chierte

“When the queen, ladies, and gentlewomen, wist these tidings, they had such sorrow and heaviness that there might no tongue tell it, for those knights had held them in honour and chierte.”

Le Morte d'Arthur: Sir Thomas Malory's book of King Arthur and of his noble knights of the Round table

“Howbeit it hath liked her good grace to have me in chierte, and to cherish me more than any other knight; and unto my power I again have deserved her love, for ofttimes, my lord, ye have consented that she should be brent and destroyed, in your heat, and then it fortuned me to do battle for her, and or I departed from her adversary they confessed their untruth, and she full worshipfully excused.”

Le Morte d'Arthur: Sir Thomas Malory's book of King Arthur and of his noble knights of the Round table