[Sidenote: Lombards carried chivalry into Italy.]
We shall ascend sufficiently high into the antiquities of nations, if we
observe that the system of manners from which chivalry sprang was brought
by the Lombards from Germany into the north of Italy. With them in their
new, as it had been in their original, seats, the title to bear arms was a
distinction conferred by the state, and not a subject of private will and
choice. A son did not presume to sit at the same table with his father.
For the instruction of youth in military affairs there were public
spectacles on Sundays, and on festivals, in imitation of a knightly mêlée.
A town or city was divided into two parts, each having its defenders. The
mock battles were either general or between small parties, the weapons
were made of wood, the helmets were safely padded, and the young warriors
displayed splendid banners adorned with fanciful cognisances.[225] The
amusement of hawking, which distinguished the Gothic from the Latin and
most southern tribes, was common with the Lombards[226]: but more than all
the rest, a tone of chivalric gallantry was given to the Italians, even by
these long-bearded barbarians.
[Sidenote: Stories of chivalric gallantry.]
Antharis, one of the Lombard kings, sought in marriage Theudelinda, a
daughter of the King of Bavaria; and not wishing to judge through
another's eyes, he disguised himself as a private man, and accompanied his
ambassadors to the Bavarian court. After the conditions of the marriage
had been discussed and the ceremonies arranged, the disguised prince
stepped before the crowd, and, saluting the King, declared that he was the
personal friend of Antharis, who wished to receive from him a description
of the lady's charms. Theudelinda accordingly appeared, and the first
glance assured Antharis of her being worthy of his love. He did not betray
his rank to the assembly; but not altogether able to conceal his joy, he
touched the hand of the royal damsel as she presented him a cup of wine;
and the matrons about the court, excellent judges of signs of passion,
whispered their assurance that such an act of bold familiarity could never
have been committed by a mere public or personal representative of
Antharis.[227]
* * * * *
For several centuries chivalry shed but few and transient gleams of light
over the gloomy waste of Italian history, and I can only select one event
which paints in beautiful colours the spirit of romantic gallantry. The
wife of Lothaire, King of Italy from the year 945 to 948, was Adelais, a
princess of the house of Burgundy. Lothaire was deposed, perhaps murdered
by his minister, Berenger; and the usurper persecuted, with the cruelty of
fear, Adelais, who has been described by monkish chroniclers, and chivalry
will not contradict the character, as being young and beautiful. He
confined her in a subterraneous dungeon; and, as if personal insult was
his best security, he deprived her of her jewels and her royal apparel. A
female servant was her only companion during four months of confinement,
wherein she was made to endure every mortification which a noble mind can
be exposed to. Her wretched condition was at length discovered by a
priest, named Martin, who had not in the retirement of a cloister lost the
sympathies of humanity. He immediately employed himself to effect her
rescue, and, unseen by her jealous keepers, he worked an aperture through
the earth and walls sufficient to admit a slender female form to pass. He
conveyed male habiliments into the dungeon, to deceive the eyes of her
jailors, and, apparelled in them, Adelais and her attendant made their
escape. They were met at the entrance of the aperture by their faithful
monk, who fled with them to the most probable place of safety, a wood near
the lake Benacus. The wants of nature were furnished to them by a poor man
who gained a precarious livelihood by fishing in the lake. Recovered from
their fatigue and alarm, Martin left the wood to provide for his fair
friend some surer place of safety. He went to the Bishop of Reggio, who,
though a humane and well-purposed man, was unable to oppose the might of
Berenger. Still the matter was not hopeless, for he remembered that there
was dwelling in the impregnable fortress of Canossa a virtuous and
adventurous knight. To him, therefore, Martin addressed himself, and Azzo
listened to his complaint. He and a chosen band of cavaliers donned their
harness, and, repairing to the lake Benacus, conducted thence the
persecuted Adelais to the fortress of Canossa. And this was well and
chivalrously achieved, for virtue was protected; and in affording this
protection, Azzo defied the power of the King of Italy. The subsequent
fate of Adelais it falls not within my province to detail. The student of
Italian history knows that she married Otho the Great, Emperor of Germany,
and that this marriage was a main cause of uniting the sovereignties of
Germany and Italy.[228]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: But little martial chivalry in Italy.]
