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READING HALLTHE DOORS OF WISDOM |
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VICTORY OF THE PAPACYCHAPTER XXIV.CHIVALRY.
Chivalry is a subject which has attracted the attention of writers from its
earliest days to the present time. Modern historians hold very different
opinions as to its origin and influence, and even as to its meaning. One calls
it a feudal dignity, another a military institution, a third says it was less
an institution than an ideal, and a fourth describes it as a view of life.
Contemporary authorities also give it varied meanings. Monstrelet explains that a victory gained by the Duke of Burgundy over the Liegeois was won by the superior training of the chivalry
and nobility, and that the people were over-confident and not so well armed : here it clearly means fighting-men of a higher
class. When Joinville says that the second part of his Memoirs of St Louis will
speak of his gallant chivalry and deeds of arms, it stands for the qualities
considered characteristic of chivalry as a class. Froissart, describing how one
of a batch of knights made before an attack on the enemy encouraged his fellows
by urging them to shew their new chivalry, uses it as the equivalent of
knighthood. Caxton, in his translation of the Ordre de Chevalerie, speaks of the rule of the Order, and of gentlemen that intend to enter
chivalry, as if it were an institution, and also mentions its exercises and usages. Passages could be quoted to illustrate other
interpretations, but enough have been given to shew its many-sided character.
The old French word chevalerie and the English “chivalry” are derived
from the Latin caballarius, from caballus a horse, originally a pack-horse and afterwards a
war-horse, and the chevalier was literally the man on the horse. In the Latin
then in use he was called miles, but in the period which elapsed between
the reign of Charles the Great and the Crusades horse-soldiers became the
superior branch of the army, and grades appeared amongst them. By the later
twelfth century the name was, strictly speaking,
confined to the upper ranks of this class and was only applied to those who had
been invested with the insignia of knighthood. The English word
knight (A.-S. cniht) acquired the same
meaning.
It seems reasonable therefore to
assume that the Knight, regarded as the gentleman who served on horseback,
developed out of the mounted soldier, but it is not easy to see how the system
of knighthood arose. Several theories have been advanced as to its origin, and
it has even been suggested that it was inspired by the Romans or the Saracens;
but the view most widely accepted now is that it grew out of the custom of the
Germanic tribes of solemnly investing their young men with arms when they
reached the age of adolescence. In the council of the tribe, says Tacitus, one of the
chiefs, usually his father or some other near rekition,
presented the youth with a lance and shield, and from that timeme was recognised as a man and a warrior, and considered to belong to the republic,
whereas before he had been regarded as a child, belonging only to his home.
Selden and Du Cange saw in the adoption of a son by
arms, practised by the Goths, a contributory cause of the development of
chivalry. When Theodoric adopted the King of the Heruli in this manner, he wrote to him with a gift of horses and arms declaring him
his son, but in some cases the adopted was personally arrayed with arms by the
adopter. This ceremony was therefore somewhat similar to the Germanic rite, but it was not universally observed.
Some writers think that feudalism was
in a large measure responsible for the growth of chivalry,
and find a great similarity between feudal and chivalric ceremonies of investiture. Feudalism provided a very suitable environment for
chivalry, and life in a feudal castle afforded opportunities for knightly
training. Feudal fealty may also have encouraged the growth of chivalric troth, but the two were quite different; one was
based on an hereditary system of land tenure, the
other was a voluntary obligation, and the vassal should not be confused with
the knight. Professor Bury has drawn attention to the interesting fact that
generations of frontier warfare between the Greeks and the Saracens developed a
type of warrior very similar to the feudal baron, and a chivalrous ideal
analogous to, but quite independent of, Latin chivalry.
It is not possible to say exactly when
chivalry took definite shape, but the ceremony by which knighthood was
conferred in the eleventh century was of a very simple description. William of Malmesbury says that
William the Conqueror, when Duke of Normandy, received from the King of France militiae insignia (the insignia of
knighthood), and that Henry I sumpsit arma (assumed arms). Roger of Wendover states that
William Henricum ... cingulo militari donavit, which
gives the impression that girding with the baldrick was the typical feature. In
the Empire, the swertleide, the
ceremonial girding on the sword, was the important point, as seen in the
knighting of Frederick Barbarossa’s sons. In France, at the end of the twelfth
century, after the sword, spurs, and other arms had been put on the new knight,
he was given a vigorous blow on the neck
or the ear with the palm of the hand, usually accompanied by the admonition, sois preux. The
blow was called the colée; its meaning is not
clear, but it has been suggested that it represents the last injury a knight
could honourably endure, or that it was to remind him of the buffet given to
Christ when He was before Caiaphas, or was merely to
impress the occasion on his memory. It was introduced into Germany at a
somewhat later date, but in England a light blow with the flatof the sword took its place.
