time during the period beginning not long before 1385 and ending before the middle of the following century. It is hardly probable that the orders were very important, however, or there would have been more frequent mention of them than we find. CHAPTER II. THE ACCESSORIES OF THE ALLEGORY A number of the details of F. L., as to costumes, chaplets, birds, trees, and so forth, are clearly symbolic in relation to the central allegory. THE COSTUMES - WHITE AND GREEN The costumes are, we have noted, white and green-white for the adherents of the Leaf, green for the adherents of the Flower. At first this reversal of an apparently natural choice may seem strange, for the daisy-the flower here worshiped-is white, and the leaf is green; but when we remember that white is proverbially (and most naturally) the color of purity, the white attire of the chaste followers of the Leaf is at once seen to be appropriate. The use of white as symbolic of purity is so common as scarcely to need comment: Thus Beatrice, when Dante sees her at the age of eighteen, is attired in white, "the hue of Faith and Purity."" Deschamps mentions the traditional interpretation of the color in his Lay de Franchise, 1. 36, and his Éloge d'une dame du nom de Marguerite. Christine de Pisan, in her Dit de la Rose, and Lydgate, in R. S.,' represent Diana as clothed in white-Diana the goddess of purity and leader of the company of the Leaf. Especially interesting in this connection is another poem by Lydgate-Pur le Roy, an account of the entry of Henry VI into London in 1432, after his coronation in France. and clene, The citezens eche one of the citee, 1 Gardner, Dante Primer (1900), p. 46. 2 Euvres, Vol. II, pp. 203 ff.; Vol. III, pp. 379, 380, 1. 7. 3 Euvres poétiques, Vol. II, pp. 29 ff., 11. 279–81. 4 Ll. 2816, 2822-24. 5 M. P., ed. Halliwell, pp. 1 ff. The same event is described in the Chronicles; see especially Gregory's, ed. Gairdner, Historical Collections of a Citizen of London in the Fifteenth Century (Camden Society, 1876), pp. 173 ff. To shew the trouthe that they did mene In sondery devise embroudered richely.' On the bridge a tower was erected, from which issued three ladies representing Nature, Grace, and Fortune. On each side of these ladies were seven maidens Alle clad in white, in tokyn of clennes, Lyke pure virginis as in ther ententis.2 But purity is not the only meaning attached by medieval poets to white. The appropriateness of the color for the Nine Worthies, the Douze Pairs, the Knights of the Round Table and of the Garter, is indicated in the following lines from Watriquet de Couvin's Dis des .VIII. Couleurs: A third symbolic meaning is given to white by Guillaume de Machaut, in his Rémède de Fortune, where we are told that the color signifies joy. A woman in white called Joye-sanz-fin appears in a poem attributed to Deschamps, who was, it will be remembered, a pupil of Machaut. Connected perhaps with this 1I emend Halliwell's bad punctuation. 2 It seems worthy of note, by the way, that these virgins sang Most aungelyk with hevenly armony" (p. 10). Cf. F. L., 131-33. 3 F. L., 504, 515, 516, 519. 4 Dits de Watriquet de Couvin, ed. Scheler (Bruxelles, 1868), pp. 311 ff. 5 Euvres choisies, ed. Tarbé (Paris, 1849), pp. 83 ff. Euvres de Deschamps, ed Raynaud, Vol. X, p. lxxxi. interpretation are two references in Gaston Paris' collection of Chansons du XVme siècle.1 In chanson XLII the poet says he is too sad to sing Quant le Vaudevire est jus Et blanche livrée porter, Noblement sans mal penser. Somewhat similarly, in chanson LVI, Olivier Bachelin is addressed in the following terms: Vous soulliés gaiment chanter Et demener jouyeuse vie, Et la blanche livrée porter Par la pais de Normandie. This "blanche livrée" was apparently the sign of some organization, but the editor of the Chansons gives no definite information about it. As Bachelin was the fifteenth-century Norman poet who wrote convivial songs called by the name of the valley (Vaudevire) where he lived, it seems hardly likely that the wearing of white livery in his time and by his merry companions has any relation to the wearing of white by the followers of the Leaf, in spite of the fact that ll. 11 and 12 of chanson XLII may reasonably be taken to imply either purity or steadfastness, or both. These chansons were probably later than F. L., however, so that they interfere in no way with the conclusion that the use of white in our poem was entirely in accord with traditions prevalent at the time it was written. There is abundant evidence that white was associated with the amorous law and its festivities. Thus in G. Villani's Cronica3 there is mention of the appearance-in Florence, June, 1283-of "una compagnia di mille uomini o più, tutti vestiti di robe 1 Société des Anciens Textes Français, 1875. 