CHIVALRY—RULES—EDUCATION OF KNIGHT—CEREMONIES—INFLUENCE ON CHARACTER.
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 widow’s, 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.
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 thee 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 mediæval 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.