THE MEDIAEVAL LADY

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2305, 21 July 1921, Page 4

THE MEDIAEVAL LADY

GARRULITY A MAIN FAULT

If generosity were one of her main virtues, garrulity seems to have been one of the main faults of the mediaeval lady, says John o’ London's Weekly, and little affectations were among her minor shortcomings, as we may gather from the improving talc told by the Knight of lc Tour-Landry in the delightful book which lie compiled for the instruction of bis motherless daughters.' The good knight tolls how an English king sent an ambassador choose u (jueen for him from among the daughter.- of the King of Denmark. Though (he eldest was the fairest, “she winked oft, and ,-pnke before -lie understood what was said to her, and ever beat her eyelids together.” and was therefore rejected by the ambassador, as was inc second sister, who had “marvellous much language": the third, who was less fair, but better behaved, received the crown, to her own ve; v great astonishment its well as to that of her sisters. Another fault of which satirists often accused them was insincerity. “There were three wily, three wily there were," sings’ an old hard, “a fox, avid a friar, and a woman, and the gibe echoes through all the sarcastic ballads of 1 lie ididdlc Ages. Woman was depicted as a chattering, fickle creature; her grotesque headgear (‘tilled forth the anger of monkish chroniclers; and her shallowness was drawn in gay tints by Chaucer, and in angry strokes by Lydgate.