Eva March Tappan - When Knights Were Bold

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This edition, first published in 2010 by Yesterday's Classics, an imprint of Yesterday's Classics, LLC, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published by Houghton Mifflin Co. in 1911. This title is available in a print edition (ISBN 978-1-59915-043-7).

Yesterday's Classics republishes classic books for children from the golden age of children's literature, the era from 1880 to 1920. Many of our titles are offered in high-quality paperback editions, with text cast in modern easy-to-read type for today's readers. The illustrations from the original volumes are included except in those few cases where the quality of the original images is too low to make their reproduction feasible. Unless specified otherwise, color illustrations in the original volumes are rendered in black and white in our print editions.

This book is in no degree an attempt to relate the involved and intricate history of the Middle Ages. Its plan is, rather, to present pictures of the manner of life and habits of thought of the people who lived between the eighth and fifteenth centuries. Our writings and our everyday conversation are full of their phrases and of allusions to their ideas. Many of our thoughts and feelings and instincts, of our very follies and superstitions, have descended to us from them. To become better acquainted with them is to explain ourselves. In selecting from the enormous amount of material, I have sought to choose those customs which were most characteristic of the times and which have made the strongest impression upon the life of to-day, describing each custom when at its height, rather than tracing its development and history. I hope that the volume will be found sufficiently full to serve as a work of reference, and sufficiently interesting to win its way as a book of general reading.

E VA M ARCH T APPAN

Worcester, Mass.

I T must have been a sight well worth seeing when a knight mounted his horse and galloped away from a castle. Of course his armor was polished and shining, and, as Lowell says of Sir Launfal, he "made morn through the darksome gate." The children of the castle especially must have watched him with the greatest interest. The girls looked wistfully at the scarf or glove on his helmet, each one hoping that he who would some day wear her colors would be the bravest man that ever drew a sword. As for the boys, they could hardly wait for the day to come when they, too, could don glittering armor and sally forth into the world in quest of adventures.

LEAVING THE CASTLE

Even the youngest of these children knew that a boy must pass through long years of training before he could become a knight. This began when he was a small child, perhaps not more than seven years old. It was not the custom for the son of a noble to be brought up in the home of his father. He was sent for his education and training to the castle of some lord of higher rank or greater reputation, sometimes to the court of the king. He was taught to look with the utmost respect upon the man who trained him to be a knight, to reverence him as a father, and to behave toward him with humility and meekness. Even if the time ever came when they were fighting on opposite sides, the foster son must never harm the man whose castle had been his home. In those days of warfare and bloodshed, the king himself might well be glad to have as devoted supporters and friends a band of young men who had been carefully trained in the practice of arms. It is no wonder that kings and nobles looked upon it as a privilege to receive these boys into their castles. Indeed, when their fathers were inclined to keep them at home, the king sometimes demanded that they be sent to him.

The boys of the days of knighthood were not so very different from those of to-day, and many of their amusements were the same as now. They had various games of ball, they played marbles, they see-sawed, and walked on stilts, much as if they belonged to the twentieth century. Of course they played at being knights, just as boys to-day play at being merchants or manufacturers. There is an old picture of some pages, as these boys were called, playing that two toy knights mounted on wooden horses are having a contest. The two horses are pushed toward each other, and if either knight is struck by the spear of the other and thrust out of his place he is vanquished.

PLAYING AT TOURNAMENTS

This was only play, and there were many things that a page must learn and learn thoroughly before he was fourteen or fifteen. How much of "book learning" was given him is not known. Probably the custom differed in different places. In most cases, it could not have been a great amount, perhaps only a little reading, and it seems to have been regarded as no disgrace to a knight if he did not even know his letters. He must learn to sing, however, and to play his accompaniments on the harp; and he must play backgammon and chess, for these games were looked upon as accomplishments which no gentleman could be without. He was taught to say his prayers and to have respect for the Church and religion. It was especially impressed upon him that he must be "serviceable," that is, he must wait upon the ladies and lords of the castle. He must run on errands for them and he must do their bidding in all things, for it was an honor to him to be permitted to serve them. A page who was disobedient would have been scorned and despised by the other pages, for they all hoped to become knights, and no true knight would refuse to obey the commands of his lord or the gentler behests of his lady-love. Such a one would have been looked upon as no knight, indeed, but rather as a rude, boorish churl. The page, or valet or damoiseau or babee, as he was also called, must always be gentle and polite; for the knight was an ideal gentleman, and the gentleman must never fail in courtesy. There is a quaint little volume called "The Babees' Book" which tells just how a boy who wished to become a knight was expected to behave. When he entered the room of his lord, he must greet all modestly with a "God speed you," and he must kneel on one knee before his lord. If his lord spoke to him, he must make an obeisance before answering. He must not lean against a post or handle things, but stand quietly, listen to what was said, and speak when he was spoken to. When the meal was prepared, he must bring water for hand-washing, presenting it first to his lord, and must hold a towel ready for him to use, a most desirable part of the preparation for a meal, as it was the custom for two persons to use the same trencher, or wooden plate, and forks were not in use. When the time came for the page himself to eat, he must not lean upon the table or soil the cloth or throw any bones upon the floor. If he chanced to use the same trencher with any one of higher rank than he, he must take meat from the trencher first, but he must be especially careful not to take the best piece.