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Gathered together, the facts of decay convey too solid an impression. In real life every age is a checkerboard of light and dark. At the turn of the century the renowned Spanish knight Don Pero Niño, on a visit to France, left a picture of noble life as enchanted and bucolic in reality as it was often represented to be in tapestries and Books of Hours. The castle of Serifontaine, which he visited, was situated on the banks of a river in Normandy and furnished as richly “as if it had been in the city of Paris.” Around it were orchards and gracious gardens, and a walled fishpond from which each day, by opening the conduits, enough fish could be taken to serve 300 people. The elderly and ailing but complaisant host, Reynaud de Trie, Vienne’s successor as Admiral of France, possessed forty or fifty hounds, twenty horses of all kinds for his personal use, forests full of game great and small, falcons for hunting by the river, and for a wife, “the most beautiful lady then in France.” She appears to have been remarkably privileged.

This lady “had her own noble dwelling apart from that of the Admiral,” though connected by a drawbridge, and was attended by ten noble and richly dressed damsels who had no duties but to entertain themselves and their lady, for she had many serving maids as well. In the morning she and her damsels went to a grove, each with her Book of Hours and rosary, and said their prayers seated apart from each other and not conversing until they had finished. Returning to the castle, picking violets and other flowers as they went, they heard low mass in the chapel, after which they ate roasted larks and chicken from a silver plate accompanied by wine. Then, on finely saddled horses, together with knights and squires they rode in the country, where they made chaplets of flowers and sang “lays, virelays, roundelays, complaints, ballads and songs of all kinds which the French compose,” harmonizing in voices “diverse and well-attuned.”

At the elaborate main meal of the day in the castle hall, each gentleman sat beside a lady, and “any man who with due measure and courtesy could speak of arms and love was sure … that he would be heard and answered as his desire would have it.” Minstrels played during the meal and for dancing by the knights and ladies afterward, which lasted for an hour and ended with a kiss. Spices and wine were served followed by a siesta, after which the company rose for heron-hunting with falcons by the river. There “you would have seen great sport, dogs swimming, drums beating, lures waving, and ladies and gentlemen enjoying delight beyond description.” Dismounting in a meadow, they were served cold partridges and fruits and, while they ate and drank, made chaplets of greenery and returned to the castle singing.

At nightfall they had supper, played bowls or danced by torchlight “far into the night,” or sometimes the Dame, perhaps bored by the cycle of pleasure, “went to seek distraction afoot in the country.” After more fruits and wine, the company went to bed. In the decline of Rome, too, there must have been pockets of wealth and delight and serene days where trouble never penetrated.

Paris was another matter. Deschamps describes a raucous evening’s entertainment, at an unspecified date, which began with dinner at Berry’s residence, the Hôtel de Nesle, and moved on to a dice game in a tavern. The guests were Coucy and the three Dukes—Berry, Burgundy, and Bourbon—as well as “several good Lombards,” and knights and squires, whose drinking and gaming in low-class surroundings inspired the poet to a lengthy if torpid tract against gambling.

Unhappily, Coucy figures also in a more spirited lament on the subject of baldness, in which Deschamps pleads for the return of head-coverings at court to spare the feelings of the bald, among whom he names himself and twelve great lords, including the Sire de Coucy. That baldness should be the only specific detail of his physical appearance to reach posterity is a sad trick of history, even