INTRODUCTION. 
11 
convent to which he belonged. It is added that 
Chrymhilde granted this boon; though not 
until Ilsan had fought and conquered fifty-two 
of the offending giants. 
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
tournaments lost much of the sanguinary cha¬ 
racter which had previously distinguished them. 
They became merely entertainments for the 
celebration of court-festivals; and the combat¬ 
ants gained the prize of victory, not by wounds 
and bloodshed, but by broken lances, the frag¬ 
ments of which were presented to them as tro¬ 
phies of success. It was the etiquette of early 
times for a knight, on entering the lists at a 
tournament, to beg permission to wear the 
colours of the lady to whose service he was 
devoted; but this practice was gradually suc¬ 
ceeded by that of wearing about the person any 
pledge of love which the knight solicited from 
his mistress, or which the latter spontaneously 
presented to him. This custom of giving and 
wearing favours was kept up until the middle 
of the seventeenth century. Various changes 
of fashion took place with respect to the objects 
which were thus presented as pledges of regard; 
