Chivalry.
The victories in France had brought great wealth and prosperity into
England. The booty won from France was spread throughout the land, and
the matrons of England clothed themselves in the garments of the matrons
of France. The result was not altogether beneficial. This increased
wealth brought with it also a change in the simplicity of English
manners. Wearing the more extravagant dress of the French, sleeping on
their feather beds, clothing themselves in their rich furs, the people's
taste grew more extravagant. They acquired a love for fine clothes, for
foolish fashions and foppery of all kinds; and in this extravagance the
clergy rivalled the laity. There was also an increased love of pageantry
and dissipation, in which the people were encouraged by the King.
Tournaments were so frequent that Edward had to pass an enactment
forbidding them to be held without royal permission. Yet he himself
caused nineteen to be held between October, 1347, and May, 1348, many of
which lasted more than a fortnight. The life of the court, and of the
nobles, was nothing but a ceaseless round of gaieties and festivities.
It was at one of these tournaments that Edward III. established the
great Order of the Garter, which continues to this day, and may be
looked upon as a heritage left to us by the chivalric spirit of the
Middle Ages.
Chivalry was a thing of French creation, and throve naturally on French
soil. It is principally the French and Provençal troubadours who have
celebrated it by their song. In England it never developed so freely. It
seemed like a thing imported, foreign in its very nature to English
simplicity and English bluntness. Still throughout the Middle Ages the
chivalric spirit ruled supreme all over Europe, in England and France
alike. When chivalry ceased to be an enthusiasm it became a fashion, and
lingered on as a fashion till Cervantes heaped ridicule upon it in his
_Don Quixote_; till its absurdities became so manifest that it faded
away amid the scorn and laughter of mankind. Edward III. aimed at being
a type of fashionable knighthood. In his day chivalry had not yet become
an absurdity. It had lost much of its early simplicity and elevation,
but still in the Black Prince and some of his knights, such as Sir John
Chandos, Sir Walter Manny, and Sir James Audeley, we find all the
nobleness and greatness of early chivalry.
Let us look a little closer at this chivalry, and see what it meant and
what was the ideal which it held up to its followers. It had no
artificial origin, but sprang up as a natural outcome of feudalism, and
so of early Teutonic manners. A feudal vassal owed certain definite
duties to his superior. Knighthood was the formal act by which the
fitness of a young man to take upon him these duties was recognised, and
he was declared worthy to enter the rank of warriors.
It was to the Crusades that chivalry owed its religious character. By
taking part in the Crusades the knight could best find a field in which
he might give free play to all the noble sentiments which animated him.
And if the knight was to fight for Christ, it was right that religion
should take under her control the important act which initiated a young
man into the rank of knighthood. The education of a future knight began
at the age of seven. It was the custom for the sons of gentlemen to be
brought up in the castles of the nobles, where first they acted as
pages, attending upon the lords and ladies. Afterwards they were
advanced, at the age of fourteen, to the rank of squires, and waited
upon their lords both at home and abroad; they aided in their toilet,
carved before them at table, and riveted their armour as they attended
them to the tournament or the battle. Attention was paid to their
education in all things connected with the management of arms or of
horses; they were taught above all to be courteous to ladies, to be
respectful and obedient to their superiors. Thus bred up in the
atmosphere of chivalry, they were fit and eager, when manhood came, to
be raised to the dignity of knighthood. This was accompanied by many
solemn ceremonies. The squire who was to be knighted was first made to
lay aside his clothes, and enter a bath, the symbol of purification. On
coming out he was clothed with a white garment, the symbol of purity;
next, in a red robe, the symbol of the blood he was bound to shed in the
service of the faith; and lastly, in a close black coat, the symbol of
the death which awaited him. He then spent the next twenty-four hours in
fasting. At evening he entered the church or chapel, and passed the
night in prayers. In the morning he confessed and received absolution,
and then partook of the Communion. He was next present at the mass of
the Holy Ghost, and sometimes listened to a sermon on the duties of
knighthood. Then, advancing to the altar, with the sword of a knight
hanging from his neck, he knelt before the priest, who took the sword
and blessed it, and then returned it to him. After this he went and
knelt before the noble who was to arm him knight, who was called his
godfather. Before him he swore to maintain the right, to fight for the
faith, to serve his sovereign prince, to protect the weak and oppressed;
above all, to be the champion of women, to obey his superiors, to honour
his companions, to keep faith with all the world, to forswear all
treason and avarice, to acknowledge as his only aims glory and virtue.
