(i.) THE GARTER; (ii) THE COLLAR AND GEORGE; (iii.) THE LESSER GEORGE
AND RIBBON; (iv.) STAR.
_Drawn by William Gibb._
_Niagara Litho. Co., Buffalo, N. Y._]
The knight bachelor whose services and landed possessions entitled him
to promotion would apply formally to the commander in the field for the
title of banneret. If this were granted, the heralds were called to cut
publicly the tails from his pennon: or the commander, as a special
honour, might cut them off with his own hands.[37] The earliest
contemporary mention of knights banneret is in France, Daniel says, in
the reign of Philip Augustus, and in England, Selden says in the reign
of Edward I. But in neither case is reference made to them in such a
manner as to suggest that the dignity was then regarded as new or even
uncommon, and it seems pretty certain that its existence on one side
could not have long preceded its existence on the other side of the
Channel. Sir Alan Plokenet, Sir Ralph Daubeney and Sir Philip Daubeney
are entered as bannerets on the roll of the garrison of Caermarthen
Castle in 1282, and the roll of Carlaverock records the names and arms
of eighty-five bannerets who accompanied Edward I. in his expedition
into Scotland in 1300.
What the exact contingent was which bannerets were expected to supply to
the royal host is doubtful.[38] But, however this may be, in the reign
of Edward III. and afterwards bannerets appear as the commanders of a
military force raised by themselves and marshalled under their banners:
their status and their relations both to the crown and to their
followers were mainly the consequences of voluntary contract not of
feudal tenure. It is from the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. also
that the two best descriptions we possess of the actual creation of a
banneret have been transmitted to us.[39] Sir Thomas Smith, writing
towards the end of the 16th century, says, after noticing the conditions
to be observed in the creation of bannerets, "but this order is almost
grown out of use in England";[40] and, during the controversy which
arose between the new order of baronets and the crown early in the 17th
century respecting their precedence, it was alleged without
contradiction in an argument on behalf of the baronets before the privy
council that "there are not bannerets now in being, peradventure never
shall be."[41] Sir Ralph Fane, Sir Francis Bryan and Sir Ralph Sadler
were created bannerets by the Lord Protector Somerset after the battle
of Pinkie in 1547, and the better opinion is that this was the last
occasion on which the dignity was conferred. It has been stated indeed
that Charles I. created Sir John Smith a banneret after the battle of
Edgehill in 1642 for having rescued the royal standard from the enemy.
But of this there is no sufficient proof. It was also supposed that
George III. had created several naval officers bannerets towards the end
of the last century, because he knighted them on board ship under the
royal standard displayed. This, however, is unquestionably an error.[42]
Existing Orders of Knighthood.
On the continent of Europe the degree of knight bachelor disappeared
with the military system which had given rise to it. It is now therefore
peculiar to the British Empire, where, although very frequently
conferred by letters patent, it is yet the only dignity which is still
even occasionally created--as every dignity was formerly created--by
means of a ceremony in which the sovereign and the subject personally
take part. Everywhere else dubbing or the accolade seems to have become
obsolete, and no other species of knighthood, if knighthood it can be
called, is known except that which is dependent on admission to some
particular order. It is a common error to suppose that baronets are
hereditary knights. Baronets are not knights unless they are knighted
like anybody else; and, so far from being knights because they are
baronets, one of the privileges granted to them shortly after the
institution of their dignity was that they, not being knights, and their
successors and their eldest sons and heirs-apparent should, when they
attained their majority, be entitled if they desired to receive
knighthood.[43] It is a maxim of the law indeed that, as Coke says, "the
knight is by creation and not by descent," and, although we hear of such
designations as the "knight of Kerry" or the "knight of Glin," they are
no more than traditional nicknames, and do not by any means imply that
the persons to whom they are applied are knights in a legitimate sense.
Notwithstanding, however, that simple knighthood has gone out of use
abroad, there are innumerable grand crosses, commanders and companions
of a formidable assortment of orders in almost every part of the
world.[44] (See the section on "Orders of Knighthood" below.)
The United Kingdom has eight orders of knighthood--the Garter, the
Thistle, St Patrick, the Bath, the Star of India, St Michael and St
George, the Indian Empire and the Royal Victorian Order; and, while the
first is undoubtedly the oldest as well as the most illustrious anywhere
existing, a fictitious antiquity has been claimed and is even still
frequently conceded to the second and fourth, although the third,
fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth appear to be as contentedly as they
are unquestionably recent.
Order of the Garter.
