The whole poem shows a Pre-Raphaelite love of detail combined with a remarkable appreciation of dramatic values, and the same is true of many of the other rhyming chronicles, political poems, and topical ballads. As an example of the value of these poems for interpreting the mediæval spirit I might instance the light thrown on 'the days of chivalry' by the 'Maréchal' poem. In this glorification of the great Earl of Pembroke the business-like record of the monetary profits resulting from his prowess at tournaments takes the gilt off the gingerbread 'Knight errant' as completely as the details of the wholesale slaughter and subsequent sale of the bag after a fashionable _battue_ strip the gilt from the modern 'sportsman.' In view of the eminently quotable character of these rhymes it is really rather remarkable that I should have made so little use of them in any of my essays, covering, as these do, so wide a range of subject. It is also a great pity that they are so much neglected by those whose business it is to teach history. The intelligent use of such materials as these would make history live, but unfortunately there is a widespread idea that dates are the be-all and end-all of history, which delusion is fostered by the importance attached to dates in the ordinary accursed examination. Whereas in reality dates are utterly unimportant and of no value in themselves, but useful solely as _memoriæ technicæ_ for grasping the sequence of events; there being, for instance, no significance whatever--except possibly for astrologers--in the isolated facts that the Black Death occurred in 1349, and that the Peasants' Rising happened in 1381, but very great significance in the fact that the one event was a generation after the other. However, a discussion of the right and wrong methods of teaching history is rather too big a subject to be dragged in at the end of these rambling remarks, which were intended to be an introduction to the essays which follow, so, if any readers have followed the unusual course of starting with the introduction, I will take my leave of them at this point and wish them a pleasant journey through these Mediæval Byways. CONTENTS PAGE I. WISE MEN--AND OTHERS 1 II. HIGHWAYS 39 III. CORONATIONS 66 IV. DEATH AND DOCTORS 89 V. THOSE IN AUTHORITY 125 VI. IVORY AND APES AND PEACOCKS 159 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE '... sat for its portrait to Matthew Paris' _Frontispiece_ 'A young novice of the priory' 10 Robert Berewold in the pillory 15 ... sware 'gret othes' and took himself by the hair 21