I have already spoken of the religious rites with which the esquire was admitted into the order of knighthood, and of the solemn and noble engagements into which he then entered. He had next to ‘win his spurs,’ as it was called; a phrase happily illustrated in the story of Edward III and the Black Prince, which Froissart thus relates:—
‘This battle between Broy and Cressy, this Saturday, was right cruel and fell, and many a feat of arms done that day came not to my knowledge.... In the morning, the day of the battle, certain Frenchmen and Almagnes perforce opened the archers of the prince’s battle (division as we should now say), and came and fought with the men of arms, hand to hand. Then the second battle of the Englishmen came to succour the prince’s battle, the which was time, for they had as then much ado. And they with the prince sent a messenger to the king, who was on a little windmill hill: then the knight said to the king, “Sir, the earl of Warwick, and the earl of Oxford, Sir Reynold Cobham, and other, such as lie about the prince your son, are fiercely fought withal, and are sore handled, wherefore they desire you that you and your battle will come and aid them, for if the Frenchmen increase, as they doubt they will, your son and they shall have much ado.” Then the king said, “Is my son dead, or hurt, or on the earth felled?” “No, sir,” quoth the knight, “but he is hardly matched, wherefore he hath need of your aid.” “Well,” said the king, “return to him, and to them that sent you hither, and say to them, that they send no more to me for any adventure that falleth, as long as my son is alive: and also say to them, that they suffer him this day to win his spurs; for, if God be pleased, I will this day’s work be his, and the honour thereof, and to them that be about him.” Then the knight returned again to them, and showed the king’s words, the which greatly encouraged them, and repented in that they had sent to the king as they did.’ Brave knights, to be ‘greatly encouraged’ by such stern though manly words. We are reminded of the not less brave and knightly demeanour of Sir Colin Halket and his men at Waterloo, when the Duke of Wellington rode up and asked how they were, and the general replied that two-thirds of the brigade were down, and the remainder so exhausted that the relief of fresh troops, for however short a time, was most desirable. But when the duke said that no relief was possible, that all depended on them, the answer which the officer made for himself and his men was, ‘Enough, my lord, we stand here till the last man falls.’
Thenceforth the knight’s career depended, he would not have said on himself, but on God and his lady: and if we may judge by the ordinary language of the romances, his lady was often the object of actual adoration, little differing from that he would have addressed to the saints in the hour of danger or of triumph. Philosophic divines teach us that although the worship of the saints may become in practice a gross and degrading superstition, it has in it an element of true, and in itself ennobling, faith in ideals of humanity more or less perfectly revealed in human form: and so while we smile at the fictions of extravagant fancy in which the mediæval knight was wont to clothe his love, and his professions of love, for his mistress, we cannot reasonably doubt that in the main, and for that time of youthful imaginations rather than of sober reasonings, the knight was right. When I think of what society was, and what it would still be, without the humanizing influences of womanhood and ladyhood, and what it is by means of these, I say that the tree may be judged by its fruits, and that it is from a right noble stock, rightly and wisely cultivated in the main, in those old days, that we are still gathering such noble fruits. Much evil there was along with the good; and, what is worse, much confusion between good and evil. I need not tell the reader of chivalry romances, or of Lord Tennyson’s reproductions of some of their incidents in modern form of thought as well as language, how painfully this confusion defaces many of the fairest characters and most interesting tales of chivalry, while the historical records of the times in which those romances were written and read show that the actual state of morals and manners exhibited the like confusions of good and evil, in the ideals as well as in the conduct of life. But, as I have already observed, we see, at least in the romance before us, the good contending with, and mastering the evil, and this not least in the end of the story of the guilty loves of Guenever and Launcelot, the knight whose fame in romance perhaps surpasses that of Amadis, though even mediæval morality was obliged to censure the constancy of Launcelot’s love, while it might unhesitatingly extol that of Amadis.
Lord Tennyson has, I may assume, made every one familiar with the retirement of queen Guenever to the nunnery of Almesbury, and with the death of Arthur; and I venture for the completion of this sketch to show, though from the present volume, how the old story which the poet chiefly follows relates the death and draws the character of Launcelot. Launcelot, when he heard of those events, went to Almesbury, and after taking leave of the queen, resolved to follow her example; and became a hermit and penitent, taking up his abode in a forest where was an hermitage and a chapel that stood between two cliffs; and there he served God day and night with prayers and fastings. Thus he, and other knights who followed his example, ‘endured great penance six years, and then Sir Launcelot took the habit of priesthood, and a twelvemonth he sang mass.’ At the end of that time a vision directed him to take the body of queen Guenever, now dead at Almesbury, and bury her with king Arthur at Glastonbury. Then the story goes on:—‘And when she was put in the earth Sir Launcelot swooned and lay long still, while the hermit came out and awaked him, and said, Ye be to blame, for ye displease God with such manner of sorrow making. Truly, said Sir Launcelot, I trust I do not displease God, for He knoweth mine intent, for my sorrow was not, nor is not, for any rejoicing of sin, but my sorrow may never have end. For when I remember of her beauty, and of her noblesse, that was both with her king and with her; so when I saw his corpse and her corpse so lie together, truly mine heart would not serve to sustain my careful body. Also when I remember me how by my default, and mine orgule, and my pride, that they were both laid full low, that were peerless that ever was living of christian people, wit ye well, said Sir Launcelot, this remembered, of their kindness and mine unkindness, sank so to my heart, that all my natural strength failed me, so that I might not sustain myself.’ The story goes on to say that there he wasted away, praying night and day at the tomb of the king and queen. He died, and was taken to his own castle of Joyous Gard to be buried. ‘And right thus as they were at their service there came Sir Ector de Maris, that had seven year sought all England, Scotland, and Wales, seeking his brother Sir Launcelot. And when Sir Ector heard such noise and light in the quire of Joyous Gard he alight, and put his horse from him, and came into the quire, and there he saw men sing and weep. And all they knew Sir Ector, but he knew not them. Then went Sir Bors unto Sir Ector, and told him how there lay his brother Sir Launcelot dead. And then Sir Ector threw his shield, sword, and helm from him; and when he beheld Sir Launcelot’s visage he fell down in a swoon; and when he awaked it were hard for any tongue to tell the doleful complaints that he made for his brother. Ah, Launcelot, he said, thou were head of all Christian knights! And now, I dare say, said Sir Ector, thou Sir Launcelot, there thou liest, that thou were never matched of earthly knight’s hands; and thou were the courtiest knight that ever bare shield; and thou were the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode horse; and thou were the truest lover, of a sinful man, that ever loved woman; and thou were the kindest man that ever strake with sword; and thou were the goodliest person ever came among press of knights; and thou was the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall among ladies; and thou were the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest.’
