_Chivalry did not affect the public History of Germany ... Its
Influence on Imperial Manners ... Intolerance and Cruelty of German
Knights ... Their Harshness to their Squires ... Avarice of the
Germans ... Little Influence of German Chivalry ... A remarkable
Exception to this ... A Female Tournament ... Maximilian, the only
chivalric Emperor of Germany ... Joust between him and a French Knight
... Edict of Frederic III. destroyed Chivalry ..._ CHIVALRY IN
ITALY:--_Lombards carried Chivalry thither ... Stories of chivalric
Gallantry ... But little martial Chivalry in Italy ... Condottieri ...
Chivalry in the North ... Italians excellent Armourers but bad Knights
... Chivalry in the South ... Curious Circumstances attending
Knighthood at Naples ... Mode of creating Knights in Italy generally
... Political Use of Knighthood ... Chivalric Literature ... Chivalric
Sports._
[Sidenote: Chivalry did not affect the public history of Germany.]
Chivalry may be considered either in a political or a military aspect,
either as influencing the destinies of nations, or affecting the mode and
circumstances of war. In Germany it offers to us no circumstances of the
former class. Germany was connected with Italy more than with any other
country of Europe during the middle ages. The wars of the emperors for the
kingdom of Italy did not proceed from any principles or feelings that can
be termed chivalric; nor can any ingenuity torture the fierce contests
between the popes and the emperors into knightly encounters. The chivalry
of Germany seldom appeared in generous rivalry with that of any other
country; and in circumstances which leave no doubt of the issue, if the
chivalry of England or France had been engaged, the Imperial knights
quailed before partially-disciplined militia. In Italy the power of Milan
was more dreaded than that of the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa; and he
subdued the northern states rather by drawing their cities to his side,
which were jealous of the Milanese authority, than by the force of his
chivalry. A few years afterwards the cities of Lombardy formed a league
against him; and when the question of Italian independence was debated in
arms, the militia of the cities triumphed over the flower of German
chivalry in the battle of Legnano. Nor could Germany ever afterwards
thoroughly re-establish her power. Many political circumstances and moral
reasons prevented it; but the weakness of her military arm was the chief
and prevailing cause.
The Germans invented nothing in chivalry, and borrowed nothing from the
superior institutions of other countries. At the commencement of the
fifteenth century the inferiority of their chivalry was plainly displayed.
The German cuirassiers, with whom the Emperor Robert descended into Italy,
could not cope with the condottieri of Jacopo Verme, who protected the
states of Gian Galeazzo Visconti. It was found that the horses of the
Germans were not so well trained as those of the Italians, and the armour
of the knights was heavy and unwieldy; and thus the bigoted attachment of
the Germans to ancient customs saved Italy from subjugation.[210] The
cuirassiers of Germany were equally impotent against the hardy peasantry
of Switzerland.
[Sidenote: Its influence on imperial manners.]
Though not in the public history, yet in what may be called the manners,
of the empire, there was one great chivalric feature. The dignity of
service was strikingly displayed. The proudest nobles were the servants of
the Emperor, his butler, his falconer, his marshal, his chamberlain; and,
insensibly, as every student of German history knows, the principal
officers of state usurped from the other nobles the right of electing the
Emperor.
[Sidenote: Intolerance and cruelty of German knights.]
Chivalry was chiefly known in Germany as the embodying of a ferocious
spirit of religious persecution. The nation, therefore, embarked in the
crusades to the Holy Land with fierceness, unchecked by chivalric
gallantry, and recklessly poured out its best blood in the chace of a
phantom. Prussia, and other countries at the north of Germany, were tardy
in embracing Christianity; and the sword became the instrument of
conversion. The Teutonic knights were particularly active in this pious
work, when the Mamlouk Tartars had driven them from Palestine. In other
countries, the defence of the church, and hostilities against infidels,
though considered as knightly duties, were not protruded beyond other
obligations: but in Germany, so prominently were they placed, that a
cavalier used to hold himself bound, by his general oath of chivalry, to
prepare for battle the moment of a war being declared, either against
infidels or heretics.[211]
The German knight differed in character from the knight of other
countries, though his education was similar. The course of that education
is detailed in one of the most interesting German poems, the Das
Heldenbuch, or Book of Heroes.