Far more elaborate was the method of
initiation employed in the creation of the Knights of the Bath which is
described in De Studio
It is not known when the “Order” of
the Bath was recognised as a distinct subdivision of the Order of Knighthood.
The Wardrobe Accounts record gifts of beds and robes to knights by Henry III
and Edward I, and Selden quotes an entry on a Close Roll of the sixth year of
King John ordering the sheriff of Southampton to allow Thomas Esturmy a scarlet robe, another of green or brown, and a
pair of linen sheets, and other articles, as he was to be made a knight. These
were things which Knights of the Bath would need, so it seems possible that we
have here some of those creations which ended in the emergence of the “Order.”
A little French poem called L'Ordene de Chevalerie, written in the thirteenth century, describes similar rites. It purports to be
the reply of a prisoner, Hugh of Tabarie (Tiberias),
to a question put to him by his captor, Saladin: How is a knight made? It
explains the mystical significance of what was done. The squire ought to come
from the bath as free from sin as a babe from the font, and by knighthood
should be led to win a bed in Paradise. The scarlet gown showed that he must
give his blood in the service of God and the Church, the white belt that he must keep his body pure. His other garments,
and his sword and spurs, all had their meaning according to the poem.
Knighthood was generally conferred by
the sovereign or by some person delegated by him, such as the commander of his
army, but this was not always the case; ecclesiastics could most certainly
bestow knighthood. When it was given by a priest, a religious service of
consecration was used, which made it almost a sacrament. The first example of
this in France was the knighting of Amaury, son of
Simon de Montfort, in 1213 by two bishops. The chronicler who narrates it
thought it very unusual, but it may have been in use
earlier elsewhere, as M. Leon Gautier tells us that there is a manuscript
giving the prayers for the ceremony which is not later
than 1050, and probably earlier. In the Empire also dignitaries of the Church
sometimes conferred knighthood.
The ceremony was generally reserved
for some important occasion, one of the great festivals of the Church, or a
public function, such as a coronation or a royal wedding. Knighting on the
battlefield was always in fashion; it was as simple
as possible, and consisted merely of the accolade and a few words pronouncing
the squire a knight in the name of God. This method was also sometimes used in
time of peace; it was thus that the Duke of Burgundy
knighted Jacques de Lalain before his feat of arms
with a Sicilian.
The usual age for knighthood was
twenty-one, the legal majority, but it was sometimes bestowed on younger
persons for special reasons. St Louis knighted the Prince of Antioch when he
was only sixteen, but he was very “discreet.”
Noble birth was a necessary
qualification for knighthood, and was only dispensed
with under exceptional circumstances. Chivalry was an extremely aristocratic
institution when thoroughly developed, and this tended to foster pride of
birth, and a determination to uphold the honour of the Order. In this sense it
was very exclusive, but in another it was quite the reverse; it was diffused
throughout the whole of Christendom, and its laws were the same in all
countries. Consequently difference of nationality was
no bar to intercourse among knights, and they formed something very like an
international brotherhood. It was by no means unusual for them to visit foreign
countries to perform feats of arms, and there was a feeling of comradeship even
among enemies. In 1387 the English were fighting on the side of the Portuguese,
and the French were assisting their adversaries, the Spaniards, but the French
commander made good company with the English, as noble men of arms would, said
Froissart, and an Englishman and a Frenchman jousted together before the King
and Queen of Portugal and the Duke of Lancaster.
Just as the ceremony of initiation was
at first very simple and afterwards became more elaborate, so too the Order
itself developed greatly in the course of time. This change was partly due to
the growth of civilisation, but there were also special causes for it, and
among these we must place the Crusades. They created a demand for an increased
number of knights, and the leaders of the expeditions took hired soldiers with
them, knights serving for money, but on an honourable footing. Joinville had nine knights in his pay in the Holy Land, and
he himself was in the service of St Louis. Failure to pay their wages was
inevitably followed by defection, and liberality was a necessary quality in
their employers, so perhaps for
this reason it ranked high as a
knightly virtue. Richard I, who was considered the crown of chivalry, was
continually bestowing largesse and gifts, and inciting his young men by
promises of reward; he thought the day lost on which he gave nothing.
The Holy Wars afforded a great
incentive to courage, the fundamental virtue of chivalry; the desire to win
Heaven by conquering the infidel enhanced the knights' natural love
of fighting, and rivalry between crusaders of different nations stirred up a
spirit of emulation. In active warfare their bravery was magnificent, sometimes
almost superhuman, but they lacked sell-control, and failed in passive
endurance; during the terrible siege of Antioch in 1098 many deserted.
