lemn tournaments they made an essential part of the ceremony. Here they had an opportunity of observing accoutrements, armorial distinctions, the number and appearance of the spectators, together with the various events of the turney, to the best advantage: and they were afterwards obliged to compile an ample register of this strange mixture of foppery and ferocity°. They were necessarily connected with the minstrells at public festivals, and thence acquired a facility of reciting adventures. A learned French antiquary is of opinion, that antiently the French heralds, called Hiraux, were the same as the minstrells, and that they sung metrical tales at festivals. They frequently received fees or largesse in common with the minstrells. They travelled into different countries, and saw the fashions of foreign

preceded the battle of Poictiers; and on the morning of that eventful fight, Prince Edward honoured him with the important charge of bearing the English standard. The battle is described with considerable animation. The hostile armies advanced on foot, the archers forming the vanguard. "This was not a time," says the poet, "for the interchange of chivalric civilities, for friendly greetings, and cordial love: no man asked his fellow for a violet or a rose'; and many a hero, like the ostrich, was obliged to digest both iron and steel, or to overcome in death the sensations inflicted by the spear and the javelin. The field resounded with the clash of swords, clubs, and battle-axes; and with shouts of Nater Dam and Sand Jors." But Von Traun, mindful of the trust reposed in him, rushed forward to encounter the standard-bearer of France: "He drove his spear through the vizer of his adversary-the enemy's banner sunk to the earth never to rise again-Von Traun planted his foot upon its staff; when the king of France was made captive, and the battle was won. For his gallantry displayed on this day, Edward granted him a pension of a hundred marks. He is afterwards mentioned as being intrusted by Edward III. with the defence of Calais during a ten weeks siege; and at a subsequent period as crossing the channel, and capturing a

(French?) ship, which he brought into an English port and presented to Edward.-It is to be hoped these poems will be published. The slight analysis of their contents given by Mr. Primisser, and on which this note is founded, is just sufficient to excite, without gratifying, curiosity.-EDIT.]

"L'un des principaux fonctions des Herautes d'armes etoit se trouver au jousts, &c. ou ils gardoient les ecus pendans, recevoient les noms et les blasons des chevaliers, en tenoient REGISTRE, et en composoient recueils," &c. Menestr. Orig. des Armoir. p. 180. See also p. 119. These registers are mentioned in Perceforest, xi. 68. 77.

P Carpentier, Suppl. Du-Cang. Gloss. Lat. p. 750. tom. ii.

Thus at St. George's feast at Windsor we have, "Diversis heraldis et ministrallis," &c. Ann. 21 Ric. ii. 9 Hen. vi. Apud Anstis, Ord. Gart. i. 56. 108. And again, Exit. Pell. M. ann. 22 Edw. iii. "Magistro Andreæ Roy Norreys, [a herald,] Lybekin le Piper, et Hanakino filio suo, et sex aliis menestrallis regis in denariis eis liberatis de dono regis, in subsidium expensarum suarum, lv. s. iv. d."-Exit. Pell. P. ann. 33 Edw. ii. "Willielmo Volaunt regi heraldorum et ministrallis existentibus apud Smithfield in ultimo hastiludio de dono regis, xl." I could give many other proofs.

'So I interpret "umb veyal (veilchen) noch umb rosen."

courts, and foreign tournaments. They not only committed
to writing the process of the lists, but it was also their business,
at magnificent feasts, to describe the number and parade of
the dishes, the quality of the guests, the brilliant dresses of the
ladies, the courtesy of the knights, the revels, disguisings, ban-
quets, and every other occurrence most observable in the course
of the solemnity. Spenser alludes expressly to these heraldic
details, where he mentions the splendor of Florimel's wedding.
To tell the glory of the feast that day,
The goodly servyse, the devisefull sights,

The bridegrome's state, the bride's most rich array,
The pride of ladies, and the worth of knights,
The royall banquettes, and the rare delights,
Were work fit for an HERALD, not for me'.

I suspect that Chaucer, not perhaps without ridicule, glances at some of these descriptions, with which his age abounded; and which he probably regarded with less reverence, and read with less edification, than did the generality of his cotemporary readers.

Why shulde I tellen of the rialte

Of that wedding? or which course goth beforn?
Who blowith in a trumpe, or in a horns?

Again, in describing Cambuscan's feast.

Of which shall I tell all the array,
Then would it occupie a sommer's day:
And eke it nedeth not to devise,

At everie course the order of servise:

I will not tellen as now of her strange sewes,
Ne of her swans, ne of her heronsewes'.

And at the feast of Theseus, in the KNIGHT'S TALE".
The minstralcie, the service at the feste,

The grete geftes also to the most and leste,

The riche array of Theseus palleis,
Ne who sat first or last upon the deis,
What ladies feyrist ben, or best daunsing,
Or which of them can best daunein or sing,
Ne who most felingly spekith of love,
Ne what haukes sittin on perchis above,

Ne what houndes liggen on the floure adoun,
Of all this now I make no mentioun.

In the FLOURE and the LEAF, the same poet has described, in eleven long stanzas, the procession to a splendid tournament, with all the prolixity and exactness of a herald". The same affectation, derived from the same sources, occurs often in Ariosto.

