called daggers, with pouches hanging over them. In this guise, they rode upon chargers or other large horses, to the tournaments, lavishing their wealth and corrupting their virtue with justers and buffoons." It is doubtful, however, if even these assemblies were more injurious to female chastity than some occasions of less professed gaiety, and among others, those of pilgrimages. The liberty enjoyed by women on these excursions is almost incredible. Journeys occupying several days appear to have been undertaken by fair votaresses, not only without their husbands, but often without any male relative. Yet an intimation from a lady that she had vowed a pilgrimage, seems always to have provided her with a ready excuse for absence from home, and was so ordinary an occurrence as scarcely to have given rise either to curiosity or inquiry. Chalcondyles, in relation to these journeys, expresses his astonishment at the fatuity of English husbands; and it might certainly have excited the surprise of an observer less imbued with oriental prejudices.

A custom which still farther shows the licentiousness of the times was that of forming attachments to married women, and addressing them in the language of love. No married female, whatever her rank, character, or prudence, seems to have been exempted from these solicitations. It is mentioned by Chaucer as a remarkable feature in the character of the beautiful Duchess of Lancaster, that she would give no encouragement to these addresses:

"Her lust to hold no wight in hond
Ne, be thou siker she would not fonde
To hold no wight in balaunce

Ne half by word, ne by countenance."

But generally a married lady who should have confessed that since her marriage she had not been "prayed of love" would either have obtained no credit, or would have endangered, in no slight degree, the reputation of her charms. For the most part husbands regarded these addresses as the common occurrences of society, and were little inquisitive about them, till the lady's honour came to be openly impeached. According to his own confession, this was the case with the author of the work before us. Though married to a wife whom he passionately loved, and who appears to have been a model of correctness, he took it for granted she had been thus solicited, yet gave himself no trouble about it, till a friendly dispute one day made it convenient to his argument to ask the question:

"Ladye,' said he will ye have me to believe, that ye have been so trewe, that ye never were amerous. Certainly I have herde the complayut of some of whom ye holde youre pees.' Syre,' said the

ladye, Ltrowe ye wolde not believe me, yf I tolde you the very trouthe thereof. But as for to saye I have been prayed of love—I have many tymes perceyved, howe that some men were about to speke to me thereof, but ever I brake their wordes and called to me some other.'" "In good feyth,' she says [of these libertines who were continually toying from flower to flower], they do it only for to enhaunce themself, and for to drawe unto them the grace and vayne glorie of the worlde...... They give oute of their brestes grete and fayned sighes, and make as they were thynkynge and melancolyous. And after, they caste a fals loke; and thenne the good and deboynar women that sene them, supposen that they be esprysed of trewe and feythfull love. But all suche manner of folke ben but deceyvers or beguylers of the ladyes and damoysels; and they ben contrary to the feythful and trewe lovers. For he that loveth with goode and trewe love, as he cometh before his peramour, he is ferynge and dredefull leste he do ony thinge that may displese her. For he is not so hardy, to discovere ne say one onely word. And yf he love her well, I ween that shall be three or foure yere or he dare say his secrete unto her.””

The author, in his advice to his daughters, seems every where to suppose that they had little kindness or indulgence to expect from their future lords; and therefore strongly enforces the virtues of submission and docility. On this subject he says,

"I wol tell you the ensaumple of a lyon, and of his propertè. Whanne the lyonesse hathe done him ani displesure or despite, he will not turne no more to her all that day, ne that night, for no thinge that may befall. He shewes in suche wise his lordshippe; and it is a good ensaumple to evry woman.”

Many of the illustrations which he gives fully justify this comparison between the "propertè" of a husband and of a wild beast. The young ladies are warned that the slightest acts of disobedience would probably be followed by harsh reproof, and might even subject them to brutal violence. The cool and familiar manner in which such instances are related shows that there was nothing uncommon in them, or calculated to shock the prevalent feelings of the age. Among other anecdotes, he tells them of a lady who contradicted her husband in the presence of strangers, and was otherwise very provoking; upon which this model of chivalry was so "angry of her governaunce, that he smote her with his fiste downe to the erthe; and thanne with his fote he stroke her in the visage, which shent and disfigured her, that all her life after, she mighte not, for shame, showe her visage, it was so foule blemisshed."

