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ROYAL HERALDRY. 379
wealthy and industrious, full of imaginative genius, art, and refinement
their panacea for all their failings was song. The form and rhythm of their
songs were varied the tenzon, the acrostic, the ballad, the frottola, the
sonnet, the cobbole, the canzon. Every chateau, however petty, had its poet
to write metrical histories, to satirize adversaries, to extol the family, to
greet the wedding with a song and the funeral with an elegy, to play every
conceivable instrument, and with perfect patience to endure every practical
joke. Courts of Love, with president and council regularly appointed,
gravely regulated all domestic scandals and differences, controlled matrimonial
irregularities, and punished offenders. A Code of Love, containing
3 1 clauses, was drawn up, and four orthodox stages of love-making were
laid down. Some were enrolled as cavaliers-servente whose duties were to
wait upon fair ladies, supply their wants, and protect them from harm.
Some roamed the country as troubadours free to come and go wherever
they pleased, ever sure of welcome and hospitality, amongst the artisans or
country-folk, at the hostelries, and at the great houses also. Sometimes,
perhaps, their songs were unduly flavoured with satire and scandal, but
many undertook their profession as a mission.
" I see but one remedy for
" all this mischief, and that is the art of the troubadour," said Vidal, as he
strove with many to
raise the tone of morality, if not religion.
It seems almost a dream in this prosaic age
that such an effort
should have been made. Well, the results were not, perhaps, altogether
successful, though we have no reason to be ashamed of the reputations
of the two fair sisters who were allied to our royal house. Eleanor and
Senchia were tender, loving wives; and the former exhibited a firmness and
courage which often supported her somewhat capricious and vacillating
husband in his trials and difficulties. She filled the office of " Gustos
" regia vice regis," during his absence abroad, with dignity and vigour,
and pawned her jewels when need required
it ;
and if her beauty and
luxuries sometimes emptied his purse, her resolution and decision as often
replenished it, and forced even the reluctant citizens of London to pay their
quota of " "
aurum reginae whenever she demanded it. The whole Court
mourned the death of the gentle Senchia, 1261. The King passed to his
rest, 1272, and eight years after, Eleanor retired to the convent of Ambresbury
with her two granddaughters, Mary, daughter of Edward and
I.,
Eleanor, daughter of the deceased Duchess of Bretagne. In 1284, according
to Matthew Paris, "That generous virago Elianor, Queen of England,
" mother of the King, took the veil and religious habit at Ambresbury."
During the next seven years she maintained a close and tender intercourse
with her son, often advising him on matters of state, and receiving
from him the most dutiful and loving attention, and ever styling herself
"Elinor, humble nun of the Order of Fontevraud." She died the year