Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/295

 and Sentifnents. 275 anecdote, which leave no doubt that mediaeval fociety was profoundly immoral and licentious. On the other hand, the gallantry and refinement of feeling which the gentleman is made to fliow towards the other fex, is but a conventional politenefs J for the ladies are toe often treated with great brutality. IVIen beating their wives, and even women with whom they quarrel who are not their wives, is a common incident in the tales and romances. ^ The chevalier de la Tour-Landry tells his daughters the ftory of a woman who was in the habit of contradicting her hulband in public, and replying to him ungracioufly, for which, after the hulband had expofiulated in vain, he one day raifed his fill and knocked her down, and kicked her in the face while ihe was down, and broke her nofe. "And lb," lays the knightly inftru6tor, " Ihe was disfigured for life, and thus, through her ill behaviour and bad temper, llie had her nofe fpoiled, which was a great misfortune to her. It would have been better for her to be filent and fubmillive, for it is only right that words of authority fhould belong to her lord, and the wife's honour requires that ilie fliould lillen in peace and obedience." The good "chevalier" makes no remark on the hutband's brutality, as though it were by no means an unufual occurrence. A trouvere of the thirteenth century, named Robert de Blois, com- piled a code of infiruftions in good manners for young ladies in French verfe, under the title of the " Chaftifement des Dames," which is printed by Earbazan, and forms a curious illuftration of feudal domeftic manners. It was unbecoming in a lady, according to Robert de Blois, to talk too much ; flie ought efpecially to refrain from boafting of the attentions paid to her by the other fex j and fhe was recommended not to Ihow too much freedom in her games and amufements, lefi the men Ihould be encou- raged to libertinifm. In going to church, Ihe was not to "trot or run," but to walk ferioully, not going in advance of her company, and look- ing ftraight before her, and not to this fide or the other, but to falute " debonairely" all perfons Ihe met. She is recommended not to let men put their hands into her breafts, or kits her on the mouth, as it might lead to greater familiarities. She was not to look at a man too much, unless he were her acknowledged lover j and when fiie had a lover, fiie was not to