The ungallant doctrine, that it was lawful for husbands to visit their fair partners with corporal chastisement, was universal in the middle ages, and the practice probably corresponded with it. In cases where actual violence was not committed, an

offended lord would often resort to methods equally cruel and insulting.

"There was a ladye," (says the knight, in the deliberate manner in which he always tells these stories), "that wolde not come to ete with her husbonde whanne he was atte mete, for no thinge that he could saie her, nor commaunde her. And he sawe that; and whanne he hadde eten, he sent for his swine-herde, and made sette the kitchen clothe, that his disshes were wiped with, and spred it on a borde, and sette mete thereon; and made the swineherde sitte doune thereat; and thanne he called the ladye his wiff, and saide her, sethe ye wol not ete in my companie with me, ye shall sitte doune and ete with the swine-herde; for there shall none other man holde you in companie, at your mete. And whedir she were wrothe or gladde, he made her sette doune; and she wepte, and made moche sorrowe that her husbonde wolde chastise her so, to make her be served in so ungoodly wise. And therefore women aught to be humble and fulfil her husbondes comaundements, and to ete with hym in his presence."

Such cases were not confined to married life: even in general society the treatment of women was often most discourteous. We are not justified, it is true, in assuming single instances as universal rules; and such escapades as the following might have occurred in any age. But it could only have been introduced as a familiar illustration, in times when real gallantry towards women was almost unknown:

"There was a gentil knight's doughtre that wrathed at the tables with a gentill man that was riotous, and comberous, and hadde an evel hede. And the debate was on a point that he plaied, that she saide it was wrong; and so the wordes and the debate rose, so that she saide he was a lewde fole; and thanne lost the game in chiding. And y saide to the gentil woman, anger you not in no maner wise, of that that he saithe, for ye knowe wel that he is of high wordes, and full of foly-answeres, wherefor y praie you for youre worship, that ye take no debate with hym; and y tolde her, like as y wolde have saide to my seister or doughter. But she wolde not do after me, but chidde faster with the squier, more than afore, and said that he was nought worth, with mani other wordes. And he answered, y am beter man than ye are woman. And she saide he lyed; and the wordes rose so, till he saide, yef she were wise and good she wolde not come in mennis chaumbres by night derkelyng withoute candell, to coll and kisse men in her beddis alone, as she dede. And she wende well have venged her; and she saide he lyed; and he saide he did not; and that suche and suche had sene her do it. And so there was many that herde and wiste it, that knew it not. And sum saide, it had ben beter for her to holde her pees, and have saide no worde; and that she had bete herself with her own staffe; that is to saie, by her tongue and her speche. And after these wordes she wepte, and saide he had sclaundered her; and that it shulde not abide unponished. And she assailed hym agayn, and cried and chidde with hym, afore

all the peple; till he spake yet fouler and worse wordes, and more shamefull by her, that never might fall from her by no shaking that ever she could shake."

The moral which he deduces is as characteristic as the story; it is, that a woman should beware of striving with a fool, having a malicious heart. Even in the instance which he gives as a model for treating a scolding lady, we do not perceive the perfection of chivalric courtesy:

"A ladie that y knewe, hadde an evell hede and envyouse, and saide many evel wordes to a knight afore all folke. And he saide, ladi, it likithe you to saie here by me many marveylous wordes, and yef y herkyn you not, y do you no wrong. Y see ye be wrothe, of the whiche y am sori; and for that she wolde not holde her pees, he writhed a litell wispe of strawe, and sette it afore her, and saide, ladi, yef ye will chide more, chide with that strawe; for y leve you here in my stede. And he yede his waye and left her."