When he had taken his oath, knights and ladies advanced to clothe him in
his new armour, the spurs, the coat of mail, the cuirass, and the
gauntlets, and to gird on his sword. Then his godfather struck him three
blows with the flat of his sword, saying, "In the name of God, of Saint
Michael, and of Saint George, I dub thee knight." The young knight then
seized his helmet, and sprang upon his horse, brandishing his lance, and
rode out to show himself to the crowd outside the church. There was
always great feasting and joy when the eldest son was knighted. His
father gathered round him all his vassals, who owed him a money
contribution on this joyful occasion. They feasted together in the great
hall of the castle. The lord himself was seated at the high table on the
dais at one end of the hall, but with his face turned towards the hall,
that all might see him. During the feast the guests were entertained
with the performances of jesters, tumblers, and jugglers, who formed
part of all the great households of that time; or they listened to the
romances of the troubadours.
So amidst general rejoicings the young man entered on his new career.
The ideal of perfect knighthood held before him was noble and exalted,
and we cannot doubt but that it fired him with enthusiasm, and inspired
him to do noble deeds. In an age of rough and rude manners, when the
majority of men were wanting in all refinement and culture, when men for
the most part were animated only by low and selfish aims, when the
light shed around by religion was as yet only feeble and fitful, it was
a great thing to have such an ideal as this held up before men. In the
Crusades the knight found his true field. By them the use of the sword
was sanctified, and the warrior could find joy in feats of arms whilst
fighting for Christ. And as the Crusades sanctified the warlike feats of
the knight, his worship of the Virgin sanctified that devotion to the
ladies which was so distinguishing a feature of chivalry. "God and the
ladies," was the motto of every true knight. He went both to tournament
and to battle with his lady's badge upon his arm, and thoughts of her
nerved him to deeds of valour. His honour was the dearest thing in a
knight's eyes, and from this sprung his scrupulous fidelity to his word
once pledged. As a lover, he must be faithful to the lady he served; as
a vassal, he must be faithful to his lord; a promise once given, even to
an enemy, must never be broken. During the French wars of Edward III. we
hear often of knights being released on their word, to raise the money
required for their ransom, and returning of their own accord to
captivity if they could not raise this money.
Courtesy was another distinguishing feature of chivalry. By this was
meant true courtesy, springing from the heart, and showing itself in
modesty, consideration for others, self-denial, as well as in matters of
outward gesture and punctilio. Courtesy was shown as much to foe as to
friend, and did much towards softening the ferocity of war. A true
knight must also be liberal; he must be inspired with an active sense of
justice, and a burning indignation of wrong. But whilst extending the
sympathy of a knight to all his companions in knighthood, whether friend
or foe, chivalry narrowed his sympathy to those of his own class.
Princes did their utmost to encourage chivalry, to provide tournaments
where their knights might exhibit their valour, and to cover them with
every possible distinction. But while caring for the knights they forgot
the people. The spirit of chivalry was a class spirit, and narrowing in
its tendency. It recognised neither the rights nor the interests of the
people; and when once the people had grown strong enough to assert their
rights, and make their importance felt, the doom of chivalry was sealed.
It continued to exist with all its pageantry long after its real life
and spirit was dead. Perhaps it was never so magnificent in its outward
show as it was during the reign of Edward III., when its decay had
already begun.
