CHIVALRY.

The primitive sense of this well-known word, derived from the French chevalier, signifies merely cavalry, or a body of soldiers serving on horseback, and has been used in that general acceptation by the best of our poets, ancient and modern, from Milton to Thomas Campbell.

But the present article respects the peculiar meaning given to the word in modern Europe, as applied to the order of knighthood, established in almost all her kingdoms during the middle ages, and the laws, rules, and customs, by which it was governed. These laws and customs have long been antiquated, but their effects may still be traced in European manners; and, excepting only the change which flowed from the introduction of the Christian religion, we know no cause which has produced such general and permanent difference betwixt the ancients and moderns as that which has arisen out of the institution of chivalry. In attempting to treat this curious and important subject, rather as philosophers than as antiquaries, we cannot, however, avoid going at some length into the history and origin of the institution.

From the time that cavalry became used in war, the horseman who furnished and supported a charger rose, in all countries, into a person of superior importance to the mere foot soldier. The apparent difficulty of the art of training and managing in the field of battle an animal so spirited and active, gave the ∖ ∙~ποl>ομος 'Exroξ, or Domitor equi, in rude ages, a character of superior gallantry, while the necessary expense attending this mode of service attested his superior wealth. In various military nations, therefore, we find that horsemen were distinguished as an order in the state; and we need only appeal to the equites of ancient Rome as a body interposed betwixt the senate and the people; or to the laws of the conquerors of New Spain, which assigned a double portion of spoil to the soldier who fought on horseback, in support of a proposition in itself very obvious. But in the middle ages the distinction ascribed, to soldiers serving on horseback assumed a very peculiar and imposing character. They were not merely respected on account of their wealth or military skill, but were bound together by an union of a very peculiar character, which monarchs were ambitious to share with the poorest of their subjects, and governed by laws directed to enhance into enthusiasm the military spirit, and the sense of personal honour associated with it. The aspirants to this dignity were not permitted to assume the sacred character of knighthood until after a long and severe probation, during which they practised, as acolytes, the virtues necessary to the order of chivalry. Knighthood was the goal to which the ambition of every noble youth turned; .and to support its honours, which, in theory at least, could only be conferred on the gallant, the modest, and the virtuous, it was necessary he should spend a certain time in a subordinate situation, attendant upon some knight of eminence, observing the conduct of his master, as what in future must be the model of his own, and practising the virtues of humility, modesty, and temperance, until called upon to display those of a higher order.

The general practice of assigning some precise period when youths should be admitted into the society of the manhood of their tribe, and considered as entitled to use the privileges of that more mature class, is common to many primitive nations. The custom also of marking the transition from the one state to the other by some peculiar formality and personal ceremonial, seems so very natural, that it is quite unnecessary to multiply instances, or crowd our pages with the barbarous names of the nations by whom it has been adopted. In the general and abstract definition of chivalry, whether as comprising a body of men whose military service was on horseback, and who were invested with peculiar honours and privileges, or with reference to the mode and period in which these distinctions and privileges were conferred, there is nothing either original or exclusively proper to our Gothic ancestors. It was in the singular tenets of chivalry,—in the exalted, enthusiastic, and almost sanctimonious ideas connected with its duties,—in the singular balance which its institutions offered against the evils of the rude ages in which it arose,—that we are to seek those peculiarities which render it so worthy of attention.

The original institution of chivalry has often been traced to the custom of the German tribes recorded by Tacitus. “All business,” says the historian, “whether public or private, is transacted by the citizens under arms; but it is not the custom that any one shall assume the military dress or weapons without the approbation of the state. For this purpose, one of the chief leaders, or the father or nearest relation of the youthful candidate, introduces him into the assembly, and confers on him publicly a buckler and javelin. These arms form the dress proper to manhood, and are the first honour conferred on youth. Before lie receives them the young man is but a member of his own family, but after this ceremony he becomes a part of the state itself.” (Taciti Germania.) The records of the northern nations, though we cannot rely upon their authenticity with the same unlimited confidence, because we conceive most of the legends relating to them have been written at a much later period than the times in which the scene is laid, may be referred to in confirmation of the Roman historians. The Scandinavian legends and Sagas are full of the deeds of those warriors whom they termed heroes orchampions, and who appear to have been formed into an order somewhat resembling that of chivalry, and certainly followed the principal and most characteristic employment of its profession,—wandering from court to court and from shore to shore, bound on [7:6:593] high adventure, and seeking with equal readiness their fortunes in love and in war. It would not be difficult to deduce from this very early period some of those peculiar habits and customs, which, brought by the Gothic conquerors into the provinces of the divided empire of Rome, subsisted and became ingrafted upon the institutions of chivalry. Tacitus, for example, informs us, that among the Germans, and especially among the Catti, every youthful champion permitted his beard and hair to grow, and did not shave them until he had performed some signal feat of arms. In the like manner, as the general reader may have learned from that irrefragable authority, Don Quixote de la Mancha, a knight who received his order was obliged to wear white armour, and a shield without a device, until, by some daring and distinguished achievement, he had acquired title to an honourable badge of distinction. If this correspondence of customs shall be thought too far fetched and too general, the next, which we also derive from Tacitus, is too close to be disputed. The German warriors who piqued themselves upon this bravery, used, at the commencement of a war, to assume an iron ring, after the fashion of a shackle, upon their arm, which they did not remove until they had slain an enemy. The reader may be pleased to peruse the following instance of a similar custom from the French romance of Jehan de Saintre, written in the year 1459, and supposed to be founded, in a great measure, upon real incidents.^[1. We may here observe, once for all, that we have no hesitation in quoting the romances of chivalry as good evidence of the lawsand customs of knighthood. The authors, like the painters of the period, invented nothing, but, copying the manners of the age in which they lived, transferred them without doubt or scruple to the period and personages of whom they treated. But the romance of Jehan de Saintré is still more authentic evidence, as it is supposed to contain no small measure of fact, though disguised and distorted. Probably the achievement of the Polish knights may have been a real incident. ] The hero, with nine companions at arms, four of whom were knights, and five squires, vowed to carry a helmet of a particular shape, that of the knights having a visor of gold, and that of the squires a visor of silver. Thus armed, they were to travel from court to court for the space of three years, defying the like number of knights and squires, wherever they came, to support the beauty of their mistresses with sword and lance. The emblems of their enterprise were chained to their left shoulders, nor could they be delivered of them until their vow was honourably accomplished. Their release took place at the court of the emperor of Germany, after a solemn tournament, and was celebrated with much triumph. In like manner, in the same romance, a Polish knight, called the Seigneur de Loiselench, is described as appearing at the court of Paris wearing a light gold chain attached to his wrist and ankle in token of a vow; which emblem of bondage he had sworn to wear for five years, until he should find some knight or squire without reproach, by encountering with whom he might be delivered (such was the phrase) of his vow and enterprise. Lord Herbert of Cherbury mentions, in his memoirs, that when he was made knight of the bath, a tassel of silken cordage was attached to the mantle of the order, which doubtless had originally the same signification as the shackle worn by the German champion. The rule was, however, so far relaxed, that the knot was unloosed so soon as a lady of rank gaged her word that the new knight of the bath would do honour to the order; and Lord Herbert, whose punctilious temper set great store by the niceties of chivalrous ceremony, fails not to record, with becoming gratitude, the name of the honourable dame who became his security on this important occasion.

Other instances might be pointed out, in which the ancient customs of the Gothic tribes may be traced in the history of chivalry; but the above arc enough to prove that the seeds of that singular institution existed in the German forests, though they did not come to maturity Until the destruction of the Roman empire, and the establishment of the modern states of Europe upon its ruins.

Having thus given a general view of the origin of chivalry, we will, 1. Briefly notice the causes from which it drew its peculiar characters, and the circumstances in which it differs so widely from the martial character as it existed, either among the ancient Greeks and Romans, or in other countries and nations. II. We will attempt a general abstract of its institutions. III. The rise and progress of chivalry, its effects upon the political state of Europe, and its decay and extinction, will close the article.

I. Agreeably to this general division, the general nature and spirit of the institution of chivalry falls first under our consideration.

In every age and country valour is held in esteem, and the more rude the period and the place, the greater respect is paid to boldness of enterprise and success in battle; but it was peculiar to the institution of chivalry to blend military valour with the strongest passions which actuate the human mind—the feelings of devotion and those of love. The Greeks and Romans fought for liberty or for conquest, and the knights of the middle ages for God and lor their ladies. Loyalty to their sovereigns was a duty also incumbent upon these warriors; but although a powerful motive, and by which they often appear to have been strongly actuated, it entered less warmly into the composition of the chivalrous principle than the two preceding causes. Of patriotism, considered as a distinct predilection to the interests of one kingdom, we find comparatively few traces in the institutions of knighthood. But the love of personal freedom, and the obligation to maintain and defend it in the persons of others as in their own, was a duty particularly incumbent on those who attained the honour of chivalry. Generosity, gallantry, and an unblemished reputation, were no less necessary ingredients in the character of a perfect knight. He was not called upon simply to practise these virtues when opportunity offered, but to be sedulous and unwearied in searching for the means of exercising them, and to push them without hesitation to the brink of extravagance, or even beyond it. Founded on principles so pure, the order of chivalry could not, in the abstract at least, but occasion a pleasing, though a romantic development of the energies of human nature; butas, in actual practice, every institution becomes deteriorated and degraded, we have too much occasion to remark, that the devotion of the knights often degenerated into superstition,—their love into licentiousness,—their spirit of loyalty or of freedom into tyranny and turmoil,—their generosity and gallantry into hairbrained madness and absurdity.

We have mentioned devotion as a principal feature in the character of chivalry. At what remote period the forms of chivalry were first blended with those of the Christian religion, would be a long and difficult inquiry. The religion which breathes nothing but love to our neighbour and forgiveness of injuries, was not, in its primitive purity, easily transferable into the warlike and military institutions of the Goths, the Franks, and the Saxons. At its first infusion, it appeared to soften the character of the people among whom it was introduced so much, as to render[7:6:594] them less warlike than their heathen neighbours. Thus the pagan Danes ravaged England when inhabited by the Christian Saxons,—the hesthen Normans conquered Neustria from the Franks,—thfe 'converted 1 Goths were subdued by the sword of the heŭthen Huns,—the Visigoths of Spain fell before the SaraćeŉS.' But the tide soon turned. As the necessity of military talefit and courage became evident, the Christian* relí^ión wăá used by its ministers (justly and wisely, so far as respected self-defence) as an additional spur to the temper^of The valiant. , Those books of the Old Testament which Ulphilâs’declined to translate, because they afforded too much fuel for the military zeal of the ahcient’ Goths, -Were how commented upon to animate the sinking courage of their descendants. Victory and glory on earth, and a happy immortality after death, were promised to those champions who should distinguish themselves in battle again⅛t the infidels. And who shall blame the preachers who held buch language, when it is remembered that the Saracens had at one time nearly possessed themselves of Aquitaine, and that,'but for the successful valour of Charles Martel, Pepin, and Charlemagne, the crescent might have dispossessed the cross of the fairest portion of Europe. The fervent sentiments of devotion which direct men’s eyes toward heaven, were then justly invoked, to unite with thofee which are most valuable on earth—-the' love of our country and its liberties. <∙

But the Rómish clergy,’who have in all ages possessed the wisdom of serpents, if they sometimes have fallen short of the simplicity of doves, saw the advantage of converting this temporary zeal, which'animated the warriors of their creed against the invading infidels, into a permanent union of principles, which should blend the ceremonies of religious worship with the military establishment of the ancient Goths and Germans. The admission of the noble youth to the practice of arms was no longer a mere military ceremony, where the sword or javelin was delivered to him in presence of the prince or elders of his tribe; it became a religious rite, sanctified by the· forms of the church, which he was in future to defend. The novice had to watch his arms in a church or chapel, or at least on hallowed ground, the night before he had received the honour of knighthood. He was made to assume a white dress, in imitation of the Neophytes of the church. Fast and confession were added to vigils, and the purification of the bath was imposéd on the military acolyte, in imitation of the initiatory rite of Christianity; and he was attended by godfathers, who became security for his performing his military vows, as sponsors had formerly appeared for him at baptism. In all points of ceremonial, the investiture of chivalry was brought to resemble, as nearly as possible, the administration of the sacraments of the church. The ceremony itself was performed, where circumstances would admit, in a church or cathedral; and the weapons with which the young warrior was invested were previously blessed by the priest. The oath of chivalry bound the knight to defend the rights of the holy church, to respect religious persons and institutions, and to obey the precepts of the gospel. Nay more, so intimate was the union betwixt chivalry and religion supposed to be, that the several gradations of the former were seriously considered as parallel to those of the church, and the knight was supposed to resemble the bishop in rank, duties, and privileges. At what period this complete infusion of religious ceremonial into an order purely military first commenced, and when it became complete and perfect, would be a curious but a difficult subject of investigation. Down to the reign of Charlemagne, and somewhat lower, the investiture was of a nature purely civil; but long before the time of the crusades, it had assumed the religious character we have described.

The effect which this union of religious and military zeal was like to produce in every other case save that of defensive war, could not but be unfavourable to the purity of the former. The knight, whose profession was war, being solemnly enlisted in the service of the gospel of peace, regarded infidels and heretics of every description as the enemies whom, as God’s own soldier, he was called upon to attack and slay wherever he could meet with them, without demanding or waiting for any other cause of quarrel than the difference of religious faith. The duties of morality were indeed formally imposed on him by the oath of-his order, as well as that of defending the church and extirpating heresy and misbelief. But in all ages it has been usual for men to compound with their consciences for breaches of the moral code of religion, by a double proportion of zeal for its abstract doctrines. In the middle ages, this course might be pursued on system; for the church allowed an exploit done on the infidels as a merit which might obliterate the guilt of the most atrocious crimes.

The genius alike of the age and of the order tended to render the zeal of the professors of chivalry fierce, burning, and intolerant. If an infidel, says a great authority, impugn the doctrines of the Christian faith before a churchman, he should reply to him by argument; but a knight should render no other reason to the infidel than six inches of his falchion thrust into his accursed bowels. Even courtesy, and the respect due to ladies of high degree, gave way when they chanced to be infidels. The renowned Sir Bevis of Hamptoun, being invited by the fair Princess Josiane to come to her bower, replies to the pay minis who brought the message,

I will ne gou one foot on ground

For to speke with an heathen hound; Unchristen houndes, 1 rede ye flee, Or I your hearte’s bloode wiìl see.

This intemperate zeal for religion the knights were expected to maintain at every risk, however imminent. Like the early Christians, they were prohibited from acquiescing, even by silence, in the rites of idolatry, although death should be the consequence of their interrupting them. In the fine romance of liuon of Bourdeaux, that champion is represented as having failed in duty to God and his faith, because he had professed himself a Saracen, for the temporary purpose of obtaining entrance into the palace of the Amial Gaudifer. “And when Sir Huon passed the third gate, he remembered him of the lie he had spoken to obtain entrance into the first. Alas! said the knight, what but destruction can betide one who has so foully falsified and denied his faith towards him who has done so much for me !” His mode of repentance was truly chivalrous. When he came to the gate of the last interior inclosure of the castle, he said to the warder, “Pagan, accursed be thou of God, open the gate.” When he entered the hall where the Pagan monarch was seated in full state, he struck off, without ceremony, the head of the Pagan lord who sat next in rank to him, exclaiming at the same time, with a loud voice, “God, thou hast given me grace well to commence my emprize; may our Redeemer grant me to bring it to an honourable conclusion.” Many such passages might be quoted, to show the nature of the zeal which was supposed to actuate a Christian knight; but it is needless to ransack works of fiction for this purpose. The real history of the crusades, founded on the spirit of chivalry, and on the restless and intolerant zeal which was blended by the churchmen with this military establishment, are an authentic and fatal proof of the same facts. The hairbrained and adventurous character of these enterprises, not less than the promised pardons, indulgences, [7:6:595] and remissions of the church, rendered them dear to the warriors of the middle ages; the idea of re-establishing the Christian religion in the Holy Land, and wresting the tomb of Christ from the infidels, made kings, princes, and nobles, blind to its hazards; and they rushed, army after army, to Palestine, in the true spirit of chivalry, whose faithful professors felt themselves the rather called upon to undertake an adventure, from the peculiar dangers which surrounded it, and the numbers who had fallen in previous attempts.

It was after the conquest of the Holy Land that the union between temporal and spiritual chivalry (for such was the term sometimes given to monastic institutions) became perfect, by the institution of the two celebrated military orders of monks, the knights templars and knights of St John of Jerusalem, who, renouncing (at least in terms) the pomp, power, and pleasures of the world, and taking upon themselves the monastic vows of celibacy, purity, and obedience, did not cease to remain soldiers, and directed their whole energy against the Saracens. The history of these orders will be found in its proper place in this work; but their existence is here noticed, as illustrating our general proposition concerning the union of devotion and chivalry. A few general remarks will close this part of the subject.

The obvious danger of teaching a military body to consider themselves as missionaries of religion, and bound to spread its doctrines, is, that they are sure to employ in its service their swords and lances. The end is held to sanctify the means, and the slaughter of thousands of infidels is regarded as an indifferent, or rather as a meritorious action, providing it may occasion the conversion of the remnant, or the peopling of their land with professors of a purer faith. The wars of Charlemagne in Saxony, the massacres of the Albigenses in the south of France, the long-continued wars of Palestine, all served toillustrate the dangers resulting from the doctrine which inculcated religion, not as a check upon the horrors and crimes of war, but as itself its most proper and legitimate cause. The evil may be said to have survived the decay of chivalry, to have extended itself to the new world, and to have occasioned those horrors with which it was devastated for ages after its first discovery. The Spanish conquerors of South America were not, indeed, knights-errant; but the nature of their enterprises, as well as the mode in which they were conducted, partook deeply of the spirit of chivalry. In no country of Europe had this spirit sunk so deeply and spread so wide as in Spain. The extravagant positions respecting the point of honour, and the romantic summons which chivalry proclaimed to deeds of danger and glory, suited the ardent and somewhat oriental character of the Spaniards, a people more remarkable for force of imagination and depth of feeling than for wit and understanding. Chivalry, in Spain, was embittered by a double proportion of intolerant bigotry, owing to their constant and inveterate wars with the Moorish invaders. The strain of sentiment, therefore, which chivalry inspired, continued for a long time to mark the manners of Spain, after the decay of its positive institutions, as the beams of the sun tinge the horizon after the setting of his orb. The warriors whom she sent to the new world sought and found marvels which resembled those of romance; they achieved deeds of valour against such odds of numbers as are only recorded in the annals of knight-errantry; and, alas! they followed their prototypes in that indifference for human life, which is the usual companion of intolerant zeal. Avarice, indeed, brought her more sordid shades to complete the gloomy picture; and avarice was unknown to the institutions of chivalry. The intolerant zeal, however, which overthrew the altars of the Indians by violence, instead of assailing their errors by reason, and which imputed to them as crimes their ignorance of a religion which had never been preached to them, and their rejection of speculative doctrines of faith, propounded by persons whose practice was so ill calculated to “recommend them,-r—all these may be traced to the spirit of chivalry, and the military devotion of its professors.