[Sidenote: Condottieri.]
The growth and developement of chivalry in subsequent times were checked
by political circumstances. Of them the chief was the formation of the
republics in the north of Italy during the twelfth century. The power of
the feudal nobility was far less than in any other country, and the nobles
were the humble allies of the towns.[229] The citizens trusted rather to
the security of their fortifications than their own strength in the field,
for their infantry could not resist the charges of Italian cavalry; and,
except such nobles as were in alliance with them, their force consisted of
infantry. 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. In the fourteenth century another great change occurred in the
military affairs of Italy. I shall lay it before my readers in the lucid
diction of the English historian of that country. "The successive
expeditions of Henry VII., of Louis of Bavaria, and of John of Bohemia,
had filled Italy with numerous bands of German cavalry, who, on the
retirement of their sovereigns, were easily tempted to remain in a rich
and beautiful country, where their services were eagerly demanded, and
extravagantly paid. The revolution in the military art, which in the
preceding century established the resistless superiority of a mounted
gens-d'armerie over the burgher infantry, had habituated every state to
confide its security to bodies of mercenary cavalry; and the Lombard
tyrants in particular, who founded their power upon these forces, were
quick in discovering the advantage of employing foreign adventurers, who
were connected with their disaffected subjects by no ties of country or
community of language. Their example was soon universally followed, native
cavalry fell into strange disrepute; and the Italians, without having been
conquered in the field, unaccountably surrendered the decision of their
quarrels and the superiority in courage and military skill, to mercenaries
of other countries. When this custom of employing foreign troops was once
introduced, new swarms of adventurers were continually attracted from
beyond the Alps to reap the rich harvest of pay and booty which were
spread before them. In a country so perpetually agitated by wars among its
numerous states, they found constant occupation, and, what they loved
more, unbridled licence. Ranging themselves under the standards of chosen
leaders--the condottieri, or captains of mercenary bands,--they passed in
bodies of various strength from one service to another, as their terms of
engagement expired, or the temptation of higher pay invited; their
chieftains and themselves alike indifferent to the cause which they
supported; alike faithless, rapacious, and insolent. Upon every trifling
disgust they were ready to go over to the enemy: their avarice and
treachery were rarely proof against seduction; and, though their regular
pay was five or six times greater in the money of the age than that of
modern armies, they exacted a large gratuity for every success. As they
were usually opposed by troops of the same description, whom they regarded
rather as comrades than enemies, they fought with little earnestness, and
designedly protracted their languid operations to ensure the continuance
of their emoluments. But while they occasioned each other little loss,
they afflicted the country which was the theatre of contest with every
horror of warfare: they pillaged, they burnt, they violated, and
massacred with devilish ferocity."[231]
Gradually these foreign condottieri, when not engaged in the service of
any particular power, levied war like independent sovereigns; and Italy
had fresh reason to repent the jealousy which had made her distrust her
own sons. They fought with tenfold more fury now that the contest was no
longer carried on by one troop of condottieri against another, but against
the Italians themselves, to whom no tie of nature bound them; and so far
was any cavaleresque generosity from mitigating the horrors of their wars,
that one adventurer, Werner was his name, and Germany his country,
declared, by an inscription which was blazoned on his corslet, that he was
"the enemy of God, of pity, and of mercy." But the power of these foreign
condottieri was not perpetual. Nature rose to vindicate her rights; and
there were many daring spirits among the Italians, who, if not emulous of
the fame, were jealous of the dominion of strangers. The company of Saint
George, founded by Alberico de Barbiano, a marauding chief of Romagna, was
the school of Italian generals. In the fifteenth century, the force of
every state was led by an Italian, if not a native citizen; and when the
Emperor Robert crossed the Alps with the gens-d'armerie of Germany, the
Milanese, headed by Jacopo del Verme, encountered him near Brescia, and
overthrew all his chivalry.
