"Besides the practice of feats of arms," says John of Salisbury, writing in the reign of Henry II., "the young knight should qualify himself for the duties of his station by a variety of toil and exemplary abstinence. From the beginning he must learn to labour, run, carry heavy weights, and bear the sun and dust: he must use sparing and rustic food: he must accustom himself to live in tents, or in the open air." Then, turning upon the luxurious and effeminate knights of his day, he upbraids them in a diatribe which gives us a singular picture of the manners of this age. "Some," he says, "think that military glory consists in the display of elegant dress, in wearing their clothes tight to the body, so binding on their linen or silken garments that they seem a skin coloured like their flesh. Sitting softly on their ambling horses, they think themselves so many Apollos. If you make an army of them, you will have the camp of Thaïs, not of Hannibal. Each is boldest in the banqueting-hall, but in the battle every one desires to be the last: they would rather assail the enemy with arrows than come to close fighting. Returning home without a scar, they sing triumphantly of their battles, and boast of the thousand deaths that wandered near their temples. If diligent idleness can procure any spears, which, being brittle as hemp, should chance to be broken in the field; if a piece of gold, minium, or any colour of the rainbow, by any chance or blow should fall out of their shields; their garrulous tongues would make it an everlasting memorial. They have the first places at supper. They feast every day splendidly, if they can afford it, but shun labour and exercise like a dog or a snake. Whatever is surrounded with difficulty, they leave to those who serve them. In the meantime, they so gild their shields, and so adorn their tents, that you would think each one, not a learner, but a chieftain of war[264]."
[Illustration: PORCHESTER CASTLE, HAMPSHIRE.
KNIGHTLY EFFIGY in HASELEY CHURCH, OXFORDSHIRE.]
[152] The events depicted in the Bayeux tapestry have been carefully identified and described by M. Lancelot in the _Mémoires de l'Acad. des Inscrip._, viii. 602. This paper has been reprinted by M. Thierry among the _Pièces justificatives_ of his _Conquête de l'Angleterre_, vol. i.