Qui maintes foiz i ot esté.
La guete a un pou aresté
De corner et de noise fere:
Il descendi de son repere,
Si demanda isnelement
Qui chevauche si durement
A iceste eure sor cest pont.
Not satisfied with the answer of the lady, the watchman looks through a hole in the poterne (or smaller door for the admission of foot passengers), and recognises the palfrey:—
Il met ses iex et son viaire
A uns partuis de la poterne.
He then goes to the chamber of his lord to tell him what he had seen. The young knight hastily covered himself in a surcot, and came to the gate, which was opened to the stranger, who at first did not recognise her lover, but asked courteously for a night's lodging:—
Sire, por Dieu ne vous anuit,
Lessiez moi en vostre manoir,
Je n'i quier gueros remanoir.
In the morning the knight takes the lady "into his court and his chapel," by which it would seem that the chapel was entered from the court, and was perhaps on the opposite side to the house, and he calls his chaplain, who marries them:—
A lendemain quant il ajorne,
Dedenz sa cort et sa chapele
Venir i fet la damoisele.
I now quit this class of literary compositions; the long metrical romances of the same period describe the ulterior economy of the larger baronial castles, and will probably furnish materials for a future article.
