him in person, or chooses a messenger who invites the coveted man to a rendezvous.  The heathen woman who has to guard captured Franks and who has given her heart to one of them, hies herself to the dungeon and offers him her love.  She begs for his love in return and seeks in every way to win it.  If he resists, she curses him, makes his lot less endurable, withholds his food or threatens him with death until he is willing to accede to her wishes.  If this has come to pass she overwhelms him with caresses at the first meeting.  She is eager to have them reciprocated; often the lover is not tender enough to please her, then she repeatedly begs for kisses.  She embraces him delightedly even though he be in full armor and in presence of all his companions.  Girlish shyness and modest backwardness are altogether foreign to her nature....  She never has any moral scruples....  If he is unwilling to give up his campaign, she is satisfied to let him go the next morning if he will only marry her.

“The man is generally described as cold in love.  References to a knight’s desire for a woman’s love are very scant, and only once do we come across a hero who is quite in love.  The young knight prefers more serious matters; his first desire is to win fame in battle, make rich booty.[21] He looks on love as superfluous, indeed he is convinced that it incapacitates him from what he regards as his proper life-task.  He also fears the woman’s infidelity.  If he allows her to persuade him to love, he seeks material gain from it; delivery from captivity, property, vassals....  The lover is often tardy, careless, too deficient in tenderness, so that the woman has to chide him and invite his caresses.  A rendezvous is always brought about only through her efforts, and she alone is annoyed if it is disturbed too soon.  Even when the man desires a woman, he hardly appears as a wooer.  He knows he is sure of the women’s favor; they make it easy for him; he can have any number of them if he belongs to a noble family....  Even when the knight is in love—­which is very rare—­the first advances are nearly always made by the woman; it is she who proposes marriage.

“Marriage as treated in the epics is seldom based on love.  The woman desires wedlock, because she hopes thereby to secure her rights and better her chances of protection.  It is for this reason that we see her so often eagerly endeavoring to secure a promise of marriage.”

WHAT MADE WOMEN COY?

Sufficient evidence has now been adduced to make it clear that the first of the two questions posed at the outset of this chapter must be answered in the negative.  Coyness is not an innate or universal trait of femininity, but is often absent, particularly where man’s absorption in war and woman’s need of protection prevent its growth and induce the females to do the courting.  This being the case