"The princes young, were taught to protect all ladies fair,
Priests they bad them honour, and to the mass repair;
All holy Christian lore were they taught, I plight:
Hughdietrick and his noble queen caused priests to guide them right.
Bechtung taught them knightly games; on the warhorse firm to sit;
To leap, and to defend them; rightly the mark to hit;
Cunningly to give the blow, and to throw the lance afar:
Thence the victory they gain'd, in many a bloody war.
Right before their breasts to bear the weighty shield,
In battle and in tournament quaintly the sword to wield;
Strongly to lace the helmets on, when call'd to wage the fight,
All to the royal brothers, Bechtung taught aright.
He taught them o'er the plain far to hurl the weighty rock;
Mighty was their strength, and fearful was the shock:
When o'er the plain resounded the heavy stone aloud,
Six furlongs threw beyond the rest Wolfdieterick the Proud."[212]
[Sidenote: Cruelty of knights to their squires.]
Though the education of the squire in Germany resembled the education of
the squire in other countries, yet his state was not equally happy. The
duties of the German youth were painful; and, though menial, as, indeed,
were many of the duties of all squires, yet they were ungraced by those
softening circumstances of manners which distinguished chivalric nurture
in France and England.[213] The squires, too, were more frequently persons
of humble birth than of gentle condition; and knighthood, therefore, was
not always the reward of their toils. The knights were cruel and severe to
their young attendants. It happened once, and the circumstance illustrates
the general state of manners, that when a knight was in the midst of a
baronial revelling, three of his squires rushed into the hall, with the
wild action of fear, and stood trembling before him. He coldly demanded
where were the rest. As soon as their fear allowed them to speak, they
said that their whole band had been fighting with his enemies, and that
eight of them had fallen. Totally unmoved by the fate of his brave and
devoted young friends, and thinking only of the rigidness of discipline,
he answered, "You are rightly served: who bade you ride without my
orders?"[214] Well, indeed, then, may we say, with the old German
authority for this story, that the man who hath held the office of squire
has learnt what it is to feel the depths of pain and ignominy.
No country was more desolated by private war in the middle ages than
Germany; and chivalry, instead of ameliorating the mode of warfare,
acquired a character of wildness from the perpetual scene of horror.[215]
[Sidenote: Avarice of the Germans.]
There was no Bertrand du Guesclin, no Black Prince, no Manny, no Chandos,
in Germany: there was a rudeness about the knighthood of the Teutonic
cavaliers different from its state in other nations. The humanities, which
it was the principle of Christian chivalry to throw over the rugged front
of war, were but little felt in Germany, though Germany was the very
cradle of chivalry. I need not repeat the cruelties which were inflicted
upon Richard Coeur de Lion, during his return from the Holy Land. Two
centuries afterwards, when chivalry was in its high and palmy state in
other countries, the Germans continued uncourteous knights. They were a
high and proud people, never admitting foreign cavaliers to companionship
and brotherhood. But avarice was their most detestable quality, and
effectually extinguished all sentiments of honour. "When a German hath
taken a prisoner," says Froissart, "he putteth him into irons, and into
hard prison, without any pity, to make him pay the greater finance and
ransom."[216] On the probability arising of a war between Germany and
France, the French counsellors dissuaded their King, Charles V., from
thinking of engaging in it in person, on account of the character of the
enemy. It was said, if the King went into Germany, there would be but
little chance of his returning. "When they (the Germans) shall know that
the King and all the great nobles of France are entered into their
country, they will then assemble all together; and, by their better
knowledge of the land, they may do us great damage; for they are a
covetous people, above all other. They have no pity if they have the upper
hand; 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]
[Sidenote: Little influence of German chivalry.]
As the corrective of the violences of feudal licentiousness, no where was
chivalry more required, and no where was it less known than in Germany. It
is not possible to exaggerate the enormities of the nobility, and, I fear,
of the clergy, during all that long tract of time which is called the age
of chivalry. Each castle was a den of thieves; and an archbishop thought
he had a fair revenue before him, when he built his fortress on the
junction of four roads.[218] To preserve the people from the rapaciousness
and cruelty of these noble and clerical robbers, knights-errant sometimes
scoured the plain; but this mode of corrective was very imperfectly
applied. It was in the cities and towns, which were protected by the
Emperors, that the oppressed and injured people found refuge. While the
German historians seldom mention the protecting influence of
knight-errantry, they constantly represent the benefit of towns, and press
the fact upon the readers, that it was the tyranny of the nobles which
occasioned their growth. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there
were confederacies among towns, and confederacies among the nobility: the
former associations were formed in order to repel the aggressions of the
latter. This is a feature in German history totally unknown to other
countries of the great republic of Europe, and distinct from all chivalric
origin or chivalric effects.
