_Dist li dus, “Dame, verités avez dit;_ _Mais d’une chose i avez moult mespris._ _N’est pas richoise ne de vair ne de gris,_ _Ne de deniers, de murs, ne de roncins,_ _Mais est richoise de parens et d’amins;_ _Li cuers d’un homme vaut tout l’or d’un pais.”_ --Garin le Loherain, ii. 218.
The incident of the younger, or even at times the elder, sons of feudal lords or landholders going to seek service is the groundwork of the romance of “Blonde of Oxford,” and of the story of “Courtois d’Arras,” printed by Meon in his collection of fabliaux and stories. The latter tale is a mediæval version of the scriptural story of the Prodigal Son. Youths of good family easily found service in this manner, and the service itself was not considered dishonourable, because lords and gentlemen admitted nobody to immediate attendance on their persons but sons of gentlemen--persons of as good blood as themselves. To be a good servant was a gentlemanly accomplishment, and the payment these gentlemanly servants received consisted ordinarily in their clothing and gifts of various kinds, rarely in money. I have already hinted that the intercourse between the male and female portions of the household was on a footing of familiarity and freedom, and at the same time on a tone of gallantry which could hardly produce a high degree of morality, but the details on this subject, though very abundant, are in great part of a description which cannot here be entered upon. This intercourse extended to what we should now call the privacy of the bed-chamber. It was usual, indeed, for the ladies to receive visits from the gentlemen, _tête-à-tête_, in their chamber. In the fabliau of “Guillaume au Faucon,” printed in Barbazan, the young “damoisel,” as the noble youth was usually termed, having fallen in love with the beautiful wife of the lord in whose service he was, took an opportunity of visiting her in her chamber, when he knew that all her maidens were employed in another part of the building. Without knocking, he opened the door gently, and found the lady sitting alone on her bed. The lady saluted him with “a sweet smile,” and told him to come in and sit on the bed by her side, and there “he laughed, and talked, and plaid with her, and the lady did the same”--