Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/293

 and Sentiments. 273 gentlemanly accomplifliment, and the payment thefe gentlemanly fervants received confifted ordinarily in their clothing and gifts of various kinds, rarely in money. I have already hinted that the intercourfe between the male and female portions of the houfehold was on a footing of familiarity and freedom, and at the fame time on a tone of gallantry which could hardly produce a high degree of morality, but the details on this fubjeft, though very abundant, are in great part of a defcription hich cannot here be entered upon. This intercourfe extended to what we fliould now call the privacy of the bed-chamber. It was ufual, indeed, for the ladies to receive viiits from the gentlemen, tete-d-tete, in their chamber. In the fabliau of " Guillaume au Faucon," printed in Barbazan, the young " damoifel," as the noble youth was ufually termed, having fallen in love with the beautiful wife of the lord in whofe fervice he was, took an opportunity of viliting her in her chamber, when he knew that all her maidens were employed in another part of the building. Without knocking, he opened the door gently, and found the lady fitting alone on her bed. The lady faluted him with "a fweet fmile," and told him to come in and fit on the bed by her fide, and there " he laughed, and talked, and plaid with her, and the lady did the fame " — Rit et parole et joe a it, Et la dame tot autrcfi. In the midfl: of thefe familiarities, Guillaume made his declaration of love, and was rejefted, but his purfuit was ultimately fuccefsful. In another fabliau of the thirteenth century, that of" Gautier d'Aupais," it is the daughter of his lord and lady with whom the young " damoifel " falls in love, and he takes the opportunity one morning, while the two latter are at church, to pay a vifit to the young lady in her chamber. Although in bed on account of illnefs— and it has been already fiated how people went to bed without any clothing — the lady is not furprifed by Gautier's vifit, but invites him to fit on her bed, and tell her fomething to amufe her, and he finds the opportunity of making his love with more fuccefs than the hero of the other tale. In the fame manner, the ladies are continually defcribed as viliting the gentlemen in their chambers, ^f N both