Never had there been so many and such splendid tournaments at the
English court as now after the battle of Cressy. It is uncertain at
which of these Edward founded the order of the Garter; but it is known
to have been in existence in 1348. Most probably it was founded at the
great tournament, held at Eltham in 1347. Ever since 1344, when Edward
had made a Round Table at Windsor in imitation of the traditionary
Round Table of King Arthur, he had been desirous of establishing a new
order of knighthood. This desire was ripened into fulfilment by the
prosperous condition of the country after the battle of Cressy. A
trivial incident decided the motto and badge which he should adopt for
the new order. One of the ladies of the court, by some supposed to be
Queen Philippa herself, by others, the Countess of Salisbury, dropped
her garter. Whilst the courtiers looked at one another and smiled,
shrugging their shoulders as they pointed to the garter on the floor,
Edward with the gallantry of a true knight picked it up, and handing it
to the lady, said, "Honi soit qui mal y pense." ("Shame to him who
thinks evil.") As he did so, the thought flashed through his mind that
here were the badge and the motto for his new Order.
The Order was established with great pomp and ceremony. St. George was
instituted as its patron saint. A chapel to St. George was ordered to be
built at Windsor, as chapel for the Order. There each of the twenty-five
knights, who were to be honoured with the garter, was to have his
appointed stall, over which during his lifetime his helmet and sword
were to hang. There all the knights were to assemble, if it were in any
way possible, on the eve of St. George's-day. Then, sitting each in his
stall, they were to hear mass. On St. George's-day itself, a great
tournament and banquet was to be held; on the day following a requiem
was to be sung for the souls of the faithful deceased. No knight of the
Order was ever to pass near Windsor without coming to the chapel, and
there was to put on his mantle and hear mass. Edward made a foundation
at the chapel of thirteen secular canons and thirteen vicars, and also
of twenty-six veteran knights, who were to be maintained there, and were
to serve God continually in prayer. The kings of England were to
be perpetual sovereigns of the Order. There were twenty-five
knights-founders, amongst whom was, of course, the Black Prince, with
his principal knights, Chandos, Sir James Audley and the Captale de
Buche. They were nearly all young men; four of them were even under
twenty, and ten under thirty; Edward III. himself was only thirty-five.
At the first feast we read that all these founders, together with the
King, were clothed in gowns of russet, powdered with blue garters,
wearing like garters also on their right legs, and mantles of blue, with
escutcheons of St. George. Bareheaded, and in this apparel, they heard
mass, which was celebrated by Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, and
afterwards went to the feast, setting themselves orderly at the table.
Then followed splendid tournaments, at which there were two kinds of
conflicts. In the tournaments proper the knights divided themselves into
parties, and one party fought against another. There were also jousts,
or conflicts between two knights. These were generally held in honour of
the ladies, who presided as judges over them. The combatants used spears
without heads of iron; their object was to strike their opponent upon
the front of his helmet, so as to beat him backwards upon his horse, or
else to break his spear.
Though the tournaments were only looked upon as sport, they were often
attended with great danger, and the knights engaged in the combat were
not seldom severely wounded, and even killed. But no thought of this
danger, incurred for no good reason, diminished in the least the
enthusiasm for them. They were attended with every possible kind of
magnificence. The lists within which the combatants were to fight were
superbly decorated, and were surrounded by pavilions belonging to the
champions, and ornamented with their arms and banners. Scaffolds were
erected for the noble spectators, both lords and ladies; those upon
which the royal family sat were hung with tapestry and embroideries of
gold and silver. Every spectator was decked in the most sumptuous
manner. Not only the knights themselves, but their horses, their pages,
and the heralds, were clothed in costly and glittering apparel. The
clanging of trumpets, the shouts of the beholders, the cries of the
heralds increased the excitement of the fray. When the tournament was
over, the combatants retired to their pavilions to refresh themselves
after the fight and remove their heavy armour, the weight of which was
almost unbearable. In the evening they met together with the nobles and
ladies who had been spectators of the sport, and the time was passed in
feasting, dancing, and singing. The heralds named those who had fought
best on both sides. The ladies chose a name for each party, and the
champions received the rewards of their merit from the hands of two
young and noble maidens.
Children were taught from their earliest childhood to relish these
spectacles; their very toys were made in imitation of knights jousting.
The number of these tournaments led to very great extravagance in dress.