The religion of the knights, like that of the times, was debased by superstition. Each champion had his favourite saint, to whom he addressed himself upon special occasions of danger, and to whom, after the influence of his lady’s eyes, he was wont to ascribe the. honour of his conquests. St Michael, the leader of banded Seraphim, and the personal antagonist of Satan,—St George, St James, and St Martin, all of .whom∣ popular faith had .invested with the honours of chivalry,—were, frequently selected as the appropriate champions of the militant adventurers yet on earth. The knights used their names adjected to their own as their insignia, watchword, or signal for battle. Edward III. fighting valiantly in a night-skirmish before the gates of Calais, was heard ,to accompany each blow he struck with the invocation of his tutelar saints, Ha I Saint Edward! ha! Saint George! But the-Virgin Mary, to whom their superstition ascribed the qualities i of youth, beauty, and sweetness, which they prized in their terrestrial mistresses, was an especial object of, the devotion of the followers of chivalry, as of all other good Catholics. Tournaments were undertaken,, and, feats of arms performed, in her honour, as in that of an earthly mistress; and the veneration with which she was regarded seems occasionally to have-partaken of the character of romantic affection. She was often held to return this love by singular marks of her favour and protection.< 1 During an expedition of the Christians to the coast of Africa, Froissart informs us that a large black dog was-frequently seen in their camp, which barked furiously whenever the infidels approached it by night, and rendered such service to the Christian adventurers by its vigilance, that with one consent they -named it.“the dog of our lady.” ∙u .

But although, as is incidental to human institutions, the mixture of devotion in the military character of the knight degenerated into brutal intolérance and superstition in its practical effects, nothing could be -more beautiful and praiseworthy than the theory on which it was grounded. That the soldier drawing the sword in defence of his country and its liberties, or of the oppressed innocence of damsels, widows, and orphans, or in support of religious-rights, for which those to whom they belonged were disqualified by their profession to combat in person,—that he should blend with all the feelings which these offices inspired, a deep sense of devotion, exalting him above the advantage and even the fame which he himself might derive from victory, and gaving dignity to defeat itself, as a lesson of divine chastisement and humiliation,—that the knight on whose valour his countrymen were to rely in danger, should set them an example in observing the duties and precepts of religion,—are circumstances so well qualified to soften, to dignify, and to grace the profession of arms, that we cannot but regret their tendency to degenerate into a ferocious propensity to bigotry, persecution, and intolerance. Such, however, is the tendency of all human institutions, which, however fairly framed in theory, are in practice corrupted by our evil passions, until the results which flow from them become the very reverse of what was to have been expected and desired.

The next ingredient in the spirit of chivalry, second in force only to the religious zeal of its professors, and frequently predominating over it, was a devotion to the female sex, and particularly to her whom each knight selected as the chief object of his affection, of a nature so extravagant[7:6:596] and unbounded as to approach to a sort of idolatry.

The original source of this sentiment is to be found, like that of chivalry itself, in the customs and habits of the northern tribes, who possessed, even in their rudest state, so many honourable and manly distinctions over all the other nations in the same stage of society. The chaste and temperate habits of these youth, and the opinion that it was dishonourable to hold sexual intercourse until the twentieth year was attained, was in the highest degree favourable, not only to the morals and health of the ancient Germans, but must have contributed greatly to place the females in that dignified and respectable rank which they held in society. Nothing tends so much to blunt the feelings, to harden the heart, and to destroy the imagination, as the worship of the Vaga Venus in early youth. Wherever women have been considered as the early, willing, and accommodating slaves of the voluptuousness of the other sex, their character has become degraded, and they have sunk into domestic drudges and bondswomen among the poor,—the slaves of a haram among the more wealthy. On the other hand, the men, easily and early sated with indulgences, which soon lose their poignancy when the senses only are interested, become first indifferent, then harsh and brutal, to the unfortunate slaves of their pleasures. The sated lover,—and perhaps it is the most brutal part of humanity,—is soon converted into the capricious tyrant, like the successful seducer of the modern poet.

Hard! with their fears and terrors to behold The cause of all, the faithless lover cold, Impatient grown at every wish denied, And barely civil, soothed and gratified.

Crabbe’s Borough, p. 213.

Habitual indulgence seeks change of objects to relieve -satiety. Hence polygamy, and all its brutalizing consequences, which were happily unknown to our Gothic ancestors. The virtuous and manly restraints imposed on their youth were highly calculated to exalt the character of both sexes, and especially to raise the females in their own eyes and those of their lovers. They were led to regard themselves, not as the passive slaves of pleasure, but as the objects of a prolonged and respectful affection, which could only be finally gratified when their lovers had attained the age of mature reason, and were capable to govern and to defend the family which should arise around them. With the young man imagination and sentiment combined to heighten his ideas of a pleasure which nature instructed him to seek, and which the wise laws of his country prevented him from prematurely aspiring to share. To a youth so situated, the maiden on whom he placed bis affections became an object of awe as well as of affection; the passion which he indulged for her was of a nature as timid and pure as engrossing and powerful; the minds of the parties became united before the joining of their hands, and a moral union preceded the mere intercourse of the sexes.

The marriages formed under these happy auspices were in general happy and affectionate. Adultery was unfrequent, and punished with the utmost rigour. Nor could she who had undergone the penalty of such a crime find a second husband, however distinguished by beauty, birth, or wealth. (Taciti Germania.) The awe and devotion with which the lover had regarded his destined bride during the years in which the German youth were enjoined celibacy, became regard and affection in the husband towards the sharer of his labours and the mistress of his household. The matron maintained that rank in society which love had assigned to the maiden. No one, then, says the Roman historian, dared to ridicule the sacred union of marriage, or to term an infringement of its laws a compliance with the manners of the age. The German wife, once married, seldom endeavoured to form a second union, but continued, in honoured widowhood, to direct and manage the family of her deceased husband. This habitual subjection of sensuality to sentiment, these plain, simple, virtuous, and temperate manners of the German females, placed the females in that high rank of society which the sex occupies when its conduct is estimable, and from which it as certainly declines in ages or climates prone to luxurious indulgence. The superintendence of the domestic affairs was assigned to the German women, a duty in which the men seldom interfered, unless when rendered by age or wounds incapable of warfare. They were capable of exercising the supreme authority in their tribe, and of holding the honours of the priesthood. But the influence of the women in a German tribe, as well as their duties in war, will be best understood from the words of Tacitus. “It is the principal incitement to the courage of the Germans, that in battle their separate troops or columns are not arranged promiscuously as chance directs, but consist each of a united family or clan with its relatives. Their dearest pledges are placed in the vicinity, whence may be heard the cries of their females, the wailings of their infants, whom each accounts the most sacred witnesses and the dearest eulogists of his valour. The wounded repair to their mothers and spouses, who hesitate not to number their wounds, and to suck the blood that flows from them. The females carry refreshment to those engaged in the contest, and encourage them by their exhortations. It is related that armies, when disordered and about to give way, have renewed the contest at the instance of the women, moved by the earnestness of their entreaties, their exposed besoms, and the danger of approaching captivity; a doom which they dread more on account of their females than even on their own, insomuch that these German states are most effectually bound to obedience, among the number of whose hostages there are a number of noble damsels as well as men. They deem, indeed, that there resides in the female sex something sacred and capable of presaging the future; nor do they scorn their advice or neglect their responses. In the time of Vespasian we have seen Velleda long hold the rank of a deity in most of the German states; and, in former times, they venerated Aurinia and other females; not, however, from mere flattery, nor yet in the character of actual goddesses.” The tales and Sagas of the north, in which females often act the most distinguished part, might also be quoted as proofs of the rank which they held in society. We find them separating the most desperate frays by their presence, their commands, or their mantles, which they threw over the levelled weapons of the combatants. Nor were their rights less extensive than their authority. In the Eyrbiggia Saga we are informed that Thordisa, the mother of the celebrated Pontiff Snorro, and wife of Biarko of Stelgafels, received a blow from her hushand. The provocation was strong; for the matron had, in her husband’s house and at his table, attempted to stab his guest Eyalf Graie, on account of his having slain one of her relations. Yet so little did this provocation justify the offence, that, in the presence of the comitia, or public assembly of the tribe, Thordisa invoked witnesses to bear testimony that she divorced her husband on account of his having raised his hand against her person. And such were the rights of a northern mater-familias, that the divorce and a division of goods immediately took place between the husband and wife, although the violence of which Thordisa complained was occasioned by her own attempt to murder a guest.

We have traced the ideas of the Gothic tribes on this [7:6:597]important point the more at length, because they show that the character of veneration, sanetity, and inviolability attached to the female character, together with the important part assigned to them in society, were brought with them from their native forests, and had existence long before the chivalrous institutions in which they made so remarkable a feature. They easily became amalgamated in a system so well fitted to adopt whatever was romantic and enthusiastic in manners or sentiment. Amid the various duties of knighthood, that of protecting the female sex, respecting their persons, and redressing their wrongs, becoming the champion of their cause, and the chastiser of those by whom they were injured, was presented as one of the principal objects of the institution. Their oath bound the new-made knights to defend the cause of all women without exception; and the most pressing way of conjuring them to grant a boon was to implore it in the name of God and the ladies. The cause of a distressed lady was, in many instances, preferable to that even of the country to which the knight belonged. Thus, the Captal de Buche, though an English subject, did not hesitate to unite his troops with those of the Compte de Foix, to relieve the ladies in a town where they were besieged and threatened with violence by the insurgent peasantry. The looks, the words, the sign of a lady, were accounted to make knights at time of need to perform double their usual deeds of strength and valour. At tournaments and in combats the voices of the ladies were heard, like those of the German females in former battles, calling on the knights’ to remember their fame, and exert themselves to the uttermost. “Think, gentle knights,” was their cry, “upon the wool of your breasts, the nerve of your arms, the love you cherish in your hearts, and do valiantly, for ladies behold you.” The corresponding shouts of the combatants were, “Love of ladies! Death of warriors! On, valiant knights, for you fight under fair eyes.”

Where the honour or love of a lady was at stake, the fairest prize was held out to the victorious knight, and champions from every quarter were sure to hasten to combat in a cause so popular. Chaucer, when he describes the assembly of the knights who came with Areita and Palemon to fight for the love of the fair Emilie, describes the manners of his age in the following lines:

For every knight that loved chivalry, And would his thankes have a passant name, Hath pray’d that he might ben of that game, And well was him that thereto chusen was; For if there fell to-morrow such a case, Ye knowen well that every lusty knight That loveth par amour, and hath his might, Were it in Engellonde, or elleswhere, They wold hir thankes willen to be there. To fight for a lady! Ah! Benedicite, It were a lusty sight for to see.

It is needless to multiply quotations on a subject so trite and well known. The defence of the female sex in general, the regard due to their honour, the subservience paid to their commands, the reverend awe and courtesy which, in their presence, forbear all unseemly words and actions, were so blended with the institution of chivalry, as to form its very essence.

But it was not enough that the “very perfect, gentle knight,” should reverence the fair sex in general. It was essential to his character that he should select, as his proper choice, “a lady and a love,” to be the polar star of his thoughts, the mistress of his affections, and the directress of his actions. In her service, he was to observe the duties of loyalty, faith, secrecy, and reverence. Without such an empress of his heart, a knight, in the phrase of the times, was a ship without a rudder, a horse without a bridle, a sword without a hilt; a being, in short, devoid of that ruling guidance and intelligence, which ought to inspire bis bravery and direct his actions.

The Dame des Belles Cousines, having cast her eyes upon the little Jean de Saintré, then a page of honour at court, demanded of him the name of his mistress and his love, on whom his affections were fixed. The poor boy, thus pressed, replied, that the first object of his love was the lady liis mother, and the next his sister Jacqueline. “Jouvencel,” replied the inquisitive lady, who had her own reasons for not being contented with this simple answer, “we do not now talk of the affection due to your mother and sister; I desire to know the name of the lady whom you love par amours.” —“ In faith, madam,” said the poor page, to whom the mysteries of chivalry, as well as of love, were yet unknown, “I love no one par amours”^-“ Ah, false gentleman, and traitor to the laws of chivalry,” returned the lady, “dare you say that you love no lady? well may we perceive your falsehood and eraven spirit by such an avowal. Whence were derived the great valour and the high achievements of Lancelot of Gawain, of Tris-trem, of Giron the Courteous, and of other heroes of the Round Table,—whence those of Panthus, and of so many other valiant knights and squires of this realm, whose names I could enumerate had I time,—whence the exaltation of many whom I myself have known to arise to high dignity and renown, except from their animating desire to maintain themselves in the grace and favour of their ladies, without which mainspring to exertion and valour they must have remained unknown and insignificant. And do you, coward page, now dare to aver that you have no lady, and desire to have none? Hence, false heart that thou art.” To avoid these bitter reproaches, the simple page named as his lady and love par amours Matheline de Coucy,a child of ten years old. The answer of the Dame des Belles Cousines, after she had indulged in the mirth which his answer prompted, instructed him how to place his affections more advantageously; and as the former part of the quotation may show the reader how essential it was to the profession of chivalry, that everyone of its professors should elect a lady of his affections, that which follows explains the principles on which his choice should be regulated. “Matheline,” said the lady, “is indeed a pretty girl, and of high rank, and better lineage than appertains to you. But what good, what profit, what honour, what advantage, what comfort, what aid, what council for advancing you in the ranks of chivalry, can you derive from such a choice? Sir, you ought to choose a lady of high and noble blood, who has the talent and means to counsel and aid you at your need; and her you ought to serve so truly, and love so loyally, that she must be compelled to acknowledge the true and honourable affection which you bear to her. For believe there is no lady, however cruel and haughty, but through length of faithful service will be brought to acknowledge and reward loyal affection with some portion of pity, compassion, or mercy. In this manner you will attain the praise of a worthy knight; and till you follow such a course, I would not give an apple for you or your achievements.” The lady then proceeds to lecture the acolyte of chivalry at considerable length on the seven mortal sins, and the way in which the true amorous knight may eschew commission of them. Still, however, the saving grace inculcated in her sermon was fidelity and seerecy in the service of the mistress whom he should love par amours. She proves, by the aid of quotations from the Scripture, the fathers of the church, and the ancient philosophers, that the true and faithful lover can never fall into the crimes of Pride, Anger, Envy, Sloth, or Gluttony. From each of these his true faith is held to warrant and defend him. Nay, so pure was the nature of the flame which she recommended, that she maintained it [7:6:598]to be inconsistent even with the seventh sin of Chambering and Wantonness, to which it might seem too nearly allied. The least dishonest thought or action was, according to her doctrine, sufficient to forfeit the chivalrous lover the favour of his lady. It seems, however, that the greater part of her charge concerning incontinence is levelled against such as haunted the receptacles of open vice; and that she reserved an exception (of which, in the course of the history, she made liberal use) in favour of the intercourse which, in all love, honour, and secrecy, might take place when the favoured and faithful knight had obtained, by long service, the boon of amorous mercy from the lady whom he loved par amours. The last encouragement which the Dame des Belles Cousines held out to Saintré, in order to excite his ambition, and induce him to fix his passion upon a lady of elevated birth, rank, and sentiment, is also worthy of being quoted, since it shows that it was the prerogative of chivalry to abrogate the distinctions of rank, and elevate the hopes of the knight, whose sole patrimony was his arms and valour, to the high-born and princely dame, before whom he carved as a sewer.

“How is it possible for me,” replied poor Saintré, after having heard out the unmercifully long lecture of the Dame des Belles Cousines, “to find a lady, such as you describe, who will accept of my service, and requite the affection of such a one as I am ?”—“And why should you not find her?” answered the lady preceptress. “Are you not gently born? Are you not a fair and proper youth? Have you not eyes to look on her—ears to hear her—a tongue to plead your cause to her—hands to serve her— feet to move at her bidding—body and heart to accomplish loyally her commands? And, having all these, can you doubt to adventure yourself in the service of any lady whatsoever?”

In these extracts are painted the actual manners of the age of chivalry. The necessity of the perfect knight having a mistress, whom he loved par amours, the duty of dedicating his time to obey her commands, however capricious, and his strength to execute extravagant feats of valour, which might redound to her praise,—for all that was done for her sake, and under her auspices, was counted her merit, as the victories of their generals were ascribed to the Roman emperors,—was not a whit less necessary to complete the character of a good knight than the Dame des 13elles Cousines represented it.

It was the especial pride of each distinguished champion, to maintain against all others the superior worth, beauty, and accomplishments of his lady; to bear her picture from court to court, and support with lance and sword her superiority to all other dames, abroad or at home. To break a spear for the love of their ladies, was a challenge courteously given, and gently accepted, among all true followers of chivalry; and history and romance are alike filled with the tilts and tournaments which took place upon this argument, which was ever ready and ever acceptable. Indeed, whatever the subject of the tournament had been, the lists were never closed until a solemn course had been made in honour of the ladies.

There were knights yet more adventurous, who sought to distinguish themselves by singular and uncommon feats of arms in honour of their mistresses, and such was usually the cause of the whimsical and extravagant vows of arms which we have subsequently to notice. To combat against extravagant odds, to fight amid the press of armed knights without some essential part of their armour, to do some deed of audacious valour in face of friend and foe, were the services by which the knights strove to recommend themselves, or which their mistresses (very justly so called) imposed on them as proofs of their affection.

On such occasions the favoured knight, as he wore the colours and badge of the lady of his affections, usually exerted his ingenuity in inventing some device or cognisance which might express their affection, either openly, as boasting of it in the eye of the world, or in such mysterious mode of education as should only be understood by the beloved person, if circumstances did not permit an avowal of his passion. Among the earliest instances of the use of the English language at the court of the Norman monarchs, is the distich painted in the shield of Edward III. under the figure of a white swan, being the device which that warlike monarch wore at a tourney at Windsor.

