Sir Eustace de Ribeaumont, and removing a chaplet of pearls from his
own head, he placed it on that of the French knight, with the
significant words[7]: "Sir Eustace, I present you with this chaplet as
being the best combatant this day, either within or without doors; and
I beg of you to wear it this year for love of me. I know that you are
lively and amorous, and love the company of ladies and damsels;
therefore say wherever you go that I gave it to you." But the chivalry
of the Goths was only the seed of the plant which flourished so
luxuriantly under better conditions in later times. The feudal system
fostered the growth of the sentiment into the institution, as a
palliative to anarchy and as an ornament to life, while the Church,
always eager to absorb enthusiasm and power into her own ranks, adopted
the institution as the Holy Order, and adding religious devotion to the
inspiration of love, directed the energies of chivalry into the work of
civilization, and made the knight the champion of the weak, in addition
to his character as a valiant soldier.

It is difficult in considering a period so remote and so peculiar as
that of chivalry, to fix the limit between the actual and the
imaginary, between the character of the ideals which men placed before
themselves, and the extent to which these ideals were realized. That
the writings of the romancers were exaggerations of actual manners
rather than inventions, is shown by the descriptions of the habits and
inmates of mediæval castles, which form so interesting a portion of
Froissart's chronicles, and give such striking and life like
illustrations of the society which at once inspired and enjoyed the
romances of chivalry. The castle of the Earl of Foix and the Earl
himself would have seemed quite natural in the pages of a romance:
"Ther was none more rejoysed in dedes of armes than the erle dyde: ther
was sene in his hall, chambre, and court, knightes and squyers of