2 In this connection may be mentioned Froissart's account of the "blans chaperons" of Ghent, 1379 (Chroniques, chaps. cccxlviii ff.; Berners' translation). I see no reason for suspecting any relation between these two kinds of "white hats," but they indicate how much was made of details of livery or uniform, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 3 Libro VII, cap. lxxxix; Biblioteca classica italiana, Secolo XIV, No. 21 (Trieste, 1857), Vol. I, p. 148. bianche con uno signore detto dell' Amore." Similarly, in May, 1290, "more than a thousand persons, dressed in white, paraded the streets [of Florence again], guided by the 'Lord of Love." "1 In Jean de Condé's Messe des Oisiaus' white-clad canonesses present a love suit before Venus; and in Gower's C. A.3 a company of servants of love ride white horses and are clad in white and blue (the latter the regular color of constancy). In a popular chanson' "la belle au jardin d'amour" is in white. Moreover, in a number of other cases, to be mentioned hereafter," white is associated with green in connection with love observances of various kinds. These love observances took place most commonly during the month of May, in connection with more general celebrations of the return of spring, with which also white was sometimes associated, though, as will be seen shortly, far less frequently than green. One of Gower's French ballades," for instance, contains mention of the "blanche banere" of May. There is record of the custom, in Provence, on the first of May, of choosing "de jolies petites filles qu'on habille de blanc On l'appelle le mayo.”1 Mannhardt also mentions the wearing of white costumes at May Day celebrations in various parts of Europe. The specific examples he gives are doubtless of a time much later than F. L., but such customs are generally traditional and may be of very great antiquity. As to the fundamental interpretation of green there is direct conflict: it means constancy and it means inconstancy. Deschamps, in his Lay de Franchise and in two ballades, "L'Ascension est la fête des dames" and "Éloge d'une dame du nom de Marguerite," says green is the color of "fermeté" or of "seurté." In two of these cases, however, he is complimenting a woman represented as a daisy, and naturally has to give a complimentary meaning to 1 Gardner, Dante Primer, p. 13. 2 Dits et contes, Vol. III, pp. 1 ff. 3 Book IV, 11. 1305 ff. See further discussion of the story of Rosiphele, p. 166 below. 4 Romania, Vol. VII, p. 61. 5 Pp. 152, 153 below. 6 Complete Works, ed. Macaulay, Vol. I, p. 367, ballade xxxvii. 7 DeNore, Coutumes, mythes et traditions des provinces de France (Paris, 1846); quoted in deGubernatis, La mythologie des plantes (Paris, 1878-82), Vol. I, p. 227. See also Chambers' Book of Days, Vol. I, p. 579. 8 Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstämme (Berlin, 1875), p. 344. 9 Euvres, Vol. II, pp. 203 ff., 1. 35; Vol. III, pp. 307, 379. the green stalk. In another ballade he writes more conventionally of blue as the color of "loyauté." Yet there is evidence that his idea was not exceptional. For example, in a Middle English version of Le Chasteau d'Amour are the following lines: The grene colour bi the ground that wil so wele laste (403) Is the treuthe of oure ladye that ay was stedefast;2 in the Castle of Perseverance Truth is represented as wearing a "sad-coloured green;" and in Lydgate's Edmund and Fremund* we find the lines: The wattry greene shewed in the Reynbowe Off chastite disclosed his clennesse. 6 Moreover, Chaucer has Alceste, the type of faithfulness, "clad in real habit grene,' ," and even Diana's statue in the Knight's Tale clothed "in gaude greene"-doubtless because she was a huntress. The foregoing interpretation, however, is exceptional, and in most cases can be accounted for, as intimated, by special reasons governing each particular poem. By far the commoner meaning of green was inconstancy. For example, Machaut has a ballade with the refrain: Au lieu de bleu se vestir de vert;" and in his Rémède de Fortune," "vers" is said to signify "nouvelleté." Chaucer makes similar use of the color in the Squire's Tale; and Lydgate in the following lines of the Falls of Princes: 9 Watchet-blewe of feyned stedfastnes, Meint with light grene, for change and doublenes.10 1 Euvres, Vol. X, p. lix. 2 Robert Grosseteste's Chasteau d'Amour (Castel of Love), ed. Hupe; Anglia, Vol. XIV, pp. 415 ff. 3 See Schick's note on 1. 299 of Lydgate's T. G. + In Horstmann's Altenglische Legenden, Neue Folge (Heilbronn, 1891), pp. 376 ff.; part III, ll. 115, 116. 5 L. G. W., Prologue B, 1. 214. Alceste, it should be remembered, is a personification of the daisy, and the green habit represents the green stalk of the flower. Similarly in the Second Nun's Prologue (C. T., G, 90), “green of conscience" is to be explained by the comparison with a lily. 6 C. T., A, 1. 2079. 7 Euvres choisies, ed. Tarbé, pp. 55, 56. This poem is the original of Chaucer's Ballade of Newe-Fangelnesse, with its refrain, In stede of blew, thus may ye were al grene. (Oxford Chaucer, Vol. I, p. 409.) 8 Tarbé, p. 84. 9 C. T.. F, 11. 646, 647. 10 Quoted by Professor Skeat in his note on Chaucer's Anelida and Arcite, 1. 330 (Oxford Chaucer, Vol. I, p. 538); and by Professor Schick in the note referred to above, n. 3. |