[Sidenote: Chivalry in the north of Italy.]
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 object of the conquest was regarded to the
exclusion of fame and military distinction. Stratagems were as common as
open and glorious battle; and private injuries were revenged by
assassination and not by the fair and manly joust à l'outrance: and yet
when a man pledged his word for the performance of any act, and wished his
sincerity to be believed, he always swore by the parola di cavaliere, e
non di cortigiano; so general and forcible was the acknowledgment of
chivalry's moral superiority. I know nothing in the history of the middle
ages more dark with crime than the wars of the Italians,--nothing that
displays by contrast more beautifully the graces of chivalry; and yet the
Italian condottieri were brave to the very height of valour. Before them
the German chivalry quailed, as it had formerly done before the militia of
the towns.
[Sidenote: Italians excellent armourers, but bad knights.]
In the deep feelings and ardent and susceptible imaginations of the
Italians, chivalry, it might seem, could have raised her fairest triumph;
but chivalry had no fellowship with a mercenary spirit, and sordid gain
was the only motive of the Italian soldiers. Their acute and intelligent
minds preceded most other people in military inventions. To them, in
particular, is to be attributed the introduction of the long and pointed
sword, against which the hauberk, or coat of mail, was no protection. They
took the lead in giving the tone to military costume: they were the most
ingenious people of Europe during the middle ages; and their superior
skill in the mechanical arts was every where acknowledged. The reader of
English history may remember, that in the reign of Richard II. the Earl of
Derby, afterwards Henry IV., sent to Milan for his armour, on account of
his approaching combat with Thomas, Duke of Norfolk. Sir Galeas, Duke of
Milan, not only gave the messenger the best in his collection, but allowed
four Milanese armourers to accompany him to England, in order that the
Earl might be properly and completely accomplished. The Milanese armour
preserved its reputation even in times when other countries had acquired
some skill in the mechanical arts. In 1481 the Duke of Brittany purchased
various cuirasses at Milan; and in the accounts of jousts and tournaments
frequent mention is made of the superior temper and beauty of Italian
harness.[232]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Chivalry in the south of Italy.]
In the south of Italy chivalry had a longer and brighter reign. Some of
its customs were introduced by the Lombards when they established their
kingdom at Beneventum; and others were planted by the Normans, that people
of chivalric adventurousness. Knighthood was an order of the state of high
consideration, and much coveted; but its glories were sometimes tarnished
by the admission of unworthy members; and, in the year 1252, the Emperor
Frederic II. was obliged to issue a decree, at Naples, forbidding any one
to receive it who was not of gentle birth.
The most complete impression, however, of the chivalric character, on the
minds of the Italians, was made by the house of Anjou, when Charles and
his Frenchmen conquered Naples in 1266. The south of Italy seems to have
been far less advanced in civilisation than the commercial towns of the
north; but the Angevine monarchs made Naples one blaze of splendid luxury.
Nothing had been seen in Italy so brilliant as the cavalcade of Charles.
The golden collars of the French lords,--the surcoats and pennons, and
plumed steeds of the knights,--the carriage of the Queen, covered with
blue velvet, and ornamented with golden lilies,--surpassed in magnificence
all former shows.[233] The entry of Charles was a festival; and on that
occasion the honour of knighthood was conferred on all persons who
solicited it. The kings of the house of Anjou pretended to revive the
regulations of Frederic II.; but they soon relaxed them, and gave the
military girdle to the commonalty who could not prove that their
forefathers had been knights.
[Sidenote: Curious circumstances attending knighthood at Naples.]
