‘Young knight whatever, that dost arms profess, And through long labours huntest after fame, Beware of fraud, beware of fickleness, In choice and change of thy dear loved dame; Lest thou of her believe too lightly blame, And rash misweening do thy heart remove; For unto knight there is no greater shame, Than lightness and inconstancy in love.’ The peerless Amadis passed with more than ordinary rapidity to the rank of knighthood. The youth more usually remained an esquire—the next step to that of page—till he was twenty. He attended the knight to whose person he was attached, dressed and undressed him, trained his horses, kept his arms bright and burnished, and did the honours of the household to the strangers who visited it; so that Spenser takes the squire as the type of such courtesy. Here is Chaucer’s description of the squire: ‘With him there was his son, a youngé squire, A lover and a lusty bachelor, With lockés curl’d as they were laid in press; Of twenty years of age he was, I guess. Of his statúre he was of even length, And wonderly deliver, and great of strength; And he had been some time in chevachie (military expeditions), In Flanders, in Artois, and Picardie, And borne him well, as of so little space, In hope to standen in his lady’s grace. Embroider’d was he, as it were a mead All full of freshé flowers, white and red; Singing he was, or fluting, all the day; He was as fresh as is the month of May; Short was his gown, with sleevés long and wide: Well could he sit on horse, and fairé ride; He couldé songés make, and well indite, Just, and eke dance, and well pourtray and write: So hot he lovéd, that by nightertale He slept no more than doth the nightingale. Courteous he was; slowly and serviceable; And carv’d before his father at the table.’ I have already spoken of the religious rites with which the esquire was admitted into the order of knighthood, and of the solemn and noble engagements into which he then entered. He had next to ‘win his spurs,’ as it was called; a phrase happily illustrated in the story of Edward III and the Black Prince, which Froissart thus relates:—