Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/289

 a?2d Senfimejits. 269 among the coUeftion of the " Gefta Romanorum/' edited by fir Frederic Madden for the Roxburghe Club (p. i^o), a father is made, on his death- bed, to give to his fon a ring, " the virtue of which was, that whofoever fliould bear it upon him, fhould have the love of all men." The ring given by the princefs Rigmel to Horn polTefled virtues of an equally remarkable defcription — "Whoever bore it upon him could not perilh 5 he need not fear to die either in fire or water, or in field of battle, or in the contention of the tournament." So, in the romance of " Floire and Blanceflor" (p. 42), the queen gives her fon a ring which would protect him againfl all danger, and allure to him the eventual attainment of every objeft of his wiflies. Nor was the ring of fir Perceval of Galles (Thornton Romances, p. 71) at all lefs remarkable in its properties, of which the rhymer fays- — Siche a 'vertue es in the Jlaiie, In die this iverlde nvote I nane Siche ftone in a rynge ; ^ mane that had it in ivere (war) One his body for to here. There fcholde no dyntys (blows) hym dcre (injure ), Ne to dethe brynge. The confideration of the houfe and its parts and furniture, and of the outward forms of domeftic life, leads us naturally to that of the conftitu- tion of the family. It was the chief pride of the ariftocratic clafs to live very extravagantly, and to fupport a great houfehold, with an immenfe number of perfonal attendants of ditferent claffes. In the firfi place the old fyftem of fofi:ering, which was kept up to a comparatively late period, added to the number of the lord's or knight's family. As might was literally right in the middle ages, each man of worth fought to firengthen himfelf by the alliances which were formed by finding powerful fofl:er- fathers for his fons, and the perfonal attachment and fidelity between the chief of the family and his fofier-child was often greater even than that between the father and his own fon. In addition to the fofter children, gentlemen fent their fons to take an honourable kind of fervice in the families of men of higher rank or greater wealth, where the manners and accomplilhments of gentlemen were to be learnt in greater perfeftion than at home j and the younger fons of great families fought fimilar fervice