[Sidenote: A remarkable exception to this.]
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. They wielded the lance
and sword, rode the heavy war-horse, practised tournaments and other
martial games, and even attended tournaments in castles and courts;
assuming for the occasion the armorial distinctions of noble families who
were distant from the scene. So much did this state of citizenship
resemble that of knighthood, that all the castles on the Rhine were not
inhabited by barons and knights only.
[Sidenote: A female tournament.]
In the fourteenth century, a band of bold and wealthy burghers established
themselves with their wives and children in one of the largest of these
fortresses, as a barrier against the maraudings of the nobility. They
became so powerful, and their deportment was so chivalric, that some of
the neighbouring knights formed alliances with them. A potent baron
harassed them in various ways; and after various battles, each party was
willing that words, and not the sword, should terminate the war. They
accordingly met on a spot of border-land, and, after arranging the
immediate subject of dispute, they embraced as brothers in chivalry. While
these citizen-knights were absent, the women, who remained behind,
joyfully assembled on a sunny plain, which spread itself before the
castle. They walked up and down, each lady praising the martial qualities
of her lord. As the discourse proceeded, they became inspired with that
heroic courage which they were commending, till at length they ordered the
war-horses to be brought out with armour and weapons, resolving to hold a
tournament. They were soon mounted and armed, and they took the names of
their husbands. There was a maiden among them, and as modesty forbad her
to take the name of any man of her own station in life, she chose the
title of a neighbouring duke. She performed the martial exercises with
such strength and adroitness, that most of the married women were cast by
her from their saddles, and paid dearly, by their wounds, for their
temerity and adventurousness. They then left the plain, and such of them
as were injured retired to their chambers, strictly charging the servants
and pages to make no disclosure of what had passed. When the knights
returned, and found the horses covered with foam and dust, and few ladies
to greet them, they enquired the cause of this unwonted appearance. For a
while no answer could be gained; but at length they terrified a boy into a
detail of the story. They laughed right merrily at the folly of their
wives; and when, soon afterwards, they met some of the Rhenish knights at
a festival, they made the hall echo with the tale, and it was soon bruited
over all Germany. The duke, under whose name the honours of the tournament
had been won, was surprised and pleased with the heroism of the maiden. He
sought her out, gave her rich presents, not only in money, but a war-steed
and a gentle palfrey, and united her in honourable marriage to a wealthy
burgher.[219]
[Sidenote: Maximilian the only chivalric emperor of Germany.]
In the character of the emperors of Germany, as seen in their public
lives, little of the chivalric nature can be marked. The Fredericks and
the Othos more nearly resemble our Norman Williams, than our Plantagenet
Edwards. It is singular that the only chivalric emperor in Germany was the
Prince in whose reign German chivalry expired. Maximilian I. was educated
in the strictest discipline of chivalry. All his youthful studies and
occupations had relation to his chivalric deportment; and German writers
have been fond of remarking, that while he was a mere child, he and
another boy were wont to ride on men's backs, and fight with wooden swords
in imitation of a joust.[220]
[Sidenote: Joust between him and a French knight.]
He was afterwards a very gallant cavalier. When in the year 1495, he was
holding his states at Worms, a French knight, named Claude de Batre,
arrived at the city, and proclaimed by his herald that he was ready to
meet in combat any German knight who was willing to stake life, limb, or
liberty, or contend for any knightly distinction in a personal encounter.
