[1] St. Palaye, to whom we owe the ideal of chivalry, has truly
observed, "Toutes les vertus recommandees par la Chevalerie
tournoient au bien public, au profit de l'Etat." It was when the
causes of its institution ceased, and nothing remained but its forms
without its motive, that altered manners could safely ridicule some
noble qualities which, though now displaced, have not always found
equal substitutes. In the advancement of society we may count some
losses.
[2] I recollect this trait in Chaucer. The Norway hawk was among the
most valuable articles of property, valued at a sum equal to L300 of
the present day.--Nicholls, "History of Leicestershire," xxxix.
[3] The Norman William punished men with loss of eyes for taking his
venery.--Selden's notes to "Drayton's Polyolbion," Song ii.
An instant execution of two youths by the gamekeepers, at the command
of their Lord, appears in an ancient romance recently published in
France.--_Journal des Savans_, 1838.
[4] A curious specimen of these "Household Books," though of a later
period, is that of the Northumberland family, printed by Bishop
Percy. Many exist in manuscript, and contain particulars more
valuable than the prices of commodities, for which they are usually
valued; they offer striking pictures of the manners of their age.
[The Wardrobe accounts of Edward the Fourth, the Privy Purse expenses
of Edward IV. and Henry VIII., have been since published by Sir
Harris Nicolas; and those of the Princess Mary, afterwards Queen, by
Sir Frederick Madden. The judicious notes and dissertations of these
editors render them of much use in illustration of the history of
each era.--ED.]
[5] "Warton," i. 94.
[6] "Warton," ii. 412.
[7] Stowe's "Survey by Strype," book iii. 235. We might wish to learn
the authority of Stowe for ascribing this "pleasant wit" to Rahere of
the eleventh century! As the pen of venerable Stowe never moved idly,
our antiquary must have had some information which is now lost. "The
king's minstrel" is also a doubtful designation: was the founder of
this priory "a king of the minstrels?" an office which the French
also had, _Roy des Menestraulx_, a governor instituted to keep order
among all minstrels. Our Rahere, however "pleasant-witted," seems to
have fallen into penance for his "wit," for he became the first
prior.
[8] _Antiquites Nationales_, par Millin, xli. Two plates exhibit this
Gothic chapel and the various musical instruments.
[9] Both these romantic tales may be considered as authentic
narratives, though they have often been used by the writers of
fiction. _La Chatelaine de Vergy_ has been sometimes confounded with
_Le Chatelaine de Coucy_, the lover of _La Dame du Fayel_. The story
of the Countess of Tergy (on which a romance of the thirteenth
century is founded, Hist. Litt. de France, xviii. 779) has been a
favourite with the tale-tellers--the Queen of Navarre, Bandello, and
Belle Forest, and is elegantly versified in the "Fabliaux, or Tales,"
of Way. That of the Dame du Fayel, one of the fathers of French
literary history, old Fauchet, extracted it from a good old chronicle
dated two centuries before he wrote. The story is also found in an
ancient romance of the thirteenth century, in the Royal Library of
France.--Hist. Litt. de la France, xiv. 589; xvii. 644. The story of
Childe Waters in Percy's Collection has all the pathetic simplicity
of ancient minstrelsy, which is more forcibly felt when we compare it
with the rifaccimento by a Mrs. Pye, in Evans's Old Ballads.
[10] Montaigne was so well acquainted with this practice, that he has
used it as a familiar illustration of the obstinacy of some
women--which I suppose the good man imagined could not be paralleled
by instances from the masculine sex; however, his language must not
be disguised by a modern version. "Celui qui forgea le conte de la
femme qui, pour aucune correction de menaces et bastonnades, ne
cessait d'appeler son mari, Pouilleux, et qui, precipite dans l'eau,
haussoit encore, en s'etouffant, les mains et faisoit au-dessus de sa
tete signe de tuer des poux, forgea un conte duquel en verite tous
les jours on voit l'image expresse de l'opiniatrete des femmes."
The punishment of our "Ducking-stool" for female brawlers possibly
originated in this medieval practice of throwing women into the
river: but this is but an innocuous baptism, while we find the
obstinate wife here, who probably spoke true enough,
_s'etouffant_,--merely for correcting the filthy lubbard, her lord
and master.
[11] Leland's "Itinerary," ii. 126.
[12] Paston's "Letters," v. 17.
[13] See the very curious chapter on the "Fetish Worship," in that
very original and learned work "The Doctor," v. 133.