Each person wished to excel his neighbour in the magnificence of his
attire. The great desire was to appear in something new and astounding,
and this led to the most fantastic fashions. Ladies of the first rank
and greatest beauty might be seen on these occasions dressed in
parti-coloured tunics, half one colour and half another, with handsomely
ornamented girdles of gold and silver, in which were stuck short swords
or daggers. In this masculine attire they appeared mounted on the finest
horses they could procure, ornamented with the richest furniture.
Parti-coloured garments were in great favour. Men would wear one
stocking of one colour, the other of another. Most noticeable among the
many extravagant fashions were the trailing dresses, which lay in heaps
upon the ground, in front as well as behind; the long and fantastically
shaped sleeves trailed also on the ground. A contemporary writer says:
"The taylors must soon shape their garments in the open field, for want
of room to cut them in their own houses; because that man is best
respected who bears upon his back at one time the greatest quantity of
cloth and of fur." Edward III. himself set the example in these
extravagant fashions. In his wardrobe-rolls we find accounts of dresses
which were to be worn at tournaments. One was a tunic and a cloak with a
hood, on which were to be embroidered one hundred garters, with buckles,
bars, and pendants of silver; also a doublet of linen, having round the
skirts and about the sleeves a deep border of green cloth, worked with
representations of clouds with vine branches of gold, and this motto,
given by the King, "It is as it is." The festival of the Garter was
celebrated with great splendour in 1351. The King wore a robe of cloth
of gold furred, another of red velvet embroidered with clouds and eagles
of pearl and gold, each eagle having in his beak a garter with the motto
of the order. The Queen wore a similar robe, and the Princess Isabel
wore a red velvet robe, embroidered with 119 circles of silk and pearls,
with trees of silk and gold embroidered on a ground of green velvet,
with flowers and leaves. On another occasion we read that a grant of
£200 (equal to £3,000 of our money) was made to Queen Philippa for her
attire at a festival of the Garter.
These gorgeous robes were of course exceedingly valuable, and were
reckoned amongst the most important possessions of the great people. The
Black Prince disposed by will of the chief of his robes, describing them
each separately. Another way in which the Royal Family and the nobility
displayed their grandeur was by their magnificent bedhangings. Of these
again the Black Prince disposed by will. He seems to have possessed many
different beds with gorgeous hangings: one set of hangings was
embroidered with mermaids, another with swans, and so on. Gold and
silver plate was another favourite article of luxury. The city of London
made several very handsome presents of large quantities of plate both to
the King and to the Prince.
But amidst all this apparent luxury we must not forget the other side of
the picture, the squalor and discomfort in which even the greatest
people lived in those days. Glazed windows were only just beginning to
be used. The walls of the rooms were commonly bare, and only on grand
occasions were covered with hangings. The Black Prince, we know,
possessed some splendid hangings. One set was embroidered with swans
having ladies' heads, and another was embroidered with eagles and
griffins. These he used to carry about with him to ornament his hall on
great occasions.
The floors were covered with rushes, and were the receptacles of all
kinds of filth. Bones were thrown at dinner on the floor for the dogs,
who were beneath the table ready to devour them. Forks were not known,
and the food was mostly torn in pieces with the fingers. Wooden platters
were largely in use, or more often a large slice of bread, on which each
man would lay his portion of meat. At banquets, a lady and knight used
to eat off the same plate. There were only two meals in the course of
the day--dinner, which took place between ten and eleven, and supper at
five o'clock. The entire household dined together in the same hall. The
chief ornament of the dinner-table was a massive saltcellar, and the
places for the persons of the greatest dignity were always above the
salt. Edward III. possessed among his royal jewels a silver ship, which
was used to ornament the dinner-table and hold sweetmeats. Gold and
silver ewers were used for washing before and after meat. The great
hall, or dining-room, was also the sleeping room for the servants; there
were private sleeping rooms for the chief members of the family.
Each great nobleman had around him a number of officers like a royal
court--chamberlains, chancellors, and others. Besides these, he kept in
his employ companies of minstrels, jugglers, tumblers, and players, who
sang and displayed their tricks for the amusement of the company during
their meals. Travelling companies of minstrels and jugglers wandered
over the country, giving performances in the various noblemen's houses.
