Those delightful and invaluable historical works, the “Grandes Chroniques de France,” were written by the monks of St. Denis; of whom one used to be chosen by the abbot to go about with the court on purpose to write them. After the invention of printing they were arranged and printed by the Benedictine Jean Chartier, 1496.[113]
The ceremony of conferring knighthood was one of the most interesting and characteristic of the many spectacles of the Middle Ages. In a former volume relating to the French court were described the magnificent fêtes given by Philippe le Bel on the occasion of the knighthood of his three sons and the young Princes of Burgundy, the fame of which had spread all over Christendom. Charles and Isabeau determined that there should be no falling off either in the splendour or the diversions of those they were about to give. During the seventy-six years that had elapsed between those festivities and the ones now in question, wealth and luxury had greatly increased, there was more general cultivation and no gloomy figure severely moral and remorselessly cruel cast a shadow, like Philippe le Bel, upon the universal rejoicing.
The Queen, the ladies of the court, and princes of the blood, were to lodge in the abbey itself, which was well suited to receive them. The refectory was of enormous size, with two naves divided by a colonnade, the windows were filled with the most gorgeous stained glass and the tables were of stone. In the cloister was an ancient fountain thirty-six feet in circumference, with sculptured figures from heathen mythology, and over it a vault raised on sixteen columns, mostly of marble, which had been put there by Hugues VI. the forty-second abbot, 1197.[114]
A huge wooden hall was built for the occasion in the courtyard of the abbey. It was covered with white outside, lined with white and green and decorated with tapestries and cloth of gold. In it was a large dais, and outside a place for tournaments with wooden galleries for the ladies to look on at the spectacle. On Saturday, May 1st, about sunset, the King arrived, and soon after the Queen of Sicily in an open car accompanied by the princes of the blood, her two sons, the King of Sicily, then about twelve years old, and his brother rode by her side in long grey robes without any gold or ornament, carrying pieces of the same stuff rolled up on their saddles as if for a journey, after an ancient custom of esquires. They escorted their mother to the abbey and then proceeded to the priory de l’Estrée, where they undressed and bathed. At nightfall they went to salute the King, who took them to the church, where they put on the dress of knighthood. It was of red silk lined with vair, long robes and mantles down to the ground, but no covering on the head. Then a great procession was formed, a _cortège_ of nobles going before and behind the young King of Sicily, who walked between the Dukes of Burgundy and Touraine, and his brother, who was accompanied by the Duc de Bourbon and Pierre de Navarre, Comte de Mortaigne.