Bells were a very favourite addition to the equipment of a horse, particularly in the early times of chivalry. An old Troubadour poet, Arnold of Marsan, states very grave reasons for wearing them. He says, "Let the neck of the knight's horse be garnished with bells well hung. Nothing is more proper to inspire confidence in a knight, and terror in an enemy." The war-horse of a soldier of a religious order of knighthood might have his collar of bells, for their jangling was loved by a monk himself. "And when he rode men might his bridel hear, Gingeling in a whistling wind as clere, And eke as loud as doth the chapel bell." But here the comparison ceases, for the horse-furniture of the religious soldiers was ordered to be free from all golden and silver ornaments.[131] This regulation was however ill observed; for the knights-templars in the middle of the thirteenth century were censured for having their bridles embroidered, or gilded, or adorned with silver.[132] CHAP. IV. THE CHIVALRIC CHARACTER. _General Array of Knights ... Companions in Arms ... The Nature of a Cavalier's Valiancy ... Singular Bravery of Sir Robert Knowles ... Bravery incited by Vows ... Fantastic Circumstances ... The Humanities of Chivalric War ... Ransoming ... Reason of Courtesies in Battles ... Curious Pride of Knighthood ... Prisoners ... Instance of Knightly Honour ... Independence of Knights, and Knight Errantry ... Knights fought the Battles of other Countries ... English Knights dislike Wars in Spain ... Their Disgust at Spanish Wines ... Principles of their active Conduct ... Knightly Independence consistent with Discipline ... Religion of the Knight ... His Devotion ... His Intolerance ... General Nature of his Virtue ... Fidelity to Obligations ... Generousness ... Singular Instance of it ... Romantic excess of it ... Liberality ... Humility ... Courtesy ..._ EVERY DAY LIFE OF THE KNIGHT _... Falconry ... Chess playing ... Story of a Knight's Love of Chess ... Minstrelsy ... Romances ... Conversation ... Nature and Form of Chivalric Entertainments ... Festival and Vow of the Pheasant._ [Sidenote: General array of knights.] The knight was accompanied into the field by his squires and pages, by his armed vassals on horseback and on foot, all bearing his cognisance. The number of these attendants varied necessarily with his estate, and also the occasion that induced him to arm; and I should weary, without instructing my readers, were I to insert in these volumes all the petty details of history regarding the amount of force which in various countries, and in different periods of the same country's annals, constituted, to use the phraseology of the middle ages, the complement of a lance. Armies were reckoned by lances, each lance meaning the knight himself with his men-at-arms, or lighter cavalry, and his foot soldiers. * * * * *