Charles Mills

“ The feats of arms at St. Ingilbertes displayed the martial character of the joust; and the emprise of Lord Scales shows how beautifully love could blend itself with images of war, and the interest which a whole nation could take in the circumstance of certain fair ladies of a court binding round the thigh of a gallant knight a collar of gold, enamelled with a floure of souvenance. ”

“ By this fatal folly James lost all the advantages of his position; for the English formed behind him, and Flodden was open and accessible to them. If personal bravery, independent of sageness, had been the character of a knight, James deserved all chivalric honours; for, disdaining the counsel to behold the battle afar off, he mingled boldly in the thickest of the press. The field was won by the English archers; but James did not live to repent the enthusiasm of his chivalry, which had cost his country so much blood, for he was killed within a lance’s length of Lord Surrey. ”

“ A ship without a rudder, a horse without a bridle, were other illustrations of the prevailing sentiment, and more expressive of the characteristic of chivalric love, which assigned superiority to woman, which made her the directress of the thoughts, and inspirer of the courage of her chosen cavalier. “A knight may never be of prowess, but if he be a lover,” was the sentiment of Sir Tristram, a valiant peer of Arthur, and it was echoed by every gentle son of chivalry. ”

“ The Prince was astonished at his apparent presumption, and asked him by what means he could pay so large a sum. “The Kings of France and Castile,” he replied, “are my friends, and will never fail me in a case of necessity. I know a hundred knights of Brittany who would sell their possessions for my liberation; and there is not a woman sitting at her distaff in France who would not labour with her own hands to redeem me from yours.” Du Guesclin was then liberated on his parole of honour, and people gazed with curiosity and respect upon a man who had so noble a sense of his own dignity. ”

“ We may not regard the precise form and fashion of a warrior’s scarf, or care to enquire whether the embroidery were worked with gold or silver, but the general fact itself involves the state of manners and feelings among our ancestors: it carries us to the lady’s bower where she was working this token of love; our fancy paints the time and mode of bestowing it; and we follow it through all the subsequent career of the knight as his silent monitor to courage and loyalty. ”

“ Knights travel and joust for ladies’ love.
The knights of Spain were, indeed, on every occasion gallant as well as brave. When the heralds of France and England crossed the Pyrenees to proclaim the tournaments, which were to be held in honour of woman’s beauty, there was no lack of Spanish cavaliers to obey the sound, and assert the charms of the dark-eyed maidens of their land. This was their wont during all the ages of chivalry; and so late as the fifteenth century one of them travelled so far as England by command of his mistress, and for her sake wished to run a course with sharp spears. ”

“ It was, therefore, because all the knights of Europe were united in one universal bond of brotherhood, that one knight showed courtesy to another. It was the principle of fraternity which the Christian religion inculcates, that created all the kindly consideration in war which distinguished chivalry; and base and barbarous, as we may chuse to call our ancestors, I know not whether the principles of Christian friendship were not as well understood in their days as in our own age of boasted light and improvement. ”

“ Near the banner of the Duke of Burgundy, where the conflict raged with most fierceness, the Lord of Pierre-vves and his two sons (one was the new bishop) fell, and no consideration for their chivalry or religious profession saved them from death. The coolness of the Duke of Burgundy excites the praise of the historian; and no apology is thought necessary for his conduct, when on being asked, after the defeat, if they should cease from slaying the Liegeois he replied, “Let them all die together; let no prisoners be made; let none be admitted to ransom.” ”

“ Froissart’s pages are a perfect picture of knightly riding and combatting; and each of his favorite cavaliers seems to have had but one and the same steed for the road and the battle-plain. Even romance, so prone to exaggerate, commonly represents the usage as similar; for when we find that a damsel is rescued, she is not placed upon a spare horse, but the knight mounts her behind himself. ”

“ Spanish chivalry awakens the most splendid and romantic associations of the mind. Europe, with her active courage,—her jealousy of honour,—her superior religion;—Asia, with her proud and lofty deportment,—her fervid and sublimated imagination, and the magnificent ceremonial of her pomp,—formed the knight of Spain; and, in consequence of this influence of Orientalism on his character, he represents the stateliness of chivalry as perfectly as the English cavalier its adventurousness, and the French its gaiety. ”

“ Their diet, too, reproached the usual luxury of the monastery, for the fruits of the earth sustained them. They were silent in the oratory, and the refectory, one voice only reciting the prayers, or reading a legend of battle; but when the first note of the Moorish atabal was heard by the warder on the tower, the convent became a scene of universal uproar. The caparisoning of steeds, and the clashing of armour, broke the repose of the cloister, while the humble figure of the monk was raised into a bold and expanded form of dignity and power. ”