Ha! ha! the white swan,

By God his soul, I am thy man.

The choice of these devices was a very serious matter; and the usurpation of such as any knight had previously used and adopted was often the foundation of a regular quarrel, of which many instances occur in Froissart and other writers.

The ladies, bound as they were in honour to requite the passion of their knights, were wont on such occasions to dignify them by the present of a scarf, ribbon, or glove, which was to be worn in the press of battle and tournament. These marks of favour they displayed on their helmets, and they were accounted the best incentives to deeds of valour. The custom appears to have prevailed in France to a late period, though polluted with the grossness so often mixed with the affected refinement and gallantry of that nation. In the attack made by the Duke of Buckingham upon the Isle of Rhé, favours were found on the persons of many of the French soldiers who fell at the skirmish on the landing; but for the manner in which they were disposed we are compelled to refer to Howel and Wilson.

Sometimes the ladies, in conferring these tokens of their favour, elogged them with the most extravagant and severe conditions. But the lover had this advantage in such cases, that if he ventured to encounter the hazard imposed, and chanced to survive it, he had, according to the fashion of the age, the right of exacting from the lady favours corresponding in importance. The annals of chivalry abound with stories of cruel and cold fair ones who subjected their lovers to extremes of danger, in hopes that they might get rid of their addresses, but were, upon their unexpected success, caught in their own snare, and, as ladies who would not have their name made the theme of reproach by every minstrel, compelled to recompense the deeds which their champion had achieved in their name. There are instances in which the lover used his right of reprisals with some rigour, as in the well-known fabliau of the three knights and the shift, in which a lady proposes to her three lovers successively the task of entering unarmed into the melee of a tournament, arrayed only in one of her shifts. The perilous proposal is declined by two of the knights, and accepted by the third, who thrusts himself, in the unprotected state required, into all the hazards of the tournament, sustains many wounds, and carries off the prize of the day. On the next day the husband of the lady (for she was married) was to give a superb banquet to the knights and nobles who had attended the tourney. The wounded victor sends the shift back to its owner, with his request that she would wear it over her rich dress on this solemn occasion, soiled and torn as it was, and stained all over with the blood of its late wearer. The lady did not hesitate to comply, declaring that she regarded this shift, stained with the blood of her “fair friend, as more precious than if it were of the most costly materials.” Jaques de Basin, the minstrel, [7:6:599] who relates this curious tale, is at a loss to say whether ' the palm of true love should be given to the knight or to the lady on this remarkable occasion. The husband, he assures us, had the good sense to seem to perceive nothing uncommon in the singular vestment with which his lady was attired, and the rest of the good company highly admired her courageous requital of the knight’s gallantry.

Sometimes the patience of the lover was worn out by the cold-hearted vanity which thrust him on such perilous enterprises. At the court of one of the German emperors, while some ladies and gallants of the court were looking into a den where two lions were confined, one of them purposely let her glove fall within the palisade which inclosed the animals, and commanded her lover, as a true knight, to fetch it out to her. He did not hesitate to obey; jumped over the inclosure; threw his mantle towards the animals as they sprung at him; snatched up the glove, and regained the outside of the palisade. But when in safety, he proclaimed aloud, that what he had achieved was done for the sake of his own reputation, and not for that of a false lady, who could for her sport and cold-blooded vanity face a brave man on a duel so desperate; and, with the applause of all that were present, he renounced her love for ever.

This, however, was an uncommon circumstance. In general, the lady was supposed to have her lover’s character as much at heart as her own, and to mean, by pushing him upon enterprises of hazard, only to give him an opportunity of meriting her good graces, which she could not with honour confer upon one undistinguished by deeds of chivalry. An affecting instance is given by Godscroft.

At the time when the Scotch were struggling to recover from the usurpation of Edward I., the castle of Douglas was repeatedly garrisoned by the English, and these garrisons were as frequently surprised and cut to pieces by the good Lord James of Douglas, who, lying in the mountainous wilds of Cairntable, and favoured by the intelligence which he maintained among his vassals, took opportunity of the slightest relaxation of vigilance to surprise the fortress. At length a fair dame of England announced to the numerous suitors who sought her hand, that she would confer it on the man who should keep the perilous castle of Douglas (so it was called) for a year and a day. The knight who undertook this dangerous task at her request discharged his duty like a careful soldier for several months, and the lady relenting at the prospect of his continued absence, sent a letter to recal him, declaring she held his probation as accomplished. In the meantime, however, he had received a defiance from Douglas, threatening him, that, let him use his utmost vigilance, he would recover from him his father’s castle before Palm-Sunday. The English knight deemed that he could not in honour leave the castle till this day was past; and on the very eve of Palm-Sunday was surprised and slain with the lady’s letter in his pocket, the perusal whereof greatly grieved the good Lord James of Douglas.

We are left much to our own conjectures on the appearance and manners of these haughty beauties, who were wooed with sword and lance, whose favours were bought at the expense of such dear and desperate perils, and who were worshipped, like heathen deities, with human sacrifices. The character of the ladies of the ages of chivalry was probably determined by that of the men, to whom it sometimes approached. Most of these heroines were educated to understand the treatment of wounds, not only of the heart, but of the sword; and, in romance at least, the quality of leech-craft (practised by the Lady Bountifuls of the last generation) was essential to the character of an accomplished princess. They sometimes trespassed on the province of their lovers, and actually took up arms. The Countess de Montfort in Bretagne is cele- 1 brated by Froissart for the gallantry with which she de- ’ fended her castle when besieged by the English; and the old prior of Lochleven in Scotland is equally diffuse in the praise of Black Agnes, countess of March, who, in the reign of Edward III. held out the castle of Dunbar against the English. She appeared on the battlements with a white handkerchief in her hands, and wiped the walls in derision where they had been struck by stones from the English engines. When Montague, earl of Salisbury, brought up to the walls a military engine, like the Roman estudo, called a sow, she exclaimed in rhime,

Beware Montagou, For farrow shall thy sow.

A huge rock discharged from the battlements dashed the sow to pieces, and the English soldiers who escaped from its ruins were called by the countess, in derision, Montague’s pigs.

The nature of the conferences between these high-minded heroines and their lovers was somewhat peculiar. Their delectations were in tales of warlike exploits, and in discourse of hunting and hawking. But when these topics were exhausted, they found in metaphysical discussions of nice questions concerning the passion of love, an endless source of interesting disquisition. The idea and definition of a true and pure passion, illustrated by an hundred imaginary cases devised on purpose, were managed in the same manner in which the schoolmen of the day agitated their points of metaphysical theology. The Scotists and the Thomists, whose useless and nonsensical debates cumbered the world with so many volumes of absurd disquisition upon the most extravagant points of polemical divinity, saw their theological labours rivalled in the courts of love, where the most abstract reasoning was employed in discussing subtile questions upon the exaggerated hopes, fears, doubts, and suspicions of lovers, the circumstances of whose supposed cases were often ridiculous, sometimes criminal, sometimes licentious, and almost always puerile and extravagant. These particulars will fall to be more fully illustrated under the article Troubadour. In the meanwhile, it is sufficient to state, that the discussions in the courts of love regarded such important and interesting questions as, Whether his love be most meritorious who has formed his passion entirely on hearing, or his who has actually seen his mistress? with others of a tendency equally edifying.

Extremes of every kind border on each other; and as the devotion of the knights of chivalry degenerated into superstition, the Platonic refinements and subtilties of amorous passion which they professed were sometimes compatible with very coarse and gross debauchery. W r e have seen that they derived from the Gothic tribes that high and reverential devotion to the female sex which forms the strongest tint in the manners of chivalry. But with the simplicity of these ancient times they lost their innocence; and woman, though still worshipped with enthusiasm, as in the German forests, did not continue to be (in all cases at least) the same pure object of worship. 'The marriage-tie ceased to be respected; and as the youthful knights had seldom the means or inclination to encumber themselves with wives and families, their ladylove was often chosen among the married ladies of the court. It is true, that such a connection was supposed to be consistent with all respect and honour, and was regarded by the world, and sometimes by the husband, as a high strain of Platonic sentiment, through which the character of its object in no respect suffered. But nature vindicated herself for the violence offered to her; and while the metaphysical students and pleaders in the courts of love professed to aspire but to the lip or hand of their ladies, [7:6:600]and to make a merit of renouncing all farther intrusion on their bounties, they privately indulged themselves in loves which had very little either of delicacy or sentiment. In the romance of the Petit Jehan de Saintré, that self-same Lady des Belles Cousines, who lectures so learnedly upon the seven mortal sins, not only confers on her deserving lover “le don d’amoureux merci,” but enters into a very unworthy and disgraceful intrigue with a stout broad-shouldered abbot, into which no sentiment whatever can be supposed to enter. The romance of Tirante the White, praised by Cervantes as a faithful picture of the knights and ladies of his age, seems to have been written in an actual brothel, and, contrasted with others, may lead us to suspect that their purity is that of romance, its profligacy that of reality. This license was greatly increased by the crusades, from which the survivors of these wild expeditions brought back the corrupted morals of the East, to avenge the injuries they had inflicted on its inhabitants. Joinville has informed us of the complaints which Saint Louis made to him in confidence, of the debaucheries practised in his own royal tent, by his attendants, in this holy expedition. And the ignominious punishment to which he subjected a knight, detected in such excesses, shows what severe remedies he judged necessary to stem the increase of libertinism.

Indeed, the gross license which was practised during the middle ages may be well estimated by the vulgar and obscene language that was currently used in talcs and fictions addressed to the young and noblc of both sexes. In the romance of the Round Table, as Ascham sternly states, little was to be learned but examples of homicide and adultery, although he had himself seen it admitted to the antichamber of princes, when it was held a crime but to be possessed of the word of God. In the romance of Amadis de Gaul, and many others, the heroines, without censure or imputation, confer on their lovers the rights of a husband before the ceremony of the church gave them a title to the name. These are serious narrations, in which decorum, at least, is rarely violated; but the comic tales are of a grosser cast.

The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer contain many narratives, of which not only the diction, but the whole turn of the narrative, is extremely gross. Yet it does not seem to have occurred to the author, a man of rank and fashion, that they were improper to be recited, either in the presence of the prioress· and her votaries, or in that of the noble knight who of his port was meek as is a maid,

And never yet no villany he said.

And he makes but a light apology for including the disasters of the Millar of Trompington, or of Absalom the Gentle Clerk, in the same series of narrations with the Knight’s Tale. Many of Bandcllo’s most profligate novels are expressly dedicated to females of rank and consideration; and, to conclude, the Fabliaux, published by Barbazan and Lc Grand, are frequently as revolting, from their naked grossness, as interesting from the lively pictures which they present of life and manncrs. Yet these were the chosen literary pastimes of the fair and the gay, during the times of chivalry, listened to, we cannot but suppose, with an interest considerably superior to that exhibited by the yawning audience who heard the theses of the courts of love attacked and supported in logical form, and with metaphysical subtilty.

Should the manners of the times appear inconsistent in these respects which we have noticed, we must remember that we are ourselves variable and inconsistent animals, and that, perhaps, the surest mode of introducing and encouraging any particular vice, is to rank the corresponding virtue at a pitch unnatural in itself, and beyond the ordinary attainment of humanity. The vows of celibacy introduced profligacy among the Catholic clergy, as the high-flown and overstrained Platonism of the professors of chivalry favoured the increase of license and debauchery.

After the love of God and of his lady, the preux chevalier was to be guided by that of glory and renown. He was bound by his vow to seek out adventures of risk and peril, and never to abstain from the quest which he might undertake, for any unexpected odds of opposition which he might encounter. It was not indeed the sober and regulated exercise of valour, but its fanaticism, which the genius of chivalry demanded of its followers. Enterprises the most extravagant in conception, the most difficult in execution, the most useless when achieved, were those by which an adventurous knight chose to distinguish himself. There were solemn occasions also on which these displays of chivalrous enthusiasm were specially expected and called for. It is only sufficient to name the tournaments, single combats, and solemn banquets, at which vows of chivalry were usually formed and proclaimed.

The tournaments were uniformly performed and frequented by the choicest and noblest youth in Europe, until the fatal accident of Henry II. after which they fell gradually into disuse. It was in vain that, from the various accidents to which they gave rise, these dangerous amusements were prohibited by the heads of the Christian church. The popes, infallible as they were deemed, might direct, but could not curb, the military spirit of chivalry; they could excite crusades, but they could not abolish tournaments. Their laws, customs, and regulations, will fall properly under a separate article. It is here sufficient to observe, that these military games were of two kinds. In the most ancient, meaning “nothing in hate, but all in honour,” the adventurous knights fought with sharp swords and lances as in the day of battle. Even then, however, the number of blows was usually regulated, or, in case of a general combat, some rules were laid down to prevent too much slaughter. The regulations of Duke Theseus for the tournament in Athens, as narrated by Chaucer in the Knight’s Tale, may give a good example of these restrictions. When the combatants fought on foot, it was prohibited to strike otherwise than at the head or body; the number of strokes to be dealt with the sword and battle-axe were carefully numbered and limited, as well as the careers to be run with the lance. In these circumstances alone, the combats at outrance, as they were called, differed from encounters in actual war.

In process of time, the dangers of the solemn justs, held under the authority of princes, were modified by the introduction of arms of courtesy, as they were termed, lances, namely, without heads, and with round braces of wood at the extremity called rockets, and swords without points, and with blunted edges. But the risk continued great from bruises, falls, and the closeness of the defensive armour of the times, in which the wearers were often smothered. The weapons at outrance were afterwards chiefly used when knights of different and hostile countries engaged by appointment, or when some adventurous gallants took upon them the execution of an enterprise of arms (pas clarrnes), in which they, as challengers, undertook, for a certain time, and under certain conditions, to support the honour of their country or their mistress against all comers. These enterprises often ended fatally, but the knights who undertook them were received in the foreign countries which they visited in accomplishment of their challenge, with the highest deference and honour; their arrival was considered as affording a sub[7:6:601]ject of sport and jubilee to all ranks; and when any mischance befel them, such as that of De Lindsay, who, in a tournament at Berwick, had his helmet nailed to his skull, by the truncheon of a lance which penetrated both, and died after devoutly confessing himself in the casque from which they could not disengage him, the knights who looked on prayed that God would vouchsafe them in his mercy a death so fair and so honourable. Stories of such challenges, with the minute details of the events of the combat, form frequent features in the histories of the age.

The contests of the tournament and the pas d’armes were undertaken merely in sport, and for thirst of honour. But the laws of the period afforded the adventurous knight other and more serious combats, in which he might exercise his valour. The custom of trying all doubtful cases by the body of a man, or, as it was otherwise expressed, by the judgment of God—in plain words, by referring the decision to the issue of a duel, prevailed universally among the Gothic tribes, from the highest antiquity. A salvo was devised for the obvious absurdity of calling upon the weak to encounter the strong, a churchman to oppose a soldier, or age to meet in the lists with activity and youth. It was held that either party might appear personally, or by his champion. This sage regulation gave exercise for the valour of the knights, who were bound by their oaths to maintain the cause of those who had no other protector. And, indeed, there is good reason to think that the inconveniences and injustice of a law so absurd in itself as that of judicial combat, were evaded and mitigated by the institutions of chivalry, since, among the number of knights who were eagerly hunting after opportunities of military distinction, a party incapable of supporting his own cause by combat could have little difficulty in finding a formidable substitute; so that no one, however bold and confident, could prosecute an unjust cause to the uttermost, without the risk of encountering some champion of the innocent party from among the number of hardy knights who traversed every, country seeking ostensible cause of battle.

Besides these formal combats, it was usual for the adventurous knight to display his courage by stationing himself at some pass in a forest, on a bridge, or elsewhere, compelling all passengers to avouch the superiority of his own valour, and the beauty of his mistress, or otherwise to engage with him in single combat. When Alexius Comnenus received the homage of the crusaders, seated upon his throne, previous to their crossing the Hellespont, during the first crusade, a French baron seated himself by the side of the emperor of the East. He was reproved by Baldwin, and answered in his native language, “what ill-taught clown is this, who dares to keep bis seat when the flower of the European nobility are standing around him !” The emperor, dissembling his indignation, desired to know the birth and condition of the audacious Frank. “1 am,” replied the baron, “of the noblest race of France. For the rest, 1 only know that there is near my castle a spot where four roads meet, and near it a church where men, desirous of single combat, spend their time in prayer till some one shall accept their challenge. Often have I frequented that chapel, but never met I one who durst accept my defiance.” Thus the bridge of Rodomont, in the Orlando Furioso, and the valiant defiance which the knight of La Mancha hurled against the merchants of Toledo, who were bound to the fairs of Murcia, were neither fictions of Ariosto nor Cervantes, but had their prototypes in real story. The chivalrous custom of defying all and sundry to mortal combat subsisted in the borders until the days of Queen Elizabeth, when the worthy Bernard Gilpin found in his church of Houghton le Spring a glove hung over the altar, which he was informed indicated a challenge to all who should take it down. The remnants of the judicial combats, and the enterprises of arms, may be found in the duels of the present day. In former days they still more resembled each other; for, in the seventeenth century, not only the seconds on each side regularly engaged, but it was usual to have more seconds, even to the number of five or six; a custom pleasantly ridiculed by Lord Chesterfield in one of the papers of The World. It is obvious that an usage at once so ridiculous and so detrimental to the peace and happiness of society must give way, in proportion to the progress of common sense. The custom is in general upon the wane, even as far as respects single combat between men who have actually given or taken offence at each other. The general rules of good-breeding prevent causes of such disagreement from arising in the intercourse of society; and the forward duellist, who is solicitous in seeking them out, is generally accounted a vulgar and ferocious, as well as a dangerous character. At the same time, the habits derived from the days of chivalry still retain a striking effect on our manners, and have fully established a graceful as well as useful punctilio, which tends on the whole to the improvement of society. Every man is under the impression, that neither his strength, his wealth, his station, nor his wit, will excuse him from answering, at the risk of his life, any unbecoming encroachment on the civility due to the weakest, the poorest, the least important, or the most modest member of the society in which he mingles. All too in the rank and station of gentlemen are forcibly called upon to remember that they must resent the imputation of a voluntary falsehood as the most gross injury; that the rights of the weaker sex demand protection from every one who would hold a good character in society. In short, from the wild and overstrained courtesies of chivalry has been derived our present system of manners. It is not certainly faultless, and it is guarded by penalties which we must often regret as disproportionably severe. Yet it has a grace and dignity unknown to classic times, when women were slaves, and men coarse and vulgar, or overbearing and brutal, as suited their own humour, without respect to that of the rest of society.

