276 THE BOOK OF THE FEATS OF ARMS, &c.

so it is of the champions: for whatsoever will, he may be one, so that right gainsay him not for some cause for a thief, or some other, that tofore had committed some great evil or crime, should not be received thereto, nor no man that is known of evil fame. And the reason is good; that is to wit, that if such a man entered a champ of battle for another, and were vanquished there, men should wene that it had been for his own sins; and that therefore he had lost the battle.

This book, together with the "Order of Chivalry," above treated of, and another entitled, the "Knight of the Tower," contain, I apprehend, the greater part of the doctrines of Chivalry. The "Knight of the Tower," relates chiefly to the education and conduct of women. The books are all very curious, and obviously require republication.

ROMANCE.

ON account of the supposed immoral tendency of Romances, a very severe censure has been passed upon them by the famous Roger Ascham. He says that "In our forefathers' time, when papistry, as a standing pool, covered and overflowed all England, few books were read in our tongue, saving certain books of chivalry, as they said, for pastime and pleasure; which, as some say, were made in monasteries, by idle monks, or wanton canons : for example, Morte Arthur, the whole pleasure of which book standeth in two special points-in open man-slaughter and bold bawdry. In which book, those be counted the noblest knights that kill most men without any quarrel, and commit foulest adulteries by subtlest shifts: as sir Lancelot, with the wife of king Arthur, his master ; sir Tristram, with the wife of king Mack, his uncle; sir Lamerock, with the wife

of king Lote, that was his own aunt. This is good stuff for wise men to laugh at, or honest men to take pleasure in. Yet (says he) I know when God's Bible was banished the court, and Morte Arthur received into the prince's chamber."

Though we should refuse to subscribe to this illiberal and puritanical manner of viewing the productions of chivalry; yet the passage furnishes a proof of their prevalence, and of the predominant taste of the age, (at least among the higher ranks,) even in Ascham's time. After briefly noticing their origin, it may not be improper in this place, to state the effects which these compositions, in the opinions of men of a more enlightened and liberal cast of sentiment, have produced relatively to social improvement.

Romance was the offspring of chivalry; as chivalry again was the result of the feudal system. Agreeably to the institutions of that system, each landed proprietor was a soldier; and was obliged, by the conditions of his tenure, to follow his lord on horseback when he went to war. Hence a soldier was, in those

times, a map of the first importance and con

sideration.

The youth, from their earliest

childhood, were initiated in the use of arms; and were taught to look forward for their fame and consideration in society, and for the still more inspiring remuneration of the smiles of the fair, to military achievement and heroic adventure. War, therefore, became the object of their most eager and enthusiastic aspirations; and though they seldom wanted opportunities for the display of their courage, the occasional intervals of peace seem to have given birth to tilts and tournaments, justs and defiances, which furnished at once the schools of chivalry, and a vent for their ever-active heroism. All differences were decided by an appeal to the sword, whether it consisted of treason, or rape, or murder. The restless spirit of this system, too, stimulated its profes sors to go in quest of adventures for the mere pleasure of achieving them; and diligently to seek for acts of oppression and wrong, not so much in the first instance, that they may relieve the oppressed, and redress the wrong, as for the delight they felt in martial activity.

The first Romances were merely the record of the adventures and achievements of these military heros; and consisted simply of songs sung by the minstrels at festivals and convivial

meetings, accompanied by the music of the harp. The particular machinery of giants, fairies, dragons, and enchantments of all sorts, is supposed to have been furnished by the Scalds, or Scandinavian bards; to which were added the other wonderful materials invented in the 12th and 13th centuries.

The first symptom of the existence of Romantic stories, occurs at the battle of Hastings, A. D. 1066. Taillefer, a soldier in the army of William the Conqueror, and who first broke the ranks of the English, is recorded to have sung on that occasion the song of Roland, one of the heros of Charlemagne. From the circumstance of this song being sung with a view to awaken martial enthusiasm, it is natural to infer, that not only this, but others of a like description must have become popular in Normany for some time prior to the Norman invasion. From the various songs existing on the subject of Roland, Oliver, and the other heros of the imaginary war of Charlemagne, against the Saracens in Spain, was com piled, about the year 1100, a large prose narrative in Latin, and supposed to have been the production of Turpin, archbishop of Rheims, It was given to the world as a real history of