It is, however, certain that the "most noble" Order of the Garter at
least was instituted in the middle of the 14th century, when English
chivalry was outwardly brightest and the court most magnificent. But in
what particular year this event occurred is and has been the subject of
much difference of opinion. All the original records of the order until
after 1416 have perished, and consequently the question depends for its
settlement not on direct testimony but on inference from circumstances.
The dates which have been selected vary from 1344 (given by Froissart,
but almost certainly mistaken) to 1351. The evidence may be examined at
length in Nicolas and Beltz; it is indisputable that in the wardrobe
account from September 1347 to January 1349, the 21st and 23rd Edward
III., the issue of certain habits with garters and the motto embroidered
on them is marked for St George's Day; that the letters patent relating
to the preparation of the royal chapel of Windsor are dated in August
1348; and that in the treasury accounts of the prince of Wales there is
an entry in November 1348 of the gift by him of "twenty-four garters to
the knights of the Society of the Garter."[45] But that the order,
although from this manifestly already fully constituted in the autumn of
1348, was not in existence before the summer of 1346 Sir Harris Nicolas
proves pretty conclusively by pointing out that nobody who was not a
knight could under its statutes have been admitted to it, and that
neither the prince of Wales nor several others of the original
companions were knighted until the middle of that year.
Regarding the occasion there has been almost as much controversy as
regarding the date of its foundation. The "vulgar and more general
story," as Ashmole calls it, is that of the countess of Salisbury's
garter. But commentators are not at one as to which countess of
Salisbury was the heroine of the adventure, whether she was Katherine
Montacute or Joan the Fair Maid of Kent, while Heylyn rejects the legend
as "a vain and idle romance derogatory both to the founder and the
order, first published by Polydor Vergil, a stranger to the affairs of
England, and by him taken upon no better ground than fama vulgi, the
tradition of the common people, too trifling a foundation for so great a
building."[46]
Another legend is that contained in the preface to the Register or Black
Book of the order, compiled in the reign of Henry VIII., by what
authority supported is unknown, that Richard I., while his forces were
employed against Cyprus and Acre, had been inspired through the
instrumentality of St George with renewed courage and the means of
animating his fatigued soldiers by the device of tying about the legs of
a chosen number of knights a leathern thong or garter, to the end that
being thereby reminded of the honour of their enterprise they might be
encouraged to redoubled efforts for victory. This was supposed to have
been in the mind of Edward III. when he fixed on the garter as the
emblem of the order, and it was stated so to have been by Taylor, master
of the rolls, in his address to Francis I. of France on his investiture
in 1527.[47] According to Ashmole the true account of the matter is that
"King Edward having given forth his own garter as the signal for a
battle which sped fortunately (which with Du Chesne we conceive to be
that of Crécy), the victory, we say, being happily gained, he thence
took occasion to institute this order, and gave the garter (assumed by
him for the symbol of unity and society) preeminence among the ensigns
of it." But, as Sir Harris Nicolas points out--although Ashmole is not
open to the correction--this hypothesis rests for its plausibility on
the assumption that the order was established before the invasion of
France in 1346. And he further observes that "a great variety of
devices and mottoes were used by Edward III.; they were chosen from the
most trivial causes and were of an amorous rather than of a military
character. Nothing," he adds, "is more likely than that in a crowded
assembly a lady should accidentally have dropped her garter; that the
circumstance should have caused a smile in the bystanders; and that on
its being taken up by Edward he should have reproved the levity of his
courtiers by so happy and chivalrous an exclamation, placing the garter
at the same time on his own knee, as 'Dishonoured be he who thinks ill
of it.' Such a circumstance occurring at a time of general festivity,
when devices, mottoes and conceits of all kinds were adopted as
ornaments or badges of the habits worn at jousts and tournaments, would
naturally have been commemorated as other royal expressions seem to have
been by its conversion into a device and motto for the dresses at an
approaching hastilude."[48] Moreover, Sir Harris Nicolas contends that
the order had no loftier immediate origin than a joust or tournament. It
consisted of the king and the Black Prince, and 24 knights divided into
two bands of 12 like the tilters in a hastilude----at the head of the
one being the first, and of the other the second; and to the companions
belonging to each, when the order had superseded the Round Table and had
become a permanent institution, were assigned stalls either on the
sovereign's or the prince's side of St George's Chapel. That Sir Harris
Nicolas is accurate in this conjecture seems probable from the selection
which was made of the "founder knights." As Beltz observes, the fame of
Sir Reginald Cobham, Sir Walter Manny and the earls of Northampton,
Hereford and Suffolk was already established by their warlike exploits,
and they would certainly have been among the original companions had the
order been then regarded as the reward of military merit only. But,
although these eminent warriors were subsequently elected as vacancies
occurred, their admission was postponed to that of several very young
and in actual warfare comparatively unknown knights, whose claims to the
honour may be most rationally explained on the assumption that they had
excelled in the particular feats of arms which preceded the institution
of the order. The original companionship had consisted of the sovereign
and 25 knights, and no change was made in this respect until 1786, when
the sons of George III. and his successors were made eligible
notwithstanding that the chapter might be complete. In 1805 another
alteration was effected by the provision that the lineal descendants of
George II. should be eligible in the same manner, except the Prince of
Wales for the time being, who was declared to be "a constituent part of
the original institution"; and again in 1831 it was further ordained
that the privilege accorded to the lineal descendants of George II.
