facts of the transition from the state assigned to her by St Paul, we find that in the days of Arthur and of Charlemagne, woman had already attained to some consideration; and the few glimpses that we get of her between that period and the period of the Crusades, when her exaltation may be said to have been fairly established, though not yet at its height, show that she is gradually ascending in the social scale. Her halcyon days may be said to have been contemporary with Edward III. and his glorious son. And about that period we are enabled to see and appreciate her worship and renown; for we have chroniclers who delight in details of knightly acts and magnificence.

However obscure may be the causes and progress of her power, there is no doubt or darkness about the height and glory to which it attained. Malgré the impiety, folly, and extravagance which are proved along with it, the fact of her ascendancy and the circumstances thereof are elaborately and indelibly stamped on the pages of the histories of the middle ages. The love of God and of the ladies was the prime motive of every true knight in his course of chivalry. To this he publicly and solemnly devoted himself. The ladies occupy the second place in the sentence, but it is to be feared that their prophets far outnumbered the prophets of the Lord. We ourselves believed before we examined, and we doubt not most of our readers now believe, that the expression above quoted, however great its impropriety, was simply a façon de parler, without serious signification, and that the religious faith of those days, when sifted, would be found to be sound and pure. But lo! when, in the hope of proving this, we begin to turn over the books and chronicles of chivalry, we are startled by the information that among some at least, and those persons who exercised a wide

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spread influence, the worship of the ladies was literally a RELIGION. Hear the doctrine of La Dame des Belles Cousines, a burning and a shining light in the days of chivalry. She held, as touching l'amour de Dieu et des Dames, that the one should not go on (ne devoit point aller) without the other, and the lover who comprehended how to serve a lady loyally was saved!" And St Palaye, in his Memoires sur la Chevalerie,' hesitates not to accept this as a serious article of the faith of a knight. Speaking of the education of gentle youth, he says, "The first lessons given to them had reference principally to the love of God and of the ladies-that is to say, to religion and to gallantry. If one can credit the chronicle of Jean de Saintre, it was generally the ladies who undertook the duty of teaching them at one and the same time their catechism and the art of love. But in like manner, as the religion which was taught was accompanied by puerilities and superstition, so the love of the ladies, which was prescribed to them, was full of refinement and fanaticism." Dame des Belles Cousines was, we venture to hope, an extreme ritualist, claiming for her pet observances a merit which the great body of worshippers did not quite concede to them. Moderate believers may have been free from the sin of absolute and confessed idolatry. Still, whether the service of the fair sex was or was not regarded by them as a religious duty, it is certain that they entertained very strong opinions concerning it. The general maxim, according to Sir Kenelm Digby, was, "Perdu est tout honneur à cil qui honneur à dame ne refère;" and the same author quotes the poet Chaucer to the following effect: "Women are the cause of all knighthood, the increase of worship, and of all worthiness, courteous, glad and merry, and true in every wise." Gassier, in his 'Histoire de la Chevalerie Française,'

La

speaking of the romancers or troubadours, has the following:

among

"Many knights are numbered these poets. To consecrate his heart and his homage to a mistress, to live for her exclusively, for her to aspire to all the glory of arms and of the virtues, to admire her perfections and assure to them public admiration, to aspire to the title of her servant and her slave, and to think himself blessed if, in recompense of so great a love, and of so great efforts, she deign to accept them; in a word, to serve his lady as a kind of divinity whose favours cannot but be the prize of the noblest sentiments, a divinity who cannot be loved without respect, and who cannot be respected without love-this was one of the principal duties of every knight, or of whosoever desired to become one. The imagination sought to exalt itself with such a scheme of love; and by forming heroes, it (the scheme of love, we presume) gave reality to all the flights of the poet's imagination of that

time.

The fair whose charms and whose merit the knights-troubadours celebrated, those earthly goddesses of chivalry, welcomed them with a winning generosity, and often repaid their compliments with tender favours. . . . It is easy to understand that, love and war being the spring of all their actions, some celebrated the deeds of arms which had rendered so many brave knights illustrious, while others sang of the beauty, the graces, and the charms of their ladies, and of the tender sentiments with which the ladies had inspired them."

St Palaye, speaking of the duties of knights, remarks, "It was one of the capital points of their institution on no account to speak ill of ladies, and on no account to allow any one in their presence to dare to speak ill of ladies." In a note he says, "This is, of all the laws of chivalry, that which was maintained at all times with the greatest rigour among the French nobility." "If a virtuous dame," says Brantome, as quoted by St Palaye, "desire to maintain her position by means of his valour and constancy, her ser

vant by no means grudges his life to support and defend her, if she runs the least hazard in the world, either as regards her life, or her honour, or in case any evil may have been said of her; as I have seen in our court many who have silenced slanderers who have dared to detract from their mistresses and

ladies, whom by the duty and laws of chivalry we are bound to serve as champions in their troubles."

