Order of chivalry

“ After the royal feast was done, the young cavaliers, divesting themselves of their mantles, put on rich robes ornamented with ensigns of dependence on the King. The next day, when the King rode to Westminster in much state and solemn order, all these young knights whom he had just honoured with the order of chivalry preceded him, riding with noble chevisance through the middle of the city; and so splendid was their appearance that the spectators (observes the old chronicler) seemed inebriated with joy. [90]
Henry’s love of chivalric books. ”

“ The ladies and gallant spectators being fairly ranged round the lists, and the crowds of plebeian gazers being disciplined into silence and order, the heralds watched the gestures of the knight of honour, and, catching his sign that the sports might begin, they cried, “Laissez aller.” The cords which divided the two parties were immediately slackened, and the cavaliers dressing their spears to their rests, and commending [Pg 275] themselves to their mistresses, dashed to the encounter, while the trumpets sounded the beautiful point of chivalry, for every man to do his devoir. ”

“ Knighthood was an institution perfectly peculiar to the military and social state of our ancestors. There was no analogy between the knights of chivalry and the equites of Rome, for pecuniary estate was absolutely necessary for the latter; whereas, though the European cavalier was generally a man of some possessions, yet he was often a person promoted into the order of chivalry, solely as a reward for his redoubted behaviour in battle. ”

“ A cavalier was kind and courteous to his prisoner, because he saw in him a brother; and while the system of ancient manners would have limited this feeling to people of one nation, a knight did not bound his humanity by country or soil, for Christian chivalry was spread over most parts of Europe, and formed mankind into one band, one order of men. ”

“ Both the principles and the objects of chivalry having been always the same, a general similarity of character existed through all the chivalric ages; and as certain moral combinations divide human nature into classes, so the knight was a distinct character, and the qualities peculiar to his order may be delineated in one picture, notwithstanding individual and national variations, which had better be described when we come to mark the degrees of the influence of chivalry in the different countries of Europe. ”

“ The young lord, with the grace and modesty of chivalry, replied, that he solicited the honor of presenting himself before his sovereign liege the King, in order to accomplish his arms against the Bastard of Burgundy. The gate was then thrown open by command of the Constable, and the Lord Scales entered the lists, followed by nine noblemen on horseback, bearing parts of his harness and arms, and nine pages riding on gaily caparisoned steeds. They advanced to the King, and after having made their obeisances, they retired to a pavilion at one end of the lists. ”

“ The church of course added her part to secure reverence for an order which was so well calculated to promote all the objects of religion, and vigils, fasts, and prayers speedily became a part of the initiation to knighthood. Power is ever followed by splendour and display; but to use the energetic words of a learned and talented writer of the present day, [11] the knights for long after the first institution of Chivalry, were “simple in their clothing, austere in their morals, humble after victory, firm under misfortune.” ”

“ I have not imposed any dry legal facts and discussions upon my readers; for the incidents attached to the tenure of land called the tenure in chivalry were strictly feudal; and the courts of the constable and marshal, holding cognisance as they did of all matters regarding war, judicial combats, and blazonry of arms, relate not so much to chivalry as to the general preservation of the peace of the land, and the good order of society. ”

“ In their origin all the military orders and most of the religious ones were entirely aristocratic; proofs of gentility of birth were scrupulously examined; and no soldier by the mere force of his valiancy could attain the honours of an order, though such a claim was allowed for his admission into the general fraternity of knighthood. These requisites for nobleness of birth kept pace with the political state of different countries, for the sovereigns of Europe and chivalry did not accord upon any particular form. ”

“ Armour and weapons will be provided in ample store for such cavaliers as shall travel only in palmer’s weeds. All noble ladies who shall be on their pilgrimage unattended by a chivalric escort must be contented to lose their right-hand glove till a knight shall recover it by the valour of his arm.”
When the herald concluded, the King and his council conferred together, and they soon agreed that the laws of chivalry obliged them to consent to the accomplishing of this emprise of arms. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus there were rules for conducting these images of battle which no knight could violate without forfeiting his title to chivalry. The [Pg 262] display of address, with as little danger as possible to life and limb, was the chief character of these encounters, and skill, therefore, in real war, became more esteemed than brute violence. To profit by the mischance of an adversary would, in the tournament, have been considered unknightly; and it followed that even in the most deadly encounters of nations no cavalier would avail himself of any accident happening to his foe. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The mind flew back to history, and was revelling in all the romance of chivalry, from King Arthur and his Knights, to the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
“Yet, after all,” thought I, at the end of a long reverie, “divest chivalry, so called, of its imposing effect, examine well into its nature and the manners of the times, and it must be acknowledged that the modern warfare has a much greater claim than the ancient to the title of chivalry. ”