The Crusades should have afforded the
Christians good military training, as the Turks were splendid fighters, but few
of them learnt much, as they were satisfied with their own methods of fighting
and despised strategy as unworthy of knights.
The difference between foot-soldiers
and knights was very marked during the Crusades; when Richard I intended to
attack the Sicilians he said that if a footman ran
away he was to lose his foot, if a knight fled his belt was to be taken from
him. Joinville relates that a sergeant who had pushed a knight had to kneel
before him in his shirt, crave for mercy, and offer a sword so that the knight
might cut off his hand if it pleased, him.
The influence of the Crusades upon the
ideals of chivalry was quite as important as their effect on its practical
development. The crusaders were soldiers of the Cross fighting for the
Christian faith, and the knights as leaders of the host were pre-eminently
Christian warriors, and henceforth Christianity and chivalry were inseparably
connected, at least in theory. When John of Burgundy, the duke’s heir, proposed
to lead an army against the Turks who were menacing Hungary, Sir Guy of Tremouille and others said that it was time he entered upon
the Order of knighthood, and that he could not enter upon it more nobly than by
going against the enemies of Holy Church.
In some ways the Crusades were
detrimental to the ideals of chivalry; crusaders were taught that it was a sin
to show pity to an infidel; so mercy to the fallen,
unless it were profitable, did not become one of its
characteristic virtues. The Church must not, however, be held wholly to blame
for this, for it was not only the Saracens who were the victims of the
crusaders: at Constantinople in 1204, of killed and wounded there was neither
end nor measure, says Villehardouin. Nor were the crusaders the only soldiers
who indulged in slaughter: when the French were helping the Duke of Burgundy
against the rebellious Flemings in 1382, they spared no more to slay them than if they had been dogs.
The doctrines that the Church could
absolve men from their vows, and that it was not necessary to keep faith with
infidels, were very pernicious, and frequently the Christians broke their
promises. Nevertheless, a strong feeling grew up that it was incumbent upon a knight to keep his word, and the Saracens themselves were perfectly satisfied,
to take the word of St Louis that his ransom and
that of his fellow-prisoners would be paid, and required no pledges. The Black Prince would not break his promise even when
urged by his council to revoke a covenant, and Egas Moniz, tutor to Affonso Henriques of Portugal, offered his life in atonement
when his pupil refused to keep an engagement he had
made for him.
The literature of the period had considerable influence on the development of chivalry; itself the outcome
of chivalry, it fostered the growth of the force that gave it birth, a process
of action and reaction. The chansons de geste were epics, and by extolling the great deeds of heroes incited their hearers to
perform similar acts. The noblest of them, those which centred round the person
of Charlemagne, held up a lofty idea of honour, of sacrifice in the service of
God and the Emperor, and a high sense of the value of an oath of fealty. The Chanson
de Roland also gave a beautiful picture of the devotion of
brothers-in-arms. The romances of the Round Table, based on Breton lays of King
Arthur and his knights, which became so popular not only in France but throughout
Western Europe, were of a different type. Marvellous adventures, undertaken to
satisfy mere caprice or a restless longing for change, replaced serious enterprises,
and romantic love, especially love par amours, became a theme of
absorbing interest. These features were reflected in the knight-errantry and
gallantry of chivalry.
Devotion to ladies was one of the
paramount duties of a knight; it was held that he ought to help them all to the
utmost of his power, especially if they had been deprived of their rights, or
were in distress of any kind. It was this spirit which made Sir John of
Hainault offer himself as the champion of Queen Isabel, the ill-used wife of
Edward II. In addition to the service which he owed to all ladies, a knight was expected to choose one as the special object of his affection. He
exalted her as the most perfect of all creatures, and delighted to obey her commands however hard. To win her grace, or to enhance
her reputation, he sought adventures, and fought for her both in war and
tournaments. He frequently sent challenges to other knights for love of her,
and Sir John de Vechin in 1402 announced that he had
vowed to make a trial of arms, with the help of God and the lady of his
affection. Sometimes the lover was content to worship his lady at a distance,
but more often be tried to win her love in return for his, with a persistence
which made it difficult for her to resist even if she were married. In
any case the matter was kept secret if possible, and if he were honourable, he
only saw her when a meeting could be arranged without blame falling on her. It
was held that love made a man more hardy in deeds of
arms, that it drove away fear and made him forget pain, and as a proof the examples of Lancelot and
Trisfan were quoted. It was a great incentive to courage and to courtesy, but it disregarded marriage ties, it led to much deceit,
even if not, as in many instances, to infidelity, and at its best it was a very
artificial sentiment. It was, perhaps, an unconscious protest
against the material view of marriage set forth by feudalism and the
law. It seems to have been carried to the greatest lengths in the south of
France and in Germany, and found literary expression
in the poems of the troubadours and minnesingers. An
extreme example was given in the exploits of Ulrich von Lichtenstein, who even,
according to his own account, disguised himself in rags and ate with lepers in order to gain an interview with his lady.
