"
Minstrels, however, were after all only an incident. They served to
entertain and amuse, as well as to keep alive the memory of great deeds
and sentiments of truth and honour. But they were essentially a luxury,
not a necessity, for the circumstances of a rough age sufficed to
perpetuate the type which it had created. For more stable and
significant elements we must look elsewhere. Just as the lower fabric of
society reposed on the humble apprentice, so its upper framework
depended on the page as the repository of its traditions and guarantee
of the future. As early as the reign of Henry II., and doubtless
earlier, the sons of nobles and gentlemen were entered at the King's
Court, baronial halls, and episcopal palaces as "henchmen." To these
scions of chivalry--and a similar remark applies to the "demoiselles,"
their sisters--such places were a school of manners wherein they learnt
the duties of obedience and reverence to their elders and betters; and,
in process of time, they attained the rank of squire, and, eventually,
the knight's belt. Received into the lord's family on the best terms, as
became their birth and connexions, they had, nevertheless, to wait at
table and perform other tasks that would now be deemed menial, such as
walking by the lord's charger; and, until their education was complete,
they had to submit to his orders, whatever they might be.
Perhaps the first of many books on etiquette in English is a treatise
written by Grosseteste for Margaret, Countess of Lincoln, and entitled
"Reules Seynt Robert.
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