Among the nobles and knights that were present, no one seemed willing to
accept the challenge; for, besides the report of the Frenchman's gigantic
strength, fame had armed him with supernatural and satanic powers. The
courageous Maximilian could not endure to see the German chivalry braved
and bearded by a stranger, and he sent a herald with his own shield,
ornamented with the arms of Austria and Burgundy, to lay it alongside that
of the Frenchman. The Emperor and the knight then agreed that on the
morning of the tenth day from that time they would appear in public,
armed, and fight to the utterance. The person of the conquered was to
remain at the victor's disposal. The joust was regarded as a matter of
more interest and importance than the public affairs which the Diet was
assembled to arrange. On the appointed morning all the brave, and all the
fair of Germany, met round the splendid lists which the Emperor had
erected for the purpose. The herald's trumpet centered the attention of
the spectators,--its second flourish hushed every murmur,--and when its
third and loudest blast sounded, Maximilian and Claude de Batre pricked
forwards at speed through opposite gates into the lists, and opposed lance
to lance. Their weapons splintered, and they drew their swords. The fight
was long and obstinate; but the skill of the French knight only served to
exalt the heroism of the Emperor: for, finally, Maximilian disarmed his
antagonist, and proved the excellence of the German chivalry.[221]
[Sidenote: Edicts of Frederick III. destroyed chivalry.]
It was Frederic III., the father of Maximilian, who gave the first blow to
the ancient chivalry of Germany. He passed an edict allowing citizens to
receive knighthood; a permission which tarnished the splendour of the
order, and disgusted the old cavaliers.[222] This measure was a fatal one;
for Germany above all other countries had been jealous of the pure
nobility of its knighthood. Knighthood was more the adjunct of rank than
the reward of merit; and the Germans were more solicitous to examine the
quarters of a shield than the martial deserts of the bearer, more desirous
to mark his ancestors' deeds than his own. The edict of Frederic destroyed
the pride of chivalry. Knighthood was then conferred on boys who were
scarcely able to perform the duties of squires, and on children at the
baptismal font. But, in truth, the destruction of knighthood in Germany
was no real evil. Chivalry had not been a perfect defence of the empire,
as the Austrians and Swabians had found in their contests with the
Hungarians.
On one occasion, in particular, during the thirteenth century, the knights
and squires of Germany were sorely galled on the plains of Hungary by the
arrows of the enemy, and vainly wished for a close and personal encounter.
An Austrian archer advised the chivalry with whom he served to retreat,
and draw the Hungarians far from their homes. This counsel the knights and
squires, from pride and suspicion of the man's fidelity, rejected; but the
danger pressed, the showers of arrows became thicker and more frequent,
and the Austrian and Swabian horses being but partially barded, were
either slain or rendered unmanageable. Each knight watched the countenance
of his companion, to read in it hope or advice, till at length one of them
exclaimed, "Let us send a messenger to these dastardly foes inviting them
to peace, or to a manly and chivalric contest, for honour and love of
ladies." A squire was dispatched, but was shot by an Hungarian arrow. The
Austrian leader then called to his side a well-experienced knight, and
bade him ride to the Hungarian General, and invoke him by his chivalry to
terminate this unknightly conflict. The old warrior replied, that if he
were to carry such a message, the Hungarian would infallibly answer, that
he was not such a fool as to place his unharnessed men in a level and
equal line against the mail-clad chivalry of Austria; and that if the
Austrians would doff their armour, the Hungarians would fight them hand to
hand.
The danger became more and more imminent, and the Germans had no hope of
escape; for they could not expect, as if they had been fighting with the
chivalry of France, that a surrender of their horses and arms, and an
honourable treaty for their own persons' ransom, would satisfy the foe.
Finally, they were compelled to yield at discretion; and it is interesting
to observe, that the Austrian archer, whose counsel had been despised, and
who it appears might have saved himself if he would, remained at his
station, and nobly shared the fate of his lords. Instead of meeting with
any knightly courtesy, the whole were led away into Hungary, and pined out
their days in prison.[223]
Many other instances of the inefficacy of the German chivalry might be
adduced, but the truth is so apparent on every page of the history of
Germany, that no particular instances are necessary. Other circumstances
contributed to its fall. The privileges of knighthood had been found
inconvenient by the emperors. In the field of battle the cavaliers often
claimed an independence which was detrimental to imperial authority.
Maximilian I., therefore, introduced mercenaries into his army. Such of
them as were natives of other countries brought with them every
well-practised species of war, and raised the German military power to a
level with that of the other nations of Europe. The inadequacy of the
German chivalry, to the present times was therefore so apparent, that no
person wished to see the spirit of knighthood revived. Chivalry ceased to
be a national characteristic, and its badges and honours passed into the
court to become the signs of imperial favour.[224]
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