It were easy to illustrate this doctrine by various examples. The famous French romance of SAINTRE was evidently the performance of a herald. John De Saintre, the knight of the piece, was a real person, and, according to Froissart, was taken prisoner at the battle of Poitiers, in the year 1356%. But the compiler confounds chronology, and ascribes to his hero many pieces of true history belonging to others. This was a common practice in these books. Some authors have supposed that this romance appeared before the year 1380. But there are reasons to prove, that it was written by Antony de la Sale, a Burgundian, author of a book of CEREMONIES, from his name very quaintly entitled LA SALLADE, and frequently cited by our learned antiquary Selden". This Antony came into England to see the solemnity of the queen's coronation in the year 1445a. I have not seen any French romance which has preserved the practices of chivalry more copiously than this of SAINTRE. It must have been an absolute master-piece for the rules of tilting, martial customs, and public ceremonies prevailing in its author's age. In the library of the Office of Arms, there remains a very accurate description of a feast of Saint

w From v. 204. to v. 287. * Froissart, Hist. i. p. 178.

y Bysshe, Not. in Upton. Milit. Offic.

p. 56. Menestrier, Orig. Arm. p. 23. z Tit. Hon. p. 413, &c.

a Anst. Ord. Gart. ii. 321.

George, celebrated at Windsor in 1471b. It appears to have been written by the herald Blue-mantle Poursuivant. Menestrier says, that Guillaume Rucher, herald of Henault, has left a large treatise, describing the tournaments annually celebrated at Lisle in Flanders. In the reign of Edward the Fourth, John Smarte, a Norman, garter king at arms, described in French the tournament held at Bruges, for nine days, in honour of the marriage of the duke of Burgundy with Margaret the king's daughter. There is a French poem, entitled Les noms et les armes des seigneurs, &c. a l'assiege de Karleverch en Escoce, 1300. This was undoubtedly written by a herald. The author thus describes the banner of John duke of Bretaigne.

13.

Baniere avoit cointee et paree
De or et de asur eschequeree
Au rouge ourle o jaunes lupars
Determinee estoit la quarte pars'.

MSS. Offic. Arm. M. 15. fol. 12,

"Guillaume Rucher, heraut d'armes du titre de Heynaut, a fait un gros volume des rois de l'Epinette a Lisle en Flanders; c'est une ceremonie, ou un feste, dont il a decrit les joustes, tournois, noms, armoiries, livrees, et equipages de divers seigneurs, qui se rendoient de divers endroits, avec le catalogues de rois de cette feste." Menestr. l'Orig. des Armoir. p. 64.

d See many other instances in MSS. Harl. 69. fol. entit. THE BOOKE OF CERTAINE TRIUMPHES. See also APPENDIX to the new edition of Leland's CoL

LECTANEA.

e MSS. Cott. Brit. Mus.

f The bishop of Glocester has most obligingly condescended to point out to me another source, to which many of the romances of the fourteenth century owed their existence. Montfaucon, in his MONUMENS DE LA MONARCHIE FRANÇOISE, has printed the Statuts de l'Ordre du Saint Esprit au droit desir ou du Noeud etabli par Louis d'Anjou roi de Jerusalem et Sicile en 1352-3-4. tom. ii.

p. 329. This was an annual celebra-
tion au Chastel de l'Euf enchanti du mer-
veilleux peril. The castle, as appears by
the monuments which accompany these
statutes, was built at the foot of the ob-
scure grot of the ENCHANTMENTS of Virgil.
The statutes are as extraordinary as if
they had been drawn up by Don Quixote
himself, or his assessors the curate and
the barber. From the seventh chapter
we learn, that the knights who came to
this yearly festival at the chatel de l'euf,
were obliged to deliver in writing to the
clerks of the chapel of the castle their
yearly adventures. Such of these his-
tories as were thought worthy to be re-
corded, the clerks are ordered to tran-
scribe in a book, which was called Le
livre des avenements aux chevaliers, &c.
Et demerra le dit livre toujours en la dicte
chapelle. This sacred register certainly
furnished from time to time ample ma-
terials to the romance-writers.
this circumstance gives a new explana-
tion to a reference which we so fre-
quently find in romances: I mean, that
appeal which they so constantly make
to some authentic record.

And

The pompous circumstances of which these heraldic narratives consisted, and the minute prolixity with which they were displayed, seem to have infected the professed historians of this age. Of this there are various instances in Froissart, who had no other design than to compile a chronicle of real facts. I will give one example out of many. At a treaty of marriage between our Richard the Second and Isabel daughter of Charles the Fifth king of France, the two monarchs, attended with a noble retinue, met and formed several encampments in a spacious plain, near the castle of Guynes. Froissart expends many pages in relating at large the costly furniture of the pavilions, the riches of the side-boards, the profusion and variety of sumptuous liquors, spices, and dishes, with their order of service, the number of the attendants, with their address and exact discharge of duty in their respective offices, the presents of gold and precious stones made on both sides, and a thousand other particulars of equal importance, relating to the parade of this royal interviews. On this account, Caxton, in his exhortation to the knights of his age, ranks Froissart's history, as a book of chivalry, with the romances of Lancelot and Percival; and recommends it to their attention, as a manual equally calculated to inculcate the knightly virtues of courage and courtesy ". This indeed was in an age when not only the courts of princes, but the castles of barons, vied with one another in the lustre of their shews; when tournaments, coronations, royal interviews, and solemn festivals, were the grand objects of mankind. Froissart was an eye-witness of many of the ceremonies which he describes. His passion seems to have been that of seeing magnificent spectacles, and of hearing reports concerning them'. Although a canon of two churches, he passed his life in travelling from court to court, and from castle to castle. He thus,

See Froissart's CRONYCLE, translated by Lord Berners. Pinson, 1523. vol. ii. f. 242.

Boke of the Ordre of Chevalrye or Knighthood: translated out of the Frenshe and imprinted by Wylliam Caxton. S. D. Perhaps 1484. 4to.

His father was a painter of armories. This might give him an early turn for shews. See M. de la Curne de S. Palaye, Mem. Lit. tom. x. p. 664. edit. 4to.

He was originally a clerk of the chamber to Philippa, queen of Edward