"By the customs of Burgundy a young maid could save the life of a criminal if she met him by accident, for the first time, going to execution, and asked him in marriage." "Is it not true," asks Marchangy, "that the criminal who can interest a simple and virtuous maid, so as to be chosen for a husband, is not so guilty as he may appear, and that extenuating circumstances speak secretly in his favour?" Again, "The greatest enemies to the feudal system have acknowledged that the preponderance of domestic manners was its essential characteristic. In the early education of youth women were represented as the objects of respectful love, and the dispensers of happiness.'

It is not necessary to adduce further proof of the eminence to which, morally, woman was exalted. Her empire was notorious and unchallenged. All writers of those times celebrate it, and in recent times it has been attested by the charming pen of Scott and by the sneer of Gibbon.+ The theory of the worship is beyond dispute; but it may be interesting to examine how the practice of chivalry accorded with its profession, and whether the power and position of the sex were substantially as dazzling as speculation represented them. Upon reflection we shall probably

all admit that they were so. For though the phase of lady-worship most familiar to us is seen in the practice of the knights-errant, to whose vagaries a certain amount of ridicule attaches, there is ample evidence of a real, practical, established female ascendancy. The wandering or the soldier knight would vaunt the charms and virtues of a mistress whose favour he might or might not wear,* and enforce the acknowledgment of them with the point of his lance; he would draw his sword for the deliverance of a captive lady, or to redress a lady's wrong; but independently of the effects of real or fancied passion, independently of acts of individual compassion, or generosity, or condescension, the sex, as such, undoubtedly did experience and exercise the benefits and the powers which the knight's profession assigned to it. In proof of this be it remembered that a lady never hesitated to lay her commands upon a knight, whether specially devoted to her service or not, and that it was imperative upon the knight to obey her, except the command should unfortunately be incompatible with his devoir to his own elected lady, to his sovereign, or to a brother in arms. Conflicting orders and duties thus sometimes placed an unhappy knight in a "fix;" and so delicate an affair was it, that when he had the opportunity of obtaining advice he generally submitted himself to the decision of a court of honour. The expressed approbation of a noble or beautiful lady, whether dame or demoiselle, was fame. The ladies could and did soften and exalt the characters of knights and the sentiments of knighthood generally. "They can even impart," says Digby, "noble and generous sentiments, so that their power exceeds that of kings, who can grant only the titles of nobility."

The exces

sive exertions of this power by vain or indiscreet women are proofs of the reality of the power, if not very creditable to the ladies concerned. There is the story of the lady who sent her shift to a knight, and bade him combat, with this only for armour, in the mêlée of harnessed knights. The fine fellow vindicated her opinion of his valour, and proclaimed her inhumanity to after ages, by wresting the victory from his armed opponents, though he was fearfully slashed and gored in so doing. In return for the trifling service, he requested the owner to wear the blood-stained shift in public as an outer garment, which she with a complimentary speech undertook to do, and which she did. The well-known story of the knight bringing a lady's glove out of the den of lions, and other anecdotes scattered about the annals of chivalry, and setting forth most perilous adventures wantonly imposed by ladies on knights, also illustrate the argument. It is consolatory to know that in these last instances the knights, after performing their devoir, renounced the service of the exacting ladies, and obtained the general approbation by so doing; for these merciless ladies were not in harmony with the true spirit of chivalry, which "even gave warning to women not to forget the softness and humanity of their character, in requiring any unreasonable service of danger from a knight." But, to pass beyond instances of the abuse of the power of the sex by individuals, we have historical evidence that the peril or requirements of ladies were sufficient to interrupt military operations, and temporarily to unite, for their especial service, contending armies. The story of the ladies of Meaux, however well known, may, we hope, be here repeated without fear of its proving tedious.

France and England were at war:

the former country had suffered cruel loss and humiliation from the armies of the Black Prince, and to its troubles from abroad were added disaffection and rebellion at home. The peasantry of Brie had risen upon the nobles, who were unable to suppress the rising, and they were ravaging the country in large bands, committing the most frightful atrocities on noblemen and knights and on their ladies. Panicstricken and horror-stricken, a crowd of helpless dames and young children fled before this jacquerie, and some of the greatest ladies in France, married and unmarried, and children of quality, were assembled at Meaux under the protection of the Duke of Orleans. The Duchess of Normandy was there, and the Duchess of Orleans, with three hundred other ladies; but the Duke had not the means of defending them against such a mighty rabble as the peasants were becoming. The insurgents of Brie were joined by those of Valois, and another crowd was advancing from Paris. Altogether, about nine thousand of them were in motion, while the garrison of Meaux was but a handful of knights and men-atarms. The danger was imminent, and the terror and misery of the ladies and the desperation of the scanty garrison of Meaux may be conceived. Every hour brought nearer the time when they were to be at the mercy of a brutal moball was lamentation and affright. At this crisis the Captal de Buch, who was in the service of the King of England, was returning from an expedition, and happened to be at Chalons with the Comte de Foix. There these gallant knights got word of the miserable strait in which the French ladies were. Forgetting their national animosities, remembering only that a flock of trembling women were exposed to the violence of the jacquerie, they started without hesitation to the rescue. They numbered about sixty lances, while the peasants counted

their thousands; but that consideration did not trouble them-they thought only of the fair fugitives and their danger. Happily they reached Meaux before the rabble; and it may be imagined how relieved the ladies were at the appearance of the brave little band, and how gratified they were at such devotion.

