_page_ at the court or in the castle of his patron, learning the
principles of religion, obedience, and gallantry. At fourteen, as a
_squire_, the boy began a severer course of training, in order to
become skilled in horsemanship, and to gain strength and courage, as
well as the refinements and graces necessary in the company of knights
and ladies.

Finally, at twenty-one, his training was complete, and with elaborate
and solemn formality the _squire_ was made a _knight_. Then, after a
strict oath to be loyal, courteous, and brave, the armour was buckled
on, and the proud young chevalier rode out into the world, strong for
good or ill in limb, strong in impenetrable armour, strong in a social
custom that lifted him above the common people about him.

When rightly exercised chivalry was a great blessing to the people of
its time. It offered high ideals of pure-minded, warm-hearted,
courtly, courageous Christian manhood. It did much to arouse thought,
to quicken sympathy, to purify morals, to make men truly brave and
loyal. Of course this ideal of character was not in the days of
chivalry--ideals are not often now--very fully realised. The
Mediaeval, like the Modern, abused his power of muscle, of sword, of
rank. His liberty as a knight-errant sometimes descended into the
licence of a highwayman; his pride in the opportunity for helpfulness
grew to be the braggadocio of a bully; his freedom of personal choice
became the insolence of lawlessness; his pretended purity and justice
proved wanton selfishness.

Because of these abuses that crept into the system, it is well for the
world that gunpowder at last came, to break through the knight's coat
of mail, to teach the nobility respect for common men, roughly to end
this age of so much superficial politeness and savage bravery, and to
bring in a more democratic social order.

The books of any age are for us a record of how the people of that age
thought, how they lived, and what kind of men and women they tried to
be. The old romances of chivalry give us clear pictures of the knights
and ladies of the Middle Ages, and we shall lose the delight and the
profit they may give us, if we think only of the defects of chivalry,
and close our eyes to the really worthy motives of those far-off times,
and so miss seeing what chivalry was able to do, while it lasted, to
make men and women better and happier.

Before reading the Arthur stories themselves it is well to know