Some writers are of the opinion that
in the last half of the twelfth century there were in Languedoc and elsewhere cours d'amours, tribunals of ladies, which
judged questions of chivalric love submitted to them by some third person on
behalf of lovers whose names were carefully kept secret, and laid down rules to govern the art of love. This opinion is based on the
writings of the troubadours, and on a book called De Arte honeste amandi, by a certain Andrew the Chaplain, who served Innocent IV from 1243 to 1254.
Andrew quotes twenty judgments by various ladies, among whom is the famous
Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife successively to Louis VII of France and Henry II of
England. But it is very unlikely that there was anything in
the nature of a permanent court of arbitration, and Andrew’s book is so
conventional that it has not the value of historical testimony; the judgments
do not refer to actual cases judged by cours d'amours, but were merely the outcome of society
amusements, analogous to the tençons provençales, a form of debate very popular at that time, and they ought not to be taken,
seriously.
A boy destined for knighthood had to
undergo a long and careful training. At the age of seven he was taken from his
mother’s keeping, and sent to the castle of one of the
great nobles to be educated with the lord’s own children and other high-born
boys and girls. Here the duty of loving God and the ladies was at once
impressed upon him by the women of the household, whom he served as a page.
Masters taught him such book-learning as was considered suitable to his
station, and as a rule it included Latin and foreign languages. French, Dr Emil
Michael tells us, was greatly spread abroad in court circles in Germany in the
twelfth century; no doubt both French and Latin formed good mediums of
communication between knights of different nationalities. Some nobles could not
write, although they spoke two or three languages; the young Jacques de Lalain spoke, understood, and wrote both Latin and French,
but he was particularly well educated. Knowledge of music, singing, and the
art of making rhymes was thought very necessary, and
great value was placed upon good manners, as courtesy was one of the most
essential characteristics of a knight. Lighter accomplishments, such as dancing
and playing at chess, tables, and other games, were not despised; a boy who was clever at them could do much to amuse the ladies and the
guests entertained by his lord.
Physical culture was, however, the
most important part of his training. From the age of fourteen, when he was
promoted to the rank of a squire, it became harder and harder. He was gradually
taught to use knightly weapons, to bear the weight of knightly armour, to ride,
to jump, to wrestle, to swim, to hunt, to hawk, to joust, and to endure the
utmost fatigue of all kinds. Marshal Boucicault as a youth accustomed himself
to walking and running long distances, and to dancing in a coat of mail. He
could spring from the ground on to the shoulders of a man on horseback, and
ride astride there holding on by one hand. He could also, in full armour, climb
up the under side of a long ladder by means of his
hands only, and perform other acrobatic feats.
Duties of many kinds fell to the lot
of squires: some attended their lord in his chamber, some served in the hall,
tasted his food or bore his cup, and others had charge
of his horse and arms. These services were not considered beneath the dignity
of nobles; Joinville was carver to the King of
Navarre. When squires were quite expert they attended
their lords in battle, and took charge of his prisoners. Pages were also
allowed in the field, although they did not fight. Froissart relates that at
Crecy the life of Johan de Fussels was saved by his
page, who followed him all through the battle and “relyved”
him when he fell into a ditch; otherwise he would probably have been slain by
rascals with knives, who went about killing Frenchmen as they lay on the
ground. In some cases young men completed their
chivalric education by travelling, going to tournaments, and studying customs
in other lands.
Some squires, from motives of economy
or other reasons, preferred not to take knighthood upon them, but if they were
men of experience and valour they were treated with great respect, and put into
positions of trust. Sir James Audley distinguished himself by his courage at
the battle of Poitiers, and as a reward the Black Prince gave him five hundred
marks of yearly revenues; this gift he immediately handed over to the four
squires who had fought with him, saying that it was through their means and by
their valour that he had gained honour.