Let me compare with this Chaucer’s description of the knight of his times:—
‘A knight there was, and that a worthy man,
That from the timé that he first began
To riden out, he loved chivalry,
Truth and honóur, freedom and courtesy.
Full worthy was he in his lordés war,
And thereto had he ridden, no man farre,
As well in Christendom as in Heatheness,
And ever honoured for his worthiness.
At Alisandre he was when it was won:
Full oftentime he had the board begun
Aboven allé natións in Prusse:
In Lethowe had he reyséd, and in Russe,
No Christian man so oft, of his degree:
In Gernade at the siege eke had he be
Of Algesir, and ridden in Belmarie:
At Leyés was he, and at Satalie,
When they were won; and in the Greaté Sea
At many a noble army had he be.
At mortal battles had he been fifteen,
And foughten for our faith at Tramissene
In listés thriés, and aye slain his foe.
This ilké worthy knight had been also
Sometimé with the lord of Palathie
Against another heathen in Turkey;
And evermore he had a sovereign prise,
And though that he was worthy he was wise,
And of his port as meek as is a maid.
He never yet no villainy ne said
In all his life unto no manner wight:
He was a very perfect gentle knight.’
In an age when all men, not of the clergy, were divided between the two classes of freemen or gentlemen, and serfs or villains, and the villains were in habits and in human culture little better than the domestic animals of which they shared the labours, the knight almost inevitably belonged to the class of free, or gentle, birth. Still, in theory always, and to a great extent in practice, it was not his birth, but his personal merit, which qualified him for knighthood. The personal merit would oftener exist, and still oftener come to light, where it had the advantages and aids of education and general social culture. But if it was recognised in the villain, or man of no rights of birth, he might be, and often was, knighted, and was thereby immediately enfranchised, and accounted a gentleman, in law no less than in name. Thus Froissart tells us of Sir Robert Sale, the governor of Norwich, that ‘he was no gentleman born, but he had the grace to be reputed sage and valiant in arms, and for his valiantness King Edward made him knight.’ He was governor during the popular insurrection of which Wat Tyler and Jack Straw were the London leaders; and he was invited to put himself at the head of one of the risings by men who urged upon him—‘Sir Robert, ye are a knight and a man greatly beloved in this country, and renowned a valiant man; and though ye be thus, yet we know you well: ye be no gentleman born, but son to a villain, such as we be: therefore come you with us, and be our master, and we shall make you so great a lord that one quarter of England shall be under your obeisance.’ He refused, and they killed him. The same king also knighted the man-at-arms, son of a tanner, who was afterwards famous as Sir John Hawkwood. And the courtly as well as knightly Chaucer, who must more or less have reflected the feeling of the royal and noble personages among whom he lived, goes farther, and asserts that not only does virtue make the gentleman, but also baseness of mind the villain or churl:—
‘But understand in thine intent,
That this is not mine intendement,
To clepen no wight in no age
Only gentle for his lineage;
But whoso that is virtuous,
And in his port nought outrageous,
Though he be not gentle born,
Thou may’st well see this in soth,
That he is gentle because he doth
As longeth to a gentleman;
Of them none other deem I can:
For certainly, withouten drede,
A churl is deemed by his deed,
Of high or low, as you may see,
Or of what kindred that he be.’
Akin to this recognition of gentleness of mind and manners, as that which made a gentleman, was the sense of brotherhood among knights and gentlemen, which led them to trust in each other’s honour, even when they were fighting under the banners of hostile kings. The chronicles are full of the instances of such consideration of the English and French knights for each other in the wars between the two nations; and it is not without probability that to these and suchlike manifestations of the spirit of chivalry have been traced the courtesy and humanity which characterise modern warfare in a degree unknown to the ancients.
