Bards - Re: norman tales/Tales

[willow taylor]

This is not a tale but it was something I found to be interesting. I am
looking for the scoure right now. If any of you know please  tell me.I
got this list from a neat book called the" Romance of the Feudal
Chateaux" It has all sort of folk legends about castles and chateaux in
France.  According to the book before  a knight received the accolade, 
the aspirant was asked  "To what purpose do you desire to enter an order?

If to be rich, to take your ease and be held in honour without doing
honour 
to  knighthood, you are unworthly of it."

The knights had to swear to twenty-six articles:
(1) To fear and reverence and serve God religiously, and to die rather
than to renounce Christianity;
(2) to serve and fight for their King and country;
(3) to uphold the rights of the weaker, such as widows, orphans, and
damsels;
(4) that they should not injure anyone maliciously, or take what was
another’s, but rather do battle with those that did so;
(5) that greed, pay, or profit should never constrain them to any deed,
but only glory and virtue;
(6) that they would fight for the common weal;
(7) that they would obey their generals;
(8) that they would guard the honour of their country;
(9) that they would never fight in companies against one, and that they
would eschew all tricks and artifices;
(10) that they would wear but one sword unless they had to fight against
two or more;
(11) that in tourney they would never use the point of their swords;
(12) that being taken prisoner in a tourney they would be bound on their
faith and honour to perform in every point the condition of capture,
besides being bound to give up to the victors their arms and horses and
being disabled from fighting in war without their leave;
(13) that they would keep faith inviolably with all the world;
(14) that they would love and succour one another;
(15) that having made a vow to go any quest they would never put off
their arms save for the night’s rest;
(16) that in its pursuit they would not shun bad roads or perils;
(17) that they would never take wages from a foreign prince;
(18) that in command of troops they would never suffer violence to be
done;
(19) that in the escort of dame or damsel they would save her from all
danger or insult or die in the attempt;
(20) that they would never offer violence to dame or damsel though they
had won her by deed of arms;
(21) that being challenged to equal combat, they would never refuse,
without wound or sickness or other reasonable hindrance;
(22) that having undertaken any enterprise they would devote to it night
and day unless called away by King or country;
(23) that having made a vow to acquire any honour they would not draw
back without having attained either it or its equivalent;
( 24) that having become prisoners in fair warfare they would pay to the
uttermost the promised ransom or return to prison at the day and hour
agreed upon, on pain of being proclaimed infamous and perjured;
(25) that on returning to the court of their sovereign they would render
a true account of their adventures, even though they had been worsted, to
the King and the registrar of their order, on pain of being deprived of
the order of knighthood;
(26) that above all things they would be faithful, courteous, humble, and
never wanting to their word for any harm or loss that might accrue to
them.
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