The peasantry, who had increased in numbers at every step, were not long in arriving; and it would appear that there was either poltroonery or treachery within, for the wretched inhabitants opened the gates, and in swarmed the whole motley force, filling the streets; but the market-place of Meaux was, it seems, a kind of citadel, defensible after the town was in the enemy's hands. The river Marne nearly surrounds it, leaving but a small front to guard. It was here that the ladies were lodged, and it was from hence that they saw their bloodthirsty pursuers advancing through the streets of the town. Their only hope was in the little band of knights and warriors: as long as they lived no woman would be molested, but if they should be overborne and slain by this vast multitude, as seemed not improbable, these helpless delicate beings would be at the mercy of the insurgents. The emergency was a dreadful one for all. The good knights, however, were equal to the occasion. Like wise soldiers, they did not wait to be attacked by the banditti, but went out to meet them in one company, as if they had been brothers in arms instead of being the servants of hostile sovereigns. Their knightly vows had bound them to the service of God and the ladies, and they were all therefore united for the time in the execution of their highest duties. Ensigns and battle-cries usually proceeding from opposite sides of the field were now all going forth together in a service of the greatest danger and responsibility: side by side fluttered the banners of Or

leans and of Foix and the pennon of the Captal de Buch; and their valour met the reward which all true hearts would desire for it, although the throbbing bosoms in the market-place dared not expect so glorious a result. The sight of this firm and well-appointed array, small though it was, caused the foremost of the rabble to hesitate and to draw back a little; whereupon the knights allowed them not a minute to recover, but charged home, using their spears and swords in such fashion that the banditti, losing all their assurance, turned about and commenced a retreat which soon became an utter rout. In their confusion they fell one over another and prevented anything like resistance, so that the gentlemen had only to cut them down or to drive them before them like a herd of beasts, and clear the town of them. They were absolutely tired with slaying, and threw them in great heaps into the river. Indeed, they might have slain all had they been so minded, and, as it was, the slaughter was prodigious.

Thus did the ladies' peril outweigh all other considerations with these gallant knights, and thus did chivalry dare and do for the dames' deliverance.

We extract the following from 'The Broad Stone of Honour':

"Before a tournament, the candidates hung up their shields in some public place; and if one of them was known to have spoken lightly of any woman, she had only to touch the shield in token of demanding justice. It was not a duel which ensued; but the knight guilty of this defamation was beaten soundly by his peers, tant et longuement qu'il crie mercy aux dames à haute voix tellement que chascun l'oye en promessant que jamais ne luy adviendra d'en mesdire ou villainement parler."

The same book has

"It appears from the treatise which Réné d'Anjou wrote on the form of tournament that, before commencing, the

king of arms was to lead some great knight or squire before the women, and to say, Thrice noble and redoubted knight, or thrice noble and gentle squire, as it is always the custom of women to have a compassionate heart, those who are assembled in this company in order to behold the tournament which is to be held tomorrou morrow, make known their pleasure that the combat before their eyes must not be too violent, or so ordered that they cannot bear assistance in need. Therefore, they command the most renowned knight or squire of the assembly, whoever he may be, to bear right to-morrow, on the end of a lance, this present couvre-chief, in order that when any one should be too grievously pressed, he may lower this couvre-chief over the crest of those who attack him, who must immediately cease to strike, and not dare to touch their adversary any more; for, from this hour, during the rest of that day, the women take him under their protection and safeguard."

ous,

"Ther was a sore assaut and a perylsiege of Nerk Castle, belonging to the says Froissart, speaking of the Earl of Salisbury, by the Scots; "ther might a ben sene many noble dedes on both partes. Ther was within present the noble Countesse of Salysbury, the most sagest and fayrest lady of all Eng. land. This noble lady comforted them greatly within, for by the regarde of such a lady, and by her swete comforting, a man ought to be worthe two men at nede."

Sidney* was of opinion that Edward IV. deserved the first place among the English kings, not for that he had gained a kingdom, not that he had awed the crafty Lewis,

"But only, for this worthy knight durst prove

To lose his crown, rather than fail his love."

Bojardo, defending Roland and Renaud, who fight for the love of Angelique, says—

"He who has never felt what they endured may blame two illustrions barons who fight with such fury, and who ought to have so honoured each other, being born of the same blood, and professing the same faith, above all the sons of Milon who provoked the combat; but he that knows the power which