for the foundation of our most illustrious order of knighthood, but
likewise for many typical acts of knightly valour and courtesy, as well on
the part of the King when in his better days, as on that of his heroic
son. Yet it cannot be by accident that an undefinable air of the old-
fashioned clings to that most delightful of all Chaucer's character-
sketches, the "Knight" of the "Canterbury Tales." His warlike deeds at
Alexandria, in Prussia, and elsewhere, may be illustrated from those of
more than one actual knight of the times; and the whole description of him
seems founded on one by a French poet of King John of Bohemia, who had at
least the external features of a knight of the old school. The chivalry,
however, which was in fashion as the century advanced, was one outwardly
far removed from the sturdy simplicity of Chaucer's "Knight," and inwardly
often rotten in more than one vital part. In show and splendour a higher
point was probably reached in Edward III's than in any preceding reign.
The extravagance in dress which prevailed in this period is too well known
a characteristic of it to need dwelling upon. Sumptuary laws in vain
sought to restrain this foible; and it rose to such a pitch as even to
oblige men, lest they should be precluded from indulging in gorgeous
raiment, to abandon hospitality, a far more amiable species of excess.
When the kinds of clothing respectively worn by the different classes
served as distinctions of rank, the display of splendour in one class
could hardly fail to provoke emulation in the others. The long-lived
English love for "crying" colours shows itself amusingly enough in the
early pictorial representations of several of Chaucer's Canterbury
pilgrims, though in floridity of apparel, as of speech, the youthful
"Squire" bears away the bell:--

Embroidered was he, as it were a mead
All full of freshest flowers, white and red.