Much indeed of barbarism and cruelty there was in the usages of war in the best times of chivalry, even of the knights among themselves, and still more when they came, with passions infuriated by resistance, upon the people of lower rank than themselves. Edward III of England, and the knights whom he gathered round him, are held alike by contemporary historians and romance writers, and by those of modern times, to have best exhibited the characteristics of chivalry in its day of greatest refinement as well as splendour; yet no one can read the chronicles of even the admiring Froissart without seeing how much savage passion and cruelty was often mingled with their better dispositions: though we do see also that the cruelty was not because, but in spite of their chivalry. Froissart laments bitterly the iniquity of the massacre by the Black Prince of the people of Limoges, men, women, and children, more than three thousand. And when Edward III, before him, intended, as would seem, to have treated the town of Calais in like manner, not only did the French knights who had offered to surrender declare that they would ‘endure as much pain as knights ever did, rather than the poorest lad in the town should have any more evil than the greatest of us all’—showing that they made no selfish distinction between the noble and the villain—but the English knights, headed by Sir Walter of Manny, that flower of knighthood, protested to the utmost against their king’s purpose. And when he had yielded so far to their urgency as to say that he would be content with the lives of the six chief burgesses, Sir Walter of Manny again remonstrated, saying, ‘Ah, noble king, for God’s sake refrain your courage: ye have the name of sovereign noblesse: therefore now do not a thing that should blemish your renown, nor to give cause to some to speak of you villainy [to charge you with conduct unworthy of a knight and gentleman]; every man will say it is a great cruelty to put to death such honest persons, who by their own wills put themselves into your grace to save their company. Then the king wryed away from him, and commanded to send for the hangman, and said, “They of Calais had caused many of my men to be slain, wherefore these shall die in likewise.”’
It needed a stronger influence than that of Sir Walter of Manny to save their lives: and this brings me to speak of the LADY of the mediæval times; the LADY, who was the counterpart of the KNIGHT, and without whom he could never have existed. Here, indeed, I meet a difficulty which reminds me of what Coleridge says of the female characters of Shakspeare, that their truth to nature, and therefore their beauty, consists in the absence of strongly marked features. It is impossible to read the poems, romances, or chronicles of the mediæval times, without feeling all through how important a part the lady plays everywhere; and yet it is far from easy to draw her from her retirement and bring distinctly before ourselves what she did, and get a picture of her as definite as we can do of the knight. Still I must try to trace the outlines of such a picture of one lady:—Philippa, queen of Edward III, whom Froissart calls ‘the most gentle queen, most liberal, and most courteous that ever was queen in her days;’ and who was the very type and representative of the lady, in the highest and best sense, in an age in which the ladies—such as the princess Blanche, the good queen Ann, the countess of Salisbury, Jane de Montfort, and the wife of Charles de Blois—were renowned for their gentle or their heroic characters.
When Isabel, queen of Edward II, visited Hainault with her son, afterwards Edward III, we are told that William, earl of Hainault, ‘had four fair daughters, Margaret, Philippa, Jane, and Isabel: among whom the young Edward set most his love and company on Philippa; and also the young lady in all honour was more conversant with him than any of her sisters.’ Queen Isabel had come to ask for aid against her enemies, and Froissart gives an account of the discussion between the earl and his council, who objected on prudential grounds to interfering with the quarrels of the English, and the earl’s brother, Sir John Hainault, who maintained that ‘all knights ought to aid to their powers all ladies and damsels chased out of their own countries, being without counsel or comfort.’ The earl finally yielded, saying, ‘My fair brother, God forbid that your good purpose should be broken or let. Therefore, in the name of God, I give you leave; and kissed him, straining him by the hand in sign of great love.’ The whole passage is too long to quote, but thus much gives a lively picture of the temper of the home and court in which the young Philippa was brought up.
Her marriage with Edward, then only fifteen years old, was agreed on, and sanctioned by the Pope. I am sorry to say that the chronicler gives no account of the lady’s bridal outfit, except in the general terms, that ‘there was devised and purveyed for their apparel, and for all things honourable that belonged to such a lady, who should be queen of England.’ They were married, and she arrived in England and was crowned, ‘with great justs, tourneys, dancing, carolling, and great feasts, the which endured the space of three weeks.’ And then ‘this young queen Philippa abode still in England, with small company of any persons of her own country, saving one who was named Walter of Manny, who was her carver, and after did so many great prowesses in divers places, that it were hard to make mention of them.’ If we couple this statement, that she retained hardly any of her own people, with that which Froissart makes in reviewing her whole life, that ‘she loved always her own nation where she was born,’ we have pleasing thoughts suggested of the cheerful acceptance of new duties in a foreign land by the young wife; while, if I had space to describe in detail the noble life of Sir Walter of Manny, the reader would agree with me that his habitual presence in the English court must have done much to make both Edward and the Black Prince, as well as the rest of the princes and nobles, what they were, as knights and gentlemen.
