III.

CHIVALRY

 

THE call for the crusades, while appealing powerfully to the warlike disposition of the people, would not have succeeded in rousing Europe had there not been in the popular heart at least the germs of nobler sentiment. The vitality of conscience notwithstanding its degradation, and an inclination towards the exercise of the finer graces of conduct in spite of the prevalent grossness, manifested themselves in the rise of Chivalry.

The picturesqueness of knight-errantry, and the glamour thrown over the subject by poetry and romance, may mislead us as to the real character of this institution. We must distinguish between the ideals of knighthood and the actual lives of those who, from various motives, thronged the profession. We must not confound the Chivalry of these earlier and ruder ages with that of its more refined, though somewhat effeminate, later days. It would be an equal mistake to pose the half-savage Saxon for a picture of the gallant Provençal, because they were fellows of the same order. But, making all allowance for variations, defects, and perversions in Chivalry, the institution went far towards redeeming the character of the middle ages. Among the articles of the chivalric code were the following:

To fight for the faith of Christ. In illustration of this part of his vow, the knight always stood with bared head and unsheathed sword during the reading of the lesson from the gospels in the church service.

To serve faithfully prince and fatherland.

To defend the weak, especially widows, orphans, and damsels.

To do nothing for greed, but everything for glory.

To keep one's word, even returning to prison or death if, having been captured in fair fight, one had promised to do so.

Together with these vows of real virtue were others, which signified more for the carnal pride of the warrior, e.g. :

Never to fight in companies against one opponent.

To wear but one sword, unless the enemy displayed more than one.

Not to put off armor while upon an adventure, except for a night's rest.

Never to turn out of a straight road in order to avoid danger from man, beast, or monster.

Never to decline a challenge to equal combat, un­less compelled to do so by wounds, sickness, or other equally reasonable hindrance.

 

The aspirant for knighthood began his career in early boyhood by attending some superior as his page.   Lads of noblest families sought to be attached to the persons of those renowned in the order, though not to their own fathers, lest their discipline should be over-indulgent. Frequently knights of special note for valor and skill at arms opened schools for the training of youth. The page was expected to wait upon his lord as a body-servant in the bedchamber, the dining-hall, and, when consistent with his tender years, upon the journey and in the camp. It was a maxim of the code that one "should learn to obey before attempting to govern."

With the development of manly strength, at about his fourteenth year the page became an esquire. He then burnished and repaired the armor of his chief, broke his steeds, led his charger, and carried his shield to the field of battle. In the mêlée he fought by his master's side, nursed him when wounded, and valued his own life as naught when weighed against his lord's safety or honor.

The faithful esquire was adubbed a knight at the will and by the hand of his superior. This honor was sometimes awarded on the field of conflict for a specially valiant deed. More commonly the heroic subalterns were summoned to receive the coveted prize when the fight was done. More than one in­stance is mentioned where the esquire bowed his head beneath the dead hand of his master and there assumed the duty of completing the enterprise in which his chief had fallen. Ordinarily, however, the cere­mony was held in the castle hall, or in later times in the church, on the occasion of some festival or upon the candidate's reaching the year of his majority.

Rites.

The rite of admission to knighthood was made as impressive as possible. The young-man, having come from the bath, was clothed in a white tunic, expressive of the purity of his purpose; then in a red robe, symbolical of the blood he was ready to shed; and in a black coat, to remind him of the death that might speedily be his portion. After fasting, the candidate spent the night in prayer. In the morning the priest administered to him the holy com­munion, and blessed the sword which hung from his neck. Attendant knights and ladies then clothed him in his armor. Kneeling at the feet of the lord, he received from him the accolade, three blows with the flat of the sword upon his shoulder, with the repetition of the formula, "In the name of God, St. Michael, and St. George, I make you a knight."

More impressive, because more unusual, was the ceremony of his degradation, if he broke his plighted faith or forfeited his honor. He was exposed on a platform, stripped of his armor, which was broken to pieces and thrown upon a dunghill. His shield was dragged in the dirt by a cart-horse, his own charger's tail was cut off, while he was himself carried into a church on a litter, and forced to listen to the burial service, since he was now to move among men as one who was dead to the honor for which he had vowed to live.

The chief defect of Chivalry was that, while it displayed some of the finer sentiments of the soul in contrast with the general grossness of the age, it did not aspire to the highest motives as these were felt in the early days of Christianity and as they are again apprehended in modern times. Notwithstanding the vow of devotion, there was little that was altruistic about it. The thought of the devotee was ultimately upon himself, his renown and glory. His crested helmet, his gilded spurs, his horse in housing of gold, and the scarlet silk which marked him as apart from and above his fellows, were not promotive of that humility and self-forgetfulness from which all great moral actions spring. Our modern characterization of the proud man is borrowed from the knight's leaving his palfrey and mounting his charger, or, as it was called, getting "on his high horse". In battle the personality of the knight was not, as in the case of the modern soldier, merged in the autonomy of the brigade or squadron; he appeared singly against a selected antagonist of equal rank with his own, so that the field presented the appearance of a multitude of private combats. In the lull of regular warfare he sought solitary adventures for gaining renown, and often challenged his companions in arms to contest with him the palm of greater glory.

Writers aptly liken the mediaeval knights to the heroic chiefs of Arabia, and even of the American Indians, to whom personal prowess is more than patriotism. Hallam would choose as the finest representative of the chivalric spirit the Greek Achilles, who could fight valiantly, or sulk in his tent regardless of the cause, when his individual honor or right seemed to be menaced. The association of Chivalry with gallantry, though prompted by the benevolent motive of helping the weak or paying homage to woman as the embodiment of the pure and beautiful, did not always serve these high purposes. The  "love of God and the ladies", enjoined as a single duty, was often to the detriment of the religious part of the obligation. The fair one who was championed in the tournament was apt to be sought beyond the lists. The poetry of the Troubadours shows how the purest and most delicate sentiment next to the religious, the love of man for woman, became debauched by a custom which flaunted amid the brutal scenes of the combat the name of her whose glory is her modesty, and often made her virtue the prize of the ring.

Doubtless the good knight felt that the altar of his consecration was not high enough. Even his vow to defend the faith had, within the bounds of Christendom, little field where it could be honored by exploit of arms. To take his part in the miserable quarrels that were chronic between rival popes, or in the wars of the imperial against the prelatic powers, both professedly Christian, could not satisfy any really religious desires he may have felt. The chivalric spirit thus kindled the aspiration for an ideal which it could not furnish. If the soldier of the cross must wear armor, he would find no satisfaction unless he sheathed his sword in the flesh of the Infidels, whose hordes were gathering beyond the borders of Christendom. The institution of Chivalry thus prepared the way for the crusades, which afforded a field for all its physical heroism, while at the same time these great movements stimulated and gratified what to this superstitious age was the deepest religious impulse.