65
There was much in the fully developed practices of chivalry which the Church fulminated against, quite in vain. Certainly, they threatcncd with the pains of Heli the adulterer, the killer, and-perhaps most of all - the unfortunate knight who was killed in a tournament, for he was considered to have committed suicide. However, nobody really took any notice, for the generał belief of the knightly class was morę realistic.
"For to Heli," says Aucassin, "go the good clerks and thegoodly knights who have died in tourneys and in the great wars: and the good soldier and the true man. With these do I wish togo. And there go also the fair courteous ladies who havc two loves or three besides their lords; and there go also thcgold and the silver and the rich furs; and there
also go the harper and the minstrel and the kings of this world."
The attractions of Paradise seemed mighty duli by comparison.
Figurę 58. The formal making of a knight, from an English manuscript by Matthew Paris, a monk of St. Albans, c. 1250.