“ The sword of the cavalier was too often drawn by the church; and in the persecution of the Albigenses the knighthood of France forgot all the generous liberality and mercy of their order. But although the crusades against ferocious Turks and erring Christians took from chivalry much of its gracefulness and beauty, yet a restoring power was found in that love for poetry and romance which for some ages had been spreading itself over the world. ”

“ The lords of France rallied their soldiers, and urged the assault anew; but they that were within defended themselves right valiantly. The countess herself, clad in mail, and mounted on a goodly courser, rode from street to street, exhorting her people to defend their posts; and if in the din of battle her woman’s voice was sometimes drowned, nothing could mar her cheering smiles, which lighted the flame of noble chevisance in every gallant breast. She caused damsels and other women to cut short their kirtels, and carry stones and pots full of lime to the walls, to be cast upon the enemy. ”

“ Such were the martial amusements and exercises of preux chevaliers. All the noble and graceful virtues of chivalry were reflected in the tournament and joust, and the warrior who had displayed them in the lists could not but feel their mild and beneficent influence even in the battle-field. He pricked on the plain with knightly grace as if his lady-mistress had been beholding him: skill and address insensibly softened the ferocity of the mere soldier, and he soon came to consider war itself only as a great tournament. ”

“ The knight looked to fame as one of the guerdons of his toils: this value of the opinions of others taught him to dread shame and disgrace; and thus that fine sense of morality, that voluntary submission to its maxims which we call honour, became a part of knighthood.
The genius of chivalry was personal, inasmuch as each knight, when not following the banner of his sovereign, was in himself an independent being, acting from his own sense of virtue, and not deriving counsel from, or sharing opprobrium with, others. ”

“ A few years after this beautiful display of the chivalric character of woman in France, the gloom of war in Italy was illuminated by a noble trait of female heroism. Marzia, a lady of the family of the Ubaldini, so celebrated for its virtue and noble gestes, was the wife of Francesco d’Ordelaffi, lord of Forli, the only prince in Romagna who maintained his independence against the tyranny of the papal power. Knowing her firmness and spirit, he entrusted the defence of the town of Cesena to his wife, while he himself maintained the more important position of Forli. ”

“ The triumph of chivalry over all preceding systems of opinions was complete, when imagination refined the fierceness of passion into generous and gentle affection,—a refinement so perfect and beautiful, that subsequent times, with all their vaunted improvements in letters and civilisation, are obliged to revert their eyes to the by-gone days of the shield and the lance for the most pleasing and graceful pictures of lady-love. ”

“ In every way the generalship of Bruce was admirable: but the fate of the battle reflects nothing on the personal character of the English chivalry; for they were not worsted in an encounter of lance to lance, and horse to horse. The bravery of one English knight must not pass unrecorded. Sir Giles D’Argentyn, upon seeing some of his friends around him pause in alarm, cried that he was not used to fly, and spurring his war-steed into the thickest of the press, gallantly perished. ”

“ The sports of chivalry were so elegant and graceful that we might have supposed the refined Italians would have embraced them in all their circumstances. But the arena of the Coliseum, so admirably adapted for a tournament, was used for Moorish games. The matrons and virgins of Rome, arrayed in all their bravery, were seated in its ample galleries, and beheld, not a gallant and hurtless encounter between two parties of knights with lances of courtesy, but a succession of sanguinary conflicts between cavaliers and bulls. ”

“ A noble aspirant to chivalry would only receive the accolade from a warrior, whose fame had excited his emulation, or sometimes the feelings of feudal attachment prevailed over the higher and sterner sense of chivalry. In expectation of a battle, the Earl of Buckingham called forth a gentle squire of Savoy, and said, “Sir, if God be pleased, I think we shall this day have a battle; therefore I wish that you would become a knight.” ”

“ He who was invested with the military belt was no longer the mere soldier of ambition and rapine, but he was taught to couch his lance for objects of defence and protection, rather than for those of hostility. He was the friend of the distressed, of widows and orphans, and of all who suffered from tyranny and oppression. The doctrine of Christian benevolence, that all who name the name of Christ are brothers, gave beauty and grace to the principles of fraternity, which were the Gothic inheritance of knights, and therefore the wars of the middle ages were distinguished for their humanities. ”

“ In the crusades, parties of fair and noble women accompanied the chivalry of Europe to the Holy Land, charming the seas ‘to give them gentle pass,’ and binding up the wounds of husbands and brothers after a well foughten field with the bold Mussulman. Sometimes they wielded the flaming brand themselves, and the second crusade in particular was distinguished by a troop of ladies harnessed in armour of price, and mounted on goodly steeds. ”

