The word chivalry is taken form the French cheval, a horse. A knight was young man, the son of a good family, who was allowed to wear arms. In the story “How the Child of the Sea was Made Knight,” we are told how a boy of twelve became a page to the queen, and in the opening pages of the story “The Adventures of Sir Gareth,” we get a glimpse of a young man growing up at the court of King Arthur. It was not an easy life, that of a boy who wished to become a knight, but it made a man of him. To become a knight was almost as solemn an affair as it was to become a priest. Before the day of the ceremony he fasted, spent the night in prayer, confessed his sins, and received the Holy Sacrament. When morning came, clothed in white, to the church or hall, with a knight’s sword suspended from his neck. This the priest blessed and returned to him. Upon receiving back the sword he went and knelt before the presiding knight and took the oath of knighthood. The knight’s real work, and greatest joy, was fighting for someone who needed his help. Tournaments and jousts gave them chances to show off their skill in public. The same qualities that made a manful fighter then, makes one now: to speak the truth, to perform a promise to the utmost, to reverence all women, to be constant in love, to despise luxury, to be simple and modest and gentle in heart, to help the weak and take no unfair advantage of an inferior. This was the ideal of the age, and chivalry is the word that expresses that ideal.

Product Description: TITLE AND PROLOGUE TO BOOK I Here beginneth the volume entitled and named the Recuyell of the Histories of Troy, composed and drawn out of divers books of Latin into French by the right venerable person and worshipful man, Raoul le Feure, priest and chaplain unto the right noble, glorious, and mighty prince in his time, Philip, Duke of Burgundy, of Brabant, etc...read more

Product Description: Harvard Classics.

Product Description: Contains the following: Thoughts on Mind and Style; The Misery of Man Without God; Of the Necessity of the Wager; Of the Means of Belief; Justice and the Reason of Effects; The Philosophers; Morality and Doctrine; Fundamentals of the Christian Religion; Perpetuity; Typology; Prophecies; Proofs of Jesus Christ; The Miracles...read more

Product Description: This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience...read more

Product Description: Four essays about great figures in American history - Franklin, Washington, Channing and Emerson - by the man who became Harvard's president in 1869, and transformed a provincial college a national institution.

Product Description: A short history of one of many settlers who were neither famous nor unique, but who contributed to the history of the United States. ' This is the life of one of the forgotten millions. It contains no material for distinction, fame, or long remembrance; but it does contain the material and present the scene for a normal human development through mingled joy and sorrow, labor and rest, adversity and success, and through the tender loves of childhood, maturity, and age...read more

Product Description: Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Product Description: Of public diversions they have but one sort, and in all their meetings the same is still exhibited. Young men, such as make it their pastime, fling themselves naked and dance amongst sharp swords and the deadly points of javelins...read more

Product Description: This book places before the reader a selection of the most important documents which record in contemporary terms the great events in the history of the country. Beginning with the personal records of the earliest discoverers of the continent, the selection goes on to present the first attempts at organizing a machinery of government made by the first settlers of the New England colonies; proceeds to the landmarks of the struggle for independence and the formation of the Constitution; shows the laying of the foundation of national policies and of the interpretation of the Constitution; indicated by the texts of the treaties themselves the acquisition of each successive increase of territory; and reveals by the original state papers the main causes and effects of the wars in which the country has from time to time been engaged...read more

Product Description: Contents: Some Thoughts Concerning Education by John Locke; Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Skeptics and Atheists by George Berkeley; An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume.

Product Description: Contents: The Apology, Phaedo and Crito of Plato translated by Benjamin Jowett. The Golden Sayings of Epictetus translated by Hastings Crossley. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Translated by George Long.

Product Description: Contents: The Chronicles of Froissart, Translated by Lord Berners, edited by G.C. Macaulay: The Campaign of Crecy; The Battle of Poitiers; Wat Tyler's Rebellion; The Battle of Otterburn; Sir Thomas Malory: The Holy Grail; Description of Elizabethan England Written by William Harrison for Holinshed's Chronicles...read more

1910. Sample Contents: Chaucer; Traditional Ballads; Sir Thomas Wyatt; George Gascoigne; Anthony Munday; Sir Walter Raleigh; Sir Edward Dyer; John Lyly; Sir Philip Sidney; Thomas Lodge; George Peele; Robert Southwell; Samuel Daniel; Michael Drayton; henry Constable; Edmund Spenser; William Habington; Christopher Marlowe; William Shakespeare; Robert Greene; Thomas Campion; Sir Henry Wotton; Ben Jonson; John Donne; William Alexander; Thomas Jordan; Abraham Cowley; Andrew Marvell; John Dryden; Matthew Prior; Lady Grisel Baillie; John Gay; Alexander Pope; Thomas Gray and many more.

Product Description: Contents: Christian: The First and Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians; Hymns of the Christian Church. Buddhist: Buddhist Writings, Translated and Annotated by Henry Clarke Warren. Hindu: The Bhagavad-Gita or Song Celestial, Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold...read more

Product Description: R.H. Dana took a sea voyage and decided to go as a sailor not as a passenger. The voyage was bound from his home town of Boston to California. His experiences during those two years form the subject of this volume. Later in life he took another voyage around the world and those observations form the postscript of this book...read more