LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 357 



not vouchsafed to tell us. Fautre (sometimes faltre or 

 feutre) means in old French the rest of a lance. Thus 

 in the Roman du Renart (26517), 



" Et mist sa lance sor lefautre." 



But it also meant a peculiar kind of rest. In Sir F. 

 Madden's edition of Gawayne (to which Mr. Hazlitt 

 refers occasionally) we read, 



" Theyfeutred their lances, these knyghtes good "; 

 and in the same editor's " William and the Werwolf," 

 " With sper fastened in /eater, him for to spille." 



In a note on the latter passage Sir F. Madden says, 

 " There seems no reason, however, why it [feuter] should 

 not mean the rest attached to the armour." But Roque 

 fort was certainly right in calling it a " garniture d'une 

 selle pour tenir la lance." A spear fastened to the sad 

 dle gave more deadly weight to the blow. The "him 

 for to spille " implies this. So in " Merlin " (E. E. Text 

 Soc., p. 488) : " Than thei toke speres grete and rude, 

 and putte hem in fewtre, and that is the grettest 

 crewelte that oon may do, ffor turnement oweth to be 

 with-oute felonye, and they meved to smyte hem as in 

 mortall werre." The context shows that the fewtre 

 turned sport into earnest. A citation in Raynouard's 

 Lexique Roman (though wrongly explained by him) di 

 rected us to a passage which proves that this particular 

 kind of rest for the lance was attached to the saddle, in 

 order to render the blow heavier : 



" Lances [lege as] arsons afeutre"es 

 Pour plus de dures colees rendre." 



Branche des Roynux Lignages, 4514, 4515. 



Mr. Hazlitt, as we have said, lets no occasion slip to 

 insinuate the inaccuracy and carelessness of his pre 

 decessors. The long and useful career of Mr. Wright, 