should extend to the lineal descendants of George I. Although, as Sir
Harris Nicolas observes, nothing is now known of the form of admitting
ladies into the order, the description applied to them in the records
during the 14th and 15th centuries leaves no doubt that they were
regularly received into it. The queen consort, the wives and daughters
of knights, and some other women of exalted position, were designated
"Dames de la Fraternité de St George," and entries of the delivery of
robes and garters to them are found at intervals in the Wardrobe
Accounts from the 50th Edward III. (1376) to the 10th of Henry VII.
(1495), the first being Isabel, countess of Bedford, the daughter of the
one king, and the last being Margaret and Elizabeth, the daughters of
the other king. The effigies of Margaret Byron, wife of Sir Robert
Harcourt, K.G., at Stanton Harcourt, and of Alice Chaucer, wife of
William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, K.G., at Ewelme, which date from
the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV., have garters on their left arms.
(See further under "Orders of Knighthood" below.)
Persons empowered to confer Knighthood.
It has been the general opinion, as expressed by Sainte Palaye and
Mills, that formerly all knights were qualified to confer
knighthood.[49] But it may be questioned whether the privilege was thus
indiscriminately enjoyed even in the earlier days of chivalry. It is
true that as much might be inferred from the testimony of the romance
writers; historical evidence, however, tends to limit the proposition,
and the sounder conclusion appears to be, as Sir Harris Nicolas says,
that the right was always restricted in operation to sovereign princes,
to those acting under their authority or sanction, and to a few other
personages of exalted rank and station.[50] In several of the writs for
distraint of knighthood from Henry III. to Edward III. a distinction is
drawn between those who are to be knighted by the king himself or by the
sheriffs of counties respectively, and bishops and abbots could make
knights in the 11th and 12th centuries.[51] At all periods the
commanders of the royal armies had the power of conferring knighthood;
as late as the reign of Elizabeth it was exercised among others by Sir
Henry Sidney in 1583, and Robert, earl of Essex, in 1595, while under
James I. an ordinance of 1622, confirmed by a proclamation of 1623, for
the registration of knights in the college of arms, is rendered
applicable to all who should receive knighthood from either the king or
any of his lieutenants.[52] Many sovereigns, too, both of England and of
France, have been knighted after their accession to the throne by their
own subjects, as, for instance, Edward III. by Henry, earl of Lancaster,
Edward VI. by the lord protector Somerset, Louis XI. by Philip, duke of
Burgundy, and Francis I. by the Chevalier Bayard. But when in 1543 Henry
VIII. appointed Sir John Wallop to be captain of Guisnes, it was
considered necessary that he should be authorized in express terms to
confer knighthood, which was also done by Edward VI. in his own case
when he received knighthood from the duke of Somerset.[53] But at
present the only subject to whom the right of conferring knighthood
belongs is the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and to him it belongs merely
by long usage and established custom. But, by whomsoever conferred,
knighthood at one time endowed the recipient with the same status and
attributes in every country wherein chivalry was recognized. In the
middle ages it was a common practice for sovereigns and princes to dub
each other knights much as they were afterwards, and are now, in the
habit of exchanging the stars and ribbons of their orders. Henry II. was
knighted by his great-uncle David I. of Scotland, Alexander III. of
Scotland by Henry III., Edward I. when he was prince by Alphonso X. of
Castile, and Ferdinand of Portugal by Edmund of Langley, earl of
Cambridge.[54] And, long after the military importance of knighthood had
practically disappeared, what may be called its cosmopolitan character
was maintained: a knight's title was recognized in all European
countries, and not only in that country in which he had received it. In
modern times, however, by certain regulations, made in 1823, and
repeated and enlarged in 1855, not only is it provided that the
sovereign's permission by royal warrant shall be necessary for the
reception by a British subject of any foreign order of knighthood, but
further that such permission shall not authorize "the assumption of any
style, appellation, rank, precedence, or privilege appertaining to a
knight bachelor of the United Kingdom."[55]
Degradation.
