2IO Chaucer and Henry, Earl of Derby 



25 esquires (gute Knechte).^ At the high table of honor were 

 seated fourteen guests, of whom only one was an Englishman, 

 Sir William Martel.^ It can hardly be from him, of whom 

 history records so little, that Chaucer learned of the custom. 



1391. This was the year in which Henry was in Prussia, 

 but the feast was held after his departure.^ On account of the 

 dissension between the English and the French,* the table of 

 honor was not held at Konigsberg, but after the army had 

 advanced into the enemy's country.^ Here the board was 

 magnificently spread on Sept. i,^ the place chosen being an 

 island (Werder),"^ in the vicinity of Old Kovno.® The viands 

 had been brought from Konigsberg. The banquet took place 

 in a splendid pavilion, and there was abundance of gold and 

 silver vessels.® Among the honored guests was Frederick, 

 Margrave of Meissen, who had come with 700 horses, and he 

 who began the board was Conrad Richartssdorf of Austria, 

 who had been one of the fourteen at the table of honor in 1385.^® 

 Whether Boucicaut, Frederick, or any of the Englishmen or 

 Scotchmen,^^ was thus signalized, we can only conjecture. 



' Voigt 5. 471-2. 



* Above, p. 206; Voigt 5. 472, note 2. 



'The statements of Dlugosz and Kojalowicz that a table of honor was 

 held in 1390 seem to rest on confusion with that of 1391, though Dlugosz 

 (Hist. Pol. I. 127-8) is explicit on the point that Henry was present 

 (Voigt 5. 543)- 



* Above, p. 207. 



'The table of honor seems not to have been held on the return from 

 an expedition (nach erfochtenetn Siege), as Treitschke supposes (i. 81). 



• Caro 3. 105. 



^ Probably Ritterswerder, about 2^ miles from Kovno. 



® Wigand says : 'ubi quondam antiquum Cawen stetit' ; John of Posilge 

 'ken Cawen obir die Nerye'; the ^Itere Hochmeisterchronik : *zur aide 

 Kawen uff dem werder.' 



• Voigt 5. 597. 



"Wigand (S. R. P. 2. 644-5) ; ^It. Hochmeisterchronik (ib. 3. 619-20) ; 

 John of Posilge (ib. 3. 172-3). 



"Bower says (Fordun, ed. Goodall, 2. 416) : *Isto anno proditionaliter 

 interfectus est ab Anglicis nobilis Willelmus Douglas de Nyddisdale super 

 pontem de Danskin in Spruza, qui tunc ammiraldus electus fuit ducen- 

 tarum et quadraginta navium, ad oppugnandum Paganos, qui eo tunc, prae 

 ceteris, ad mensam honoris magistri de Spruza ab herellis prosconizatus 

 est: 



