oak sih8

60

Such was the "official" aspect of Chivalry and role of the Knight, sanctified and promul-gated by the church. No w, consider this, the quite "unofficial^M but realistic fcclings about this expressed by the ordinary, hard-boiled, practical knight. The following lines were written late in the 12th century by Bertran de Born, a baron of Provence, friend and companion-in-arms to Richard Coeur de Lion, mischief-maker-in-ordinary to the four sons of Henry II of England (it was Bertran who dubbed them 'The Devil's Brood"), fine warrior and trouvere, unprincipled, but engaging scoundrel, who wrote this: "/ love the melee of shields, vcrmilion and blue,

The \mricd colours of flag and pennant;

To see on the plain tents and pavilions spread,

And break ing oflances, stout shields riven> Splitting ofgleaming helms,

And the ferocious exchange of sword-strokes.

My heart isfilled with gladness w hen l see Strongholds besieged, stockades orerrnn,

Many stout rassals hewn down

✓

And horses of the dead roaming at random.

When battle isjoined, let all men oflineage

Think only of breaking heads and arms

Far better to die than to be vanquished and lipę.

I tell yoUj I fcel nogreater joy

Than when I hear the ery "En Avant! En Avant!"

The neighing of riderless eoursers

Andgroans of "M'aider! M'aider!"

And when I see bothgreat and smali

Figurę 56. "Hard-favoured ragę." Battle scene from a mid-13th century, c. 1250, illustrated Bibie, now in the Pierpont Morgan collection in New York.