Since knighthood was accorded either by actual investiture or its
equivalent, a counter process of degradation was regarded as necessary
for the purpose of depriving anybody who had once received it of the
rank and condition it implied.[56] The cases in which a knight has been
formally degraded in England are exceedingly few, so few indeed that two
only are mentioned by Segar, writing in 1602, and Dallaway says that
only three were on record in the College of Arms when he wrote in 1793.
The last case was that of Sir Francis Michell in 1621, whose spurs were
hacked from his heels, his sword-belt cut, and his sword broken over his
head by the heralds in Westminster Hall.[57]
Roughly speaking, the age of chivalry properly so called may be said to
have extended from the beginning of the crusades to the end of the Wars
of the Roses. Even in the way of pageantry and martial exercise it did
not long survive the middle ages. In England tilts and tourneys, in
which her father had so much excelled, were patronized to the last by
Queen Elizabeth, and were even occasionally held until after the death
of Henry, prince of Wales. But on the Continent they were discredited by
the fatal accident which befell Henry II. of France in 1559. The golden
age of chivalry has been variously located. Most writers would place it
in the early 13th century, but Gautier would remove it two or three
generations further back. It may be true that, in the comparative
scarcity of historical evidence, 12th-century romances present a more
favourable picture of chivalry at that earlier time; but even such
historical evidence as we possess, when carefully scrutinized, is enough
to dispel the illusion that there was any period of the middle ages in
which the unselfish championship of "God and the ladies" was anything
but a rare exception.
It is difficult to describe the true spirit and moral influence of
knighthood, if only because the ages in which it flourished differed so
widely from our own. At its very best, it was always hampered by the
limitations of medieval society. Moreover, many of the noblest precepts
of the knightly code were a legacy from earlier ages, and have survived
the decay of knighthood just as they will survive all transitory human
institutions, forming part of the eternal heritage of the race. Indeed,
the most important of these precepts did not even attain to their
highest development in the middle ages. As a conscious effort to bring
religion into daily life, chivalry was less successful than later
puritanism; while the educated classes of our own day far surpass the
average medieval knight in discipline, self-control and outward or
inward refinement. Freeman's estimate comes far nearer to the historical
facts than Burke's: "The chivalrous spirit is above all things a class
spirit. The good knight is bound to endless fantastic courtesies towards
men and still more towards women of a certain rank; he may treat all
below that rank with any decree of scorn and cruelty. The spirit of
chivalry implies the arbitrary choice of one or two virtues to be
practised in such an exaggerated degree as to become vices, while the
ordinary laws of right and wrong are forgotten. The false code of honour
supplants the laws of the commonwealth, the law of God and the eternal
principles of right. Chivalry again in its military aspect not only
encourages the love of war for its own sake without regard to the cause
for which war is waged, it encourages also an extravagant regard for a
fantastic show of personal daring which cannot in any way advance the
objects of the siege or campaign which is going on. Chivalry in short is
in morals very much what feudalism is in law: each substitutes purely
personal obligations devised in the interests of an exclusive class, for
the more homely duties of an honest man and a good citizen" (_Norman
Conquest_, v. 482). The chivalry from which Burke drew his ideas was, so
far as it existed at all, the product of a far later age. In its own
age, chivalry rested practically, like the highest civilization of
ancient Greece and Rome, on slave labour;[58] and if many of its most
brilliant outward attractions have now faded for ever, this is only
because modern civilization tends so strongly to remove social barriers.
The knightly ages will always enjoy the glory of having formulated a
code of honour which aimed at rendering the upper classes worthy of
their exceptional privileges; yet we must judge chivalry not only by its
formal code but also by its practical fruits. The ideal is well summed
up by F. W. Cornish: "Chivalry taught the world the duty of noble
service willingly rendered. It upheld courage and enterprise in
obedience to rule, it consecrated military prowess to the service of the
Church, glorified the virtues of liberality, good faith, unselfishness
and courtesy, and above all, courtesy to women. Against these may be set
the vices of pride, ostentation, love of bloodshed, contempt of
inferiors, and loose manners. Chivalry was an imperfect discipline, but
it was a discipline, and one fit for the times. It may have existed in
the world too long: it did not come into existence too early; and with
all its shortcomings it exercised a great and wholesome influence in
raising the medieval world from barbarism to civilization" (p. 27). This
was the ideal, but to give the reader a clear view of the actual
features of knightly society in their contrast with that of our own day,
it is necessary to bring out one or two very significant shadows.