The constant repetition of a particular idea expressed in the coarsest language of honest warning, and illustrated by examples which seem to imply that the female cheek was almost incapable of a blush, prove the frightful extent to which inchastity must have prevailed. It is true the knight represents the female morals of his age as much degenerated from the elder time; but this is the stale pretence of all such writers. If we go back to these elder times, so far as the prospect is discernible, we see no symptoms of improvement, but, on the contrary, of greater depravity and crime. Admitting the author, however, to have been a judge of what had fallen under his own observation, it certainly speaks little for the effects of chivalry, that he should assign to its brightest era the chief decline of female virtue. Fifty years before, he says,

"There was no woman so hardy, as durst aforce herself, yef she was blamed of foly, to putte herself in the companie and fellowshippe of hem that were unreproved. And if it befell by ani adventure, that a ladye or damoisell hadde ani ill renoune, or was blamed of folye and of her honoure, and she wolde putte herself before any of the good ladyes or damoiselles; all were it so she were of grete estate, and of high birthe, and in richesse of marriage; anon, an auncient knight, shulde of right come, and say to the saide ladye, before all, Madame displese you not, though this ladye or damoiselle of lower estate go before or stonde above you, albeit she be not of so noble lynage and of so grete richesse as ye be, but forasmuch as she is not blamed of her worshippe. But now atte this day, and that is pitee, there be many that bere grete blame, and never the lasse, yet bere thei grete worshippe, and more made of than suche as be right good; the whiche is straunge example: but there be some that sayen therefor, as moche worshippe have thei that do amis as thei that be undefamed; so that it berithe no force to do ill as for to do well,—all passithe under one thanke."

He observes, however, very truly, that this is a mistaken opinion, and that though women who had lost their honour might be well received in society. such as knew them to be such as they were would jape and mock them in their absence. But we quit a subject on which it is so ungrateful to dwell.

Besides its illustration of female manners, the volume affords several picturesque glimpses of the state of contemporary society. The general features of the scene are certainly far from encouraging. The tyranny of the rich, the profligacy of the poor, the avarice of the trading classes, and the oppression and ferocious spirit of the nobles, are the burden of the writer's complaints. The gross and abject superstition of the times is also manifest from almost every page of the work; and is often oddly contrasted with the good sense which it elsewhere displays. To what extent the church, as a body, was answerable for the abuses which prevailed under it, we do not pretend to decide; but no question can be entertained of the mischievous effects which many of its doctrines practically produced. The idea that a want of moral virtue might be atoned for by devotional austerities, if not openly inculcated, was very generally prevalent, and was implied in many of the legends which, under the sanction of the church, passed current in society as the common-places of religious argument. The corrupting effect of these absurd fabrications cannot be more strongly proved, than by finding a father recommending a religious duty to his daughters, by such a story as the following. A woman who had the merit of fasting twice a-week, as she was going one night to an assignation with her paramour—such is the morality of the tale

"had the mischance to fall into a well, that was twenty fadom depe; and in her falling, she cried, helpe on oure lady. And whanne she come to the water, she founde it harde undernethe her fete; and a noys come to her saieng, thou hast, in the worshipe of oure lady, kept thy flesshe clene in her fast, and therefore now thou shalt be saved of this perile.' And so on the morow, folke come to feche and wynde up water at that well, and thei herde and sawe her therein, and drawe her up. And thanne she avowed chastite, and to live and use her lyff in Goddes service, and to lyght lompes, torches, and other lyghtes in the chirche, and to swepe and to kepe it clene."

Having introduced the errors of the church, however, it is but fair to notice some amiable virtues which it encouraged, and among them that of charity was pre-eminent. Mistaken as its principles might be, the practice of it seems to have existed beyond what is generally imagined. The following is a tolerable picture of a Lady Bountiful of the fourteenth century, -a character in which religious severity and benevolence of heart were equally mingled.