Tregetours, or conjurers, were in high favour. There were both male and
female tumblers, who went about together in companies, called gleman's
companies; they also amused their audiences with buffoonery of all
kinds. Other men made it their profession to train bears, apes, and
horses to perform tricks. The spectators always connected these tricks
with witchcraft, and supposed them to be done by means of magic.
Theatres did not exist in those days; but there were mysteries or
miracle plays, which formed a great part of the amusement of the people
during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Their origin was no doubt
purely religious, and their object was to illustrate passages of
Scripture and teach moral lessons. They were performed in churches, or
on stages erected in the churchyards and the fields, and sometimes on
movable stages in the streets. They were written by monks, and were
performed sometimes by monks themselves, sometimes by the members of a
trade-gild. They seem very soon to have lost most of their religious
character, and to have become little more than a means of amusement for
the people; to secure this better, they degenerated into rather coarse
comedies.
Three complete sets of these old mysteries still exist, and in all we
see the same desire for comic effect, which led the authors to take
liberties with the text of Scripture, so as to be able to introduce
comic incidents. Noah's wife is a favourite character, and is endowed
with a very obstinate temper, so that Noah has great difficulty in
getting her into the ark. Devils played an important part, and were
represented with horns, tails, claws, and terrible masks. Everything
possible was done to make them awful in the eyes of the women and
children. Masks were much used in the performance; the women's parts
were acted by men or boys wearing masks. The play as a whole cannot have
produced any very serious impression, though it was by no means entirely
deficient in religious feeling. But the comic element predominated, and
gave rise to the most boisterous merriment. We cannot wonder therefore
that the preachers and moralists of the day regarded the miracle plays
with disfavour, and spoke of them in the same way as the Puritans of
later date did of the theatres.
These mysteries were exhibited on festivals and holidays. Another kind
of play, called "Ludi," was exhibited at court during the Christmas
holidays. These plays were really nothing more than mummeries--the
appearance of a large number of persons in masks and various comic
dresses, personifying certain characters, and performing dances.
In 1348 Edward III. kept his Christmas at Guildford. Orders were given
to manufacture for the Christmas sports eighty tunics of buckram of
different colours, and a large number of masks--some with faces of
women, some with beards, some like angel heads of silver. There were to
be mantles embroidered with heads of dragons, tunics wrought with heads
and wings of peacocks, and embroidered in many other fantastic ways. The
celebration of Christmas lasted from All-Hallows Eve, the 31st October,
till the day after the Purification, the 3rd February. At the court a
lord of misrule was appointed, who reigned during the whole of this
period, and was called "the master of merry disports." He ruled over and
organised all the games and sports, and during the period of his rule
there was nothing but a succession of masques, disguisings, and dances
of all kinds. All the nobles, even the mayor of London, had an officer
of this kind chosen in their households. Dancing was a very favourite
amusement. It was practised by the nobility of both sexes. The damsels
of London spent their evenings in dancing before their masters' doors,
and the country lasses danced upon the village green.
The favourite occupation of the nobility was hunting. In the reign of
Edward II. hunting had been reduced to a science, and rules had been
established for its practice. Edward III. was an ardent hunter, and all
the nobility followed his example. Even bishops and abbots hunted. No
more valuable present could be made than a harehound or deerhound. In
hawking, ladies could also take part. The careful training of a falcon
required great skill, and a well-trained bird was most highly prized.
Embroidered gloves were worn on the hand upon which the falcon was to
sit. When not flying at their game, the hawks used to be hoodwinked with
elegant hoods. They had a bell on each leg, and there was a difference
of a semitone between the two bells.
The English ladies led a quiet and secluded life, and were celebrated
for their skill in needlework and embroidery. They used also to amuse
themselves with playing at dice and chess, and with music. They were
allowed, it is true, to appear as spectators at the tournaments; and at
the time of the foundation of the Order of the Garter, the Queen and the
wives of the knights-founders were received, as far as their sex
allowed, as members of the Order.