Far too much has been made of the extent to which the knightly code, and
the reverence paid to the Virgin Mary, raised the position of women
(e.g. Gautier, p. 360). As Gautier himself admits, the feudal system
made it difficult to separate the woman's person from her fief: instead
of the freedom of Christian marriage on which the Church in theory
insisted, lands and women were handed over together, as a business
bargain, by parents or guardians. In theory, the knight was the defender
of widows and orphans; but in practice wardships and marriages were
bought and sold as a matter of everyday routine like stocks and shares
in the modern market. Lord Thomas de Berkeley (1245-1321) counted on
this as a regular and considerable source of income (Smyth, _Lives_, i.
157). Late in the 15th century, in spite of the somewhat greater liberty
of that age, we find Stephen Scrope writing nakedly to a familiar
correspondent "for very need [of poverty], I was fain to sell a little
daughter I have for much less than I should have done by possibility,"
i.e. than the fair market price (Gairdner, _Paston Letters_,
Introduction, p. clxxvi; cf. ccclxxi). Startling as such words are, it
is perhaps still more startling to find how frequently and naturally, in
the highest society, ladies were degraded by personal violence. The
proofs of this which Schultz and Gautier adduce from the _Chansons de
Geste_ might be multiplied indefinitely. The Knight of La Tour-Landry
(1372) relates, by way of warning to his daughters, a tale of a lady who
so irritated her husband by scolding him in company, that he struck her
to the earth with his fist and kicked her in the face, breaking her
nose. Upon this the good knight moralizes: "And this she had for her
euelle and gret langage, that she was wont to saie to her husbonde. And
therfor the wiff aught to suffre and lete her husbonde haue the wordes,
and to be maister, for that is her worshippe; for it is shame to here
striff betwene hem, and in especial before folke. But y saie not but
whanne thei be allone, but she may tolle hym with goodly wordes, and
counsaile hym to amende yef he do amys" (La Tour, chap. xviii.; cf.
xvii. and xix.). The right of wife-beating was formally recognized by
more than one code of laws, and it was already a forward step when, in
the 13th century, the _Coutumes du Beauvoisis_ provided "que le mari ne
doit battre sa femme que _raisonnablement_" (Gautier, p. 349). This was
a natural consequence not only of the want of self-control which we see
everywhere in the middle ages, but also of the custom of contracting
child-marriages for unsentimental considerations. Between 1288 and 1500
five marriages are recorded in the direct line of the Berkeley family in
which the ten contracting parties averaged less than eleven years of
age: the marriage contract of another Lord Berkeley was drawn up before
he was six years old. Moreover, the same business considerations which
dictated those early marriages clashed equally with the strict theory of
knighthood. In the same Berkeley family, the lord Maurice IV. was
knighted in 1338 at the age of seven to avoid the possible evils of
wardship, and Thomas V. for the same reason in 1476 at the age of five.
Smyth's record of this great family shows that, from the middle of the
13th century onwards, the lords were not only statesmen and warriors,
but still more distinguished as gentlemen-farmers on a great scale, even
selling fruit from the castle gardens, while their ladies would go round
on tours of inspection from dairy to dairy. The lord Thomas III.
(1326-1361), who was noted as a special lover of tournaments, spent in
two years only £90, or an average of about £15 per tournament; yet he
was then laying money by at the rate of £450 a year, and, a few years
later, at the rate of £1150, or nearly half his income! Indeed, economic
causes contributed much to the decay of romantic chivalry. The old
families had lost heavily from generation to generation, partly by
personal extravagances, but also by gradual alienations of land to the
Church and by the enormous expenses of the crusades. Already, in the
13th century, they were hard pressed by the growing wealth of the
burghers, and even the greatest nobles could scarcely keep up their
state without careful business management. It is not surprising
therefore, to find that at least as early as the middle of the 13th
century the commercial side of knighthood became very prominent.