The next glimpse we get of the queen is when she appears, accompanied with three hundred ladies and damsels ‘of noble lineage, and apparelled accordingly, at the yearly feast at Windsor, in honour of the order and brotherhood of the Knights of the Blue Garter, there established on St. George’s day.’ Again, when the king of Scots had advanced to Newcastle, while king Edward lay before Calais, we see the queen arriving to meet the English army, and going from division to division, ‘desiring them to do their devoir’—duty was then, as now, the English soldier’s word—‘to defend the honour of her lord the king of England, and, in the name of God, every man to be of good heart and courage; promising them that to her power she would remember them as well or better as though her lord the king were there personally. Then the queen departed from them, recommending them to God and St. George.’ She does not seem, like some of the ladies of that generation, to have considered the field to be her place while the battle was going on; but after it was won she returned, and with her council made all necessary arrangements and plans. Shortly after she joined her husband while he lay before Calais, ‘bringing many ladies and damsels with her, as well to accompany her, as to see their husbands, fathers, brethren, and other friends that lay at siege there before Calais, and had done a long time.’ And I think we may attribute it as well to the general humanising influence of all those ladies, as to the personal persuasion of Philippa, that Calais did not suffer the same horrors of war as did Limoges at the hands of the Black Prince. To what I have already quoted from Froissart as to this story, I must now add what he tells us of Philippa, after Edward had refused to hear Sir Walter of Manny. ‘Then the queen kneeled down, and sore weeping, said, “Ah, gentle sir, sith I passed the sea in great peril, I have desired nothing of you; therefore now I humbly require you, in the honour of the Son of the Virgin Mary, and for the love of me, that ye will take mercy of these six burgesses.” The king beheld the queen, and stood still in a study a space, and then said, “Ah dame, I would ye had been as now in some other place; ye make such request to me that I cannot deny you; wherefore I give them to you, to do your pleasure with them.”’
And lastly, as a counterpart to the picture I have already given of the death of the knight of romance, here is the account of the death of her who was the lady of the brightest day of historical chivalry:—
‘In the mean season there fell in England a heavy case and a common: howbeit it was right piteous for the king, his children, and all his realm; for the good queen of England—that so many good deeds had done in her time, and so many knights succoured, and ladies and damosels comforted, and had so largely departed of her goods to her people, and naturally loved always the nation of Haynault, the country where she was born—she fell sick in the castle of Windsor, the which sickness continued on her so long, that there was no remedy but death; and the good lady, when she knew that there was no remedy but death, she desired to speak with the king her husband, and when he was before her, she put out of her bed her right hand, and took the king by his right hand, who was right sorrowful at his heart. Then she said, “Sir, we have in peace, joy, and great prosperity, used all our time together: sir, now I pray you at our departing, that ye will grant me three desires.” The king, right sorrowfully weeping, said, “Madam, desire what ye will, I grant it.” The three requests of the dying woman were—that the king should pay all that she owed to any man; that he should fulfil all the promises she had made to the churches where she had “had her devotion,” and that “it might please him to take none other sepulture, whensoever it should please God to call him out of this transitory life, but beside her in Westminster.” The king, all weeping, said, “Madam, I grant all your desire.” Then the good lady and queen made on her the sign of the cross, and commended the king her husband to God, and her youngest son Thomas, who was there beside her; and anon after she yielded up the spirit, which I believe surely the holy angels received with great joy up to heaven; for in all her life she did neither in thought nor deed thing to lose her soul, as far as any creature could know. Thus the good queen of England died in the year of our Lord 1369, in the vigil of our Lady, in the midst of August.’
We have all pictured to ourselves, again and again, how the lady sat in her bower with her embroidery and her missal or romance, and saw from her lattice window her knight going from the castle with lance and pennon, hoping to meet his foe: how the minstrel recited in the castle hall the feats of arms of this or that hero in some distant battle-field; and how the matron or the maiden heard those feats, and thought with silent joy that it was her lord, her husband, or her lover, whose deeds were thus winning the praises of the troubadour, and the applause of the listening knights and squires. We have all seen in imagination the tournament, with the pomp and splendour of its mimic contests: contests which surpassed the Olympic and Corinthian games of classic antiquity, not only in their gorgeous show, but still more in the presence of the ladies, noble in birth, and fame, and beauty; whose scarf, or glove, the combatants wore as the token of that favour which was their highest incentive to distinguish themselves; and from whose hands the conqueror received the prize of skill and bravery: while the honourably vanquished might be sure that he would have the hardly less welcome lot of being cared for by the same ladies, who never shrank from this their acknowledged and well-fulfilled duty of tending the wounded knight.
Perhaps too we have listened in fancy to the proceedings of the so-called Courts of Parliaments of Love, in which the ladies were wont to hear questions of gallantry gravely argued on both sides by poets pleading in verse, and then to give their judgments according to the logical and metaphysical rules which the schoolmen applied to theological enquiries. But I can now but remind my reader that such things were; and must hasten forward, leaving ungathered flowers that would make many a wreath and nosegay.
The golden age of chivalry was the period from about the middle of the eleventh to the end of the fourteenth century. We may say with Gibbon, that the Crusades were at once a cause and an effect of chivalry. In the Crusades the spirit of knighthood, with all its characteristic features, actuated vast bodies of men of every rank and nation, and found a foe believed by all Christendom to be to it what the individual robber and plunderer was to the knight errant who went forth in his own country to defend or rescue the widow and orphan and their possessions, or the traveller along the road which passed the castle of some powerful though unworthy baron. The chivalry at home was kept alive, and raised to its highest energy, both in man and woman, by the chivalry in the Holy Land. It is in this period that the chief institutions of chivalry took their rise, or reached their full form; while their ruder features were gradually softened with the increasing refinement of the times, till they presented that aspect with which we find them in the days of Edward III and the Black Prince, as drawn by Froissart or Chaucer, or in the romances which were then written or remodelled out of older materials, and which show that even in the estimation of other nations the English court then afforded the pattern of knighthood for Christendom.