Du Cange and Menestrier draw a distinction between a
knight-bachelor and a banneret. The latter, according to them, must be a
knight, and must have sufficient revenues to enable him to take a number of men into the field under his banner; but
authorities differ as to the exact number required—some say fifty men-at-arms,
some only twenty-five. The knight-bachelor carried a pennon; the ceremony of
raising the banner, which transformed him into a banneret, took place before a
battle, and Froissart gives examples of it. In 1380, when the English w ere drawn up in battle array before Troyes, Sir Thomas Tryvet brought his banner rolled up to the commander, the
Earl of Buckingham, and said that if it pleased him he
would that day display it, as he had revenues sufficient
to Maintain it. The Earl took the
banner, said that it pleased him very well, tod delivered it to Sir Thomas,
praying that God would give him grace to do nobly that day and always. Sir
Thomas then displayed the banner. Olivier de la Marche, who describes how Louis
de Vieuville raised his banner at Rupelmonde,
says that the Duke of Burgundy cut the tail off his pennon before returning it,
thus transforming it into the square banner to which the banneret had a right.
He adds that the herald stated in support of Louis’ claim that he “ysse de ancienne banniere,” and
holds a “seigneurie” which was “anciennement terre de banniere;” so apparently
the right to a banner was sometimes hereditary and attached to certain lands.
Men whose chief business was fighting
needed good weapons and armour, and knights who could afford it had the best
that could be obtained. The weapons commonly used were the lance, the sword,
the battle-axe, and the misericord. Joinville, praising the gallantry shown by
the Christians at Mansurah, says that none made use
of the bow, crossbow, or other artillery, but the conflict consisted of blows
by battle-axes, swords, and butts of spears. The French despised bows and artillery, and thought their employment unworthy of
gentlemen. The lance was generally made of ash with an iron head, and a pennon
was attached to the top of the wooden part. The sword was the usual weapon for
the melée; the Germans and Normans liked long swords, and the French short
ones. Spain was famous for the manufacture of them, and the best came from
Saragossa. The battle-axe was valuable for fighting at close quarters; Richard
I did fearful execution with it.
A definite sequence of various kinds
of armour developed during the Middle Ages: mail, plate and mail combined, and
finally complete plate armour. Improvements were always being introduced, and
when it reached perfection in the fifteenth century every part of the wearer
was protected, the head, arms, body, legs, even the fingers and the toes. In
addition, he had a large shield to ward off blows. Milanese armour was the
best, but some came from Germany in the fifteenth century; the Germans borrowed
the ideas and then produced a cheaper article; so they
obtained the greater part of the industry, which was carried on at Nuremberg
and Augsburg. It was very difficult to penetrate medieval
plate-armour before the introduction of fire-arms, and
a knight was fairly safe unless he fell; then his heavy covering made him
helpless, and he could be easily trampled to death, or a dagger inserted
between the plates. Under normal circumstances he was not killed, because it
was much more profitable to obtain a ransom for him. Large sums of money could
be made in this way: the Duke of Anjou computed an adventure he had at Bergerac
in 1377 as worth more than three hundred thousand francs, as all the
chivalry of Gascony was taken. It was unchivalrous to treat noble prisoners
harshly; Froissart praises the English for their generosity in this respect, but the Spaniards, he says,
bound their prisoners in chains of iron, and in this
lack of courtesy they were like the Almaynes. The
hauberk, which covered the body, was by some considered a mark of knighthood,
like the baldrick and gold spurs; Joinville says that in 1241 he had not put it
on, meaning that he had not been knighted. Over the hauberk a knight wore a
surcoat or tabard, and upon it and upon his shield his arms were displayed, so
that it was easy to identify him. When the French rode out to meet the Turks
under Bayazid near Nicopolis in 1396, the lords were all so richly dressed in their “cote armure” that they
looked like little kings, which served them in very good stead when they were
defeated, as the Turks saved them alive because they thought they would get
such great ransoms.
If a knight disgraced himself he was degraded from the Order of chivalry; his
spurs were hacked off, his sword broken, his arms reversed, and all his armour
and insignia taken from him. In France, in the twelfth century, the proceedings
were simple, but at a later date they became quite
theatrical; the vigils for the dead were sung while the knight’s arms were
taken off, and he was afterwards borne on a hearse to church, where the office
for the dead was finished.