II. Such being the tone and spirit of chivalry, derived from love, devotion, and valour, we have next to notice the special forms and laws of the order, which will be found to correspond in every respect to the spirit which they were designed to foster.

The education of the future knight began at an early period. .The care of the mother, after the first years of early youth were past, was deemed too tender, and the indulgences of the paternal roof too effeminate, for the future aspirant to the honours of chivalry. “Do you not bless God,” said the Lady Mabel to her husband, the noble Duke Guerin of Montglaive, as on a solemn feast they looked on their four hopeful sons, “do you not bless God, that has given you such a promising issue ?” “Dame,” replied Guerin, in the true spirit of the age, “so help me God and Saint Martin! nothing can do me greater despite than to look on these four great lurdanes, who, arrived at such an age, yet do nothing but eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and spend their time in idle amusement.”^[2. L'Hystoire de Guerin de Montglaive. ] To counteract these habits of indulgence, the first step to the order of knighthood was the degree of Page.
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The young and noble stripling, generally about his twelfth year, was transferred from his father’s house to that of some baron or noble knight, sedulously chosen by the anxious parent as that which had the best reputation for good order and discipline. The children of the first nobles and high crown vassals were educated by the royal court. And, however the reins of discipline might be in particular cases relaxed, or become corrupted in latter days, the theory was uniformly excellent. The youth, who was to learn modesty, obedience, and address in arms and horsemanship, was daily exercised in the use of arms, beginning with such as were suited to his strength. He was instructed how to manage a horse with grace and dexterity; how to use the bow and the sword; how to manage the lance, an art which was taught by making him ride a career against a wooden figure holding a buckler, called a quintaine. This quintaine turned on an axis; and as there was a wooden sword in the other hand of the supposed opponent, the young cavalier, if he did not manage his horse and weapon with address, was liable to receive a blow when the shock of his charge made the quintaine spin round.

Besides these exercises, the noble youth was required to do the work which, in some respects, belonged to a menial, but not as a menial. He attended his lord during the chase, the rules of which, as an image of war, and as held the principal occupation of a gentleman during peace, were carefully inculcated. He was taught the principal blasts or notes of vénerie, to be sounded when the hounds were uncoupled, when the prey was on foot, when he was brought to bay, and when he fell. This art did not tend solely to amusement. The “gentle damosel,” to use the language of the times, learned to bear the fatigue, the hunger and thirst, which huntsmen are exposed to. By the necessity of encountering and dispatching a stag, a boar, or a wolf, at bay, he learned promptitude and courage in the use of his weapons. The accuracy with which he was required to study the attacks of the hunted animal’s course gave him habits of attention and reflection. In the days and nights spent in the chase, amid wide and pathless forests, he acquired the art, so necessary to a soldier, of remarking and studying the face of the country. When benighted, he was taught to steer his course by the stars, if they were visible; if not, to make his couch with patience on the withered leaves, or in a tree. Had he lost his way by day-time, he distinguished the points of the compass by remarking which side of the trees were most covered with moss, and from which they threw their branches most freely; circumstances which, compared with the known course of the prevailing wind, afforded him the necessary information.

The ceremonial of the chase was to be acquired, as well as its arts. To brittle or break the deer (in French faire la curée'), in plain terms, to flay and disembowel the stag, a matter in which much precision was required, and the rules of which were ascribed to the celebrated Sir Tristram of Lionesse, was an indispensable requisite of the page’s education. Nor did his concern with the venison end here; he placed it on the table, waited during the banquet, and carved the ponderous dishes when required or permitted to do so. Much grace and delicacy, it was supposed, might be displayed on these occasions; and in one romance we read of the high birth and breeding of a page being ascertained, by his scrupulously declining to use a towel to wipe his hands, when washed, before he began to carve, and contenting himself with waving them in the air till they dried of themselves. It is perhaps difficult to estimate the force of this delicacy, unless by supposing that he had not a towel or napkin appropriated to his own separate use.

Amidst these various instructions the page was often required to wait upon the ladies, rather as attending a sort of superior beings, to whom adoration and obsequious service were due, than as ministering to the convenience of human creatures like himself. The most modest demeanour, the most profound respect, was to be observed in the presence of these fair idols. Thus the veneration due to the female character was taught to the acolyte of chivalry, by his being placed so near female beauty, yet prohibited the familiarity which might discover female weakness. Love frequently mingled with this early devotion, and the connection betwixt some lady of distinction and her gallant knight is often, in romantic fiction, supposed to have originated from some early affection. In a romance called The Golden Thread (of which we have only seen a modern edition in German, but which has many features of originality), when the daughter of the count bestows her annual gifts on her father’s household, she gives the page Leofried, in derision, a single thread of gold tissue. To show the value which he places upon the most minute memorial, coming from such a hand, the youth opens a wound in his bosom, and deposits the precious thread in the neighbourhood of his heart. The Dame des Belles Cousines, whom we have already mentioned, was assuredly not the only lady of high rank who was tempted to give a handsome young page the benefit of her experience in completing his education. This led the way to abuse; and the custom of breeding up youths as pages in the houses of the great, although it survived the decay of chivalry, was often rather the introduction to indolence, mischief, and debauchery, than to useful knowledge and the practice of arms. The proper purposes of this preliminary part of chivalrous education are well given by one of the characters in Ben Jonson’s New Inn; and he is answered by another, who alleges, with satire resembling that of Juvenal, the modern corruptions of the order of pages. Lord Lovel has requested mine host to give him his son for a page. The host answers, by declaring he would’rather hang his child with his own hand

Than damn him to that desperate course of life.

Lονel. Call you that desperate which, by a line

Of institution from our ancestors,

Hath been derived down to us, and received

In a succession, for the noblest way

Of breeding up our youth in letters, arms, Fair mein, discourses, civil exercises, And all the blazon of a gentleman?

Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence,

To mar his body gracefully, to speak His language purer, or to turn his mind Or manners more to the harmony of nature, Than in those nurseries of nobility?

ll<,st. Aye, that was when the nursery’s self was noble, And only virtue made it not the market.

And he replies by enumerating instances of the decay of honour among the nobles, and of the debauchery of their household pages. In La Noue’s Political and Military P>iscozcrses is a similar complaint of the hazards to which the morals of young gentlemen were exposed while acting in this domestic capacity. Nevertheless the custom of having young gentlemen thus bred, continued in a certain degree down to the last century, although those destined to such employments became by degrees of a lower quality. In some few instances the institution was maintained in its purity; and the page, when leaving the family in which he was educated, usually obtained a commission. The last instance we know was that of a gentleman bred a page in the family of the Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, who died, during the reign of George III. a general officer in his majesty’s service.
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When advancing age and experience in the use of arms had qualified the page for the hardships and dangers of actual war, he was removed from the lowest to the second gradation of chivalry, and became an Escuyer i Esquire, or Squire. The derivation of this phrase has been much contested. It has been generally supposed to be derived from its becoming the official duty of the esquire to carry the shield (escu) of the knight his master, until he was about to engage the enemy. Others have fetched the epithet (more remotely certainly) from scuria, a stable, the charger of the knight being under the especial care of the squire. Others again ascribe the derivation of the word to the right which the squire himself had to carry a shield, and to blazon it with armorial bearings. This, in later times, became almost the exclusive meaning attached to the appellative esquire; and, accordingly, if the phrase now means anything, it means a gentleman having right to carry arms. There is reason, however, to think that this is a secondary meaning of the word, for we do not find the word escuyer applied as a title of rank, until so late as the Ordonnance of Blois, in 1579.

The candidate for the honours of chivalry, now an immediate attendant on the knight or nobleman, was withdrawn from the private apartments of the ladies, and only saw them upon occasions of stated ceremony. In great establishments there were squires of different ranks, and destined for different services; but we shall confine ourselves to those general duties which properly belonged to the office. The squire assisted his master in the offices at once of a modern valet dc chambre and groom—he attended to dress and to undress him, trained his horses to the menage, and kept his arms bright and burnished. He did the honours of the household to the strangers who visited it; and the,reputation of the prince or great lord whom he served was much exalted by the manner in which these courteous offices were discharged. In the words of Chaucer, describing the character of the squire,

Curteis he was, lowly and servisable, And carf before his fader at the table.

The squire was also expected to perfect himself in the accomplishments of the period, and not only to be a master of the ceremonial of the feast, but to be capable of enlivening it by his powers of conversation. He was expected to understand chess, draughts, and other domestic games. Poetry and music, if he had any turn for these beautiful arts, and whatever other accomplishments could improve the mind or the person, were accounted to grace his station. And accordingly Chaucer’s squire, besides that he was “singing or fluting all the day,”

—Could songs make, and well indite,

Just, and eke dance, and well pourtray and write.

Unquestionably few possessed all these attributes; but the poet, with his usual precision and vivacity, has given us the picture of a perfect esquire.

To understand the squires’ mode of life more particularly, it is necessary to consider that which was led in the courts and castles of the middle ages. Froissart has given us a very striking account of the mode of house-keeping in the family of Gaston, earl of Foix, a prince whose court was considered as a first-rate nursery for the noble youth; and, from his lively description, we may in some measure conceive the mode in which the esquires spent their time. Froissart abode in his house above twelve weeks, much recommended to the favourable notice of the earl, by his having brought with him a book containing all the songs, ballads, and virilays, which Wencislaus of Bohemia, the gentle Duke of Brabant, had made, and the historian himself had compiled or transcribed. “Every night after supper,” says Froissart, “I read thereon to him, and while I read there was none durst speak any thing to interrupt me, so much did the earl delight in listening.” The quotation necessary to describe the Earl of Foix, and the economy of his household, must necessarily be a long one, but it is a picture by the hand of an inimitable artist, of a school of chivalry when chivalry was at its highest pitch, and we are unwilling to destroy the likeness by abridging it.

“This erle Gascone of Foix, with whom I was, at that tyme, he was of a fyftie yere of age and nyne: and, I say, I have in my tyme sene many knights, kynges, princes, and others, but I neuer saw none like him of personage, nor of so fayre forme, nor so well made; his vysage fayre, sanguyne, and smylyng, his eyen gray and amorous, wher as he lyst to set his regarde; in euery thyng he was so parfite that he can not be praised to moche; he loued that ought to be beloued, and hated that ought to be hated: he was a wyse knyght, of highe enterprise, and of good counsayle; he neuer had myscreant with hym; he sayd many orisons every day, a nocturn of the psalter, matyns of our Lady, of the Holy Goost, and of the crosse, and dirige euery day; he gaue fyue florins, in small monies, at his gate to poor folkes for the loue of God; he was large and courtesse in gyftes; he could ryght well take where it par-teyned to hym, and to delyuer agayne wher as he ought; he loued hoūdes of all bcestes, wynter and somerheloued huntyng; he neuer loued folly, outrage, nor soly larges; euery moneth he wolde knowe what he spended; he tooke in his countre to receyue his reuenwes, and to seruehim, notable persons, that is to saye, xii. recyuours, and euer fro 11. monethes to two monethes, two of them shulde serue for his receyte; for, at the two monethes end, he wolde change and put other two into that offiyce; and one that he trusted best shulde be his comptroller, and to hym all other shulde accompt, and the comptroller shulde accōpt to hym by rolles and bokes written, and the comptes to remayne still with therle: he had certeyne cofers in his chambre, out of the whiche oftetymes he wolde take money to gyve to lordes, knightes, and squyers, suche as came to hym, for none shulde departe from him without some gift, and yet dayly he multiplyed his treasure, to re-syst the aduētures and fortunes that he douted; he was of good and easy acquayntance with every man, and amorously wolde speke to the; he was short in counsayle, and answers; he had four secretaries, and at his rising they must ever be redy at his hande, without any callynge; and whan any letter were delyuered him, and that he had reed it, than he wolde calle them to write agayne, or els for some other thynge. In this estate therle of Foix liued. And at mydnight, whan he came out of his chambre into the hall to supper, he had ever before him xii. torches brennyng, borne by xii. varlettes standying before his table all supper; they gaue a gret light, and the hall ever full of knightes and squyers, and many other tables dressed to suppe who wolde; ther was none should spcke to hym at his table, but if he were called; his meate was lightlye wyldc foule, the legges and wynges alonely, and in the day he dyd but lytell eate and drīke; he had great pleasure in armony of instrumētes; he coude do it right well hymselfe, he wolde have songes song before him, he wolde gladlye so conseytesand fantesies at his table. And or I came to his court, I had been in many courtes of kynges, dukes, princes, erles, and great ladyes, but I was neuer in none y so well liked me, nor ther was none more reioysed in dedes of armes, than the erle dyde: there was sene in his hall, chābre and court, knightes and squyers of honour goyng up and downe, and talking of armes and amours; all honour ther was found, all maner of tidynges of every realme and countre ther might be herde, for out [7:6:604]of every coũtre there was resort for the valyantnesse of this erle.”^[3. Froissart’s Chronicles, translated by Lord Berners. ]

While the courage of the young aspirant to the honours of knighthood was animated, and his emulation excited, by the society in which he was placed, and the conversation to which he listened,—while everything was done which the times admitted to refine his manners, and, in a certain degree, to cultivate his understanding,—the personal exercises to which he had been trained while a page were now to be pursued with increasing assiduity, proportional to the increase of his strength. “He was taught,” says a historian, speaking of Boucicaut, while a squire, “to spring upon a horse, while armed at all points; to exercise himself in running; to strike for a length of time with the axe or club; to dance and throw somersets, entirely armed, excepting the helmet; to mount on horseback behind one of his comrades, by barely laying his hands on his sleeve; to raise himself betwixt two partition walls to any height, by placing his back against the one, and his knees and hands against the other; to mount a ladder, placed against a tower, upon the reverse or under side, solely by the aid of his hands, and without touching the rounds with his feet; to throw the javelin, to pitch'the bar ;” to do all, in short, which could exercise the body to feats of strength and agility, in order to qualify him for the exploits of war. For this purpose also, the esquires had their tourneys separate and distinct from those of the knights. They were usually solemnized on the eve of the more formal and splendid tournaments, in which the knights themselves displayed their valour; and lighter weapons than those of the knights, though of the same kind, were employed by the esquires. But, as we shall presently notice, the most distinguished among the esquires were (notwithstanding the high authority of the knight of La Mancha to the contrary) frequently admitted to the honours and dangers of the more solemn encounter.

In actual war the page was not expected to render much service, but that of the squire was important and indispensable. Upon a march, he bore the helmet and shield of the knight, and led his horse of battle, a tall heavy animal, fit to bear the weight of a man in armour, but which was led in hand upon a march, while the knight rode an ambling hackney. The squire was also qualified to perform the part of an armourer, not only lacing his master’s heb met and buckling his cuirass, but also closing with a hammer the rivets by which the various pieces were united to each other. This was a point of the utmost consequence; and many instances occur of mischances happening to celebrated warriors when the duty was negligently performed. In the actual shock of battle the esquire attended closely on the banner of his master, or on his person, if he were only a knight bachelor, kept pace with him during the melée, and was at hand to remount him when his steed was slain, or relieve him when oppressed by numbers. If the knight made prisoners, they were the charge of the esquire; if the esquire himself fortuned to make one, the ransom belonged to his master.

On the other hand, the knights who received these important services from their esquires were expected to display towards them that courteous liberality which made so distinguished a point of the chivalrous character. Lord Audley led the van of the Black Prince’s army at the battle of Poitiers, attended by four squires, who had promised not to fail him. They distinguished themselves in the front of that bloody day, leaving such as they overcame to be made prisoners by others, and ever pressing forwards where resistance was offered. Thus they fought in the chief of the battle, until Lord James Audley was sorely wounded, and his breath failed him. At the last, when the battle was gained, the four faithful esquires bore him out of the press, disarmed him, and staunched and dressed his wounds as they could. As the Black Prince called for the man to whom the victory was in some measure owing, Lord Audley was borne before him in a litter, when the prince, after having awarded to him the praise and renown above all others who fought on that day, bestowed on him five hundred marks of yearly revenue, to be assigned out of his heritage in England. Lord Audley accepted of the gift with due demonstration of gratitude; but no sooner was he brought to his lodging, than he called before him the four esquires by whom he had been so gallantly seconded, and the nobles of his lineage, and informed his kinsmen, “Sirs, it has pleased my lord the prince to bestow on me five hundred marks of heritage, of which I am unworthy; for I have done him but small service. Behold, Sirs, these four squires, which have always served me truly, and specially this day; the honour that I have is by their valour. Therefore, I resign to them and their heirs for ever, in like manner as it was given to me, the noble gift which the prince hath assigned me.” The lords beheld each other, and agreed it was a proof of great chivalry to bestow so royal a gift, and gladly undertook to bear witness to the transfer. When Edward heard these tidings, he sent for Lord Audley, and desired to know why he had bestowed on others the gift he had assigned him, and whether it had not been acceptable to him: “Sir,” said Lord Audley, “these four squires have followed me well and truly in several severe actions, and at this battle they served me so well, that had they done nothing else, I had been bound to reward them. I am myself but a single man; but, by aid of their united strength and valour, I was enabled to execute the vow which I had made to give the onset in the first battle in which the king of England or his sons should be present; and had it not been for them, I must have been left dead on the field. This is the reason I have transferred your highnesses bounty, as ro those by whom it was best deserved.” The Black Prince not only approved of and confirmed Lord Audley’s grant, but conferred upon him, not to be outdone in generosity, a yearly revenue of six hundred marks more, for his own use.^[4. Froissart. Barne’s History of Edward 1II∙ ] The names of the esquires who thus distinguished themselves, and experienced such liberality at the hands of their leader, were Delves of Doddington, Dutton of Dutton, Fowlishurst of Crewe, and Hawkestone of Wreyne-hill, all Cheshire families. This memorable instance may suffice to show the extent of gratitude which the knights entertained for the faithful service of their squires; but it also leads us to consider some other circumstances relating to the order of esquire.

