Note 682 — Chapter XV · THE MORAL LIFE OF EUROPE DURING THE AGE OF CHIVALRY

“So great, it is said, was the knights’ respect for an oath, a promise, or a vow, that when they lay under any of these restrictions, they appeared everywhere with little chains attached to their arms or habits to show all the world they were slaves to their word; nor were these chains taken off till their promise had been performed, which sometimes extended to a term of four or five years. It cannot be expected, of course, that reality should have always come up to the ideal.”—Westermarck, The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas (1908), vol. ii, p. 102.