——court and royal citadel,
The great school-maistresse of all Courtesy.
B. III. C. vi. s. 1.
And again, more largely in B. VI. C. i. s. 1.
Of Court it seems men Courtesie do call,
For that it there most useth to abound;
And well beseemeth that in Princes hall
That Virtue should be plentifully found,
Which of all goodly manners is the ground
And root of civil conversation:
Right so in _faery court_ it did resound,
Where courteous knights and ladies most did won
Of all on earth, and made a matchless paragon.
For _Faery Court_ means the _reign of Chivalry_; which, it seems, had
undergone a fatal revolution before the age of MILTON, who tells us
that _Courtesy_
——is sooner found in lonely sheds
With smoaky rafters, than in tap’stry halls
And courts of princes, where it first was nam’d,
And yet is most pretended.
MASK.
Further, the free commerce of the ladies, in those knots and circles of
the great, would operate so far on the sturdiest knights, as to give
birth to the attentions of gallantry. But this gallantry would take a
refined turn, not only from the necessity there was of maintaining the
strict form of decorum, amidst a promiscuous conversation under the
eye of the Prince and in his own family; but also from the inflamed
sense they must needs have of the frequent outrages committed, by their
neighbouring clans of adversaries, on the honour of the sex, when by
chance of war they had fallen into their hands. Violations of chastity
being the most atrocious crimes they had to charge on their enemies,
they would pride themselves in the merit of being its protectors: and
as this virtue was, of all others, the fairest and strongest claim of
the sex itself to such protection, it is no wonder that the notions of
it were, in time, carried to so platonic an elevation.
Thus, again, the great master of Chivalry himself, on this subject,
It hath been thro’ all ages ever seen,
That, with the praise of arms and chivalry,
The prize of beauty still hath joined been;
And that for reason’s special privity:
For either doth on other much rely;
For HE mee seems most fit the fair to serve,
That can her best defend from villainy;
And SHE most fit his service doth deserve,
That fairest is, and from her faith will never swerve.
SPENSER, B. IV. C. v.
Not but the foundation of this refined gallantry was laid in the
ancient manners of the _German_ nations. CÆSAR tells us how far they
carried their practice of chastity, which he seems willing to account
for on political principles. However that be, their consideration of
the sex was prodigious, as we see in the history of their irruptions
into the Empire; where among all their ravages and devastations of
other sorts, we find they generally abstained from offering any
violence to the honour of the women.
IV. It only remains to account for that “character of Religion,” which
was so deeply imprinted on the minds of all knights, and was essential
to their institution. We are even told, that _the love of God and of
the ladies_ went hand in hand, in the duties and ritual of Chivalry.
Two reasons may be assigned for this singularity:
First, the superstition of the times, in which Chivalry arose; which
was so great, that no institution of a public nature could have found
credit in the world, that was not consecrated by the churchmen, and
closely interwoven with religion.
Secondly, the condition of the Christian states; which had been
harassed by long wars, and had but just recovered a breathing-time from
the brutal ravages of the _Saracen_ armies. The remembrance of what
they had lately suffered from these grand enemies of the faith, made it
natural, and even necessary, to engage a new military order on the side
of religion.
And how warmly this principle, _a zeal for the faith_, was acted upon
by the professors of Chivalry, and how deeply it entered into their
ideas of the military character, we see from the term so constantly
used by the old Romancers, of RECREANT [_i. e._ Apostate] Knight; by
which they meant to express, with the utmost force, their disdain of
a dastard or vanquished knight. For, many of this order falling into
the hands of the _Saracens_, such of them as had not imbibed the full
spirit of their profession, were induced to renounce their faith, in
order to regain their liberty. These men, as sinning against the great
fundamental laws of Chivalry, they branded with this name; a name of
complicated reproach, which implied a want of the two most essential
qualities of a Knight, COURAGE and FAITH.
Hence too, the reason appears why the _Spaniards_, of all the
Europeans, were furthest gone in every characteristic madness of true
chivalry. To all the other considerations, here mentioned, their
fanaticism in every way was especially instigated and kept alive by the
memory and neighbourhood of their old infidel invaders.
And thus we seem to have a fair account of that PROWESS, GENEROSITY,
GALLANTRY, and RELIGION, which were the peculiar and vaunted
characteristics of the purer ages of Chivalry.
Such was the state of things in the Western world, when the Crusades
to the Holy Land were set on foot. Whence we see how well prepared the
minds of men were for engaging in that enterprize. Every object, that
had entered into the views of the institutors of Chivalry, and had been
followed by its professors, was now at hand, to inflame the military
and religious ardor of the knights, to the utmost. And here, in fact,
we find the strongest and boldest features of their genuine character:
_daring_ to madness, in enterprises of hazard: burning with zeal for
the delivery of the _oppressed_; and, which was deemed the height of
_religious_ merit, for the rescue of the holy city out of the hands of
infidels; and, lastly, exalting their honour of _chastity_ so high as
to profess celibacy; as they constantly did, in the several orders of
knighthood created on that extravagant occasion.