The Military or Crusading Orders were the outcome of two very different, almost conflicting, forces, chivalry and monasticism, brought together by zeal for combating the in fidel; and the knights of these Orders, as long as they were true to their inspiration, embodied the ideal of a Christian soldier as it presented itself to the men of those days. The Templars and the Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem developed into a permanent force for the defence of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem. In both, the knights, whose duty it was to fight, became a superior class with distinctive clothing and higher rank. True to the rules of chivalry, they were an aristocratic body; no knight was admitted unless he could prove that he was of noble birth. As soldiers they were invaluable; on many a hard-fought field they showed true knightly courage, and their discipline was superior to any thing the medieval world saw until Charles VII of France formed his gendarmerie. Any knight who armed, or disarmed, or left the ranks without leave, was severely punished. In a small affray between the Turks and the French at Bait-Nubah, in the Third Crusade, a Hospitaller charged the enemy before his companions came up, and he was only pardoned through the intercession of many influential persons. These Orders were not long in becoming wealthy and powerful, and far removed from their earlier austerity. The loss of the Holy Land forced them to leave Palestine; the Templars came to a tragic end, but the Hospitallers continued their war against infidels elsewhere, at Rhodes and then at Malta. The Teutonic Order first
came into prominence at the siege of Acre in
1189 when it succoured wounded
Germans. It took its statutes from the Templars, with
the addition of a few from the Hospitallers. It suffered from the jealousy of
the older Orders, and had some difficulty in asserting its independence, but in
1210 Herman of Salza obtained for it all the
privileges they enjoyed. It is best known, however, by its crusade against the
heathen in the Baltic Provinces. After a fearful war, which lasted fifty years,
it succeeded, with the help of the Order of the Sword and various bands of
adventurers, in conquering Prussia and setting up a strong government.
Spain and Portugal had military Orders
of their own,
engaged in the continual war they waged against the Moors. The most important
in Spain were the Order of St James (Santiago) of Compostela, whose work in
safeguarding the passages to the shrine of that saint developed into the
general defence of the kingdom, and the Order of the Knights of Calatrava, who
undertook the defence of the fortress of Calatrava, the key to Toledo. There
was a branch of the Order of Santiago in Portugal, and other Orders which were
also renowned for valour. The Order of St Benedict of Avis took charge at
first of Evora, and afterwards of the fortress whose name it bore. The Order of
Christ defended the fortress of Castro Marino, and made war against the Moors by land and sea.
Very different from these were the
Orders of chivalry; they took their origin later, and did not grow up spontaneously in answer to a pressing need, but were
deliberately founded by kings or other grandees, ostensibly from love of
chivalry, but really in most cases with ulterior motives. Reserved for men of
noble birth and irreproachable character, membership became a coveted honour,
and was bestowed by the sovereigns, with great political skill, upon those whom
they wished to reward or to attach to their interests. One of the most famous
of these Orders was that of the Knights of the Garter, instituted by Edward III.
There are many stories as to the origin of its name, hut no credence can be
attached to them. Some writers, following Froissart, give the date of its
foundation as 1344; others on the evidence of payments for garters in the
wardrobe accounts place it some years later, and the first feast in 1350.
Edward sent heralds to publish it in France, Scotland, Burgundy, Hainault,
Flanders, Brabant, and the Empire, and offered safe-conducts to any knights who
cared to come and take part in the jousts and tourneys which accompanied it.
His object was, probably, as Ashmole suggests, to
gather round him the most active spirits from abroad and draw them to his party,
as he was engaged in war with France. The number of the original knights was
twenty-six, including the sovereign, who was the King of England. There were
also twenty-six priests, and twenty-six poor knights. Unfortunately the original statutes have perished, and the earliest transcript of them dates
from the reign of Henry V. The greater number of the ordinances deal with the
election, installation, and clothing of the
knights, but one lays down the rule that no knight may go out of the kingdom without
the knowledge and licence of the sovereign, a very wise stipulation if he
wished to retain them for his own service. Great care was taken to make sure
that the knights were worthy of the Order, and Monstrelet relates that Sir John Fastolf was deprived of his
Garter because he fled from the battle of Pataye, but
it was afterwards restored to him as he made excuses which were considered
reasonable. It was bestowed not only upon Englishmen but also upon foreigners
of high position; the Count of Ostrevant won a prize
at some jousts at Smithfield in 1390, and was afterwards made a knight, which
caused great dissatisfaction in France, as it was reported that by taking the
Garter he had become the King of England’s man, and that none could enter into
the Order unless he made oath never to bear arms against the Crown of England.
It was perhaps to counteract the
influence of the Order of the Garter that the King of France instituted the
Order of the Star in 1351. The knights swore not to accept any other Order without
his leave, nor to go on distant journeys without giving him warning. The Order
was initiated with great splendour, but the disaster to the French nobility at
Poitiers put a stop to its fetes. It lasted, however, until King Louis XI
founded the Order of St Michael to counterbalance the new prestige of the Order
of the Golden Fleece.