Thenceforward the outward forms of chivalry began to decay; very gradually indeed, and not without apparent resuscitations from time to time. But no real revival was possible; for the immortal spirit was seeking new habitations for itself, more fitted to the new world which was succeeding to that of the Middle Ages. And perhaps Cervantes, by helping to tear up with his merciless satire the last remnants of an honest faith in the old forms of chivalry, did as real, though we cannot say as genial, a service to the cause of chivalry itself, as Spenser did in endeavouring to preserve its spirit by transferring it to the region of allegory. The last expiring token of the old spirit in the old forms which I have found, is in the records of the Knights of Malta—the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem—when the news of the great earthquake in Sicily, in 1783, arrived at Malta. Then those poor feeble-minded sybarites remembered for a moment their manhood and their knighthood, and their vows as Hospitallers; they manned their galleys, and, with food and clothing and medicines, and the consolations of their faith, were speedily seen, in their half-military, half-priestly garb—the armour covered by the black robe with the white cross—at the bedsides of the wounded and the dying, as they lay amid the still tottering ruins of their devastated houses. In a very few years, in that same generation, the Order had passed away for ever; but it is pleasant to him who stands in the palace of the Grand Masters among the trophies of their former greatness, or treads the aisles of the cathedral of St. John, where every step is upon the emblazoned gravestone of a knight, to think of this, and not of any less worthy deed, as their last act.
‘The knight’s bones are dust,
And his good sword rust:
His soul is with the saints, I trust:’—
but he has left to us an imperishable and a rich inheritance, won for us by him. To him we owe our MANNERS—all that world of existence implied in the names LADY and GENTLEMAN. Through the Middle Ages it was ‘Our Lady,’ the Virgin mother who embodied and represented to all men and women, from the prince to the peasant, their ideals of womanhood and ladyhood. In modern times St. Paul has been held to be the model of a gentleman; in whose acts and writings are found all the principles, maxims, and spirit of a character entirely chivalrous, in the amplest sense of the term: while one of our old dramatists has ventured, in words of touching tenderness and reverence, to point to a yet higher realisation of that ideal;—
‘The best of men
That e’er wore earth about him, was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.’
And it was the transference of these Christian ethics, into the practice of common daily, worldly life, in rude, half-barbarous times, which we owe to the knights and ladies of the Middle Ages; a transference effected slowly, and with much mixture of evil with the good: nor is the work nearly completed yet; but the worth of it can hardly be overrated.
This is not indeed all, but there is much truth in the old motto, ‘Manners makyth man.’ Manners, like laws, create a region and atmosphere of virtue within which all good more easily lives and grows, and evil finds it harder to maintain itself. How large a portion of the small, spontaneous kindnesses of hourly life, in which, after all, so much of our happiness consists, are not only unknown, but impossible, where habitual, unaffected politeness is wanting.
But manners are good, not only as affording a fairer field for the exercise of the higher virtues, but good in themselves. They are a real part of the beauty and grace of our human life. Courtesy, and self-possession, and deference and respect for others; modesty and gentleness towards all men, and recognition in all of the true gold of humanity, whether it bear the guinea stamp or no; love of truth and honour; and not only readiness, but eagerness to help the weak, and defend their cause against the strong; and all these irradiated and glorified, as often as may be, by that sentiment which
‘——gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices;’—
these are the things which make the lady and the gentleman.
And if it should seem as though the chivalry of our own times is reduced to something less noble than that of old, when men risked life, and things dearer than life, in defending the weak and attacking the oppressor in his strongholds—when the hardness of the actual fight against evil-doers was not exaggerated in the romances which pictured the knights contending with dragons and enchanters and giants—we must remember that our nineteenth century world is yet far from cleared of the monstrous powers of evil, which still oppress and devour the weak; and that a battle, not really less resolute, nor, if need be, less desperate, than those of old, is still carried on by those who, under the modest guise of common life, are fighting in the true spirit of chivalry—uniting the most adventurous enthusiasm with the most patient endurance, and both with the gentlest service of the poor, the weak, and the oppressed; and, what is most worthy of admiration, the service of the morally poor, and weak, and oppressed, who, but for such deliverers, must remain in a house of bondage darker than can be built or barred by earthly hands.
But whether we are content with the chivalry of manners, or aspire to a place in the brotherhood of the chivalry of action, our principles, our maxims, and our examples have come down to us as an inheritance from the past:—an inheritance common to all who care to claim it; and won for us by the old knights, fighting in the name of God and of their ladies.
THE BOOK OF
KING ARTHUR
AND OF HIS NOBLE
KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE.
PREFACE OF WILLIAM CAXTON.
After that I had accomplished and finished divers histories, as well of contemplation as of other historial and worldly acts of great conquerors and princes, and also certain books of ensamples and doctrine, many noble and divers gentlemen of this realm of England came and demanded me many and ofttimes, wherefore that I have not do made and imprint the noble history of the Saint Greal, and of the most renowned Christian king, first and chief of the three best Christian, and worthy, king Arthur, which ought most to be remembered amongst us Englishmen tofore all other Christian kings; for it is notoriously known through the universal world, that there be nine worthy and the best that ever were, that is to wit, three Paynims, three Jews, and three Christian men. As for the Paynims, they were tofore the Incarnation of Christ, which were named, the first Hector of Troy, of whom the history is comen both in ballad and in prose, the second Alexander the Great, and the third Julius Cæsar, Emperor of Rome, of whom the histories be well known and had. And as for the three Jews, which also were tofore the incarnation of our Lord, of whom the first was duke Joshua which brought the children of Israel into the land of behest, the second David king of Jerusalem, and the third Judas Machabeus. Of these three the Bible rehearseth all their noble histories and acts. And since the said incarnation have been three noble Christian men, stalled and admitted through the universal world into the number of the nine best and worthy. Of whom was first the noble Arthur, whose noble acts I purpose to write in this present book here following. The second was Charlemain, or Charles the Great, of whom the history is had in many places, both in French and in English. And the third and last was Godfrey of Boloine, of whose acts and life I made a book unto the excellent prince and king of noble memory, king Edward the Fourth.
