Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/219

 and Sent ime?its. 199 foot and ftruck John in the middle of the ftomach, that his head went againft the wall, and he became all weak and fainted. Fulk was in confternation ; but he was glad that there was nobody in the chamber but they two, and he rubbed John's ears, who recovered from his fainting-fit, and went to the king his father, and made a great complaint. ' Hold your tongue, wretch,' faid the king, ' you are always quarrelling. If Fulk did anything but good to you, it mufl have been by your own defert j' and he called his mailer, and iiiade him beat him finely and well for complaining." Similar incidents recur continually in the early romances I have juft quoted as the " Chanibns de Gefte," which give us fo vivid a pidure of feudal times. A fatal quarrel of this kind was the caufe of the feud between Charlemagne and Ogier le Danois. At one of the Eafter fefiivals of the court of Charlemagne, the emperor's fon, Charles, and Bauduin, the illegitimate fon of Ogier, went to play together. Bauduin and young Charles took a chelT-board and lat down to the game for pafiime. "They have arranged their chelT-men on the board. The king's fon firft moved his pawn, and young Bauduin moved his aiifin (bifliop) backw^ards. The king's fon thought to prefs him very hard, and moves his knight upon the other aujin. The one moved forw ard and the other backward fo long, that young Bauduin faid ' mate ' to him in the corner:" — // ct CaUos prifent un efquckicr, Au ]u p afijcnt por au% ejhankr. S'ont lor ejches a£h for le tahler. Li fix au ro'i traifl Jon paon premier, Baudulnes tra'tjt Jon aufin ar'ier. Ia fix au roi le -volt forment cottier, Sus r autre aufin a trait fon che'valier. Tant traift li uns avant et V autre aricr, Batiduinis. U dift mat en V angler. — Ogier de Daneniavche, 1. 3159. The young prince was furious at his defeat, and, not content with treating the fon of Ogier with the mofl: intuiting language, he feized the chefs- board in his two hands, and firuck him fo violent a blow on the forehead, that he fplit his head, and fcattered his brains over the floor. In a well- known illuminated manufcript of the fifteenth century, in the Britifli Mufeum (MS. Reg. 15 E. vi.), containing a coj)y of the romance of "Osier