Although by the code of chivalry no candidate could be knighted before
the age of twenty-one, we have seen how great nobles like the Berkeleys
obtained that honour for their infant heirs in order to avoid possible
pecuniary loss; and French writers of the 14th century complained of
this knighting of infants as a common and serious abuse.[59] Moreover,
after the knight's liability to personal service in war had been
modified in the 12th century by the scutage system, it became necessary
in the first quarter of the 13th to compel landowners to take up the
knighthood which in theory they should have coveted as an honour--a
compulsion which was soon systematically enforced (_Distraint of
Knighthood_, 1278), and became a recognized source of royal income. An
indirect effect of this system[60] was to break down another rule of the
chivalrous code--that none could be dubbed who was not of gentle
birth.[61] This rule, however, had often been broken before; even the
romances of chivalry speak not infrequently of the knighting of serfs or
_jongleurs_;[62] and other causes besides distraint of knighthood tended
to level the old distinctions. While knighthood was avoided by poor
nobles, it was coveted by rich citizens. It is recorded in 1298 as "an
immemorial custom" in Provence that rich burghers enjoyed the honour of
knighthood; and less than a century later we find Sacchetti complaining
that the dignity is open to any rich upstart, however disreputable his
antecedents.[63] Similar causes contributed to the decay of knightly
ideas in warfare. Even in the 12th century, when war was still rather
the pastime of kings and knights than a national effort, the strict
code of chivalry was more honoured in the breach than in the
observance.[64] 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. Siméon Luce (chap. vi.) has shown how much the English successes
in this war were due to strict business methods. Several of the best
commanders (e.g. Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Thomas Dagworth) were of
obscure birth, while on the French side even Du Guesclin had to wait
long for his knighthood because he belonged only to the lesser nobility.
The tournament again, which for two centuries had been under the ban of
the Church, was often almost as definitely discouraged by Edward III. as
it was encouraged by John of France; and while John's father opened the
Crécy campaign by sending Edward a challenge in due form of chivalry,
Edward took advantage of this formal delay to amuse the French king with
negotiations while he withdrew his army by a rapid march from an almost
hopeless position. A couple of quotations from Froissart will illustrate
the extent to which war had now become a mere business. Much as he
admired the French chivalry, he recognized their impotence at Crécy.
"The sharp arrows ran into the men of arms and into their horses, and
many fell, horse and men.... And also among the Englishmen there were
certain rascals that went afoot with great knives, and they went in
among the men of arms, and slew and murdered many as they lay on the
ground, both earls, barons, knights and squires, whereof the king of
England was after displeased, for he had rather they had been taken
prisoners." How far Edward's solicitude was disinterested may be gauged
from Froissart's parallel remark about the battle of Aljubarrota, where,
as at Agincourt, the handful of victors were obliged by a sudden panic
to slay their prisoners. "Lo, behold the great evil adventure that fell
that Saturday. For they slew as many good prisoners as would well have
been worth, one with another, four hundred thousand franks." In 1402
Lord Thomas de Berkeley bought, as a speculation, 24 Scottish prisoners.
Similar practical considerations forced the nobles of other European
countries either to conform to less sentimental methods of warfare and
to growing conceptions of nationality, or to become mere Ishmaels of the
type which outlived the middle ages in Götz von Berlichingen and his
compeers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Froissart is perhaps the source from which we may
gather most of chivalry in its double aspect, good and bad. The
brilliant side comes out most clearly in Joinville, the _Chronique de
Du Guesclin_, and the _Histoire de Bayart_; the darker side appears in
the earlier chronicles of the crusades, and is especially emphasized
by preachers and moralists like Jacques de Vitry, Étienne de Bourbon,
Nicole Bozon and John Gower. John Smyth's _Lives of the Berkeleys_
(Bristol and Gloucs. Archaeol. Soc, 2 vols.) and the _Book of the
Knight of La Tour-Landry_ (ed. A. de Montaiglon, or in the old English
trans. published by the Early English Text Soc.) throw a very vivid
light on the inner life of noble families. Of modern books, besides
those quoted by their full titles in the notes, the best are A.
Schultz, _Höfisches Leben z. Zeit der Minnesänger_ (Leipzig, 1879); S.
Luce, _Hist. de Du Guesclin et de son Époque_ (2nd ed., Paris, 1882),
masterly but unfortunately unfinished at the author's death; Léon
Gautier, _La Chevalerie_ (Paris, 1883), written with a strong
apologetic bias, but full and correct in its references; and F. W.
Cornish, _Chivalry_ (London, 1901), too little reference to the more
prosaic historical documents, but candid and without intentional
partiality. (G. G. Co.)