The said noble gentlemen instantly required me to imprint the history of the said noble king and conqueror king Arthur, and of his knights, with the history of the Saint Greal, and of the death and ending of the said Arthur; affirming that I ought rather to imprint his acts and noble feats, than of Godfrey of Boloine, or any of the other eight, considering that he was a man born within this realm, and king and emperor of the same: and that there be in French divers and many noble volumes of his acts, and also of his knights. To whom I answered that divers men hold opinion that there was no such Arthur, and that all such books as been made of him, be but feigned and fables, because that some chronicles make of him no mention, nor remember him nothing, nor of his knights. Whereto they answered, and one in special said, that in him that should say or think that there was never such a king called Arthur, might well be aretted great folly and blindness. For he said that there were many evidences of the contrary. First ye may see his sepulchre in the monastery of Glastingbury. And also in Policronicon, in the fifth book the sixth chapter, and in the seventh book the twenty-third chapter, where his body was buried, and after found, and translated into the said monastery. Ye shall see also in the history of Bochas in his book De Casu Principum part of his noble acts, and also of his fall. Also Galfridus in his British book recounteth his life: and in divers places of England many remembrances be yet of him, and shall remain perpetually, and also of his knights. First in the abbey of Westminster, at St. Edward’s shrine, remaineth the print of his seal in red wax closed in beryl, in which is written, Patricius Arthurus Britannie, Gallie, Germanie, Dacie, Imperator. Item in the castle of Dover ye may see Gawaine’s scull, and Cradok’s mantle: at Winchester the Round Table: in other places Launcelot’s sword and many other things. Then all these things considered, there can no man reasonably gainsay but that there was a king of this land named Arthur.
For in all places, Christian and heathen, he is reputed and taken for one of the nine worthy, and the first of the three Christian men. And also, he is more spoken of beyond the sea, more books made of his noble acts, than there be in England, as well in Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and Greekish, as in French. And yet of record remain in witness of him in Wales, in the town of Camelot, the great stones and the marvellous works of iron lying under the ground, and royal vaults, which divers now living have seen. Wherefore it is a marvel why he is no more renowned in his own country, save only it accordeth to the Word of God, which saith that no man is accepted for a prophet in his own country. Then all these things aforesaid alleged, I could not well deny but that there was such a noble king named Arthur, and reputed one of the nine worthy, and first and chief of the Christian men. And many noble volumes be made of him and of his noble knights in French, which I have seen and read beyond the sea, which be not had in our maternal tongue. But in Welsh be many and also in French, and some in English but no where nigh all. Wherefore, such as have late been drawn out briefly into English I have after the simple conning that God hath sent to me, under the favour and correction of all noble lords and gentlemen, enprised to imprint a book of the noble histories of the said king Arthur, and of certain of his knights, after a copy unto me delivered, which copy Sir Thomas Malorye did take out of certain books of French, and reduced it into English. And I, according to my copy, have down set it in print, to the intent that noble men may see and learn the noble acts of chivalry, the gentle and virtuous deeds that some knights used in those days, by which they came to honour, and how they that were vicious were punished and oft put to shame and rebuke; humbly beseeching all noble lords and ladies, with all other estates of what estate or degree they been of, that shall see and read in this said book and work, that they take the good and honest acts in their remembrance, and to follow the same.
Wherein they shall find many joyous and pleasant histories, and noble and renowned acts of humanity, gentleness, and chivalry. For herein may be seen noble chivalry, courtesy, humanity, friendliness, hardiness, love, friendship, cowardice, murder, hate, virtue, and sin. Do after the good and leave the evil, and it shall bring you to good fame and renommee. And for to pass the time this book shall be pleasant to read in, but for to give faith and belief that all is true that is contained herein, ye be at your liberty: but all is written for our doctrine, and for to beware that we fall not to vice nor sin, but to exercise and follow virtue, by the which we may come and attain to good fame and renown in this life, and after this short and transitory life to come unto everlasting bliss in heaven; the which He grant us that reigneth in heaven, the blessed Trinity. Amen.