When a person was invested at Naples, the bishop, or other ecclesiastic
who assisted at the inauguration, not only commanded the recipient to
defend the church, and regard the usual obligations of chivalry, but he
exhorted him not to rise in arms against the King from any motive, or
under any circumstances. This curious clause was added to the exhortation:
"If you should be disloyal to your sovereign, to him who is going to make
you a knight, you ought first to return him the girdle with which you are
immediately to be honoured; and then you may make war against him, and
none will reproach you with treachery; otherwise, you will be reputed
infamous, and worthy of death." An instance of the fear of this imputation
of treachery occurred when the Princes of Besignano and Melfi, the Duke of
Atri, and the Count of Maddolini, returned to Louis XII., King of France,
the collar of St. Michael, (with which he had honoured them,) when
Ferdinand the Catholic took possession of the kingdom.[234]
Knighthood was much solicited, on account of its privileges, as well as of
its titular distinction. It exempted the fortunate wearer from the payment
of taxes, and gave him the power of enjoying the royal and noble amusement
of the chase. But the Angevine monarchs were so prodigal in granting the
honour of knighthood, that it ceased to be a distinction; and in the reign
of the last princes of that house the order had degenerated into a vain
and empty title.
[Sidenote: Mode of creating knights in Italy generally.]
Such was the general state of chivalry in northern and southern Italy; but
there were some circumstances common to every part of the peninsula. The
nobility invested each other with festive and religious ceremonies, with
the bath[235], the watching of arms, and the sacred and military shows, or
with a simple stroke of a sword, and the exhortation, "Sii un valoroso
cavaliere," two ancient knights buckling on his golden spurs. In the year
1294, Azzo, Marquis of Este, was knighted by Gerard, Lord of Camino, at a
public solemnity held at Ferrara. Cane, Lord of Verona, in 1328, gave the
honour of knighthood to thirty-eight young nobles, and presented them with
golden belts, and beautiful war-horses.[236] In Italy there was the usual
array of knights and squires, of cavalieri and scudieri; but I can find no
mention of pages distinct from the squires, and attending their lords;
except, indeed, they were the domicelli, or donzelli, who, however, are
supposed by Muratori to have been the squires of noble rank. All the
armour-bearers of the knights were not noble or of gentle birth, or we
should not very often meet, in the Italian annalists of the middle ages,
the expression "honourable squires."
In the fourteenth century knights had four titles, agreeably to the
various modes of their creation:--Cavalieri Bagnati, or Knights of the
Bath, who were made with the grandest ceremonies, and supposed, from their
immersion, to be freed from all vice and impurity; the Cavalieri di
Corredo, or those who were invested with a deep-green dress, and a golden
garland; the Cavalieri di Scudo, or those who were created either by
people or nobility; and the Cavalieri d'Arme were those who were made
either before or during battle.[237]
Many orders of knighthood were known in Italy: some (but their history is
not interesting) were peculiar to it; and others, such as the order of the
knights of Saint John and of the Temple, had their preceptories and
commanderies in that country. And, to enlarge upon a circumstance alluded
to in another place, it is curious to notice the dexterity with which
chivalry accommodated itself to the manners and usages of any particular
society. The commercial cities in the north of Italy vied in power with,
and were superior in wealth to, the feudal nobility. Chivalry was esteemed
as a graceful decoration by every class of men, and by none with more
ardour than by new families, whom opulence had raised into civic
consideration. The strictness of the principles of knighthood opposed
their investiture; but those principles, were made to give way; and
commercial pride was satisfied with the concession of aristocratical
haughtiness, that the _sons_ of men in trade might become brothers of the
orders of chivalry.
[Sidenote: Political use of knighthood.]
The decoration of simple knighthood, however, was given indiscriminately
without regard to birth or station. Every city assumed the power of
bestowing it; and after a great battle it was showered with indiscriminate
profusion upon those who had displayed their courage, whether they were
armed burghers or condottieri. And this was a wise measure of the Italian
cities: for there was always an obligation expressed or implied on the
part of knights of fidelity to the person from whom they received the
honour.[238] It is amusing to observe, that, in the year 1378, a
Florentine mob paused in its work of murder and rapine to play with the
graceful ensigns of chivalry; and, in imitation of the power of the city,
they insisted on investing their favourites with knighthood.
