Page:Of Six Mediaeval Women (1913).djvu/189

 of sixty books, old and new, of history and love-stories, he says that for every bad woman, mention was duly made of a hundred good ones. Time and experience in no way dull this appreciation, for when, later, The Canterbury Tales appear, his estimate has risen ten-fold, since in the prologue to "The Miller's Tale" we read, "and ever a thousand gode ageyn one badde." From this time onwards, literature on the subject increases almost ad infinitum. Treatises and imaginary debates seem to vie with each other for popularity. All these make intensely interesting reading, for these fanciful discussions, which are supposed to take place, sometimes between a man and a woman, sometimes between a mixed company in a garden or villa or some bath resort where many are gathered together, are really a record of the intellectual amusements of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. "Que devezvous préférer, du plaisir qui va vous échapper bientôt, ou d'une espérance toujours vive, quoique toujours trompée?" "Which sex loves the more easily or can do the better without love?" "It is not enough to know how to win love, but one must also know how to keep such love when it has been won." Such-like were the subtle problems which on these occasions folk set themselves to solve.

But whilst love problems could be treated as a pastime, they also had their serious side. Of this there is an example in Christine's story of The Duke of True Lovers. Although much in its narration is evidently the mere invention of