly command you, that within four days you avoid my

After dinner the squires prepared the chess tables or arranged the hall for minstrelsy and dancing. They participated in all these amusements; and herein the difference between the squire and the mere domestic servant was shown. In strictness of propriety the squire's dress ought to have been brown, or any of those dark colours which our ancestors used to call sad.' But the gay spirit of youth was loth to observe this rule.

"Embroidered was he, as it were a mede, Alle full of freshe floures, white and rede."

His dress was never of the fine tex

ture, nor so highly ornamented as that of the knight. The squires often made the beds of their lords, and the service of the day was concluded by their presenting them with the vin du coucher.

"Les lis firent le Escuier,

Si coucha chacun son seignor."

Personal service was considered so much the duty of a squire that his title was always applied to some particular part of it. The squires of a lord had each his respective duties one was the squire of the chamber, or the chamberlain; and another the carving squire. Every branch of the domestic arrangements of the castle was under the charge of an aspirant to chivalry. Spenser, who has opened to us so many interesting views of chivalric manners, has admirably painted the domestic squire discharging some of his duties:

"There fairly them receives a gentle squire,
Of mild demeanor and rare courtesy,
Right cleanly clad in comely sad attire;
In word and deed that show'd great modesty,

On the

realm and return again to him, and if I find you within this my realm on the fifth day, you shall lose your life, and all your heritage forever.' And you feared the king's words, as it was reason, and left the realm, and so your fortune was good, for truly you were with my lord the prince four days before the battle of Poictiers. day of the battle you had forty spears under your charge, and I had fourscore. Now you may see whether I ought to drink before you or not, since I am constable of Aquitain." The Earl of Oxenford was ashamed, and would gladly have been thence at the time; but he was obliged to remain and hear this reproof from that right noble knight, Sir John Chandos.

The most honourable squire was he that was attached to the person of his lord; he was called the squire of the body, and was in truth for the time the only military youth of the class: every squire, however, became in turn by seniority the martial squire. He accompanied his lord into the field of battle, carrying his shield and armour, while the page usually bore the hemlet.† He held the stirrup, and assisted the knight to arm. There was always a line of squires in the rear of a line of knights; the young cavaliers supplying their lords with weapons, assisting them to rise when overthrown, and receiving their prisoners.‡

The banner of the banneret and baron was displayed by the squire. The pennon of the knight was also waved by him when his leader was only a knight, and conducted so many men-at-arms, and other vassals, that, to give dignity and importance to his command, he removed his penuon from his own lance to that of his attendant. We can readily believe the historians of ancient days, that it was right pleasant to witness the seemly pride and generous emulation with which the squires of the baron, the banneret, and the knight displayed the various ensigns of their master's chivalry.

But whatever were the class of duties to which the candidate for chivalry was attached, he never forgot that he was also the squire of dames. During his course of a valet he had been taught to play with love, and as years advanced, nature became his tutor. Since knights were bound by oath to defend the feebler sex, so the principle was felt in all its force and spirit by him who aspired to chivalric honours. Hence proceeded the qualities of kindness, gen

*Fair Queen, book 1, canto 10, st. 7. Froissart, 1, c. 269. M. Paris, 873. 木 "Les prisons firent arreter, Et en lieu seur tourner,

A leurs escuyers les liverent

Et à garder les commandement."

the

tleness, and courtesy. The minstrels in the castles harped of love as well as of war, and from them (for all young men had not, like Sir Ipomydon, clerks for their tutors) the squire learned to express his passion in verse. This was an important feature of chivalric education, for among the courtesies of love, the present of books from knights to ladies was not forgotten, and it more often happened than monkish austerity approved of, that a volume, bound in sacred guise, contained, not a series of hymns to the Virgin Mary, but a variety of amatory effusions to a terrestrial mistress.* Love was mixed in the mind of the young squire with images of war, and he, therefore, thought that his mistress, like honour, could only be gained through difficulties and dangers; and from this feeling proceeded the romance of his passion. But while no obstacle, except the maiden's disinclination, was in his way, he sang, he danced, he played on musical instruments, and practised all the arts common to all ages and nations to win the fair. In Chaucer, we have a delightful picture of the manners of the squire :

"Singing he was or floyting all the day, He was as fresh as is the month of May.† He could songs make, and well endite, Just and eke dance, and well pourtraie and write;

So hote he loved, that by nighterdale (night time)

He slept no more than doth the nightingale."

Military exercises were mingled with the anxieties of love. He practised every mode by which strength and activity could be given to the body. He learned to endure hunger and thirst; to disregard

the seasons' changes, and like the Roman

* Ulrich von Lichtenstein, p. 70. Ulrich was a German knight, who lived in the fourteenth century, and wrote his own memoirs. They often give us curious glimpses into ancient chivalry.

+ Chaucer, in drawing his squire, had certainly in mind a passage from his favourite poem, "The Romaunt of the Rose:"

"Si avoient bien a Bachalier,
Que il sache de vieler,

De fleuter et de danser."

I do not notice this circumstance on account of the literary coincidence, but to show that the squire of France and the squire of England were in Chaucer's view the same character.