Let us first look on at the admission of a knight, such as took place in the twelfth century. We will afterwards see what rules of conduct were imposed upon him, not only according to the oaths which he had to take on becoming knight, but according to the idea formed of knighthood by the poets of the day, those interpreters not only of actual life, but of men’s sentiments also. We shall then understand, without difficulty, what influence must have been exercised, in the souls and lives of men, by such sentiments and such rules, however great may have been the discrepancy between the knightly ideal and the general actions and passions of contemporaries. “The young man, the esquire who aspired to the title of knight, was first stripped of his clothes and placed in a bath, which was symbolical of purification. On leaving the bath, he was clothed in a white tunic, which was symbolical of purity, and a red robe, which was symbolical of the blood he was bound to shed in the service of the faith, and a black sagum or close-fitting coat, which was symbolical of the death which awaited him as well as all men. “Thus purified and clothed, the candidate observed for four and twenty hours a strict fast. When evening came, he entered church, and there passed the night in prayer, sometimes alone, sometimes with a priest and sponsors, who prayed with him. Next day, his first act was confession; after confession the priest gave him the communion; after the communion he attended a mass of the Holy Spirit; and, generally, a sermon touching the duties of knights and of the new life he was about to enter on. The sermon over, the candidate advanced to the altar with the knight’s sword hanging from his neck. This the priest took off, blessed, and replaced upon his neck. The candidate then went and knelt before the lord who was to arm him knight. ‘To what purpose,’ the lord asked him, ‘do you desire to enter the order? If to be rich, to take your ease and be held in honor without doing honor to knighthood, you are unworthy of it, and would be, to the order of knighthood you received, what the simoniacal clerk is to the prelacy.’ On the young man’s reply, promising to acquit himself well of the duties of knight, the lord granted his request. “Then drew near knights and sometimes ladies to reclothe the candidate in all his new array; and they put on him, 1, the spurs; 2, the hauberk or coat of mail; 3, the cuirass; 4, the armlets and gauntlets; 5, the sword. [Illustration: “The Accolade.”----324] “He was what was then called adubbed (that is, adopted, according to Du Cange). The lord rose up, went to him and gave him the accolade or accolee, three blows with the flat of the sword on the shoulder or nape of the neck, and sometimes a slap with the palm of the hand on the cheek, saying, ‘In the name of God, St. Michael and St. George, I make thee knight.’ And he sometimes added, ‘Be valiant, bold, and loyal.’