Charles Mills

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ The highest possible degree of virtue was required of a knight: it was a maxim in chivalry, that he who ordained another a knight must be virtuous himself; for it was argued if the knight who made a knight were not virtuous, how could he give that which he had not; and no man could be a true son of chivalry unless he were of unsullied life. [170] He was not only to be virtuous, but without reproach; for he considered his honourable fame as a polished mirror, whose beauty may be lost by an impure breath and an unwholesome air, as well as by being broken into pieces. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There was a generousness about chivalry unknown to other warfare. If in these days of improved jurisprudence we revert our eyes with horror and contempt to times when every question was decided by the sword, still an air of graceful courtesy hung over them, which charms the imagination. A cavalier always granted safe-conduct through his territories to all who required it, even to those who asserted pretensions, which, if established, would deprive him of his possessions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The fierceness of war was mellowed into elegance, and even feudalism abated something of its sternness, when called on to perform tendance on the ladies and damsels who graced the scene. Baronial pomp, knightly gallantry, woman’s beauty, gay caparisons, rich attire, and feudal pageantry, throng the mind in wild and splendid confusion, when we hear the herald’s trumpet-clang summoning the knights to achievement. It was in the tournament especially that the chivalric nations of Europe asserted their superior claims to gracefulness and humanity ”

“ The fictitious tales of Arthur and Charlemagne were the study and amusement of the warrior in his moments of ease, and even the few relics of classical literature, which, after the Gothic storm, were cast on the shores of modern Europe, were fashioned anew by chivalry. The heroes of Troy were converted into knights, and Troilus and Cressida moved like a warrior and damsel of chivalric times. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Knighthood never altogether lost its character of being a distinction, a reward of merit, presumed, indeed, rather than proved, in the original instances which have been mentioned. But though it was often bestowed as an ornament of custom on the nobility and gentry of a state, yet it often was the bright guerdon of achievements in arms. Of military merit every knight was supposed to be a sufficient judge; and therefore every knight had the power of bestowing its reward. ”

“ All the knights who were in the hall drew their swords and repeated the vow; and, while bright falchions and ladies’ eyes illumined the scene, each knight, inflamed by thoughts of war and love, added some new difficulty to the enterprise, or bound himself, by grievous penalties, to achieve it. Sometimes a knight vowed that he would be the first to enter the enemy’s territory. Others vowed that they would not sleep in beds, nor eat off a cloth, nor drink wine, till they had been delivered of their emprise. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There was a gravity about chivalry which accorded well with the recommendation for women not quickly to adopt new dresses introduced from strange countries. Modesty of attire was the theme of many a wise discourse, and every castle had its story of the daughter of a knight who lost her marriage by displaying too conspicuously the graces of her figure, and that the cavalier who was her intended suitor preferred her sister who had modesty, though not beauty, for her dower. ”

“ Every feudal lord assumed the right of chusing his own armorial distinctions: they were worn by all his family, and were hereditary. It was also in his power to grant arms to knights and squires as marks of honour for military merit; and from all these causes armorial distinctions represented the feudalism, the gentry, and the chivalry of Europe. One knight could not give more deadly offence to another than by wearing his armorial bearings without his permission, and many a lance was broken to punish such insolence. ”

“ Every page of early European history attests the sacred consideration of the minstrel, and the romances are full of stories, which at least our imagination can credit, of many a knight telling his soft tale in the dress of a love-singing poet. ”

“ There existed very often, however, a disposition to convert tournaments into real battles. National rivalry broke through the restraints of knightly gentleness; envy of martial prowess, or of woman’s love, had found an occasion of venting its passion; and, in spite of the authority of the king-at-arms and heralds to reject weapons of violence, bribery and power appear often to have introduced them. As the nature of offensive armour may be judged from the defensive harness, so in the laws of a country we may read the state of manners. ”

“ Courtesy was the appearance, in the ordinary circumstances of life, of that principle of protection which, in weightier matters, made the sword leap from its scabbard; and, like every other blessing of modern times, it had its origin in the Christian religion. The world thought that courtesy and chivalry accorded together, and that villainous and foul words were contrary to an order which was founded on piety. [179] Whether historians or fabulists speak of a true knight, he is always called gentle and courteous. To be debonnaire was as necessary as to be bold ”

“ The wife of a knight was often called equitissa or militissa, or chevaliére. In France, too, ladies, as ruling over fiefs, having the right of war, judicature, and coining money, could confer the honour of knighthood. But in general the feudal law opposed the chivalry of women, for a woman alone could not hold a fief, it not being supposed that she could head her vassals or accompany her liege lord into the field. The instances, therefore, that are scattered over the middle ages of the brave gestes of women sprang from the spirit of chivalry and not from any other principle of society. ”

“ Her offence was, that she had crowned Bruce. Edward exclaimed, with the deliberation of malignity, “As she has not used the sword, she shall not perish by the sword; but for her lawless conspiracy, she shall be shut up in a stone and iron chamber, circular as the crown she gave; and at Berwick she shall be suspended in the open air, a spectacle to travellers, and for her everlasting infamy.” ”

“ But before he reached him he saw that the English were falling into disorder, and that the perseverance of Randolph had prevailed over their impetuous courage. “Halt,” cried Douglas, like a generous knight, “these brave men have repulsed the enemy; let us not diminish their glory by sharing it.”
Of the battle of Bannockburn itself little need be said by me, because there was not much chivalric character about it. Some historians describe the defeat of the English as having been principally occasioned by the Scottish cavalry throwing the rear of their archers into confusion. ”

“ Nothing was more beautiful than the courtesy of chivalric times. At a martial game held in Smithfield, during the reign of Richard II., the Queen proposed a crown of gold as the reward of the best jouster, were he a stranger; but if an English knight had the praise, then a rich bracelet was to be his reward. The same polite preference of strangers influenced the chivalry of England, and they promised to give to the lord of best desert, if he were a foreign knight, a fair horse, with his trappings; but if he were one of their own land, then only a falcon should reward him. ”

“ A sovereign who prided himself on his knighthood could never offend the inclinations of one of that sex which by his principles he was bound to protect and cherish. Chivalry hung out the heart-stirring hope that beauty was the reward of bravery. A valiant, but landless knight was often hailed by the whole martial fraternity of his country as worthy the hand of a noble heiress, and the king could not in every [Pg 257] case bestow her on some minion of his court. Woman was sustained in her proud elevation by the virtues which chivalry required of her ”

“ War-cries were changed for gentler invocations. Each noble knight called upon his mistress to assist him, thinking that there was a magic in beauty to sustain his strength and courage. “On, valiant knights, fair eyes behold you!” was the spirit-stirring cry of those older warriors who could now only gaze at and direct the amusements of chivalry. The poursuivants-at-arms cried at every noble achievement, [Pg 277] “Honor to the sons of the brave!” [307] The minstrels echoed it in the loudest notes of their martial music, and the chivalric spectators replied by the cry, “Loyauté aux dames!” ”