[130] Lest the reader's mind should wander in conjecture regarding the purpose of barding a horse, I will transcribe, for his instruction and illumination, a few lines from Dr. Meyrick's Chronological Inquiry into Ancient Armour, vol. ii. p. 126. "The principal reason for arming the horse in plate as well as his rider was to preserve his life, on which depended the life or liberty of the man-at-arms himself; for when he was unhorsed, the weight of his own armour prevented him from speedily recovering himself or getting out of the way, when under the animal. Besides this, by thus preserving the horse, the expence of another was saved." Wonderful! [131] Statutes of the Templars, c. 37. [132] Vincent de Beauvais, Hist. lib. 30. c. 85. [133] From the Loka Lenna, or Strife of Loc, cited in the notes on Sir Tristrem, p. 350.; St. Palaye, "Memoires sur l'ancienne Chevaliere," partie 3.; Du Cange, Twenty-first Dissertation on Joinville; Glossary, Arma Mutare, Companionship in weal and woe sanctioned by religious solemnities, still exists among the Albanians and other people of the eastern shore of the Adriatic. The custom is wrought into a very interesting story in the tale of Anastasius, vol. i. c. 7. [134] Juv. des Ursins anno 1411. Vraye fraternité et compagnie d'armes, is the frequent expression in old writers for this chivalric union. [135] Kennet's Parochial Antiquities, p. 57. cited in Henry's History of England, vol. iii. p. 360. 4to. [136] The romance of Amys and Amylion. It is abridged by Mr. Ellis in the third volume of his Specimens of early English Metrical Romances, and inserted at length by Mr. Weber in the second volume of his collection. The reader may be amused to learn that the mother of the children was so complaisant to her husband as to approve of his having cut their little throats. "O lef lief! she said tho, God may send us children mo! Of them have thou no care. And if it were at my heart's root, For to bring thy brother boot, My life I would not spare. There shall no man our children sene, For to morrow they shall buried ben, As they fairly dead were. Thus that lady, fair and bright, Comforted her lord with her might, As ye may understand Sin[A] they went both right To Sir Amylion, that gentle knight, That ever was fre to fonde[B] When Sir Amylion awaked tho, All his foulehead away was go Through grace of God's Son. Then was he as fair a man As ever he was ere than Since he was been in londe." The conclusion of the story shows the belief of the writer that heaven approved of such sacrifices to friendship.