This celebrated Order, by far the most
interesting of the many of a similar nature which were established in many
countries in the century which followed the foundation of the Order of the
Garter, was created in 1429 by Philip the Good of Burgundy, on his marriage
with Isabella of Portugal and Lancaster. He stated that his object was to
honour worthy knights and to encourage feats of chivalry, for the reverence of
God, the maintenance of the Christian faith, and the honour of knighthood. Some
of the rules of the Order were well calculated to excite knightly ardour, but
some clearly inculcated loyalty to the duke and his house. Each knight swore on
his election to render personal service if any one tried to damage the duke or his successors, to submit all quarrels between
himself and other members of the Order to the arbitration of the duke or his
deputy, and not to undertake wars or long journeys without his licence. To keep
up a standard of conduct worthy of the Order, a stringent examination into the
behaviour of each knight was made at meetings of the chapter, and they were all
required to give information about their fellows. Any knight guilty of heresy,
treason, or flight from the battlefield, was expelled from the Order; for less
serious offences lighter punishments were inflicted.
Tournaments formed one of the
favourite amusements of knights, and in earlier days played an important part
in their education, by giving them practice in mimic warfare. It is impossible
to trace their beginning; some late writers say that one was held by Henry the
Fowler in the tenth century, while a chronicle of St
Martin of Tours ascribes their invention to Geoffrey of Preuilly,
who died in 1066. They are mentioned in chronicles of the eleventh century, and
probably arose out of the sports and games engaged in by the young men of those
days. The name conflictus Gallici given to them by Matthew Paris shows that they
were believed to have been of French origin. Some rules attributed to Henry the
Fowler, but certainly of much more recent date, shew the views held about these
matters when chivalry had become mature. No one who had injured the Church,
been false to his lord, fled without cause from the field of battle, made a
false oath, committed an outrage on a woman, or engaged in trade, was to be
allowed to take part in a tournament, and anyone who could not prove his
descent from four noble families was to be chased from the lists.
They were at first very rough and
dangerous; the Church was horrified at the waste of men, money, and horses, and
Pope after Pope issued bulls excommunicating those who took part in them. The
Lateran Council of 1179 even denied Christian burial to those killed in tournaments.
Secular authorities also disapproved of them because disorders often arose when
so many armed men gathered together, and many monarchs
forbade them, but neither ecclesiastical nor lay censures seem to have had much
effect. Stephen was greatly blamed for allowing them in England, and Henry II
put a stop to them. Richard I reintroduced them into
this country, because he did not wish French knights to think the English
awkward and unpractised in arms, and also, perhaps, because they were a source
of revenue, as he exacted payments for tourneying which were graduated
according to rank and were payable in advance. They were soon controlled by
royal ordinances, and infractions of rules were punished by forfeiture of arms
and horses and by imprisonment. After this, although they were sometimes
forbidden in troublous times, they were encouraged by
the Crown under normal conditions. On the marriage of Edward III great jousts
and tourneys were held which lasted three weeks; and John Tiptoft,
Earl of Worcester, the Constable of England, by order of Edward IV drew up a
list of rules as to the manner of gaining prizes.
From the time of Philip
Augustus they were extremely popular in France, especially in the
north-east and in the districts bordering on it. John I of Brabant, who was
knighted in 1294, is said to have fought in no less than seventy, and to have
been mortally wounded in the last. Many brilliant tournaments were held by the
Dukes of Burgundy, and after the death of Charles the Bold the traditions of
his house passed to the Empire with Maximilian I, who married his daughter
Mary. The Germans had always been addicted to tournaments, but in earlier days
they were somewhat rough; in the time of Maximilian they became very elaborate, and of almost weekly occurrence.
As civilisation advanced, devices for
rendering tournaments less dangerous were introduced. Special weapons were
used; a thirteenth-century ordinance directs that the lance should be blunted, and in the fourteenth
century it was tipped with a coronal, which could catch on the armour but not
pierce it. The swords were pointless, and not too heavy. René of Anjou even suggests that short spurs would be better
than long, as they would do less harm in the press. Armour was padded to ward
off blows and prevent jarring. A cushion over the chest of the horse acted as a
buffer; he was carefully trained and often blindfolded and his ears stopped with wool, so that he might not take fright, swerve, and
unhorse his rider.
The tourney proper was an encounter
between two bodies of combatants, the joust was a single combat; generally both took place at tournaments in early days. At Chauvency in 1285 eighty couples met in the first two days,
and a melee began late in the afternoon so that darkness might separate the
fighters. By the fifteenth century the joust tended to supersede the melée, and
when it was fought on horseback in the lists, a banner was put up to prevent
collisions between the horses; at first this was merely a rope hung with cloth,
but from about 1430 planks were used. Jousters sometimes fought on foot, and
during the last half of the fifteenth century barriers were put up even between
them. Jousting at the tilt prevailed in England, but abroad other varieties were
practised. Both in England and on the Continent meetings called Round Tables
were held, at which the challengers met all comers, and also kept open house for them. A pas d'armes was
similar, but some particular place was defended.
