304 CHIVALRY. 



or easily bestowed ; and vice almost ceases to be vice 

 when it can only be gratified by means of long disci- 

 pline in virtue. When the page had arrived at a 

 certain age, he was clad in a brown frock ; a 

 sword was fastened to his side, and he obtained 

 the title of Esquire. He attended his patron knight 

 on military expeditions, until he was old enough to 

 be admitted to the order. Among the ancient Ger- 

 mans of tbe forest, when a young man came of age, 

 he was solemnly invested with shield and spear. The 

 ceremony of knighthood at first was nothing more. 

 Every man of gentle birth became a knight, and then 

 took an oath to be true to God and to the ladies and 

 to his plighted word ; to be honourable in all his 

 actions, to succour the oppressed. Thus, within those 

 castle-colleges arose the sentiment of Honour, 

 the institution of Chivalry, which, as an old poet 

 wrote, made women chaste and men brave. The 

 women were worshipped as goddesses, the men were 

 revered as heroes. Each sex aspired to possess those 

 qualities which the other sex approved. Women 

 admire, above all things, courage and truth ; and so 

 the men became courageous and true. Men admire 

 modesty, vh*tue, and refinement ; and so the women 

 became virtuous, and modest, and refined. A higher 

 standard of propriety was required as time went on : 

 the manners and customs of the dark ages became 

 the vices of a later period ; unchastity, which had 

 once been regarded as the private wrong of the hus- 

 band, was stigmatised as a sin against society ; and 

 society found a means of taking its revenge. At first 

 the notorious woman was insulted to her face at tour- 

 nament and banquet ; or knights chalked an epithet 

 upon her castle gates, and then rode on. In the 