Although, in its primitive and proper sense, the state of esquire was merely preparatory to that of knighthood, yet it is certain that many men of birth and property rested content with attaining that first step, and, though greatly distinguished by their feats of arms, never rose, nor apparently sought to rise, above the rank which it conferred. It does not appear that any of the esquires of Lord Audley were knighted after the battle of Poitiers, although there can be no doubt that their rank, as well as their exploits, entitled them to expect that honour. The truth seems to be, that it may frequently have been more convenient, and scarcely less honourable, to remain in the unenvied and unpretendingrank of esquire, than to aspire to that of knighthood, without a considerable fortune to supply the expenses of that dignity. No doubt, in theory, [7:6:605]the simplest knight-bachelor was a companion, and in some degree equal with princes. But, in truth, we shall presently see, that, where unsupported by some sort of income to procure suitable equipment and retainers, that dignity was sometimes exposed to ridicule. Many gallant gentlemen, therefore, remained esquires, either attached to the service of some prince or eminent nobleman, or frequently in a state of absolute independence, bringing their own vassals to the field, whom, in such cases, they were entitled to muster under a penoneele, or small triangular streamer, somewhat like the naval pendant of the present day. The reader of history is not, therefore, to suppose, that where he meets with an esquire of distinguished name, he is therefore necessarily to consider him as a youthful candidate for the honour of knighthood, and attending upon some knight or noble. This is, indeed, the primitive, but not the uniform meaning of the title. So many men of rank and gallantry appear to have remained esquires, that, by degrees, many of the leading distinctions between them and the knights were relaxed or abandoned. In Froissart’s Chronicles we find that esquires frequently led independent bodies of men, and, as we have before hinted, mingled with the knights in the games of chivalry; the difference chiefly consisting in title, precedence, the shape of the flag under which they arrayed their followers, and the fashion of their armour. The esquires were permitted to bear a shield, emblazoned, as we have already seen, with armorial bearings. There seems to have been some difference in the shape of the helmet; and the French esquire was not permitted to wear the complete hauberk, but only the shirt of mail, without hood or sleeves. But the principal distinction between the independent esquire (terming him such who was attached to no knight’s service) and the knight, was the spurs, which the esquire might wear of silver, but by no means gilded.

To return to the esquires most properly so termed, their dress was, during their period of probation, simple and modest, and ought regularly to have been made of brown, or some other uniform and simple colour. This was not, however, essential. The garment of Chaucer’s squire was embroidered like a meadow. The petit Jehan de Saintré was supplied with money by his mistress to purchase a silken doublet and embroidered hose. There is also a very diverting account, in the Memoirs of Bertrand de Guesclin, of the manner in which he prevailed on his uncle, a covetous old churchman, to assign him money for his equipment on some occasion of splendour. We may therefore hold, that the sumptuary laws of squirehood were not particularly attended to, or strictly enforced.

A youth usually ceased to be a page at fourteen, or a little earlier, and could not regularly receive the honour of knighthood until he was one and twenty. But if their distinguished valour anticipated their years, the period of probation was shortened. Princes of the blood-royal, also, and other persons of very high eminence, had this term abridged, and sometimes so much so as to throw a ridicule upon the order of knighthood, by admitting within “the temple of honour,” as it was the fashion of the times to call it, children who could neither understand nor discharge the duties of the office to which they were thus prematurely called.

The third and highest rank of fchivalry was that of knighthood. In considering this last dignity, we shall first inquire how it was conferred; secondly, the general privileges and duties of the order; thirdly, the peculiar ranks into which it was finally divided, and the difference betwixt them.

• KnΓghthood was, in its origin, an order of a republican, or at least an oligarchic nature; arising, as has been shown, from the customs of the free tribes of Germany, and, in its essence, not requiring the sanction of a monarch. On the contrary, each knight could confer the order of knighthood upon whomsoever preparatory noviciate and probation had fitted to receive it. The highest potentate sought the accolade, or stroke which conferred the honour, at the hands of the worthiest knight whose achievements had dignified the period. Thus Francis I. requested the celebrated Bayard, the Good Knight without reproach or fear, to make him; an honour which Bayard valued so highly, that, on sheathing his sword, he vowed never more to use that blade, except against Turks, Moors, and Saracens. The same principle was carried to extravagance in a romance, where the hero is knighted by the hand of Sir Lancelot of the Lake, when dead. A sword was put into the hand of the skeleton, which was so guided as to let it drop on the neck of the aspirant. In the time of Francis I. it had already become customary to desire this honour at the hands of greatness rather than valour, so that the king’s request was considered as an appeal to the first principles of chivalry. In theory, however, the power of creating knights was supposed to be inherent in every one who had reached that dignity. But it was natural that the soldier should desire to receive the highest military honour from the general under whose eye he was to combat, or from the prince or noble at whose court he passed as page and squire through the gradations of his noviciate. It was equally desirable, on the other hand, that the prince or noble should desire to be the immediate source of a privilege so important. And thus, though no positive regulation took place on the subject, ambition on the part of the aspirant, and pride and policy on that of the sovereign princes and nobles of high rank, gradually limited to the latter the power of conferring knighthood, or drew at least an unfavourable distinction between the knights dubbed by private individuals, and those who, with more state and solemnity, received the honoured title at the hand of one of high rank. Indeed, the change which took place respecting the character and consequences of the ceremony, naturally led to a limitation in the right of conferring it. While the order of knighthood merely implied a right to wear arms of a certain description, and to bear a certain title, there could be little harm in intrusting, to any one who had already received the honour, the power of conferring it on others. But when this highest order of chivalry conferred not only personal dignity, but the right of assembling under the banner, or pennon, a certain number of soldiers,—when knighthood implied not merely personal privileges, but military rank,—it was natural that sovereigns should use every effort to concentrate the right of conferring such distinction in themselves, or their immediate delegates. And latterly it was held, that the rank of knight only conferred those privileges on such as were dubbed by sovereign princes.

The times and place usually chosen for the creation of knights were favourable to the claim of the sovereigns to be the proper fountain of chivalry. Knights were usually made either on the eve of battle, or when the victory had been obtained; or they were created during the pomp of some solemn warning or grand festival. In the former case, the right of creation was naturally referred to the general or prince who led the host; and in the latter, to the sovereign of the court where the festival was held. The forms in these cases were very different.

When knights were made in the actual field of battle, little solemnity was observed, and the form was probably the same with which private individuals had, in earlier times, conferred the honour on each other. The novice, armed at all points, but without helmet, sword, and spurs, came before the prince or general at whose hands he was to receive knighthood, and kneeled down, while two persons[7:6:606] of distinction, who acted as his godfathers, and were supposed to become pledges for his being worthy of the honour to which he aspired, buckled on his gilded spurs, and belted him with his sword. He then received the accolade, a slight blow on the neck, with the flat of the sword, from the person who dubbed him, who, at the same time, pronounced a formula to this effect; “I dub thee knight, in the name of God and St Michael (or in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost). Be faithful, bold, and fortunate.” The new-made knight had then only to take his place in the ranks of war, and endeavour to distinguish himself by his forward gallantry in the approaching action, when he was said to win his spurs. It is well known that, at the battle of Cressy, Edward 111. refused to send succours to the Black Prince, until he should hear that he was wounded or dismounted, being determined he should, on that memorable day, have full opportunity to τvin his spurs. It may be easily imagined, that on such occasions the courage of the young knights was wound up to the highest pitch; and, as many were usually made at the same time, their gallantry could not fail to have influence on the fortune of the day. At the siege of Tholouse (1159), Henry II. of England made thirty knights at once, one of whom was Malcolm IV. king of Scotland. Even on these occasions the power of making knights was not understood to be limited to the commander-in-chief. At the fatal battle of Homildown, in 1401, Sir John Swinton, a warrior of distinguished talents, observing the slaughter made by the English archery, exhorted the Scots to rush on to a closer engagement. Adam Gordon, between whose family and that of Swinton a deadly feud existed, hearing this sage counsel, knelt down before Swinton, and prayed him to confer on him the honour of knighthood, which he desired to receive from the wisest and boldest knight in the host. Swinton conferred the order; and they both rushed down upon the English host, followed only by a few cavalry. If they had been supported, the attack might have turned the fate of the day. But none followed their gallant example, and both champions fell. It need hardly be added, that the commander, whether a sovereign prince or not, equally exercised the privilege of conferring knighthood. In the old ballad of the battle of Otterburn, Douglas boasts that, since he had entered England, he had

With brand dubb’d many a knight.

But it was not in camps and armies alone that the honours of knighthood were conferred. At the Cour Plénière, a high court to which sovereigns summoned their crown vassals at the solemn festivals of the church, at the various occasions of solemnity which occurred in the royal family, from marriage, birth, baptism, and the like, the monarch was wont to confer on novices in chivalry its highest honour, and the ceremonies used on such investiture added to the dignity of the occasion. It was then that the full ritual was observed which, on the eve of battle, was necessarily abridged or omitted. The candidates watched their arms all night in a church or chapel, and prepared for the honour to be conferred on them, by vigil, fast, and prayer. They were solemnly divested of the brown frock, which was the appropriate dress of the squire; and having been bathed, as a symbol of purification of heart, they were attired in the richer garb appropriate to knighthood. They were then solemnly invested with the appropriate arms of a knight; and it was not unusual to call the attention of the novice to a mystical or allegorical explanation of each piece of armour as it was put on. These exhortations consisted in strange and extravagant parallels betwixt the temporal and spiritual state of warfare, in which the metaphor was hunted down in every possible shape. The under dress of the knight was a close jacket of chamois leather, over which was put the mail shirt, composed of rings of steel artificially fitted into each other, as is still the fashion in some parts of Asia. A suit of plate armour was put on over the mail shirt, and the legs and arms were defended in the same manner. Even this accumulation of defensive armour was by some thought insufficient. In the combat of the Infantes of Carrion with the champions of the Cid, one of the former was yet more completely defended, and to little purpose.

Onward into Ferrand’s breast the lance’s point is driven

Full upon his breastplate, nothing would avail;

Two breastplates Ferrand wore, and a coat of mail, The two are riven in sunder, the third stood him in stead, The mail sunk in his breast, the mail and the spear head; The blood burst from his mouth, that all men thought him dead.^[5. See Translations from the Spanish Metrical Romance on the subject of the Cid, appended to Mr Southey’s Cìà. ] '

The novice being accoutred in his knightly armour, but without helmet, sword, and spurs, a rich mantle was flung over him, and he was conducted in solemn procession to the church or chapel in which the ceremony was to be performed, supported by his godfathers, and attended.with as much pomp as circumstances admitted. High mass was then said, and the novice, advancing to the altar, received from the sovereign the accolade. The churchman present, of highest dignity, often belted on his sword, which, for that purpose, had been previously deposited on the altar; and the spurs were sometimes fastened on by ladies of quality. The oath of chivalry was then taken, to be loyal to God, the king, and the ladies. Such were the outlines of the ceremony, which, however, was varied according to circumstances. A king of Portugal knighted his son in presence of the dead body of the Marquis of Marialva, slain in that day’s action, and impressively conjured the young prince to do his duty in life and death, like the good knight who lay dead before him. Alms to the poor, largesses to the heralds and minstrels, a liberal gift to the church, were necessary accompaniments to the investiture of a person of rank. The new-made knight was conducted from the church with music and acclamations, and usually mounted his horse and executed some curvets in presence of the multitude, couching his lance, and brandishing it as if impatient to open his knightly career. It was at such times also that the most splendid tournaments were executed, it being expected that the young knights would display the utmost efforts to distinguish themselves. Such being the solemnities with which knighthood was conferred, it was no wonder that the power of conferring it should, in peace as well as in war, be almost confined to sovereign princes, or nobles who nearly equalled them in rank and independence. By degrees these restrictions were drawn more and more close, and at length it was held that none buta sovereign, or a commander-in-chief displaying the royal banner, and vested with plenary and vice-regal authority, could confer the degree of knighthood. ∣ Queen Elizabeth was particularly jealous of this part of her prerogative; and nothing more excited her displeasure and indignation against her favourite Essex, than the profuseness with which be distributed the honour at Cadiz, and afterwards in Ireland. These anecdotes, however, belong to the decay of chivalry.

The knight had several privileges of dignity and importance. He was associated into a rank wherein kings and princes were in one sense only his equals. He took precedence in war and in counsel, and was addressed by [7:6:607]the respectful title of Messire in French, and Sir in English, and his wife by that of Madame and Dame. A knight was also, in point of military rank, qualified to command any body of men under a thousand. His own service was performed on horseback, and in complete armour of many various fashions, according to the taste of the warriors and the fashion of the age. Chaucer has enumerated some of these varieties.
With him ther wenten knights many on.
Som wol ben armed in an habergeon,
And in a brest plate, and in a gipon;
And som wol have a pair of plates large;
And som wol have a pruse sheld, or a targe;
Some wol ben armed on his legges wele,
And have an axe, and some a mace of stele.
Ther n’is no newe guise, that it n’as old.
Armed they weren, as I have you told,
Everich after his opinion.

The weapons of offence, however, most appropriate to knighthood were the lance and sword. They had frequently a battle-axe or mace at their saddle -bow, a formidable weapon even to men sheathed in iron like themselves. The knight had also a dagger, which he used when at close quarters. It was called the dagger of mercy, probably because, when unsheathed, it behoved the antagonist to crave mercy or to die. The management of the lance and of the horse was the principal requisite of knighthood. To strike the foeman either on the helmet or full upon the breast with the point of the lance, and at full speed, was accounted perfect practice; to miss him, or to break a lance across, z. e. athwart the body of the antagonist, without striking him with the point, was accounted an awkward failure; to strike his horse, or to hurt his person under the girdle, was conceived a foul or felon action, and could only be excused by the hurry of a general encounter. When the knights, from the nature of the ground, or other circumstances, alighted to fight on foot, they used to cut some part from the length of their spears, in order to render them more manageable, like the pikes used by infantry. But their most formidable onset was when mounted and “in host.” They seem then to have formed squadrons not unlike the present disposition of cavalry in the field,—their squires forming the rear rank, and performing the part of serrefiles. As the horses were trained in the tourneys and exercises to run upon each other without flinching, the shock of two such bodies of heavy-armed cavalry was dreadful, and the event usually decided the battle; for, until the Swiss showed the superior steadiness which could be exhibited by infantry, all great actions were decided by the men-at-arms. The yeomanry of England, indeed, formed a singular exception; and, from the dexterous use of the long bow, to which they were trained from infancy, were capable of withstanding and destroying the mail-clad chivalry both of France and Scotland. Their shafts, according to the exaggerating eloquence of a monkish historian, Thomas of 'Walsingham, penetrated steel coats from side to side, transfixed helmets, and even splintered lances and pierced through swords! But against every other pedestrian adversary, the knights, squires, and men-at-arms had the most decided advantage, from their impenetrable armour, the strength of their horses, and the fury of their onset. To render success yet more certain, and attack less hazardous, the horse, on the safety of which the rider so much depended, was armed en barbe, as it was called, like himself. A masque made of iron covered the animal’s face and ears; it had a breastplate, and armour for the croupe. The strongest horses were selected for this service; they were generally stallions, and to ride a mare was reckoned base and unknightly.

To distinguish him in battle, as his face was hid by the helmet, the knight wore above his armour a surcoat, as it was called, like a herald’s coat, on which his arms were emblazoned. Others had them painted on the shield, a small triangular buckler of light wood, covered with leather, and sometimes plated with steel, which, as best suited him, the knight could either wield on his left arm, or suffer to hang down from his neck, as an additional defence to his breast, when the left hand was required for the management of the horse. The shape of these shields is preserved, being that on which heraldric coats are most frequently blazoned. But it is something remarkable, that no one of those heater ^[6. So called because resembling in shape the heater of a smoothing-iron. ] shields has been preserved in the Tower, or, so far as we know, in any English collection. The helmet was surmounted by a crest, which the knight adopted after his own fancy. There was deadly offence taken if one knight, without right, assumed the armorial bearings of another; and history is full of disputes on that head, some of which terminated fatally. The heralds were the persons appealed to on these occasions, when the dispute was carried on in peace; and hence flowed the science, as it was called, of heraldry, with all its fantastic niceties. By degrees the crest and device became also hereditary, as well as the bearings on the shield. In addition to his armorial bearings, the knight distinguished himself in battle by shouting out his war-cry, which was echoed by his followers. It was usually the name of some favourite saint, united with that of his own family. If the knight had followers under his command, they re-echoed his war-cry, and rallied round his pennon or flag at the sound. The pennon differed from the penoncel, or triangular streamer which the squire was entitled to display, being double the breadth, and indented at the end like the tail of a swallow. It presented the appearance of two penoncels united at the end next the staff, a consideration which was not perhaps out of view in determining its shape. Of course, the reader will understand that those knights only display ed a pennon who had retainers to support and defend it, the mounting this ensign being a matter of privilege, not of obligation.

Froissart’s heart never fails to overflow when he describes the encounter of a body of men-at-arms, arrayed in the manner we have described; he dwells with enthusiasm on the leading circumstances. The waving of banners and pennons, the dashing of spurs into the sides of chargers, and their springing forward to battle; the glittering of armour, the glancing of plumes, the headlong shock and splintering of the lances, the swords flashing through the dust over the heads of the combatants, the thunder of the horses’ feet and the clash of armour, mingled with the war-cry of the combatants and the groans of the dying, form the mingled scene of tumult, strife, and death, which the canon has so frequently transferred to his chivalrous pages.

It was not in war alone that the adventurous knight was to acquire fame. It was his duty, as we have seen, to seek adventures throughout the world, whereby to exalt his own fame and the beauty of his mistress, which inspired such deeds. In our remarks upon the general spirit of the institution, we have already noticed the frantic enterprises which were seriously undertaken and punctually executed by knights desirous of a name. On these occasions, the undertaker of so rash an enterprise often owed his life to the sympathy of his foes, who had great respect for any one engaged in the discharge of a vow of [7:6:608]chivalry. When Sir Robert Knowles passed near Paris, at the head of an English army, in the reign of Edward III. the following remarkable incident took place:

“Now it happened, one Tuesday morning, when the English began to decamp, and had set fire to all the villages wherein they were lodged, so that the fires were distinctly seen from Paris, a knight of their army, who had made a vow the preceding day, that be would advance as far as the barriers and strike them with his lance, did not break his oath, but set off with his lance in his hand, his target on his neck, and completely armed except his helmet, and, spurring his steed, was followed by his squire on another courser, carrying the helmet. When he approached Paris, he put on the helmet, which his squire laced behind. He then galloped away, sticking spurs into his horse, and advanced prancing to strike the barriers. They were then open, and the lords and barons within imagined he intended to enter the town; but he did not so mean, for having struck the gates according to his vow, he checked his horse and turned about. The French knights who saw him thus retreat, cried out to him, ‘ Get away! get away! thou hast well acquitted thyself.’ As for the name of this knight I am ignorant of it, nor do I know from what country he came; but he bore for his arms gules à deux fousses noir, with one bordure noir non endentée.