[Sidenote: Chivalric literature.]
Chivalry had, perhaps, greater influence on the literature and manners of
the Italians than on their military usages. Wandering minstrels from
France and Spain chaunted in the streets of Italy tales of warriors' deeds
and lady-love, particularly the stories of Roland and Oliver, the paladins
of Charlemagne, who were also the subject of song and recitation, even by
the stage-players on the earliest theatre at Milan.[239] Much of the
popular literature of Italy consisted of romances; and the chief topics of
them were the exploits both in arms and amours of Charlemagne and his
paladins: though on one occasion Buovo d'Antina, a hero of chivalry, who
fought and loved prior to the time of those heroes, was the theme of
Tuscan verse. The wars of Charlemagne and his paladins with the Saracens
were afterwards sung by the nobler muse of Pulci and Boiardo, and then by
Ariosto, who, not confining himself to the common stores of romantic
fiction, has borrowed as freely from the tales regarding Arthur and the
British and Armoric knights as from those relating to Charlemagne and the
peers of France, and has thrown over the whole the graceful mantle of
Oriental sorcery. The chivalric duties of converting the heathens, of
adoring the ladies, of fighting in the cause of heaven and woman, were
thus presented to the minds of the Italians; and the Homer of Ferrara
roused the courage, or softened into love or pity, the hearts of knights
and ladies, by singing the wars and loves of days which his poetry
rendered bright and golden.
[Sidenote: Chivalric sports.]
These were the literary amusements of Italy; the subjects of recitation in
the baronial hall, and of solitary perusal in the lady's bower: with these
works the Italians nourished their imaginations; and a chivalric taste was
diffused over the manners of public and private life. The amusement of
hawking, which, as we have seen, the fathers of chivalric Italy had
introduced, was indulged in at every court; and the Ferrarese princes were
generally attended in the field by a hundred falconers, so proud and
magnificent was their display. Every great event was celebrated by a
tournament or a triumphal show. Dante speaks of the tournament as the
familiar amusement of the fourteenth century.
----"e vidi gir gualdane,
Ferir torniamenti, e correr giostra."
Inferno, c. 22.
So early as the year 1166, on occasion of the interview between Frederic
Barbarossa and Pope Alexander at Venice, chivalric and civic pomp
celebrated their friendship. Two centuries afterwards, the recovery of
Cyprus presented a fair opportunity for military display. Knights flocked
to Venice from England, France, and every country of the West, and
manifested their prowess in the elegant, yet perilous, encounter of the
tournament. There was a pageant, or grand triumphal show, of a splendid
procession of knights cased in steel, and adorned with the favours of the
ladies. The scene-painter and the mechanist combined their talents to give
an allegorical representation of the Christian's victory over Islamism:
the knights moved amidst the scenic decorations, and by their gallant
bearing swelled with noble pride the hearts of the spectators.
The sports of chivalry were so elegant and graceful that we might have
supposed the refined Italians would have embraced them in all their
circumstances. But the arena of the Coliseum, so admirably adapted for a
tournament, was used for Moorish games. The matrons and virgins of Rome,
arrayed in all their bravery, were seated in its ample galleries, and
beheld, not a gallant and hurtless encounter between two parties of
knights with lances of courtesy, but a succession of sanguinary conflicts
between cavaliers and bulls. Only one solitary circumstance gave an air
of chivalry to the scene, and prevents us from mingling the bull-feast of
the Coliseum, on the 1st of September, 1332, with the horrid spectacles of
classic times. Each knight wore a device, and fancied himself informed by
the spirit of chivalry, and the presence of the ladies. "I burn under the
ashes," was the motto of him who had never told his passion. "I adore
Lavinia, or Lucretia," was written on the shield of the knight who wished
to be thought the servant of love, and yet dared not avow the real name of
his mistress.[240]