IT was quite natural that the professional fighting-men of the Middle
Ages should try to establish some sort of organisation for their
mutual benefit and protection. Out of this need for close organisation,
Knighthood or Chivalry was born.
We know very little about the origins of Knighthood. But as the system
developed, it gave the world something which it needed very badly--a
definite rule of conduct which softened the barbarous customs of that
day and made life more livable than it had been during the five hundred
years of the Dark Ages. It was not an easy task to civilise the rough
frontiersmen who had spent most of their time fighting Mohammedans and
Huns and Norsemen. Often they were guilty of backsliding, and having
vowed all sorts of oaths about mercy and charity in the morning, they
would murder all their prisoners before evening. But progress is
ever the result of slow and ceaseless labour, and finally the most
unscrupulous of knights was forced to obey the rules of his "class" or
suffer the consequences.
These rules were different in the various parts of Europe, but they all
made much of "service" and "loyalty to duty." The Middle Ages regarded
service as something very noble and beautiful. It was no disgrace to be
a servant, provided you were a good servant and did not slacken on the
job. As for loyalty, at a time when life depended upon the faithful
per-formance of many unpleasant duties, it was the chief virtue of the
fighting man.
A young knight therefore was asked to swear that he would be faithful as
a servant to God and as a servant to his King. Furthermore, he promised
to be generous to those whose need was greater than his own. He pledged
his word that he would be humble in his personal behaviour and would
never boast of his own accomplishments and that he would be a friend of
all those who suffered, (with the exception of the Mohammedans, whom he
was expected to kill on sight).
Around these vows, which were merely the Ten Commandments expressed
in terms which the people of the Middle Ages could understand, there
developed a complicated system of manners and outward behaviour. The
knights tried to model their own lives after the example of those heroes
of Arthur's Round Table and Charlemagne's court of whom the Troubadours
had told them and of whom you may read in many delightful books which
are enumerated at the end of this volume. They hoped that they might
prove as brave as Lancelot and as faithful as Roland. They carried
themselves with dignity and they spoke careful and gracious words that
they might be known as True Knights, however humble the cut of their
coat or the size of their purse.
In this way the order of Knighthood became a school of those good
manners which are the oil of the social machinery. Chivalry came to mean
courtesy and the feudal castle showed the rest of the world what clothes
to wear, how to eat, how to ask a lady for a dance and the thousand
and one little things of every-day behaviour which help to make life
interesting and agreeable.
Like all human institutions, Knighthood was doomed to perish as soon as
it had outlived its usefulness.
The crusades, about which one of the next chapters tells, were followed
by a great revival of trade. Cities grew overnight. The townspeople
became rich, hired good school teachers and soon were the equals of
the knights. The invention of gun-powder deprived the heavily armed
"Chevalier" of his former advantage and the use of mercenaries made it
impossible to conduct a battle with the delicate niceties of a chess
tournament. The knight became superfluous. Soon he became a ridiculous
figure, with his devotion to ideals that had no longer any practical
value. It was said that the noble Don Quixote de la Mancha had been the
last of the true knights. After his death, his trusted sword and his
armour were sold to pay his debts.
But somehow or other that sword seems to have fallen into the hands of a
number of men. Washington carried it during the hopeless days of Valley
Forge. It was the only defence of Gordon, when he had refused to desert
the people who had been entrusted to his care, and stayed to meet his
death in the besieged fortress of Khartoum.
And I am not quite sure but that it proved of invaluable strength in
winning the Great War.