Ladies were always present at tournaments, and were
treated with great deference. When prizes came into fashion in the latter part
of the thirteenth century, they presented them. These were often of
considerable value, a precious stone, a falcon, a horse, or even the hand of an
heiress. In addition to this, the conqueror was entitled to the horse and arms
of the vanquished, and could also demand a ransom for his person; so tournaments were profitable to those who were highly
skilled.
Besides the jousts of peace, as these
friendly encounters were called, there were jousts a l'outrance; in those, ordinary weapons were used, and one or other of the combatants was
often seriously hurt, or even killed. The opponents were not necessarily
enemies; they often fought for the honour of their ladies or their country, or
to gain renown in arms for themselves. There were also judicial combats, which
were a matter of life and death, but they belong to the domain of law rather
than to that of chivalry.
Tournaments reached their highest
development in the first half of the fifteenth century; by the middle of the century it became customary to combine mummeries and
pageants with them, and they began to decline. Mechanical contrivances and
humorous devices on the trappings of the horses took all dignity from them, and
in the sixteenth century
Heraldry was an important adjunct of
chivalry; it fostered pride of birth, and acted as a
spur to the desire for honour. As signs of nobility heraldic emblems were
highly prized, and they were of practical value in enabling a knight to be
recognised; on the battlefield his banner and his cri d'armes formed rallying points for his followers.
Heralds of all countries worked under the same rules, and went freely from one land to another. The use of coats of arms came into
existence about the middle of the twelfth century; the science of heraldry was
fully developed by the end of the thirteenth, but by the latter part of the
fourteenth it had become very elaborate and overburdened with detail. Finally,
it was subjected to royal authority, lost all. initiative, and became merely
pictorial.
The Court of Chivalry had jurisdiction
in all quarrels concerning coatarmour, pedigrees,
personal affronts, and other matters touching the honour of gentlemen of which
the Common Law did not take cognisance. It had power to authorise combat for
the judgment of these affairs, but frequently settled them by arbitration. Its
most severe punishment was degradation from knighthood. It was most active in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; after that it sank into the position of an heraldic office, and by 1600 it was an anachronism.
All the ceremonies and adjuncts of
chivalry were, as we have seen, simple in their early stages, grew more and
more elaborate, and at last deteriorated; chivalry itself passed through the
same phases. M. Gautier considers that it readied its apogee in the twelfth
century and began to decline at the beginning of the thirteenth, but some
writers do not detect any signs of deterioration until the end of that century
or even later. Something may be due to the taste of the critic; in the twelfth,
century chivalry was more virile, but it was also ruder; in the thirteenth it
was more refined, but more artificial and less serious. Its decline did not
progress simultaneously in all countries. In Italy this started very early
because the growth of commerce in the towns was not favourable to it. As we
have seen, the Emperor Maximilian I tried to revive it in his dominions but
without much success. In Spain there was an increase in the practice of
chivalry in the fourteenth century, inspired, perhaps,by the visits of the Black Prince and Hu
Guesclin. In Portugal, after the decline of the Military Orders, its traditions
were carried on by individuals, the most famous of whom were Don Nuno Alvares Pereira, the Constable, and the sons of King John
I—men who combined knightly daring and accomplishments with fervent religious
faith. Affonso V won the title of the Knightly King
in his expeditions against the Moors in Africa. He attracted to his court
distinguished foreigners bent on deeds of arms, and
many of his subjects visited other lands for the same purpose. Some of the causes of the decline of chivalry were inherent
in its nature—its artificiality inevitably ended in lifelessness, the custom of
giving largesse led to extravagance which ruined many knights, and the suicidal
civil wars in England and France depleted the nobility and lowered their
standards of conduct. Other causes were due to extraneous circumstances— the
invention of fire-arms rendered medieval armour
useless, cavalry ceased to be the dominant arm, and the development of the art
of war made chivalric methods of fighting ineffective. The changes which took
place in the later Middle Ages, the growth of trade, the rise of the middle
class, the spread of education, all tended to produce conditions unsuited to
the continuance of chivalry. In the broader sense, as a spirit inspiring men to
fight for the right and protect the weak, it is still alive, but as
an Order with distinctive characteristics, demanding special training and
qualifications, it passed away with the age that gave it birth, leaving behind
it, indeed, imperishable monuments of literature, real and fanciful, such works
as Froissart’s Chronicles, the Mort d'Arthur and Amadis de Gaul, and the mingled
satire and ideal of Don Quixote.
CHAPTER XXV.LEGENDARY CYCLES OF THE MIDDLE AGES
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