“However, an adventure befel him, from which he had not so fortunate an escape. On his return he met a butcher on the pavement in the suburbs, a very strong man, who had noticed him as he had passed him, and who had in his hand a very sharp and heavy hatchet with a long handle. As the knight was returning alone, and in a careless manner, the valiant butcher came on one side of him, and gave him such a blow between the shoulders, that he fell on his horse’s neck: he recovered himself, but the butcher repeated the blow on his head, so that the axe entered it. The knight, through excess of pain, fell to the earth, and the horse galloped away to the squire, who was waiting for his master in the fields at the extremity of the suburbs. ∙ The squire caught the courser, but wondered what was become of his master; for he had seen him gallop to the barriers, strike them, and then turn about to come back. He therefore set out to look for him; but he had not gone many paces before he saw him in the hands of four fellows, who were beating him as if they were hammering on an anvil. This so much frightened the squire, that he dared not advance further, for he saw he could .not give him any effectual assistance: he therefore returned as speedily as he could.

“Thus was this knight slain; and those lords who were posted at the barriers had him buried in holy ground. The squire returned to the army, and related the misfortune which had befallen his master. All his brother warriors were greatly displeased thereat.” (Johnes’s Froissart, vol. ii. p. 63.)

An equally singular undertaking was that of Galeazzo of Mantua, as rehearsed by the venerable Doctor Paris de Puteo, in his treatise De Duello et Pe Militari, and by Brantome in his Essay on Duels. Queen Joan of Naples, at a magnificent feast given in her castle of Gaeta, had given her hand to Galeazzo for the purpose of opening the ball. The dance being finished, the gallant knight kneeled down before bis royal partner, and, in order to make fitting acknowledgment of the high honour done him, took a solemn vow to wander through the world where-ever deeds of arms should be exercised, and not to rest until he had subdued two valiant knights, and had presented them prisoners at her royal footstool, to be disposed of at her pleasure. Accordingly, after a year spent in visiting various scenes of action in Brittany, England,

France, Burgundy, and elsewhere, he returned like a falcon with his prey in his clutch, and presented two prisoners of knightly rank to Queen Joan. The queen received the gift very graciously; and, declining to avail herself of the right she had to impose rigorous conditions on the captives, she gave them liberty without ransom, and bestowed on them, over and above, several marks of liberality. For this she.is highly extolled by Brantome and Dr Paris, who take the opportunity of censuring the very opposite conduct of the canons of St Peter’s Church at Rome, upon whom a certain knight had bestowed a prisoner taken in single combat. These ungracious churchmen received the gift as if it had been that of a wild beast for a menagerie, permitting the poor captive the freedom of the church indeed, but prohibiting him to go one step beyond the gate. In which condition, worse than death, they detained the vanquished knight for some time, and were justly blamed, as neither understanding Christian charity nor gentleman-like courtesy.

We return to consider the duties of a knight. His natural and proper element was war; but in time of peace, when there was no scope for the fiery spirit of chivalry, the knights attended the tourneys proclaimed by different princes, or, if these amusements did not occur, they themselves undertook feats of arms, to which they challenged all competitors. The nature of these challenges will be best understood from an abridged account of the pαs d’armes, called the Justs of Saint Inglebert, or Sandyng Fields. This emprize was sustained by three gallant knights of France, Boucicaut, Reynold de Roy, and Saint Py or Saimpi. Their articles bound them to abide thirty days at Saint Inglebert, in the marches of Calais, there to undertake the encounter of all knights and squires, Frenchmen, or strangers who should come hither, for the breaking of five spears, sharp, or with rockets, at their pleasure On their lodgings they hung two shields called of peace and war, with their armorial blazons on each. The stranger desiring to just was invited to come or send, and touch which shield he would. The weapons of courtesy were to be employed if he chose the shield of peace, if that of war, the defenders were to give him the desired encounter with sharp weapons. The stranger knights were invited to bring some nobleman with them, to assist in judging the field; and the proclamation concludes with an entreaty to knights and squires strangers, that they will not hold this offer as made for any pride, hatred, or ill-will, but only that the challengers do it to have their honourable company and acquaintance, which with their whole heart they desire. They were assured of a fair field, without fraud or advantage; and it was provided that the shields used should not be covered with iron or steel. The French king was highly joyful of this gallant challenge (although some of his council doubted the wisdom of permitting it to go forth), and exhorted the challengers to regard the honour of their prince and realm, and spare no cost at the solemnity, for which he was willing to contribute ten thousand francs. A number of knights and squires came from England to Calais to accept this gallant invitation; and at the entrance of the “fresh and joly month of May,” the challengers pitched three green pavilions in a fair plain between Calais and the Abbey of Saint Inglebert. Two shields hung before each pavilion, with the arms of the owner.

“On the 21st of the month of May, as it had been proclaimed, the three knights were properly armed, and their horses properly saddled, according to the law’s of the tournament. On the same day those knights who were in Calais sallied forth, either as spectators or tilters, and, being arrived at the spot, drew up on one side. The place of the tournament was smooth, and green with grass.
[7:6:609]

“Sir John Holland was the first who sent his squire to touch the war-target of Sir Boucicaut, who instantly issued from his pavilion completely armed. Having mounted his horse, and grasped his spear, which was stiff and well steeled, they took their distances. When the two knights had for a short time eyed each other, they spurred their horses, and met full gallop with such a force that Sir Boucicaut pierced the shield of the Earl of Huntingdon, and the point of his lance slipped along his arm, but without wounding him. The two knights, having passed, continued their gallop to the end of the list. This course was much praised. At the second course, they hit each other slightly, but no harm was done; and their horses refused to complete the third.

“The Earl of Huntingdon, who wished to continue the tilt, and was heated, returned to his place, expecting that Sir Boucicaut would call for his lance; but he did not, and showed plainly he would not that day tilt more with the earl. Sir John Holland, seeing this, sent his squire to touch the war-target of the Lord de Saimpi. This knight, who was waiting for the combat, sallied out from his pavilion, and took his lance and shield. When the earl saw he was ready, he violently spurred his horse, as did the Lord de Saimpi. They couched their lances, and pointed them at each other. At the onset, their horses crossed; notwithstanding which, they met; but by this crossing, which was blamed, the earl was unhelmed. He returned to his people,who soon re-helmed him; and having resumed their lances, they met full gallop, and hit each other with such a force in the middle of their shields, that they would have been unhorsed had they not kept tight seats by the pressure of their legs against their horses’ sides. They went to the proper places, where they refreshed themselves, and took breath.

“Sir John Holland, who had a great desire to shine at this tournament, had his helmet braced, and re-grasped his spear; when the Lord de Saimpι, seeing him advance on the gallop, did not decline meeting, but, spurring his horse on instantly, they gave blows on their helmets, that were luckily of well-tempered steel, which made sparks of firc fly from them. At this course, the Lord de Saimpi lost his helmet; but the two knights continued their career, and returned to their places.

“This tilt was much praised, and the English and French said, that the Earl of Huntingdon, Sir Boucicaut, and the Lord dc Saimpi, had excellently well justed, without sparing or doing themselves any damage. The earl wished to break another lance in honour of his lady, but it was refused him. He then quitted the lists to make room for others, for he had run his six lances with such ability and courage as gained him praise from all sides.” (Johnes’s Froissart, vol. iv. p. 143.)

The other justs were accomplished with similar spirit. Sir Peter Courtney, Sir John Russell, Sir Peter Sherburn, Sir William Clifton, and other English knights, sustaining thehonourof their country against the French, who behaved with the greatest gallantry; and the whole was regarded as one of the most gallant enterprises which had been fulfilled for some time.

Besides these dangerous amusements, the unsettled and misruled state of things during the feudal times found a gentle knight anxious to support the oppressed and to put down injustice, and, agreeably to his knightly vow, frequent opportunities to exercise himself in the use of arms. There was everywhere to be found oppressors to be chastised, and evil customs to be abolished; and the knight’s occupation not only permitted, but actually bound him to'volunteer his services in such cases. We shall err greatly if we suppose that the adventures told in romance are as fictitious as its magic, its dragons, and its fairies. The machinery was indeed imaginary, or rather, like that of Homer, it was grounded on the popular belief of the times. But the turn of incidents resembled, in substance, those which passed almost daily under the eye of the narrator. Even the stupendous feats of prowess displayed by the heroes of these tales, against the most overwhelming odds, were not without parallel in the history of the times, When men fought hand to hand, the desperate exertions of a single champion, well mounted and armed in proof were sometimes sufficient to turn the fate of a disputed day: and the war-cry of a well-known knight struck terror farther than his arms. The advantage possessed by such an invulnerable champion over the half-naked infantry of the period, whom he might pursue and cut down at his pleasure, was so great, that in the insurrection of the peasants called the Jacquerie, the Earl of Foix and the Captai de Buche, their forces not being nearly as one to ten, hesitated not to charge these disorderly insurgents with their men-at-arms, and were supposed to have slain nearly seven thousand, following the execution of the fugitives with as little mercy as the peasants had showed during the brief success of their rebellion.

The right which crown vassals claimed and exercised, of imposing exorbitant tolls and taxes within their domains, was often resisted by the knights-errant of the day, whose adventures in fact approached much nearer to Don Quixote than perhaps our readers are aware of. For although the knight of La Mancha was perhaps two centuries too late in exercising his office of redresser of wrongs, and although his heated imagination confounded ordinary objects with such as were immediately connected with the exercise of chivalry, yet, at no great distance from the date of the inimitable romance of Cervantes, real circumstances occurred of a nature nearly as romantic as the achievements which Don Quixote aspired to execute. In the more ancient times, the wandering knight could not go far without finding some gentleman oppressed by a powerful neighbour, some captive immured in a feudal dungeon, some orphan deprived of his heritage, some traveller pillaged, some convent or church violated, some lady in need of a champion, or some prince engaged in a war with a powerful adversary; all of which incidents furnished fit occasion for the exercise of his valour. By degrees, as order became more generally established, and the law of each state began to be strong enough for the protection of the subject, the interference of these selfauthorized and self-dependent champions, who, besides, were in all probability neither the most judicious nor moderate, supposing them to be equitable, mediators, became a nuisance rather than an assistance to civil society; and undoubtedly this tended to produce those distinctions in the order of knighthood which we are now to notice.

The most ancient, and originally the sole order of knighthood, was that of the knight-bachelor. This was the proper degree conferred by one knight on another, without the interference either of prince, noble, or churchman; and its privileges and duties approached nearly to those of the knight-errant. Were it possible for human nature to have acted up to the pitch of merit required by the statutes of chivalry, this order might have proved for a length of time a substitute for imperfect policy, a remedy against feudal tyranny, a resource for the weak when oppressed by the strong. Unquestionably, in many individual instances, knights were all that we have described them. But the laws of chivalry, like those of the ascetic orders, while announcing a high tone of virtue and self-denial, unfortunately afforded the strongest temptations to those who professed its vows, to abuse the character which they assumed. The degree of knighthood was easily attained, and did not Subject the warrior on whom it was [7:6:610]granted to any particular tribunal in case of his abusing the powers which it conferred. Thus the knight became, in many instances, a wandering and licentious soldier, carrying, from castle to castle, and from court to court, the offer of his mercenary sword, and frequently abusing his character, to oppress those whom his oath bound him to protect. The license and foreign vices imported by those who had returned from the crusades, the poverty also to which noble families were reduced by these fatal expeditions, all aided to throw the quality of knight-bachelor lower in the scale of honour, when unsupported by birth, wealth, or the command of followers.

The poorest knight-bachelor, however, long continued to exercise the privileges of the order. Their title of bachelor (or bas chevalier, according to the best derivation) marked that they were early held in inferior estimation to those more fortunate knights who had extensive lands and numerous vassals. They either attached themselves to the service of some prince or rich noble, and were supported at their expense, or they led the life of mere adventurers. There were many knights who, like Sir Gaudwin in the romance of Partenopex de JBlois, subsisted by passing from one court, camp, and tournament, to another, and contrived even, by various means open to persons of that profession, to maintain, at least for a time, a fair and goodly appearance.

So riding, they o’ertake an errant knight

Well horsed, and large of limb, Sir Gaudwin bight;

He nor of castle nor of land was lord,

Houseless he reap’d the harvest of the sword: And now, not more on fame than profit bent, Rode with blythe heart unto the tournament, For cowardice he held it deadly sin, And sure his mind and bearing were akin. The face an index to the soul within, It seem’d that he, such pomp his train bewray’d, Had shap’d a goodly fortune by his blade;

His knaves were, point device, in livery dight, f

With sumpter-nags, and tents for shelter in the night.

These bachelor-knights, as Mr Rose has well described Sir Gaudwin, set their principal store by valour in battle; and perhaps it was the only quality of chivalry which they at all times equally prized and possessed. Their boast was to be the children of war and battle, living in no other atmosphere but what was mingled with the dust of conflict and the hot breath of charging steeds. A “gentle bachelor” is so described in one of the Fabliaux translated by Mr Way:

What gentle bachelor is he, Sword-begot in fighting field, Rock’d and cradled in a shield, Whose infant food a helm.did yield.

His restless gallantry in tournament and battle—the rapidity with which he traversed land and sea, from England to Switzerland, to be présentât each remarkable occasion of action—with his hardihood in enduring every sort of privation—and his generosity in rewarding minstrels and heralds—his life of battle and turmoil—and his deeds of strength and fame—are all enumerated. But we hear nothing of his redressing wrongs, or of his protecting the oppressed. The knight-bachelor, according to this picture, was a valiant prize-fighter, and lived by the exercise of his weapons.

In war, the knight-bachelor had an opportunity of maintaining, and even of enriching himself, if fortunate, by the ransom of such prisoners as he happened to make in battle. If in this way he accumulated wealth, he frequently employed it in levying followers, whose assistance, with his own, he hired out to such sovereigns as were willing to set a sufficient price on his services. In time of peace, the tournaments afforded, as we have already observed, a certain means of income to these adventurous champions. The horses and arms of the knights who succumbed on such occasions were forfeited to the victors, and these the wealthy were always willing to reclaim by a payment in money. At some of the achievements in arms the victors had the right, by the conditions of the encounter, to impose severe terms on the vanquished, besides the usual forfeiture of horse and armour. Sometimes the unsuccessful combatant ransomed himself from imprisonment, or other hard conditions, by a sum of money; a transaction in which the knight-bachelors, such as we have described them, readily engaged. These adventurers used to call the sword which they used in tourneys their gagne-pain, or bread-winner, as itinerant fiddlers of our days denominate their instruments.

Dont i est gagne-pain nommée Car par li est gagnies li pains.

Pèlerinage du Monde, par Guigneville.

Men of such roving and military habits, subsisting by means so precarious, and lying under little or no restraint from laws, or from the social system, were frequently dangerous and turbulent members of the commonwealth. Every usurper, tyrant, or rebel, found knights-bachelors to espouse his cause, in numbers proportioned to his means of expenditure. They were precisely the “landless resolutes,” whom any adventurer of military fame or known enterprise could easily collect

For food and diet to some enterprise That hath a stomach in’t.

Sometimes knights were found who placed themselves directly in opposition to all law and good order, headed independent bands of depredators, or, to speak plainly, of robbers, seized upon some castle as a place of temporary retreat, and laid waste the country at their pleasure. In the disorderly reigns of Stephen and of King John, many such leaders of banditti were found in England. And France, in the reign of John and his successors, was almost destroyed by them. Many of these leaders were knights or squires, and almost all pretended that in their lawless license they only exercised the rights of chivalry, which permitted, and even enjoined, its votaries to make war without any authority but their own, whenever a fair cause of quarrel occurs.

These circumstances brought the profession of knightbachelor into suspicion, as in other cases the poverty of those who held the honour exposed it to contempt in their person. The sword did not always reap a good harvest; an enterprise was unfortunate, or a knight was discomfited. In such circumstances he was obliged to sell his armsand horse, and endure all the scorn which is attached to poverty. In the beautiful lay of Lanval, and in the corresponding tale of Gruelan, the story opens with the picture of the hero reduced to indigence, dunned by his landlord, and exposed to contempt by his beggarly equipment. And when John de Vienne and his French men-at-arms returned from Scotland, disgusted with the poverty and ferocity of their allies, without having had any opportunity to become wealthy at the expense of the English, and compelled before their departure to give satisfaction for the insolencies -which they committed towards the inhabitants, “divers knights and squires had passage and so returned, some into Flanders, and as wind and weather would drive them, without horse and harness, right poor and feeble, cursing the day that ever they came into Scotland, saying that never man had so hard a voyage.” (Berner’s Froissart, vol. ii. (reprint) p. 32.) The frequent prohibition of tournaments, both by the church and by the more peaceful sovereigns, had also its necessary effect in impoverishing the knights-bachelors, to whom, [7:6:611]as we have seen, these exhibitions afforded one principal means of subsistence. This is touched upon in one of the French fabliaux, as partly the cause of the poverty of a chevalier, whose distresses are thus enumerated:

Listen, gentles, while I tell

How this knight in fortune fell: Lands nor vineyards had he none, Justs and war his living won; Well on horseback could he prance, Boldly could he break a lance, Well he knew each warlike use; But there came a time of truce, Peaceful was the land around, Nowhere heard a trumpet sound, Rust the shield and faulchion hid, Just and tourney were forbid, All his means of living gone, Ermine mantle had he none, And in pawn had long been laid Cap and mantle of brocade, Harness rich and charger stout, All were eat and drunken out.^[7. See the original in the republication of Barbazan’s Fabliaux, vol. iii. p. 410. ]

As the circumstances which we have mentioned tended to bring the order of knight-bachelor in many instances into contempt, the great and powerful attempted to entrench themselves within a circle which should be inaccessible to the needy adventurers whom we have described. Hence the institution of knights-banneret was generally received.