Then to proceed forth in this said book, the which I direct unto all noble princes, lords and ladies, gentlemen or gentlewomen, that desire to read or hear read of the noble and joyous history of the great conqueror and excellent king, King Arthur, sometime king of this noble realm, then called Britain; I, William Caxton, simple person, present this book following, which I have enprised to imprint: and treateth of the noble acts, feats of arms of chivalry, prowess, hardiness, humanity, love, courtesy, and very gentleness, with many wonderful histories and adventures. And for to understand briefly the content of this volume, I have divided it into XXI Books, and every book chaptered, as hereafter shall by God’s grace follow. The First Book shall treat how Uther Pendragon gat the noble conqueror king Arthur, and containeth xxviii chapters. The Second Book treateth of Balin the noble knight, and containeth xix chapters. The Third Book treateth of the marriage of king Arthur to queen Guenever, with other matters, and containeth xv chapters. The Fourth Book, how Merlin was assotted, and of war made to king Arthur, and containeth xxix chapters. The Fifth Book treateth of the conquest of Lucius the emperor, and containeth xii chapters. The Sixth Book treateth of Sir Launcelot and Sir Lionel, and marvellous adventures, and containeth xviii chapters. The Seventh Book treateth of a noble knight called Sir Gareth, and named by Sir Kay Beaumains, and containeth xxxvi chapters. The Eighth Book treateth of the birth of Sir Tristram the noble knight, and of his acts, and containeth xli chapters. The Ninth Book treateth of a knight named by Sir Kay Le Cote male taille, and also of Sir Tristram, and containeth xliv chapters. The Tenth Book treateth of Sir Tristram, and other marvellous adventures, and containeth lxxxviii chapters. The Eleventh Book treateth of Sir Launcelot and Sir Galahad, and containeth xiv chapters. The Twelfth Book treateth of Sir Launcelot and his madness, and containeth xiv chapters. The Thirteenth Book treateth how Galahad came first to king Arthur’s court, and the quest how the Sangreal was begun, and containeth xx chapters. The Fourteenth Book treateth of the quest of the Sangreal, and containeth x chapters. The Fifteenth Book treateth of Sir Launcelot, and containeth vi chapters. The Sixteenth Book treateth of Sir Bors and Sir Lionel his brother, and containeth xvii chapters. The Seventeenth Book treateth of the Sangreal, and containeth xxiii chapters. The Eighteenth Book treateth of Sir Launcelot and the queen, and containeth xxv chapters. The Nineteenth Book treateth of queen Guenever and Launcelot, and containeth xiii chapters. The Twentieth Book treateth of the piteous death of Arthur, and containeth xxii chapters. The Twenty-first Book treateth of his last departing, and how Sir Launcelot came to revenge his death, and containeth xiii chapters. The sum is twenty-one books, which contain the sum of five hundred and seven chapters, as more plainly shall follow hereafter.
The Table or Rubrysshe of the Content of Chapters.
Shortly of the First Book of King Arthur.
First how Uther Pendragon sent for the duke of Cornwall and Igraine his wife, and of their departing suddenly again. Chap. i.
How Uther Pendragon made war on the duke of Cornwall, and how by the means of Merlin he made the duchess his queen. Chap. ii.
Of the birth of king Arthur, and of his nouriture, and of the death of king Uther Pendragon; and how Arthur was chosen king; and of wonders and marvels of a sword that was taken out of a stone by the said Arthur. Chap. iii.
How king Arthur pulled out the sword divers times. Chap. iv.
How king Arthur was crowned and how he made officers. Chap. v.
How king Arthur held in Wales, at a Pentecost, a great feast, and what kings and lords came to his feast. Chap. vi.
Of the first war that king Arthur had, and how he won the field. Chap. vii.
How Merlin counselled king Arthur to send for king Ban and king Bors, and of their counsel taken for the war. Chap. viii.
Of a great tourney made by king Arthur and the two kings Ban and Bors, and how they went over the sea. Chap. ix.
How eleven kings gathered a great host against king Arthur. Chap. x.
Of a dream of the king with the hundred knights. Chap. xi.
How the eleven kings with their host fought against Arthur and his host, and many great feats of the war. Chap. xii.
Yet of the same battle. Chap. xiii.
Yet more of the same battle. Chap. xiv.
Yet more of the said battle, and how it was ended by Merlin. Chap. xv.
How king Arthur, king Ban, and king Bors rescued king Leodegrance, and other incidents. Chap. xvi.
How king Arthur rode to Carlion, and of his dream, and how he saw the questing beast. Chap. xvii.
How king Pellinore took Arthur’s horse and followed the questing beast, and how Merlin met with Arthur. Chap. xviii.
How Ulfius appeached queen Igraine, Arthur’s mother, of treason; and how a knight came and desired to have the death of his master revenged. Chap. xix.
How Griflet was made knight and justed with a knight. Chap. xx.
How twelve knights came from Rome and asked truage for this land of Arthur, and how Arthur fought with a knight. Chap. xxi.
How Merlin saved Arthur’s life, and threw an enchantment upon king Pellinore, and made him to sleep. Chap. xxii.
How Arthur by the mean of Merlin got Excalibur his sword of the Lady of the Lake. Chap. xxiii.
How tidings came to Arthur that king Ryons had overcome eleven kings, and how he desired Arthur’s beard to trim his mantle. Chap. xxiv.
How all the children were sent for that were born on May-day, and how Mordred was saved. Chap. xxv.
The Second Book.
Of a damsel which came girded with a sword, for to find a man of such virtue to draw it out of the scabbard. Chap. i.
How Balin, arrayed like a poor knight, pulled out the sword, which afterward was cause of his death. Chap. ii.
How the Lady of the Lake demanded the knight’s head that had won the sword, or the maiden’s head. Chap. iii.
How Merlin told the adventure of this damsel. Chap. iv.
How Balin was pursued by Sir Lanceor, knight of Ireland, and how he justed and slew him. Chap. v.
How a damsel which was love to Lanceor, slew herself for love, and how Balin met with his brother Balan. Chap. vi.
How a dwarf reproved Balin for the death of Lanceor, and how king Mark of Cornwall found them, and made a tomb over them. Chap. vii.
How Merlin prophesied that two the best knights of the world should fight there, which were Sir Launcelot and Sir Tristram. Chap. viii.
