OF SIX MEDIÆVAL WOMEN
and thus proclaim their confession of faith. Among these Orders one was styled "L'Escu vert à la dame blanche," another, "L'Ordre de la Rose," and so on, suggestive of their purport. The first-named was founded by the brave soldier Jean le Meingre, Maréchal de Boucicaut, whose portrait may be seen in his superb Book of Hours, painted between 1399 and 1407, now in the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris.[1] Its membership was restricted to thirteen knights, who swore to defend the honour of women against all detractors. To distinguish them from others less gallantly disposed, they wore on the sleeve an ornament in the shape of a small shield, enamelled green on the outside, and with the representation, on the underside, of a woman, enamelled in white.
.… Vous portez la dame en verde targe
Pour démonstrer que de hardi visage
Vous vous voulez pour les dames tenir
Contre ceulz qui leur porteront dommage!
Of the Order of the Rose and its foundation, Christine, in one of her poems, gives most picturesque and interesting particulars, interesting because they are evidently taken from an actual scene, though Christine, in her role as poetess, feels it necessary to add touches suggestive of fairyland rather than of real life. A numerous assembly, with goodwill at heart, has met together in the magnificent dwelling
- ↑ "Le Musée Jacquemart-André," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, August 1912.
134