The distinction betwixt the knight-banneret and the knight-bachelor was merely in military rank and precedence, and the former may rather be accounted an institution of policy than of chivalry. The bachelor displayed, or was entitled to display, a pennon or forked ensign. The knight-banneret had the right of raising a proper ban-ner, from which his appellation was derived. He held a middle rank beneath the barons or great feudatories of the crown, and above the knights-bachelors. The banner from which he took his title was a flag squared at the end, which, however, in strictness, was oblong, and not an exact square on all. the sides, which was the proper emblem of a baron. Du Tillet reports, that the Count de Laval challenged Sir Raoul de Couequens’ right to raise a square banner, being a banneret, and not a baron; and adds, that he was generally ridiculed for this presumption, and called the knight with the square ensign. The circumstance of the encroachment plainly shows, that the distinction was not absolutely settled; nor have we found the ensign of the bannerets anywhere described, except as being generally a square standard. Indeed, it was only the pennon of the knight a little altered; for he who aspired to be a banneret received no higher gradation in chivalry, as attached to his person, and was inducted into his new privileges merely by the commander-in-chief, upon the eve of battle, cutting off the swallów-tail or forked termination of the pennon.

In the appendix to Joinville’s Memoirs, there is an essay on the subject of the bannerets, in which the following account of them is quoted from the ancient book of Ceremonies :—

“Comme un bachelier peut lever bannière, et devenir banneret.

“Quant un bachelier a grandement servi et suivy la guerre, et que il a assez terre, et que ’il puisse avoir gentilshommes, ses hommes, et pour accompagner sa bannière, il peut licitement lever bannière, et non autrement. Car nul homme ne doit porter ne lever bannière en bataille, s’il n’a du moins cinquante hommes d’armes, tous ses hommes et les archiers et arbalestriers qui y appartiennent. Et s'il les a ’il doit à la première bataille, ou il se trouvera, apporter un pennon de ses armes, et doit venir au connest-able, ou aux marisehaux, ou à celui qui sera lieutenant de l’ost pour le prince, requirer qu’il porte bannière; et s’il lui octroient, doit sommer les heraux pour tesmoignage, et doivent couper la queue du pennon, et alors le doit porter et lever avant les autres bannières, au dessoubs des autres, barons.

There is this same ceremonial, in a chapter respecting the banneret, in these terms :—

“Comme se doit maintenir un banneret en bataille.

“Le banneret doit avoir cinquante lances, et les gens de trait qui y appartiennent: c’est à savoir les xxv. pour lui, et sa bannière garder. Et doit estre sa bannière dessoubs des barons. Et s’il y a autres bannière, ils doivent mettre leurs bannières à honneur, chacun selon son endroit, et pareillement tout homme qui porte bannière.”

Froissart, always our best and most amusing authority, gives an account of the manner in which the celebrated Sir John Chandos was made banneret by the Black Prince, before the battle of Navarete. The whole scene forms a striking picture of an army of the middle ages moving to battle. Upon the pennons of the knights, penoneels of the squires, and banners of the barons and bannerets, the army formed, or, in modern phrase, dressed its line. The usual word for the attack was, “Advance banners, in the name of God and Saint George.”

“When the sun was risen, it was a beautiful sight to view these battalions, with their brilliant armour glittering with its beams. In this manner they nearly approached to each other. The prince, with a few attendants, mounted a small hill, and saw very clearly the enemy marching straight towards them. Upon descending this hill, he extended his line of battle in the plain, and then halted.

“The Spaniards, seeing the English had halted, did the same, in order of battle; then each man tightened his armour, and made ready as for instant combat.

“Sir John Chandos advanced in front of the battalions, with his banner uncased in his hand. He presented it to the prince, saying, ‘ My Lord, here is my banner; I present it to you, that I may display it in whatever manner shall be most agreeable to you; for, thanks to God, I have now sufficient lands that will enable me so to do, and maintain the rank which it ought to hold.’

“The prince, Don Pedro being present, took the banner in his hands, which was blazoned with a sharp stake gules, on a fixed argent; after having cut off the tail to make it square, he displayed it, and returning it to him by the handle, said, ‘ Sir John, I return you your banner; God give you strength and honour to preserve it.’

“Upon this, Sir John left the prince, went back to his men, with the banner in his hand,—‘ Gentlemen, behold my banner and yours; you will therefore guard it as it becomes you.’ His companions, taking the banner, replied with much cheerfulness, that ‘ if it pleased God and St George, they would defend it well, and act worthily of it, to the utmost of their abilities.’

“The banner was put into the hands of a worthy English squire, called William Allestry, who bore it with honour that day, and loyally acquitted himself in the service. The English and Gascons soon after dismounted on the heath, and assembled very orderly together, each lord under his banner or pennon, in the same battle-array as when they passed the mountains. It was delightful to see and examine these banners and pennons, with the noble army that was under them.”

It should not be forgotten, that Sir John Chandos exerted himself so much to maintain his new honour, that, advancing too far among the Spaniards, he was unhorsed, [7:6:612]and having grappled with a warrior of great strength, called Martin Ferrand, he fell undermost, and must have been slain, had he not bethought him of his dagger, with which he stabbed his gigantic antagonist. (Johncs’s Froissart, vol. i. p. 731.)

A banneret was expected to bring into the field at least thirty men-at-arms, that is, knights or squires mounted, and in complete order, at his own expense. Each man-at-arms, besides his attendants on foot, ought to have a mounted crossbow-man, and a' horseman armed with a bow and axe. Therefore the number of horsemen alone who assembled under a banner was at least three hundred, and, including followers on foot, might amount to a thousand men. The banneret might indeed have arrayed the same force under a pennon; but his accepting a banner bound him to bring out that number at least. There is no room, however, to believe that these regulations were very strictly observed.

In the reign of Charles VII. the nobles of France made a remonstrance to the king, setting forth that their estates were so much wasted by the long and fatal wars with England, that they could no longer support the number of men attached to the dignity of banneret. The companies of men-at-arms, which had hitherto been led by knights of that rank, and the distinction between knights-bannerets and knights-bachelors, were altogether disused from that period.^[8. See the works of Pasquieŗ, Du Tillet, Le Gendre, and other French antiquaries. ] In England the title survived, but in a different sense. Those who received knighthood in a field of battle, where the royal standard was displayed, were called knights-banneret. Thus King Edward VI. notices in his Journal, that after the battle of Pinkie, “Mr Brian Sadler and Vane were made bannerets.”

The distinction of banneret was not the only subdivision of knighthood. The special privileged fraternities, orders, or associations of knights, using a particular device, or embodied for a particular purpose, require also to be noticed. These might in part be founded upon the union which knights were wont to enter into with each other as “companions in arms,” than which nothing was esteemed more sacred. The partners were united for weal and woe, and no crime was accounted more infamous than to desert or betray a companion at arms. They had the same friends and the same foes; and as it was the genius of chivalry to carry every virtuous and noble sentiment to the most fantastic extremity, the most extravagant proofs of fidelity to this engagement were often exacted or bestowed. The beautiful romance of Ames and Amelien, in which a knight slays his own child to make a salve with its blood, to cure the leprosy of his brother in arms, turns entirely on this extravagant pitch of sentiment.

To this fraternity only two persons could, with propriety, bind themselves. But the various orders, which had in view particular objects of war, or were associated under the authority of particular sovereigns, were also understood to form a bond of alliance and brotherhood amongst themselves.

The great orders of the Templars and Knights-Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem, as well as that of the Teutonic Knights, were ∙military associations, formed, the former for defence of the Holy Land, and the latter for conversion (by the edge of the sword, of course) of the Pagans in the north of Europe. They were managed by commanders or superintendents, and by a grand master, forming a sort of military republic, the individuals of which were understood to have no distinct property or interest from the order in general. But the system and history of these associations will be found under the proper heads.

It is here only necessary to notice them as subdivisions of the knighthood or chivalry of Europe.

Other subdivisions arose from the various associations, also called orders, formed by the different sovereigns of Europe, not only for the natural purpose of drawing around their persons the flower of knighthood, but often with political views of much deeper import. The romances which were the favourite reading of the time, or which, at least, like the servant in the comedy, the nobles “had read to them,” and which were on all occasions quoted gravely, as the authentic and authoritative records of chivalry, afforded the most respectable precedents for the formation of such fraternities under the auspices of sovereign princes; the Round Table of King Arthur, and the Paladins of Charlemagne, forming cases strictly in point. Edward III., whose policy was equal to his love of chivalry, failed not to avail himself of these precedents, not only for the exaltation of military honour and exercise of warlike feats, but questionless that he might draw around him, and attach to his person, the most valiant knights from all quarters of Europe. For this purpose, in the year 1344, he proclaimed, as well in Scotland, France, Germany, Hainault, Spain, and other foreign countries, as in England, that he designed to revive the Round Table of King Arthur, offering free conduct and courteous reception to all who might be disposed to attend the splendid justs to be held upon that occasion at Windsor Castle. This solemn festival, which Edward proposed to render annual, excited the jealousy of Philip de Valois, king of France, w ho not only prohibited his subjects to attend the Round Table at Windsor, but proclaimed an opposite Round Table to be held by himself at Paris. In consequence of this interference the festival of Edward lost some part of its celebrity, and was diminished in splendour and frequency of attendance. This induced King Edward to establish the memorable Order of the Garter. Twenty-six of the most noble knights of England and Gascony were admitted into this highly honourable association, the well-known motto of which (Horn soit qui mal y pense) seems to apply to the misrepresentations which the French monarch might throw out respecting the Order of the Garter, as he had already done concerning the festival of the Round Table. There was so much dignity, as well as such obvious policy, in selecting from the whole body of chivalry a select number of champions, to form an especial fraternity under the immediate patronage of the sovereign,—it held out such a powerful stimulus to courage and exertion to all whose eyes were fixed on so dignified a reward of ambition,—that various orders were speedily formed in the different courts of Europe, each having its own peculiar badges, emblems, and statutes. To enumerate these is the task of the herald, not of the historian, who is only called upon to notice their existence and character. The first effect of these institutions on the spirit of chivalry in general was doubtless favourable, as holding forth to the knighthood a high and honourable prize of emulation. But when every court in Europe, however petty, bad its own peculiar order and ceremonial, while the great potentates established several, these dignities became so common as to throw into the shade the order of knights-bachelors, the parent and proper degree of chivalry, in comparison to which the others were mere innovations. The last distinction introduced, when the spirit of chivalry was almost totally extinguished, was the degree of knight-baronet.

The degree of baronet, or hereditary knighthood, might: have been with greater propriety termed an inferior rank of noblesse than an order of chivalry. Nothing can be more [7:6:613]alien from the original idea of chivalry than that knighthood could be bestowed on an infant, who could not have deserved the honour, or be capable of discharging its duties. But the way had been already opened for this anomaly by the manner in which the orders of foreign knighthood had been conferred upon children and infants in nonage. Some of these honours were also held by right of blood, the Dauphin of France, for example, being held to be born a knight of the Holy Ghost withoutereation; and men had already long lost sight of the proper use and purpose of knighthood, which was now regarded and valued only as an honorary distinction of rank, that imposed no duties, and required no qualifications, or period of preliminary noviciate. Thecreation of this new dignity, as is well known, was a device of James I. to fill those coffers which his folly and profusion had emptied; and although the pretext of a Nova Scotia or of an Ulster settlement was used as the apology for the creation of the order, yet it was perfectly understood that the real value given was the payment of a certain sum of money. The cynical Osborne describes this practice of the sale of honours, which, in their origin, were designed as the reward and pledge of chivalrous merit, with satirical emphasis.

“At this time the honour of knighthood, which antiquity reserved sacred as the cheapest and readiest jewel to present virtue with, was promiscuously laid on any head belonging to the yeomandry (made addle through pride and a contempt of their ancestor’s pedigree), that had but a court friend, or money to purchase the favour of the meanest able to bring him into an outward roome, when the king, the fountaine of honour, came downe, and was uninterrupted by other businesse; in which ease it was then usuall for him to grant a commission for the chamberlaine or some other lord to do it.”

Having noticed the mode in which knighthood was conferred, and the various subdivisions of the order in general, it is proper to notice the mode in which a knight might be degraded from his rank. This forfeiture might take place from crimes either actually committed, or presumed by the law of arms. The list of crimes for which a knight was actually liable to degradation corresponded to his duties. As devotion, the honour due to ladies, valour, truth, and loyalty, were the proper attributes of chivalry, so heresy, insults or oppression of females, cowardice, falsehood, or treason, caused his degradation. And heraldry, an art which might be said to bear the shield of chivalry, assigned to such degraded knights and their descendants peculiar bearings, called in blazonry abatements, though it may be doubted if these were often worn or displayed.

The most common case of a knight’s degradation occurred in the appeal to the judgment of God by the single combat in the lists. In the appeal to this awful criterion, the combatants, whether personally concerned or appearing as champions, were understood, in martial law, to take on themselves the full risk of all consequences; and as the defendant or his champion, in ease of being overcome, was subjected to the punishment proper to the crime of which he was accused, so the appellant, if vanquished, was, whether a principal or substitute, condemned to the same doom to which his success would have exposed the accused. Whichever combatant was vanquished, he was liable to the penalty of degradation; and if he survived the combat, the disgrace to which he was subjected was worse than death. His spurs were cut off close to his heels with a cook’s cleaver; his arms were bafted and reversed by the common hangman; his belt was cut to pieces, and his sword broken. Even his horse showed his disgrace, the animal’s tail being cut off close to the rump, and thrown on a dunghill. The death-bell tolled, and the funeral service was said, for a knight thus degraded, as for one dead to knightly honour. And if he fell in the appeal to the judgment of God, the same dishonour was done to his senseless corpse. If alive, he was only rescued from death to be confined in the cloister. Sueh at least were the strict rules of chivalry, though the courtesy of the victor, or the clemency of the prince, might remit them in favourable eases.

Knights might also be degraded without combat, when convicted of a heinous crime. In Stowe’s Chronicle i we find the following minute account of the degradation of Sir Andrew Harclay, created Earl of Harclay by Edward IL, but afterwards accused of traitorous correspondence with Robert the Bruce, and tried before Sir Anthony Luey.

“He was ledde to the barre as an carle morthily apparelled, with his sword girt about him, horsed, booted, and spurred, and unto whom Sir Anthony spake in this manner. Sir Andrew (quoth he), the king, for thy valiant service, hath done thee great honour, and made thee Earle of Carlile; since which tyme, thou, as a traytor to thy lord the king, leddest his people, that shoulde have holpe him at the battell of Heighland, awaie by the county of Copland, and through the carledom of Lancaster, by which meanes, our lorde the king was discomfitted there of the Scottes, through thy treason and falsenesse; whereas, if thou haddest come betimes, he hadde had the vietorie: and this treason thou committedst for ye great summe of golde and silver that thou receivedst of James Dow-glasse, a Scot, the king’s enemy. Our lord the king will, therefore, that the order of knighthood, by the which thou receivedst all thine honour and worship uppon thy bodie, be brought to nought, and thy state undone, that other knights, of lower degree, may after thee beware, and take example truely to serve.

“Then commanded he to hesne his spurres from his heeles, then to break his sword over his head, which the king had given him to keepe and defend his land therewith, when he made him carle. After this, he let unelothe him of his furred tabard, and of his hoode, of his coate of armes, and also of his girdle; and when this was done, Sir Anthony sayde unto him, Andrewe (quoth he), now art thou no knight, but a knave; and, for thy treason, the king will that thou shalt be hanged and drawne, and thyne head smitten off from thy bodie, and burned before thee, and thy bodie quartered: and thy head being smitten off, afterwarde to be set upon London bridge, and thy foure quarters shall be sent into foure good townes of England, that all other may beware by thee. And as Anthony Lucy hadde sayde, so was it done in all things, on the last daie of October.”

III. We are arrived at the third point proposed in our arrangement, the causes, namely, of the decay and extinction of chivalry.

The spirit of chivalry sunk gradually under a combination of physical and moral causes; the first arising from the change gradually introduced into the art of war, and the last from the equally great alteration produced by time in the habits and modes of thinking in modern Europe. Chivalry began to dawn in the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century. It blazed forth with high vigour during the crusades, which indeed may be considered as exploits of national knight-errantry, or general wars, undertaken on the very principles which actuated the conduct of individual knights adventurers. But its most brilliant period was during the wars between France and England; and it was unquestionably in those kingdoms that the habit of constant and honourable opposition, unembittered by rancour or personal hatred, gave the fairest[7:6:614] opportunity for the exercise of the virtues required from him whom Chaucer terms a very perfect gentle knight. Froissart frequently makes allusions to the generosity exercised by the French and English to their prisoners, and contrasts it with the dungeons to which captives taken in war were consigned, both in Spain and Germany. Yet both these countries, and indeed every kingdom in Europe, partook of the spirit of chivalry in a greater or less degree; and even the Moors of Spain caught the emulation, and had their orders of knighthood as well as the Christians. But, even during this splendid period, various causes were silently operating the future extinction of the flame, which blazed thus wide and brightly.

An important discovery, the invention of gunpowder, had taken place, and was beginning to be used in war, even when chivalry was in its highest glory. It is said Edward III. had field-pieces at the battle of Cressy, and the use of guns is mentioned even earlier. But the force of gunpowder was long known and used ere it made any material change in the art of war. The long-bow continued to be the favourite, and it would seem the more formidable missile weapon, for well nigh two centuries after guns had been used in war. Still every successive improvement was gradually rendering the invention of fire-arms more perfect, and their use more decisive of the fate of battle. In proportion as they came into general use, the suits of defensive armour began to be lessgenerally worn. It was (bund, that these cumbrous defences, however efficient against lances, swords, and arrows, afforded no effectual protection against these more forcible missiles. The armour of the knight was gradually curtailed to a light head-piece, a cuirass, and the usual defences of men-at-arms. Complete harness was only worn by generals and persons of high rank, and that rather, it would seem, as a point of dignity than for real utility. The young nobility of France, especially, tired of the unwieldy steel coats in which their ancestors sheathed themselves, adopted the slender and light armour of the German Reiters or mercenary cavalry. They also discontinued the use of the lance; in both cases contrary to the injunctions of Henry IV. and the opinion of Sully. At length, the arms of the cavalry were changed almost in every particular from those which were proper for chivalry; and as, in such cases, much depends upon outward show and circumstance, the light-armed cavalier, who did not carry the weapons or practise the exercises of knighthood, laid aside, at the same time, the habits and sentiments peculiar to the order.