“ But the new bands of stipendiary adventurers were never a very important branch of the French military force, for the kings could not pay for many; and these hired soldiers were commonly infantry or lightly armed horse, who could not contend in the battle-field with mail-clad knights and squires. National feelings favoured the constitutional levy; and the kings endeavoured to render the country’s chivalry of sufficient service by enlarging the time of their attendance. ”

“ Except in the occasional adventurousness of knights-errant, chivalry was but once concerned in repressing the evils of the time, and interwoven with the interesting circumstances of that occasion is one of the most amusing stories in all the long annals of knighthood. The citizens, in conveying their merchandizes from one place to another, suffered dreadfully from the rapine of the barons; and finding the weapons used by common people were an insufficient protection, they wisely and boldly armed themselves in the manner of their enemies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the French recovered from their astonishment, they mounted their steeds, and rode into the field in military array; but there they found the English archers ready to receive them, and those bold yeomen shot so fiercely that they slew many men and horses. On the other side of the castle there was a noble display of French chivalry; and the Englishmen, having overcome those who were near the tents, dashed boldly among them. Many noble deeds of arms were done, knights were taken and rescued, and the English cause triumphed ”

“ 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!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ In countries where the bow was not used, the weapons of the men-at-arms were generally the lance and the sword. This was the case when the knight led his personal retainers to battle; but when his followers were the people of any particular town which he protected, few chivalric arms were borne, and the bill more frequently than the spear was brought into the field. The cross-bow can hardly be considered a weapon of chivalry. ”

“ The bath—confession—vigil in a church—mass—the spurs—the girding with the sword—the accolade,—these were the chief ceremonies. The knight by his oath expressed willingness to die either for the defence of his law, or of his king or country. [177] The sword was then ungirt from him by some person of honour, who by so doing was supposed to become his padrino, or godfather in chivalry, and to confirm the knighthood thus bestowed. No circumstances could ever justify the cavalier in bearing arms against his padrino. ”

“ They have no pity if they have the upper hand; [Pg 311] and they demean themselves with cruelty to their prisoners: they put them to sundry pains, to compel them to make their ransoms the greater; and if they have a lord, or a great man, for their captive, they make great joy thereof, and will convey him into Bohemia, Austria, or Saxony, and keep him in some uninhabitable castle. They are people worse than Saracens or paynims; for their excessive covetousness quencheth the knowledge of honour.” [217]
Little influence of German chivalry. ”

“ Here we see the germ, if not of the duties of the squire to the knight, yet of the feeling which suggested their performance. The beautiful subordination of chivalry had its origin in the domestic relations of life; obedience became virtuous when nature sanctioned it, and there could be no loss of personal consideration in a youth performing services which his own father had performed, and which, as years and circumstances advanced, would be rendered to himself. ”

“ But when the Hundred Years’ War brought a real national conflict between England and France, when archery became of supreme importance, and a large proportion even of the cavalry were mercenary soldiers, then the exigencies of serious warfare swept away much of that outward display and those class-conventions on which chivalry had always rested. ”

“ The superiority of the chivalric array of the various lords and feudal princes of Italy to the militia of the cities [230] was one great cause of that great political revolution,—the change of the republics into tyrannies. The power of knights over armed burghers having been experienced, and the towns not possessing in sufficient numbers a force of cavalry, the practice arose of hiring the service of bodies of lancers, who were commonly gentlemen of small fortune but of great pretensions, and who found war the readiest way of gratifying their proud and luxurious desires. ”

“ The cavalry and infantry were arranged in the old system: the lance was the weapon of those of gentle birth, while the bow and the bill were used by people of inferior state. Comines, who wrote about the close of the fifteenth century, says, that the archers formed the main strength of a battle. [97]
He exaggerates the evil.
Though the civil wars had injured, they had not altogether destroyed the spirit of chivalry. There was yet enough of it remaining among the people to have borne its old shape and appearance, if England had once more been possessed of a Black Prince or a Harry Monmouth. ”

“ All the dangers and difficulties of chivalry they resign to those who serve them, and in the mean time they so richly gild their shields, and adorn their camps, that every one of them looks not a scholar but a chieftain of war. [242]
All this splenetic declamation involves charges of coxcombry, luxury, and cowardice. That knights were often guilty of the first offence is probable enough, for all their minute attention to the form and fashion of armour could not but attach their minds too strongly to the effect of their personal appearance. ”