or greasing your hands too much."[12] The same authority on manners and etiquette warns ladies against scolding and disputing, against swearing and getting drunk, and against some other objectionable actions which betray a great lack of feminine modesty. The "Moral Instructions" of the Chevalier de la Tour Landry present a picture of coarseness and immorality among both men and women, which shows how incompatible was the barrack-like existence of feudal times with the practice of any sort of self-restraint or purity of life. Of such a character, then, was the audience which the mediaeval romancers had to please. A class essentially military, ferocious, and accustomed to shedding blood, yet preserving in their violence a certain observance of laws of honor and courtesy; setting before themselves more often an ideal of glory and nobility, than an object of plunder or conquest; cultivating a consideration and gallantry toward women, remarkable in view of the necessarily rough and unrefined circumstances of their life; highly imaginative and adventurous; rejoicing in brilliancy of dress and show; filling the monotony of peace by tournaments, martial games, and the entertainments of the minstrels. [Footnote 1: Taine: History of Eng. Lit., Van Laun's trans. chap. 3, pt. ii.] [Footnote 2: "Hist. of Crusades," p. 11; Sir E. Strachey, Introd. to "Morte d'Arthur."] [Footnote 3: Mill's "Chivalry."] [Footnote 4: Quoted in Green's "Short History of the English People." p. 224.] [Footnote 5: Warton's "Hist. of English Poetry," Dissert. i.] [Footnote 6: Quoted by Warton, "Hist. of Poetry," Dis. i.] [Footnote 7: Froissart's "Chronicles," v. ii, p. 248, Johnes' Trans.] [Footnote 8: Lecky's "History of Morals," chap. 5, vol. 2.] [Footnote 9: Scott's "Essay on Chivalry."] [Footnote 10: "Amadis of Gaul," Southey's ed. vol. 1, p. 40. This romance belongs to a late period of romantic fiction, but the passage cited is a good illustration of mediaeval sentiment.] [Footnote 11: Sir J. Barnes' "History of Edward III."] [Footnote 12: Wright's "Manners and Sentiments in the Middle Ages," p. 276.] II.