Another change of vital importance arose from the institution of the bands of gens-d’armes or men-at-arms in France, constituted, as we have observed, expressly as a sort of standing army, to supply the place of bannerets, bachelors, squires, and other militia of early times. It was in the year 1445 that Charles VII. sclccted, from the numerous chivalry of France, fifteen companies of men-at-arms, called Les Compagnies d’Ordonnance, to remain in perpetual pay and subordination, and to enable the sovereign to dispense with the services of the tumultuary forces of chivalry which, arriving and departing from the host at pleasure, collecting their subsistence by oppressing the country, and engaging in frequent brawls with each other, rather weakened than aided the cause they professed to support. The regulated companies, which were substituted for these desultory bands, were of a more permanent and manageable description. Each company contained a hundred men-at-arms, and each man-at-arms was to be what was termed a lance garnie, that is, a mounted spearman, with his proper attendants, being four archers, and a varlet, called a coustillier. Thus, each company consisted of six hundred horse, and the fifteen bands amounted to fifteen thousand cavalry. The charge of national defence was thus transferred from z the chivalry of France, whose bold and desperate valour was sometimes rendered useless by their independent wilfulness and want of discipline, to a sort of regular forces, whose officers (a captain, lieutenant, and an ensign in each company) held command, not in virtue of their knighthood or banner right, but being direct commissions from the crown, as in modern times. At first, indeed, these bands of regulated gens-d’armes were formed of the same materials as formerly, though acting under a new system. The officers wcrc men of the highest rank; the archers, and even the varlets, were men of honourable birth. When the Emperor Maximilian proposed that the French gens-d’armes should attempt to storm Padua, supported by the German lance-knechts, or infantry, he was informed by Bayard, that if the French men-at-arms were employed, they must be supported by those of the Germans, and not by the lance-knechts, because, in the French companies of ordonnance, every soldier was a gentleman. But, in the reign of Charles IX., we find the change natural to such a new order of things was in complete operation. The king was content to seek, as qualifications for his men-at-arms, personal bravery, strength, and address in the use of weapons, without respect to rank or birth; and, probably, in many instances, men of inferior birth were preferred to fill up the ranks of these regulated bands. Monluc informs us in his Commentaries, that he made his first campaign, as an archer, in the Marechai de Foix’s company of gens-d’armes: “A situation much esteemed in these days, when many nobles served in that capacity. At present, the rank is greatly degenerated.” The complaints of the old noblesse, says Mezerai, were not without reason. Mean carabineers, they said, valets, and lacqueys, were recruited in companies, which were put on the same footing with the ancient corps of gens-d’armes, whose officers were all barons of high rank, and almost every man-at-arms a gentleman by birth. These complaints, joined with the charge against Catharine of Medicis, that she had, by the creation of twenty-five new members of the order of St Michael, rendered its honours as common as the cockle-shells on the sea-shore, serve to show how early the first rude attempt at establishing a standing and professional army operated to the subversion of the ideas and privileges of chivalry. According to La Noue, it would seem that, in his time, the practice still prevailed of sending youths of good birth to serve as pages in the gens-d’armes; but, from the sort of society with whom they mixed in service of that sort, their natural spirit was rather debased, and rendered vulgar and brutal, than trained to honour and gallantry.

A more fatal cause had, however, been for some time∣ operating in England as well as France, for the destrue-i tion of the system we are treating of. The wars of York i and Lancaster in England, and those of the Huguenots' and of the League, were of a nature so bitter and rancorous, as was utterly inconsistent with the courtesy, fair play, and gentleness, proper to chivalry. Where∙different nations are at strife together, their war may be carried on with a certain degree of moderation. “During the foreign wars between France and Spain, especially in Piedmont,” says La Noue, “we might often see a body of spears pass a village, where the peasants only interrupted their village dance to offer them refreshments; and, in a little after, a hostile troop receive, from the unoffending and unoffended inhabitants, the same courtesy. The two bodies would meet and fight gallantly, and the wounded of both parties would be transferred to the same village, lodged in the same places of accommodation, receive the same attention, and rest peaceably on each other’s good faith till again able to take the field.” He contrasts this [7:6:615]generosity with the miserable oppression of the civil wars, carried on by murdering, burning, and plundering friend and foe, armed and unarmed; alleging, all the while, the specious watchwords of God’s honour, the king’s service, the Catholic religion, the gospel, our country. In the end, he justly observes, “the soldiers become ravenous beasts, the country is rendered desert, wealth is wasted, the crimes of the great become a curse to themselves, and God is displeased.” The bloody wars of the Rose in England, the execution of prisoners on each side, the fury and animosity which allowed no plea of mercy or courtesy, were scarce less destructive to the finer parts of the spirit of chivalry in England than those of the Huguenots in France.

But the civil wars not only operated in debasing the spirit of chivalry, but in exhausting and destroying the particular class of society from which its votaries were drawn. To be of noble birth was not indeed absolutely essential to receiving the honour of knighthood, for men of low descent frequently attained it; but it required a distinguished display of personal merit to raise them out of the class where they were born; and the honours of chivalry were, generally speaking, appropriated to those of fair and gentle parentage. The noble families, therefore, were the source from which chivalry drew recruits; and it was upon the nobles that the losses, proscriptions, and forfeitures of the civil wars chiefly fell. We have seen that in France their poverty occasioned their yielding up the privilege of military command to the disposal of the crown. In England it was fortunately not so much the crown as the commons who rose on the ruins of feudal chivalry; but it is well known that the civil wars had so exhausted the English nobility, as to enable Henry VII. to pass his celebrated statutes against those hosts of retainers, which struck, in fact, at the very root of their power. And thus Providence, whose ways bring good out of evil, laid the foundation of the future freedom of England in the destruction of what had long been its most constitutional ground of defence, and in the subjugation of that system of chivalry which, having softened the ferocity of a barbarous age, was now to fall into disuse, as too extravagant for an enlightened one.

In fact, it was not merely the changes which had taken place in the constitution of armies and fashion of the fight, nor the degraded and weak state of the nobles, but also, and in a great degree, the more enlightened manners of the times, and the different channels into which enthusiasm and energy were directed, which gradually abolished the sentiments of chivalry. We have seen that the abstract principles of chivalry were, in the highest degree, virtuous and noble, nay, that they failed by carrying to an absurd, exaggerated, and impracticable point, the honourable duties which they inculcated. Such doctrines, when they fail to excite enthusiasm, become exploded as ridiculous. Men’s minds were now awakened to other and more important and complicated exercises of the understanding, and were no longer responsive to the subjects which so deeply interested their ancestors of the middle ages. Sciences of various kinds had been rekindled in the course of the sixteenth century; the arts had been awakened in a style of perfection unknown even to classical ages. Above all, religion had become the interesting study of thousands; and the innovating doctrines of the reformers, while hailed with ecstacy by their followers, rejected as abominations by the Catholics, and debated fiercely by both parties, involved the'nobility of Europe in speculations very different from the arrets of the court of love, and demanded their active service in fields more bloody than those of tilt and tournament. When the historians or disputants on either side allude to the maxims of chivalry, it is in terms of censure and ridicule; yet, if we judge by the most distinguished authorities on either side, the reformers rejected as sinful what the Catholics were’ contented to brand as absurd. It is with no small advantage to the Huguenots,—to that distinguished party which produced Sully, D’Aubigné, Coligni, Duplessis-Mornay, and La Noue, that we contrast the moral severity with which they pass censure on the books of chivalry, with the licentious flippancy of Brantome, who ridicules the same works on account of the very virtues which they inculcate. From the books of Amadis de Gaul, refining, as he informs us, upon the ancient vanities of Perceforest, Tristan, Giron, &c., La Noue contends, the age in which he lived derived the recommendation and practice of incontinence, of the poison of revenge, of neglect of sober and rational duty, desperate blood-thirstiness, under disguise of search after honour, and confusion of public order. “They are instructions,” he says, “of Apollyon, who, being a murtherer from the beginning, delighteth wholly in promoting murther.” “Of the tournaments,” he observes that “such spectacles, rendering habitual the sight of blows and blood, had made the court of France pitiless and cruel.” “Let those,” he exclaims, “who desire to feed their eyes, with blood, imitate the manner of England, where-they exercise their cruelty on brute beasts, bringing in bulls and bears to fight with dogs, a practice beyond comparison far more lawful than the justs of chivalry.”^[9. Discourses, political and Military, translated out of the French of La Noue, 1587∙ ]

It is curious to contrast the opinions of La Noue, a stern and moral reformer, and a skilful and brave soldier as France ever produced, although condemning all war that did not spring out of absolute necessity, with those of Brantome, a licentious courtier, who mixed the popish superstitions, which stood him instead of religion, with a leaven of infidelity and blasphemy. From the opinions he has expressed, and from what he has too faithfully handed down as the manners of his court and age, it is plain that all which was valuable in the spirit of chivalry had been long renounced by the French noblesse. To mark this declension, it is only necessary to run over the various requisites already pointed out as necessary to form the chivalrous character, and contrast them with the opinions held in the end of the sixteenth century, in the court of the descendants of Saint Louis.

The spirit of devotion which the rules of chivalry inculcated was so openly disavowed, that it was assigned as a reason for preferring the character of Sir Tristram to that of Sir Lancelot, that the former is described in romance as relying, like Mezentius, upon his own arm alone, whereas Lancelot, on engaging in fight, never failed to commend himself to God and the saints, which, in the more modern opinions of the gallants of France, argued a want of confidence in his own strength and valour.

The devotion with which the ancient knights worshipped the fair sex was held to be as old-fashioned and absurd as that which they paid to heaven. The honours paid to chastity and purity in the German forests, and transferred as a sacred point of duty to the sons of chivalry, were as little to be found in the court of France, according to Brantome, as the chastity and purity to which it was due. The gross and coarse sensuality which we have seen engrafted upon professions of Platonic sentiment, became finally so predominant, as altogether to discard all marks of sentimental attachment; and from the time of Catharine of Medicis, who trained her maids of honour as courtezans, the manners of the court of France seem to have been inferior in decency to those of a well-regulated bagnio. The sort of respect which these ladies were deemed [7:6:616] entitled to may be conjectured by an anecdote givan by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, whose own character was formed upon the chivalrous model which was now become obsolete. As he stood in the trenches before a besieged place, along with Balagny, a celebrated duellist of the period, between whom and Lord Herbert some altercation had formerly occurred, the Frenchman, in a bravade, jumped over the entrenchment, and, daring Herbert to follow him, ran towards the besieged place, in the face of a fire of grape and musquetry. Finding that Herbert outran him, and seemed to have no intention of turning back, Balagny was forced to set the example of retreating. Lord Herbert then invited him to an encounter upon the old chivalrous point, which had the fairer and more virtuous mistress; to which proposition Balagny replied by a jest so coarse, as made the Englishman retort that he spoke like a mean debauchee, not like a cavalier and man of honour. As Balagny was one of the most fashionable gallants of his time, and, as the story shows, ready for the most hairbrained achievements, his declining combat upon the ground of quarrel chosen by Lord Herbert is a proof how little the former love of chivalry accorded with the gallantry of these later days.

Bravery, the indispensable requisite of the preux chevalier, continued, indeed, to be held in the same estimation as formerly; and the history of the age gave the most brilliant as well as the most desperate examples of it, both in public war and private encounter. But courage was no longer tempered with the good faith and courtesy, La bonta dei gli cavalieri anticlii, so celebrated by Ariosto. There no longer existed those generous knights, that one day bound the wounds of a generous enemy, guided him to a place of refuge, and defended him on the journey, and which, on the next, hesitated not to commit itself in turn to the power of a mortal foe, without fear that he would break the faithful word he had pawned for the safety of his enemy. If such examples occur in the civil wars of France, they were dictated by the generosity of individuals who rose above the vices of their age, and were not demanded, as matters of right, from all who desired to stand well in public opinion. The intercourse with Italy, so fatal to France in many respects, failed not to imbue her nobility with the politics of Machiavel, the coarse licentiousness of Aretin, and the barbarous spirit of revenge, which held it wise to seek its gratification, not in fair encounter, but per ogni modo, in what manner soever it could be obtained. Duels, when they took place, were no longer fought in the lists, or in presence of judges of the field, but in lonely and sequestered places. Inequality of arms was not regarded, however great the superiority on one side. “Thou hast both a sword and dagger,” said Quelus to Antragues, as they were about to fight, “and I have only a sword.”—“The more thy folly,” was the answer, “to leave thy dagger at home. We came to fight, not to adjust weapons.” The duel accordingly went forward, and Quelus was slain, his left hand (in which he should have had his dagger) being shockingly cut in attempting to parry his antagonist’s blows without that weapon. The challenged person having a right to choose his weapons, often endeavoured to devise such as should give him a decidedly unfair advantage. Brantome records with applause the ingenuity of a little man, who, being challenged by a tall Gascon, made choice of a gorget so constructed that his gigantic adversary could not stoop his neck so as to aim his blows right. Another had two swords forged of a temper so extremely brittle, that unless used with particular caution, and in a manner to which he daily exercised himself, the blade must necessarily fly in pieces. Both these ingenious persons killed their man with very little risk or trouble, and no less applause, it would seem, than if they had fought without fraud and covine. The seconds usually engaged, and when one of the combatants was slain, his antagonist did not hesitate to assist his comrade in opposing by odds him who remained. The little French Lawyer of Fletcher turns entirely on this incident. By a yet more direct mode of murder, a man challenged to a duel was not always sure that his enemy was not to assassinate him by the assistance of ruffians at the place of rendezvous, of which Brantome gives several instances without much censure. The plighted word of an antagonist by no means insured against treachery to the party to whom it was given. De Rosne, a gentleman well skilled in the practice and discipline of the wars, receiving a challenge from De Fargy, through the medium of a young man, who offered to pledge his word and faith for the fair conduct of his principal, made an answer which Brantome seems to approve as prudential. “I should be unwilling,” he replied, “to trust my life upon a pledge on which I would not lend twenty crowns.” In many cases no ceremony was used, but the nobles assassinated each other without scruple or hesitation. Brantome gives several stories of the Baron des Vitaux, and terms his detestable murders bold and brave revenges. But it would be endless to quote examples. It is enough to call to the reader’s recollection the bloody secret of the massacre of St Bartholomew, which was kept by such a number of the Catholic noblemen for two years, at the expense of false treaties, promises, and perjuries innumerable, and the execution which followed on naked, unarmed, and unsuspecting men, in which so many gallants lent their willing swords.

In England, the free tone of the government, and the advantage of equal laws, administered without respect of persons, checked similar enormities, which, however, do not appear to have been thought in all cases inconsistent with the point of honour, which, if not, as in France, totally depraved from the ancient practices of chivalry, might probably have soon become so. Sir John Ayres did not hesitate to attack Lord Herbert with the assistance of his servants; and the outrage upon the person of Sir John Coventry, which gave rise to the Coventry act against cutting and maiming, evinced the same spirit of degenerate and blood-thirsty revenge. Lord Sanquhar having lost an eye in a trial of skill with a master of defence, conceived that his honour required that he should cause the poor man to be assassinated by ruffians in his own school; butas this base action met its just reward ńt the gallows, the spirit of Italian revenge was probably effectually checked by such a marked example. At the gallows, the unfortunate nobleman expressed his detestation for the crime, which he then saw in all its enormity. Before his trial he said the devil had so blinded his understanding that he could not understand that he had done amiss, or otherwise than befitting a man of high rank and quality, having been trained up to the court, and living the life of a soldier, which sort of men, he said, stood more on a point of honour than religion. The feelings of chivalry must have been indeed degraded, when so base an assassination was accounted a point of honour. In Scotland, the manners of which country, as is well observed by Robertson, strongly resembled those of France, the number of foul murthers during the sixteenth century was almost incredible, and indeed assassination might be termed the most general vice of the sixteenth century.

From these circumstances, the total decay of chivalrous principle is sufficiently evident. As the progress of knowledge advanced, men learned to despise its fantastic refinements; the really enlightened, as belonging to a system inapplicable to the modern state of the world; the licentious, fierce, and subtile, as throwing the barriers of [7:6:617]affected punctilio betwixt them and the safe, ready, and unceremonious gratification of their lust or their vengeance.

The system, as we have seen, had its peculiar advantages during the middle ages. Its duties were not, and indeed could not always be performed in perfcction, but they had a strong influence on public opinion; and we cannot doubt that its institutions, virtuous as they were in principle, and honourable and generous in their ends, must have done much good and prevented much evil. We can now only look back on it as a beautiful and fantastic piece of frostwork, which has dissolved in the beams of the sun. But though we look in vain for the pillars, the vaults, the cornices, and the fretted ornaments of the transitory fabric, we cannot but be sensible that its dissolution has left on the soil valuable tokens of its former existence. We do not mean, nor is it necessary to trace, the slight shades of chivalry which are yet received in the law of England. An appeal to combat in a case of treason was adjudged in the celebrated case of Ramsay and Lord Reay, in the time of Charles 1. An appeal of murder seems to have been admitted as legal within a recent period, though it has subsequently been abolished by statute; but it is not in such issues, rare as they must be, that we ought to trace the consequences of chivalry. We have already shown that its effects are rather to be sought in the general feeling of respect to the female sex; in the rules of forbearance and decorum in society; in the duties of speaking truth and observing courtesy; and in the general conviction and assurance that, as no man can encroach on the property of another without accounting to the laws, so none can infringe on his personal honour, be the difference of rank what it may, without subjecting himself to personal responsibility. It will be readily believed that, in noticing the existence of duelling as a relic of chivalry, we do not mean to discuss the propriety of the custom. It is our happiness that the excesses to which this spirit is liable are checked by the laws which wisely discountenance the practice; for although the severity of the laws sometimes give way to the force of public opinion, they still remain an effectual restraint, in every case where the circumstances argue either wanton provocation or unfair advantage. It is to be hoped that, as the custom of appealing to this Gothic mode of settling disputes is gradually falling into disuse, our successors may enjoy the benefit of the general urbanity, decency, and courtesy which it has introduced into the manners of Europe, without having recourse to a remedy not easily reconciled to law or to Christianity. (υ. d. d.) Court of Chivalry, a court formerly held before the lord high constable and earl marshal of England jointly, and having both civil and criminal jurisdiction.