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The popular predilection for surpassing marvels had already shown itself in its chivalrous romaunts.
"Maude was alway given unto Romaunts and the like fooling!" responded Avice as scornfully as before. An officer of the Bishop's Court, whose business was to carry to their destination written absolutions and indulgences. "Whan cockle-shells ha'e siller bells, And mussels grow on every tree Whan frost and snaw shall warm us a' Then shall my luve prove true to me!" Old Ballad.
"'T is no new affair, no hasty furnishing forth of a marriage feast with the cold vivers of the funeral tables, as yon fellow said in the play. 'T is marvelous like one of those old romaunts my kinswoman Barbara used to tell over to me and the dear lass that's gone.
"Nay, I know the devil has factors enough to utter his wares," said Catharine; "but it is our duty to despise such idle arguments, though they may be pleaded even by those to whom we owe much love and honour." "Then there are the minstrels, with their romaunts and ballads, which place all a man's praise in receiving and repaying hard blows.
But of the telling of tales in that land there is little skill, neither do men rightly understand the singing of ballads and romaunts. For one year there is like another, and so their life runs away, and they leave the world to God.
Come, come, Lady Light-o'-Love if you mean to make your way with me, it must be by plain facts, not by speeches from romaunts and play-books. How, in Heaven's name, came you here?" "Sir," answered Margaret, "since I must speak, I went to Greenwich this morning with Monna Paula, to present a petition to the king on the part of the Lady Hermione."
He told me, that old man did, a story fit to set in the ancient romaunts of chivalry, how he as a young fellow full of heart and lustihood went out to fight the Turks or some other heathen of those parts, and was a prisoner, and a lady loved him and he loved her not, having a sweetheart waiting for him at home.
But now, at hunting and hawking, and each idle sport of wood and river, who so prompt as the Templars in all these fond vanities? They are forbidden to read, save what their Superior permitted, or listen to what is read, save such holy things as may be recited aloud during the hours of refaction; but lo! their ears are at the command of idle minstrels, and their eyes study empty romaunts.
He had to be both valet and groom to the earl, to scour his arms, to groom his horse, to attend his bed chamber, and to sleep outside the door in an anteroom, to do the honours of the household in his lord's absence, gracefully, like a true gentleman; to play with his lord, the ladies, or the visitors at chess or draughts in the long winter evenings; to sing, to tell romaunts or stories, to play the lute or harp; in short, to be all things to all people in peace; and in war to fight like a Paladin.
"You speak like a foolish boy, fair nephew," answered he with the scar; "and yet, I bethink me, when I came hither I was nearly as simple: I could never think of a King but what I supposed him either sitting under the high deas, and feasting amid his high vassals and Paladins, eating blanc mange, with a great gold crown upon his head, or else charging at the head of his troops like Charlemagne in the romaunts, or like Robert Bruce or William Wallace in our own true histories, such as Barbour and the Minstrel.
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