The romance

whatever can be supposed to enter. of Tirante the White,' praised by Cervantes as a faithful picture of the knights and ladies of his age, seems to have been written in an actual brothel, and contrasted with others, may lead us to suspect that their purity is that of romance, their profligacy that of reality. This license was greatly increased by the Crusades, from which the survivors of these wild expeditions brought back the corrupted morals of the East, to avenge the injuries they had inflicted on its inhabitants. Joinville has informed us of the complaints which Saint Louis made to him in confidence of the debaucheries practised in his own royal tent, by his attendants, in this holy expedition. And the ignominious punishment to which he subjected a knight, detected in such excesses, shows what severe remedies he judged necessary to stem the increase of libertinism.

Indeed, the gross license which was practised during the middle ages, may be well estimated by the vulgar and obscene language that was currently used in tales and fictions addressed to the young and noble of both sexes. In the romance of the Round Table, as Ascham sternly states, little was to be learned but examples of homicide and adultery, although he had himself seen it admitted to the antechamber of princes, when it was held a crime but to be possessed of the Word of God. In the romance of Amadis de Gaul, and many others, the heroines, without censure or imputation, confer

1[" Tirante was first published in the Catalonian dialect at Valencia in 1480. It was thence transformed into the Castilian language, and published at Valladolid in 1511.-DUNLOP."]..

on their lovers the rights of a husband before the ceremony of the church gave them a title to the name. These are serious narrations, in which decorum, at least, is rarely violated. But the comic tales are of a far more indelicate cast.

The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer contain many narratives, of which, not only the diction, but the whole turn of the narrative, is extremely gross. Yet it does not seem to have occurred to the author, a man of rank and fashion, that they were improper to be recited, either in the presence of the Prioress and her votaries, or in that of the noble Knight who "of his port was meek as is a maid,

And never yet no villany he said."

And he makes but a little apology for including the disasters of the Millar of Trompington, or of Absalom the Gentle Clerk, in the same series of narrations with the Knight's Tale. Many of Bandello's most profligate novels are expressly dedicated to females of rank and consideration. And, to conclude, the Fabliaux, published by Barbazan and Le Grand, are frequently as revolting, from their naked grossness, as interesting from the lively pictures which they present of life and manners. Yet these were the chosen literary pastimes of the fair and the gay, during the times of Chivalry, and listened to, we cannot but suppose, with an interest considerably superior to that exhibited by the yawning audience who heard the theses of the Courts of Love attacked and supported in logical form, and with metaphysical subtlety.

Should the manners of the times appear inconsistent in these respects which we have noticed, we

must remember that we are ourselves variable and inconsistent animals, and that, perhaps, the surest mode of introducing and encouraging any particular vice, is to rank the corresponding virtue at a pitch unnatural in itself, and beyond the ordinary attainment of humanity. The vows of celibacy introduced profligacy among the Catholic clergy, as the high-flown and overstrained Platonism of the professors of Chivalry favoured the increase of license and debauchery.

After the love of God and of his lady, the preux chevalier was to be guided by that of glory and renown. He was bound by his vow to seek out adventures of risk and peril, and never to abstain from the quest which he might undertake, for any unexpected odds of opposition which he might encounter. It was not indeed the sober and regulated exercise of valour, but its fanaticism, which the genius of Chivalry demanded of its followers. Enterprises the most extravagant in conception, the most difficult in execution, the most useless when achieved, were those by which an adventurous knight chose to distinguish himself. There were solemn occasions also, on which these displays of chivalrous enthusiasm were specially expected and called for. It is only sufficient to name the tournaments, single combats, and solemn banquets, at which vows of chivalry were usually formed and proclaimed.

The tournaments were uniformly performed and frequented by the choicest and noblest youth in Europe, until the fatal accident of Henry II., after which they fell gradually into disuse. It was in

vain that, from the various dangers to which they gave rise, these perilous amusements were prohibited by the heads of the Christian church. The Popes, infallible as they were deemed, might direct, but could not curb, the military spirit of Chivalry; they could excite crusades, but they could not abolish tournaments. Their laws, customs, and regulations, will fall properly under a separate article. It is here sufficient to observe, that these military games were of two kinds. In the most ancient, meaning "nothing in hate, but all in honour," the adventurous knights fought with sharp blades and lances, as in the day of battle. Even then, however, the number of blows was usually regulated, or, in cases of a general combat, some rules were laid down to prevent too much slaughter. The regulations of Duke Theseus for the tournament in Athens, as narrated by Chaucer in the Knight's Tale, may give a good example of these restrictions. When the combatants fought on foot, it was prohibited to strike otherwise than at the head or body; the number of strokes to be dealt with the sword and battle-axe were carefully numbered and limited, as well as the careers to be run with the lance. In these circumstances alone, the combats at outrance, as they were called, differed from encounters in actual war.

In process of time, the dangers of the solemn justs, held under the authority of princes, were modified by the introduction of arms of courtesy, as they were termed; lances, namely, without heads, and with round braces of wood at the extremity called rockets, and swords without points,

and with blunted edges. But the risk continued great, from bruises, falls, and the closeness of the defensive armour of the times, in which the wearers were often smothered. The weapons at outrance were afterwards chiefly used when knights of different and hostile countries engaged by appointment, or when some adventurous gallants took upon them the execution of an enterprise of arms (pas d'armes), in which they, as challengers, undertook, for a certain time, and under certain conditions, to support the honour of their country, or their mistresses, against all comers. These enterprises often ended fatally, but the knights who undertook them were received in the foreign countries which they visited in accomplishment of their challenge, with the highest deference and honour; their arrival was considered as affording a subject of sport and jubilee to all ranks; and when any mischance befell them, such as that of De Lindsay, who, in a tournament at Berwick, had his helmet nailed to his skull, by the truncheon of a lance which penetrated both, and died, after devoutly confessing himself, in the casque from which they could not disengage him, the knights who were spectators prayed that God would vouchsafe them in his mercy a death so fair and so honourable. Stories of such challenges, with the minute details of the events of the combat, form frequent features in the histories of the age.

The contests of the tournament and the pas d'armes were undertaken merely in sport, and for thirst of honour. But the laws of the period afforded the adventurous knight other and more