"So to his steed he got, and 'gan to ride, As one unfit therefore, that all might see He had not trained been in chivalry; Which well that valiant courser did discern; For he despised to tread in dew degree, But chaf'd and foam'd with courage fierce and stern, And to be eas'd of that base burthen still did erne." In the old poem called the Siege of Karvalerock, a knight is praised for not appearing on horseback like a man asleep. "Ki kant seroit sur le cheval, Ne sembloit home ki someille." [68] Chaucer, Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Selden, Titles of Honour, part 2. c. 3, 6. [69] Froissart, vol. 1. c. 321. 'The lord Langurant did that day marvels in arms, so that his own men and also strangers had marvels of his deeds. He advanced himself so much forward that he put his life in great jeopardy, for they within the town (against whose walls he was standing on a ladder,) by clean force raised his helm from his head, and so had been dead without remedy, if a squire of his had not been there, who followed him so near that he covered him with his target, and the lord and he together descended down the ladder by little and little, and in their descending they, received on their target many a great stroke. They were greatly praised by all that saw them.'--Berner's Froissart. [70] Froissart, liv. 2. c. 24. [71] Rigordus in Du Chesne, vol. 5. p. 59. Mr. Maturin, in that powerful and magnificent romance, the Albigenses, has made a very fine use of the instance related above of the squirehood of Philip Augustus. [72] This strange practice prevailed, says Mr. Ellis, (Specimens of early English Poetry, vol. i. p. 325.) at a time when the day-dress of both sexes was much warmer than at present, it being generally bordered, and often lined with furs; insomuch that numberless warrens were established in the neighbourhood of London for the purpose of supplying its inhabitants with rabbit skins. "Perhaps," continues Mr. Ellis, in his usual style of pleasantry, "it was this warmth of clothing that enabled our ancestors, in defiance of a northern climate, to serenade their mistresses with as much perseverance as if they had lived under the torrid zone." [73] This circumstance was satirised, as the reader must remember, by Cervantes, who did not always spare chivalry itself in his good humoured satire of the romances of chivalry. [74] Du Cange, articles Barbani radere, and Capilli. The complete shaving of the head was not often submitted to by knights. It was generally thought sufficient if a lock of hair was cut off.