“ It swept away those institutions which were no longer sustained by virtue and genius; and the settlement of the Gothic kingdoms was the commencement of the new glories of the world. The successors of the Romans were not entirely occupied in the fierce struggles of ambition. A new intellect was impressed upon Europe, wild as nature before it is tamed into artificial society, but rich, vigorous, and beautiful. As the new states of the West took a firm and enduring shape, as the tendency of human nature to improvement gradually became visible, intellectual talent was more and more esteemed. ”

“ The helmet of war appeared to complete the perfection of defensive harness; for the lance broke hurtless on the plate of steel, the arrow and quarrel glanced away, and it is only in romance that we read of swords cutting through a solid front of iron, or piercing both plate and mail, as some bolder spirits say. ”

“ Six men clad as foresters stood at different parts; and in the midst of the forest was a castle apparently made of gold, and before the gate sat a gentleman splendidly apparelled, weaving a garland of roses for the prize. The spectators imagined that the pageant was drawn into the court by a lion and an antelope, who were led by men in the guise of savages. When the pageant rested before the Queen, the foresters blew their horns, and from different parts of the forest the four knights issued armed at all points and mounted on their war-steeds. ”

“ While this devotedness of soul to woman’s charms appeared in his general intercourse with the sex, in a demeanor of homage, in a grave and stately politeness, his lady-love he regarded with religious constancy. Fickleness would have been a species of impiety, for she was not a toy that he played with, but a divinity whom he worshipped. This adoration of her sustained him through all the perils that lay before his reaching his heart’s desire; and loyalty (a word that has lost its pristine and noble meaning) was the choicest quality in the character of the preux chevalier. ”

“ In the minds of Spanish knights, religion and love were ever blended; and he who, thinking of his mistress, took for his motto the words, “Sin vos, y sin Dios y mi,” (without thee, I am without God, and without myself,) was not thought guilty of impiety. In romantic gallantry the Spaniard was a very perfect knight. Garcia Perez de Vargas, who lived in the thirteenth century, was a splendid exemplar of Spanish chivalry. His valour excited the envy of men of nobler birth, who displayed the meanness of their spirit in questioning his title to bear arms. ”

“ Don Quixote affirmed, that no history ever made mention of any knight errant that was not a lover; for were any knight free from the impulses of that generous passion, he would not be allowed to be a lawful knight, but a misborn intruder, and one who was not admitted within the pale of knighthood at the door, but leaped the fence, and stole in like a thief and a robber. ”

“ For several centuries chivalry shed but few and transient gleams of light over the gloomy waste of Italian history, and I can only select one event which paints in beautiful colours the spirit of romantic gallantry. The wife of Lothaire, King of Italy from the year 945 to 948, was Adelais, a princess of the house of Burgundy. Lothaire was deposed, perhaps murdered by his minister, Berenger; and the usurper persecuted, with the cruelty of fear, Adelais, who has been described by monkish chroniclers, and chivalry will not contradict the character, as being young and beautiful. ”

“ But chivalry saved her from being altogether oppressed into slavery and degradation under the tyranny of feudalism. That odious system endeavoured to bring under its sway even the very affections of the heart; for not only no woman of rank and estate could marry without the consent of her sovereign, but in some countries she was obliged to accept a husband at his nomination, unless for a large pecuniary payment he restored her to the privileges of her sex. By preserving woman in her noble state of moral dignity, chivalry prevented the harsh exercise of feudal rights. ”

“ The military features of chivalry had been rudely marred in the wars between the houses of York and Lancaster, and by the days of James I. not a lineament remained. The graceful sports of chivalry had been sustained by the bold and vigorous Henry VIII., and romance could not but be pleasing to a maiden queen. With Prince Henry the tournament died. Mightier questions than those which knighthood could resolve were before the world; and there was nothing in the bearing of the friends of Charles I., misnamed Cavaliers, to which the character of chivalric can be applied. ”

“ The knight, whose heart was warmed with the true light of chivalry, never wished that the dominion of his mistress should be less than absolute, and the confession of her perfect virtue, which this feeling implied, made him preserve his own faith pure and without a stain. Love was as marked a feature in the chivalric character as valour; and, in the phrase of the time, he who understood how to break a lance, and did not [Pg 201] understand how to win a lady, was but half a man. He fought to gain her smiles, for love in brave and gentle knights kindled aspirations for high desert and honour. ”

“ In northern Italy no knightlike humanities softened the vindictiveness of the Italian mind. Warriors never admitted prisoners to ransom. The annals of their contests are destitute of those graceful courtesies which shed such a beautiful lustre over the contests of England and France. No cavalier ever thought of combating for his lady’s sake, and a lady’s favour was never blended with his heraldic insignia. There were no regular defiances to war as in other countries: honour, that animating principle of chivalry, was not known ”