How Balin and his brother, by the counsel of Merlin, took king Ryons and brought him to king Arthur. Chap. ix.
How king Arthur had a battle against Nero and king Lot of Orkney; and how king Lot was deceived by Merlin, and how twelve kings were slain. Chap. x.
Of the interment of twelve kings, and of the prophecy of Merlin how Balin should give the dolorous stroke. Chap. xi.
How a sorrowful knight came tofore Arthur, and how Balin fetched him, and how that knight was slain by a knight invisible. Chap. xii.
How Balin and the damsel met with a knight which was in like wise slain, and how the damsel bled for the custom of a castle. Chap. xiii.
How Balin met with that knight named Garlon at a feast, and there he slew him to have his blood to heal therewith the son of his host. Chap. xiv.
How Balin fought with king Pellam, and how his sword brake, and how he gat a spear, wherewith he smote the dolorous stroke. Chap. xv.
How Balin was delivered by Merlin, and saved a knight that would have slain himself for love. Chap. xvi.
How that knight slew his love, and a knight with her; and after how he slew himself with his own sword, and how Balin rode toward a castle where he lost his life. Chap. xvii.
How Balin met with his brother Balan, and how each of them slew other unknown, till they were wounded to death. Chap. xviii.
How Merlin buried them both in one tomb, and of Balin’s sword. Chap. xix.
Here follow the Chapters of the Third Book.
How king Arthur took a wife, and wedded Guenever daughter to Leodegrance, king of the land of Cameliard, with whom he had the Round Table. Chap. i.
How the knights of the Round Table were ordained and their sieges blessed by the bishop of Canterbury. Chap. ii.
How a poor man riding upon a lean mare desired of king Arthur to make his son knight. Chap. iii.
How Sir Tor was known for son of king Pellinore, and how Gawaine was made knight. Chap. iv.
How at the feast of the wedding of king Arthur to Guenever, a white hart came into the hall, and thirty couple hounds, and how a brachet pinched the hart, which was taken away. Chap. v.
How Sir Gawaine rode for to fetch again the hart, and how two brethren fought each against other for the hart. Chap. vi.
How the hart was chased into a castle, and there slain; and how Gawaine slew a lady. Chap. vii.
How four knights fought against Sir Gawaine and Gaheris, and how they were overcome and their lives saved at the request of four ladies. Chap. viii.
How Sir Tor rode after the knight with the brachet, and of his adventure by the way. Chap. ix.
How Sir Tor found the brachet with a lady, and how a knight assailed him for the said brachet. Chap. x.
How Sir Tor overcame the knight, and how he lost his head at the request of a lady. Chap. xi.
How king Pellinore rode after the lady and the knight that led her away, and how a lady desired help of him, and how he fought with two knights for that lady, of whom he slew that one at the first stroke. Chap. xii.
How king Pellinore gat the lady, and brought her to Camelot to the court of king Arthur. Chap. xiii.
How on the way he heard two knights as he lay by night in a valley, and of other adventures. Chap. xiv.
How when he was come to Camelot he was sworn upon a book to tell the truth of his quest. Chap. xv.
Here follow the Chapters of the Fourth Book.
How Merlin was assotted, and doted on one of the ladies of the lake, and how he was shut in a rock under a stone, and there died. Chap. i.
How five kings came into this land to war against king Arthur, and what counsel Arthur had against them. Chap. ii.
How king Arthur had ado with them, and overthrew them, and slew the five kings, and made the remnant to flee. Chap. iii.
How the battle was finished or he came, and how the king founded an abbey where the battle was. Chap. iv.
How Sir Tor was made knight of the Round Table, and how Bagdemagus was displeased. Chap. v.
How king Arthur, king Uriens, and Sir Accolon of Gaul chased an hart, and of their marvellous adventure. Chap. vi.
How Arthur took upon him to fight, to be delivered out of prison, and also for to deliver twenty knights that were in prison. Chap. vii.
How Accolon found himself by a well, and he took upon him to do battle against Arthur. Chap. viii.
Of the battle between king Arthur and Accolon. Chap. ix.
How king Arthur’s sword that he fought with brake, and how he recovered of Accolon his own sword Excalibur, and overcame his enemy. Chap. x.
How Accolon confessed the treason of Morgan le fay, king Arthur’s sister, and how she would have done slay him. Chap. xi.
How Arthur accorded the two brethren, and delivered the twenty knights, and how Sir Accolon died. Chap. xii.
How Morgan would have slain Sir Uriens her husband, and how Sir Ewain her son saved him. Chap. xiii.
How queen Morgan le fay made great sorrow for the death of Accolon, and how she stole away the scabbard from Arthur. Chap. xiv.
How Morgan le fay saved a knight that should have been drowned, and how king Arthur returned home again. Chap. xv.
How the damsel of the lake saved king Arthur from a mantle which should have burnt him. Chap. xvi.
How Sir Gawaine and Sir Ewain met with twelve fair damsels, and how they complained on Sir Marhaus. Chap. xvii.
How Sir Marhaus justed with Sir Gawaine and Sir Ewain, and overthrew them both. Chap. xviii.
How Sir Marhaus, Sir Gawaine, and Sir Ewain met three damsels, and each of them took one. Chap. xix.
How a knight and a dwarf strove for a lady. Chap. xx.
How king Pelleas suffered himself to be taken prisoner because he would have a sight of his lady, and how Sir Gawaine promised him for to get to him the love of his lady. Chap. xxi.
